“The swamp,” Matthew said, “is cleaner than the professor’s soul.”
“He wishes me to cut off some part of you and bring it to him to demonstrate that you are dead,” said the giant. “What would you suggest, young sir?” To the silence that followed, Sirki smiled and said, “Let me decide.”
He strode forward, demonic in the torchlight. The sawtoothed blade was upraised, capable of horrendous injury with one swing. Matthew backed away, his heart hammering. He thrust the torch forward to keep the beast at bay.
“No use in that,” Sirki said almost gently. “I shall put that down your throat if I please.”
And Matthew knew he could. Therefore Matthew chose the better part of valor. He turned and ran for his life.
Sirki came after him, taking tremendous strides. The branch in the corridor was ahead. Matthew took the untrodden way, running as fast as he could. Sirki was right behind him, the white robes billowing like the wings of a deadly angel.
The corridor suddenly widened into a space where there sat two simple chairs with dark stains of what might have been blood upon and beneath them. Gory chains still lay about the chairs, but there were no bodies. Smythe and Wilson had already gone to the tearing beak and eight arms of Agonistes. Matthew’s light displayed three cells. He was in the dungeon under the dining hall, probably used to confine pirates and other criminals of note. In the center cell stood Zed, bald and bearded and wearing his ragged clothing. Zed had his hands gripped around the bars, and when he saw Matthew the mouth in the tribal-tattooed face gave a mangled roar of recognition.
Matthew heard Sirki coming. He saw a ring bearing three keys hanging on the wall. Sirki was almost into the chamber. Matthew dropped the torch to the floor and picked up one of the chairs. He threw it at Sirki’s legs as the giant came through the corridor, and Sirki crashed down upon the stones.
Matthew plucked the keys off the wall and ran to Zed’s cell. The first key did not fit. He looked back and saw Sirki up on his feet, lumbering toward him. The wicked blade flashed at Matthew’s head, but he had already ducked. Sparks flew up from the meeting of sawteeth and iron bars. Matthew threw the ring of keys between the bars into Zed’s cage, and then he got hold of the fallen torch and backed warily away as Sirki advanced upon him.
“This can go more easily for you,” Sirki promised. “I’ve grown to respect you. I can make your death very quick.”
“I’d rather stretch my life out a bit longer.”
“I’m sorry, but that will be im—”
Sirki was interrupted by the noise of the cell door banging open. When the giant looked in that direction to see Zed emerging from the cage Matthew stepped in and struck the torch at the side of his head, but Sirki had already recovered and deflected the torch with his own. Then he whirled to meet Zed with his blade…an instant too late, for Zed’s fist met Sirki’s mouth in a jarring smack of flesh and bone and though the knife swung viciously at Zed’s chest the Ga had darted away with admirable agility.
Sirki was caught between Matthew with his torch and Zed with his fists. He slashed first at one and then the other, and both kept their distance. Then Zed plucked up one of the lengths of chain from a chair. Sirki grinned in the flaring light. Blood was on his mouth, and he was minus a diamond as well as a front tooth.
“Ah!” he said. “I do get to kill you, after all.”
Matthew lunged at him with the torch from the right side, aiming at the knife hand. Zed swung the chain and struck Sirki a blow across the left shoulder. Sirki spun toward Matthew and rushed him in an attempt to cancel the weaker threat, but Matthew swept the torch past Sirki’s face to keep him away. Then the chain whipped out again across Sirki’s back, and now the giant in an instant of what might have been panic threw his torch at Zed and followed it with his own huge body and the deadly blade upraised.
Matthew had already seen, in the Cock’a’tail tavern in New York the October before, what Zed could do with a chain. Now Zed stood his ground and lashed the chain out; it curled around the forearm of Sirki’s knife hand, and just that fast Zed used the momentum to swing the giant crashing against the bars of the nearest cage. Sirki did not give up the knife, and grasping the chain with his free hand he hauled Zed toward himself like reeling in a hooked fish.
Zed’s feet slid along the stones. He tried to right himself but the giant’s pull was too strong. The knife waited with what seemed to be eager anticipation.
Then Matthew struck Sirki across the left side of the head with a second chain he’d picked up. The killer’s turban unravelled from the blow. Sirki’s eyes glazed for perhaps two seconds, his knife wavered and in this space of time Zed was upon him.
They grappled for the blade. It was the battle of the giants, brute against brute. Zed smashed Sirki in the face again with a heavy fist. Sirki grasped hold of Zed’s throat with his free hand, an enormous implement of murder, and squeezed hard enough to make the cords stand out. They whirled toward Matthew in their fight and hit him with their shoulders, picking him up off his feet, throwing him to the floor and leaving him breathless in the winds of violence. He was amazed to see Sirki actually lift Zed off the floor with the hand at his throat. Zed hammered at Sirki’s face and head while grasping the knife hand to keep those sawteeth from flesh. They slammed against the opposite wall so hard Matthew thought it would complete the destruction of the castle that the earthquake had begun. From above pieces of stone fell, and drifts of dust. Still the two fought on, Sirki’s fingers digging into Zed’s throat and Zed reshaping the giant’s features with the mallet of his fist.
Zed began to make a gasping, gagging sound, and Matthew saw his blows weakening. Sirki was about to defeat the Ga, an unthinkable proposition. Matthew’s torch had spun away in the collision and lay beyond the fighters. He had to decide what to do, and quickly. Though he was afraid out of his wits he took a running start and leaped upon the giant’s back, at the same time looping the chain around Sirki’s neck and squeezing as if his life depended upon it.
Sirki thrashed wildly but Matthew hung on. He was a rider of a different nature this time, and damned if he’d be thrown. The giant’s hand left Zed’s throat to reach back for Matthew’s hair, but suddenly there was a crunching noise and Zed had attacked the knife hand with ten fingers. He succeeded here where he had failed in their battle on Oyster Island, for Sirki’s knuckles sounded like walnuts being stomped under rough boots. The knife clattered to the stones, but just as quickly Sirki kicked it out of Zed’s reach. Matthew still hung on, as the wounded giant pitched and bucked. Zed hit Sirki so hard in the jaw that the man careened back and nearly broke Matthew’s spine against the wall. Then Matthew slithered off, his breath and strength gone, and through a red haze he saw Zed take his place by leaping upon Sirki’s back. The Ga grasped the chain and began to strangle the giant, the muscles in his forearms strained and quivering. Sirki fought back by slamming Zed continually against the wall with blows that Matthew thought must be near breaking bones, yet Zed would not be thrown off nor denied his moment of revenge.
The chain sunk into the flesh of Sirki’s throat. The giant’s eyes bulged and blood streamed from his nostrils. His mouth opened in a hideous gasp, and Matthew saw that the second diamond-studded tooth had been knocked out.
Still Sirki fought. Still Zed clung to his back and choked him with the chain, which had now nearly disappeared. Matthew thought with horror that in another moment Sirki’s head was going to be cleaved off by the chain. Sweat stood out in beads on the faces of both men, and then Sirki’s eyes began to bleed.
Still Sirki crashed Zed against the wall, though the fury was weaker. Still the muscles of the Ga’s arms worked. Sirki began to emit a high keening sound, an eerie gasping for departing life itself. His eyes were wide and wild and as red as the sun going down.