Bluto looked me up and down with a squinting eye. He was truly enormous, one of the tallest men I have ever seen, And he literally towered over the other Chac Yuul guardsmen, who tended to shortness on the average. And he looked to be every bit as tough and as strong as he was big. I felt an inward qualm.
Then I caught the look in the little bandy-legged guard’s eye. It was a smirk. I could read his thought clearly: let’s see you crack wise in front of Bluto, he was thinking. I straightened my shoulders. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“So you want to get in the city,” Bluto grunted. He rubbed a black-stubbled jaw with one hand the size of a ham. Truly he was an enormous specimen of manhood, although, I suspected, an abnormal specimen. I thought I detected in his underslung, prognathous jaw and the swollen muscles of his broad shoulders, deep chest, and heavy legs the signs of a glandular malfunction.
“That’s right,” I agreed. “Why all this? If a bunch of mere peasants can troop in, who is to stop a trained and experienced fighting man?”
Bluto grinned nastily, and a hot eager glint came into his eyes. Instantly I had him pegged for a bully. Most big men I have known were extraordinarily gentle; it was as if with their unusual size and strength went an obligation not to swagger it before less burly men than themselves. Not so with Bluto, I guessed. He delighted in crushing a man smaller than himself.
“So, he’s a fighting man, is he?” he chuckled coarsely. And he began striding around me, looking me up and down with mock admiration. Then he looked a trifle disgruntled. His broad humor would have been more appropriate if I had been a lesser man myself, but I am considered rather tall and I believe I may truthfully state that the past months of action and adventure I had come through amidst the thousand perils of this jungle world had developed my musculature to a superb degree.
“In this city there are no fighting men but warriors of the Chac Yuul,” he growled. I nodded amicably.
“So I have been given to understand. It is for that reason that I am here―to join forces with the Black Legion,” I said.
He gave a belch of crude laughter. “The Black Legion! So, you think you are worthy to stand and fight by our side, eh? A little fellow like you?”
His men chuckled, but their humor was forced. For, in all truth, I must have looked rather prepossessing to men of their dwarfed stature, even when standing beside Bluto.
He slapped his arms and thumped his chest. “You think men like me need you to defend them?” he demanded, obviously working himself up into a fighting rage. Doubtless the poor lout’s single pleasure lay in showing off his prowess before his warriors.
“I may not be as tall a man as yourself,” I said with a cool, level glance, “but I have a long arm,” and here I indicated the rapier that swung at my side.
“Give it to him, Komad,” the bandy-legged little guard leered. “Show him how a Chac Yuul swordsman deals with braggarts!”
Bluto was breathing heavily now, his dark face flushed, his brows congested. “You want to fight Bluto? You want to see what it takes to measure up to a Black Legion warrior?”
“I would prefer to save my fighting for the enemies of the Chac Yuul,” I said. “To whom should I apply for enlistment?” And I made as if to step past him. He let loose with a bull-like roar and, reaching out, seized me by the upper arm and swung me about so that I faced him again.
“Stand still little man, when Bluto is talking to you―uhh!”
That gasp with which his bellow ended is easily explained. I dislike being handled, so I broke his hold with a karate chop that must have numbed him from elbow to wrist.
With an inarticulate roar, he struck me across the face!
I staggered―more shaken by surprise and astonishment than actually hurt by the clumsy blow.
My foot slipped and I went down on one knee.
A deathly silence had fallen over the thronged guards.
I felt my heart sink within me. Not that this noisy braggart worried me, for I was well aware that my skills with the sword were superior to anything this oafish bully could bring against me. But it had been my hope to enter the city of Shondakor without attracting any attention to myself. And nothing was more likely to bring me to the attention of the Lords of the Black Legion than a display of superb swordsmanship before their very gates, by one who pretended to be nothing more than just another ordinary mercenary!
Those hopes were dashed now, for it was unlikely that I would be able to get past this Bluto without a fight.
Cursing the luck, I rose to my feet again and brushed the road dust from my garments while my mind raced furiously, striving to think of a way out of this dilemma.
CHAPTER THREE
I WIN A FIGHT AND MAKE A FRIEND
There was no way to avoid the conflict, for a blow had been given and heated words had been exchanged.
Bluto stood there before me, legs spread, one hand hanging by the pommel of his sword. He was breathing heavily, his coarse features flushed, his little piglike eyes gleaming with fury.
“Draw your steel, man,” he growled. “Let Bluto see what sort of a man you are and what your guts are made of.”
I kept my hand well away from my blade, and with some difficulty I retained a calm smile.
A flash of excitement lit his little glinting eyes. I think he thought he faced a coward, and the bully within him heated to excitement at the thought. But this, also, was not the way out―for a coward would not be welcome in the ranks of the Black Legion.
Suddenly an inspiration occurred to me. I relaxed, breathing easily. For there was after all one mode of combat in which I could display superior prowess without arousing suspicion in those who were soon to be my superior officers.
“Well? What are you waiting for, you horeb?” he snarled.
I smiled and stood calmly, letting all see that I was at my ease.
“I presume even a band of ruffians such as yourselves has some conception of warriors’ honor, and that a man struck in the face has the: right to defend himself without charge of treason, riot, or insurrection,” I remarked.
Bluto nodded, grunting. “Draw steel,” he growled. “No man will speak against you. This is between the two of us.”
“Very well,” I said evenly. “If this is between we two alone, then it is a duel, and, being such, is under the code of honor. As the challenged, I have the right to choose weapons, and, as I refer not to sully my steel with the vile gore of a bully and a coward, I choose―fists!”
Balling a fist, I swung a firm right and caught him in the pit of the stomach with every ounce of strength in arm, shoulder, and back. He was not anticipating such a blow, and the muscles of his abdomen were slack. Thus my balled fist struck his middle with an audible smack, like a butcher’s mallet smacking a side of meat. My fist sank into his guts a good two inches.
His mouth drooped slackly; his face went sallow; he swayed, the heavy sword dropping from loose fingers to clang against the stony pave. He regarded me with a look of blank astonishment in his little piglike eyes.
Then I followed with a right to the jaw that must have broken a tooth or two. He bounced backwards, lifted a couple of inches off the ground by the impact of my blow, and fell with his back in the dust with a terrific thump and clatter of accouterments. And he did not get up again. He was out cold.
The fine art of fisticuffs, I should perhaps note here, is all but unknown on Thanator. It is not that pugilism is despised as an ungentlemanly mode of combat. It is, simply, that it has yet to be invented. And a man who knows how to use his fists is never without a weapon on this world.