The man on his left, seeing this, forgot his orders and made a vicious swipe with the hooked end of his bar. Blade parried with his hammer and, using the crowbar in his left hand like a dagger, thrust hard at the man's chest. The sharp end of the crowbar went into flesh and the blood spurted. The man, he who had been called Hobbidance, fell to his knees and began to cough blood. He made strangling sounds and clutched at his belly and throat.
The remaining Gnoman moved in with amazing speed, nearly decapitating Blade with a swing of his bar. The hooked point grazed Blade's head and moved his hair as it made a swishing sound. Blade moved away, backhanding the kneeling man with the crowbar, and cast a glance at Sart. He was dead to the world.
The Gnoman called Obidikut reversed his bar and rushed at Blade, trying to impale him. Blade parried and stepped aside, seeking to trip the man as he evaded the lunge. He tried to use a dagger stroke with the crowbar and failed in that also. The Gnoman now reversed his bar again and, using short strokes, kept swiping at Blade with the hooked end.
Blade moved carefully backward, between the two fallen men, heedful of grasping hands. Sart might be feigning. Blade sought to get his back to the wall, but before he could get into position the rush came in all its fury. This Obidikut was shorter than Sart, and not so powerful looking, and his brown eyes did not gleam with the same intelligence, but he was of the stuff that makes berserkers. He fell on Blade with grunts and cries, flailing away with his iron bar in a never-ceasing rain of deadly strokes.
Blade parried with the hammer and the crowbar. All he could do was parry. He never seemed to get a chance to strike a blow. The hammer began to weigh a hundred pounds. Sparks danced and flew and a steady clanging of iron on iron filled the tunnel. The Gnoman was tireless. On he came, on and on, forcing Blade away from the wall and into a circle. Blade retreated and kept retreating. It was all he could do, all he could manage, the only way he could stay alive. The Gnoman swung and poked and hooked with his bar, never stopping, never tiring.
Blade began to know despair and just a tinge of fear. He was wrong about this Obidikut-the man was not human. At least his lungs and muscles were not human. The man was made of the same stuff as his spear bar-iron. Blade had met his match at last and knew it. Guile then and-luck.
Once again he was retreating. Moving back toward the body of Sart. The man's bar lay by his side. Blade began to plan his move. He must bring it off or die, for he was in the last throes. His lungs were balloons filled with pain instead of air. His muscles were weak and quivering, beginning to spasm as fatigue overtook him. All he had left was his will.
Blade parried and parried again. The next blow, a terrible swipe as the Gnoman sensed victory, snapped off the hammer-head and sent it flailing into the crowd. Blade was left with only the haft and the crowbar. He flung the haft at the Gnoman. For the first time the man smiled as the useless piece of wood bounced off his chest.
Blade hurled the crowbar. It bounced off the bar with a clang. Blade turned to run. He pretended to trip over Sart's body and went to his knees. The watchers, for the most part silent until now, let out a sudden cry for blood, a frenzied merciless screaming for Blade's death.
Blade counted on the rush. He had two plans, but strength for only one. If Obidikut played it cautiously, if he did not rush, then Blade knew he was dead. He could fight on but he could not win.
The Gnoman rushed. Blade twisted on his knees, faked getting up, then fell to his knees once more. He snatched at Sart's bar and planted the hooked end firmly in the sand, inclining the point toward the rushing Gnoman. In doing so he took one final and terrible risk-the man's last blow.
The lethal bar whispered over Blade, brushing his skull under the thick hair. Blade knelt firm, holding the inclined bar, watching the pointed end impale the rushing man just below the rib cage. So great was the rush, so furious the last onslaught, that the sharp bar penetrated the chest and the man's back, and stood out behind him half a foot.
Obidikut dropped his own bar. He stared at Blade in what seemed mild surprise. Blade snatched up the bar and leaped away, using his last strength and cunning, pretending to be a confident winner when he had so nearly been a loser. He stepped over the body of Hobbidance and stood leaning on the bar, half smiling, trying to give the easy impression of I told you so.
The Gnoman still had not fallen. He actually smiled at Blade. He fingered the bar transfixing him as though it were some strange ornament and a bit uncomfortable. He walked around in a few short circles, making odd noises in his throat. The crowd was silent again. They seemed to have forgotten Blade. They watched the Gnoman as he walked about, with the iron bar through him. No one made an effort to help him, to speak to him, to pull out the bar in his guts.
Blade did not like it. Why didn't the man die instead of staggering about like a broken toy? He used the moment to improve his position, getting his back to a wall, filling his lungs and feeling his strength return. He brushed sweat from his streaming forehead and watched the Gnoman still on his feet.
The man went to his knees. He groped in the sand and found the crowbar Blade had flung. He raised it and brandished it at Blade-a last gesture of defiance-then fell forward, dead.
The crowd watched Blade. Scores of eyes glittered at him. Men were silent and did not come to challenge him. Women hissed and held their children close. They did not seem to hate Blade, nor to admire him. They paid no attention to the bodies.
Sart groaned again and got slowly to his knees. Blade watched him in wonder. The man had taken a sixteen-pound iron hammer-head on the jaw and now he was getting up. His jaw did not appear to be broken, though Sart was spitting blood and teeth. Blade tightened his grip on Sart's bar. Maybe it wasn't over yet. And Blade, though his outward facade was calm and confident, did not feel up to another battle. His guts churned, his knees trembled and he was bathed in sweat.
But Sart did not get to his feet. He glanced about him, at the bodies of his two friends, then looked at Blade. He began to crawl toward Blade on his knees, his bloody mouth gaping as he spoke.
«You have won,» Sart gasped. «By our laws, that makes you master and me slave. So be it. I prostrate myself to you.» He crawled nearer to Blade.
«Keep your distance,» said Blade. «And I wish no slaves. As far as I am concerned, you are a free man. And more-I told you I would be friends. My word still holds. So get on your feet and act like a man.»
The crowd watched in silence, not even whispering now.
«I plan no treachery,» said Sart. «I wish but to kiss your feet so that all will know I am your slave.»
Blade replied, «I say again that I want no slave. But I want you as a friend if-«
Sart's eyes were pleading. He whispered so that only Blade heard. «You do not understand, master. I must be your slave now. Only you can protect me. I have failed in my duty and if you do not take me for slave I will be sent to the five-mile pits. I beg you, I grovel before you, I ask for mercy. Take me for your slave before Jantor and Sybelline arrive. They have no mercy. But if you take me for slave and speak for me, if you save me from the pits, I will be both slave and friend. I swear it.»