This Panchan was the greatest of the champions, and was reckoned a superb swordsman. I have said that the Sky Pirates feared to arm the arena slaves with weapons less cumbersome than spears or maces, and this is true. Panchan was the sole exception to this rule. He was a surly, girlishly handsome young giant with a magnificently developed golden body he liked to display to the admiring throng. Where most gladiators sensibly protected themselves with cuirass, greaves, gauntlets, helm, and mail skirt, this golden young god of the great games fought nearly naked, wearing but sandals, a browband to keep his abundant mane out of his eyes, and a narrow strip of scarlet silk wound about his loins. The crowd adored him and Thuton had several times offered him his freedom after a particularly brilliant victory, but Panchan preferred the idolatry of the arena to the dubious hazards of freedom. To him alone was given the rare honor of dispatching his victims with a rapier.
Although none of us could stand Panchan for his sneering airs of supercilious superiority and the effeminate luxury in which he lived, he was, to do him justice, a great fighting man and well deserved the admiration his prowess had earned him. For he was one of the few gladiators who could use spear or ax with equal dexterity. Sometimes, during the grand melee which generally crowned the evening of the games, he fought with the keraxians, other times, with the tharians―always he displayed the adroit facility and graceful agility of form that marked him as a great champion. There had developed considerable rivalry between him and my new friend Zantor, however. No one quite knew how this rivalry had gotten started in the first place, although perhaps it began, quite simply, because Zantor was free-born and a former master-corsair of the realm, while Panchan, for all his champion status, had been born a lowly arena slave.
Or Panchan’s hatred of Zantor might have been caused by the merely human fear of a successful rival. For when Zantor had first entered in the arena, be had been booed and hissed, but before long his great courage and dignity and fighting skills had won him the applause of the fickle throng, until by now his popularity rivaled that of Panchan himself. At any rate, Zantor bad been trained to fight in my own team, the keraxians, and from his first appearances in the ranks of the gladiatorial spearmen, Panchan had fought with the tharians exclusively. The two rivals had fought in personal contests many times, but always Zantor, although an older and heavier man, bad managed to hold his own against the spoiled, sullen, golden young god of the games. Which, doubtless, had added fresh poison to the rancor in Panchan’s heart.
With noon, as I said earlier, the gladiatorial contests began. The first of these were team battles, in which six or eight keraxians were pitted against an equal number of tharians.
None of the famous champions of either team deigned to partake in these opening engagements, which were in the nature of warm-up exercises anyway, and which consisted of hastily trained arena slaves who were quite expendable. But I noticed Zantor in the sidelines, carefully observing how his teammates fought and urging us on with his counsel as much as by the heartening influence of his presence.
I fought in three of the six opening contests and managed to acquit myself decently. The spear has never been my weapon, but I had learned enough of its use to defend myself quite adequately. And defend myself is about all I did, I must confess. I am perfectly willing to fight and to kill in defense of my own life and honor and to protect my friends and loved ones, but it sickened me to seek the acclaim of the throng by murdering a man who has done me no harm and whom I cannot consider my enemy. So I merely defended myself against the ax men who were pitted against me and did not seek to slay them. My opponents in general seemed to feel the same way about the matter, and once they learned I had no intention of striving to strike through the weak places in their defense, we merely exchanged blows until the Gamesmaster terminated the contest.
The afternoon was well advanced by this time, and the rather lackluster performance of these opening contests bored the crowd, who began booing us lustily and even, in some cases, pelting us with scraps of food from their lunches. Noting the restive nature of the throng, the Gamesmaster decided to change his schedule and set forth a grand melee before any of the garbage began being tossed his way. The melee, usually reserved for the final act of the games, is a great favorite with the Zanadarians and resembles a full-scale mock battle. Perhaps I should explain at this point that the great games generally last three or four days and feature a carefully balanced variety of entertainment. The first day, as I have described already, begins traditionally with chariot racing and continues with hand-to-hand combat between teams randomly selected from among the novice keraxians and tharians, ending, in early evening, with the grand melee. On the second day, the more expert members of both gladiatorial teams are pitted against wild beasts, either singly or en, masse; the third day, which usually terminates the games, features the personal contests of the champions, after a sequence of gory warm-up exercises in which each champion gets a chance to slaughter as many of the expendable arena slaves as he likes.
For the melee we were ranked in opposed hosts under a great show of banners and pennons emblazoned with the mock heraldries of imaginary or mythical cities. With much flourishing of trumpets, we charged. Unlike the opening contests, the melee was a serious affair in which each team or side was encouraged, under threat of death, to slaughter as many opponents as possible. Nonetheless, I still fought in the main to protect myself and kept rather close to the leader of my side, Zantor. My reason for doing so was a rumor which had reached my ears―a rumor that Panchan, on the express command of Prince Thuton, had vowed to slay his rival during the personal combat of the leaders of the hosts which was the ultimate highpoint of the entire affair.
And he had sworn to kill him “by fair means or by foul,” the rumor whispered. Well, Zantor and Ergon were the two best friends I had found here in Zanadar, and I was determined to do what I could to prevent treachery. I regarded my life as a thing of little importance at this low ebb of my fortunes. I would die, undoubtedly, at some point during these interminable bloody shows, and if die I must, I would prefer it be in a worthy cause.
To my mind there are few causes in life more worthy than friendship.
Keeping close to Zantor’s back, I fought my way through the mass of tangled, battling gladiators and spotted Ergon heading for me through the melee. I caught his eye and grinned and was somewhat surprised to see him plow directly for me with grim purposefulness. Surely, he did not mean to engage me. Although we fought on opposite sides, our friendship was such that neither of us would wish to engage the other in combat. I concluded he must have some special reason for seeking me out on this mock battlefield, and thus instead of avoiding the conflict, as I would otherwise have done, I permitted him to approach.
The ugly little Perushtarian swung his mace to engage and turn aside my spear-using, I noticed, the flat of the blade, rather than the edge, which might have snapped the shaft of my weapon, leaving me defenseless. Then, ducking under the spear, he dropped his mace and caught me in the bear hug of a wrestler.