Movement. Slithering, sly, obscene movement. The Ullgishoa sprawled forward out of the cage, spilling over the iron lip onto the suns-warmed sand. I took a single look and then went at my chains with the crazed fury of a madman.
Huge, the thing was, squamous, slimy, its scales extending only over the upper portion of its hemispherical back, its lower portions a writhing mass of tentacles. But those tentacles! Each undulated and squirmed and writhed like a beckoning finger. Each began at the thing’s body with a thickness of a man’s calf, but as the tentacle thickness neared the tip it lessened until it was perhaps as large as a man’s thumb, finished with a protruding lump that glistened scarlet and black, ichor dripping. Inch by inch the Ullgishoa crept over the sand. Set in the center just below the squamous back a single eye stared lidlessly, yellow and red, focused unerringly upon the white, bound form of Delia. I knew what that thing would do once its tentacles were within reach of my Delia’s body. I struggled as the devils of Dante’s Hell must struggle. If Hell exists, then it took this scene as its template.
I felt the link weakening. I felt it bending, slightly, and now the very technology of Kregen came to my assistance. I have mentioned how of necessity culture varied over the surface of Kregen, and as a corollary, technology and science varied also. It is manifestly unrealistic to imagine a world with every part at exactly the same level of advancement, unless that world be one under a central government, or a world of the far future wherein our Utopians love to direct their thoughts. So the long thin swords of the Ullars and the men of Hiclantung had to be forged from iron of a good quality. I knew because Hwang had often complained that the iron deposits around his city in nowise matched in quality the ores of ancient Loh; most of the swords had been handed down, from father to son, treasured heirlooms of a misty and grandiose past.
But for the iron of their commoner weapons and tools the men of the Hostile Territories had to employ local ores, and their weakness came now as a great blessing to me. I felt the link move, bending as I strained. All the time the people in the terraces howled and the stink of the Ullgishoa befouled my mouth, and I tried to think of iron technology and not of what those obscenely-seeking tentacles of the creeping monster would do to my Delia.
And, too, this lack of high-quality ore locally came as a surprising, but not unexpected, boon to me, as you shall hear.
The thing was almost upon Delia now.
She hung there, defiant, her head up, her face composed.
I risked a more obvious movement as I struggled. I braced my arms and stretched; those wide shoulders of mine gave me a leverage and my muscles jumped — and roped and bunched and — snap!
The link parted.
Now I must move with extraordinary swiftness.
The chains stripped from me with a clanking lost in the frenzied din of shouting from the thousands ranked on the terraces. Twin shadows from the suns of Scorpio paced me as I ran. Ullars must have attempted to stop me. I swung my bunched chains. I had become expert with swinging chains; I had had experience. I left a trail of blood and brains and shattered skulls strewing the sand. The scarlet haze enveloping my sight concentrated vision only onto the Ullgishoa and Delia. Its tentacles were looping and coiling and reaching out for Delia. Each bloated head of scarlet and black dripped a foul ichor. They thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew, in congested anticipation. I ran. Delia watched me.
As I reached the Ullgishoa her eyes widened.
“Jikai, Dray Prescot!”
I swung the chains. I swung the chains high and I put all my strength into that vicious and barbaric blow. Gone were the polite trappings of civilization. Gone the veneers of gentle conduct. Now I was a simple barbarian, filled with hate and loathing for this thing that sought so obscenely to destroy the woman I loved.
All that primordial savagery nerving me added cunning as well as bestial strength to my arms. The chains sliced cuttingly down upon that single lidless eye where mucus ran in a continuous dust-cleansing stream. The eye pulped and exploded into a scattered mass of scarlet and yellow. The stench sickened me -
and yet nothing could sicken me now — not when Delia of the Blue Mountains watched as I fought for her life!
The Ullgishoa was not finished.
It emitted a high whickering shrill and its tentacles lashed back to envelop me. I skipped agilely aside and an arrow slashed past me. Again I moved, constantly maneuvering myself as more arrows sliced the bright air. Many of those shafts feathered into the bulk of the Ullgishoa — and I laughed!
I took the thick coarse ropes that bound Delia into my fists and I pulled and the rope snapped in a fray of threads.
She fell forward into my arms, her body against my chest, my face enveloped in her hair. There was time for neither greeting nor the taking of a breath now. The whole amphitheater was in turmoil. Ullars and Harfnars gesticulated and screamed, arrows scythed toward us, warriors ran fleetly over the sand, their swords and spears bright in the streaming mingled light of the suns of Antares.
“Umgar Stro!” I looked up at the ornate box.
I put Delia aside and met the first of the Ullars. I broke his neck, took his sword, slashed the face from the next, disemboweled the third. Delia had snatched a sword and fallen into place at my left side. I felt a terrible pang of fear for her safety there, but she urged me on: “Jikai!”
We ran in a jinking zigzag path. The sword broke and I took another from the first Ullar foolish enough to cross my path.
A flint-headed arrow scored a bloody line across my back. Another nicked a chunk of skin from my calf. I ran on. Delia’s hair streamed behind her head as she paced me. Straight toward that awning-draped box we ran, and the bedlam increased and surged into a continuous shattering wash of sound.
Umgar Stro stood up and gripped the gilded rail before his royal box. Large he was, bulkier than me, with his indigo-dyed hair contorted into a fantastic prancing shape above his head. His blunt features and those narrow close-set eyes brooded on his warriors as they sought to stop my advance. He wore a fancy gilded armor, risslaca and leem designs hammered onto the breastplate. His thick neck rose above, ridged with corded muscle and congested veins.
“Stop him, you fools!” he roared. “Cut him down!”
But I had seen what I wanted.
Strapped to Umgar Stro’s side hung a great long sword that made the long thin swords of these people mere toothpicks in comparison. That sword was a Krozair long sword. It was the weapon given me by Pur Zenkiren in Pattelonia, before we set off to fly The Stratemsk and the Hostile Territories. I could well understand how a man like Umgar Stro would value such a brand.
An arrow hissed into the sand before my feet and I jumped and jinked and the following volley split air. Delia paced me, running very quick, her circulation coming back and yet not impeding her movements. I knew what she was suffering and if it were possible my heart hardened even more against Umgar Stro and his Ullars and these Harfnars of Chersonang.
Only this man had prevented us from continuing our journey. He it was who had caused Seg and Thelda to go down before his allied cavalry. He owed me much, this half-man, this beast, this Umgar Stro. I ran toward him and I did not shout and he saw me coming. He drew that great brand that was my own and he threw himself into a posture of defense, cursing those about him. Arrogant and conceited, puffed with pride like many Earthly Politicians, was Umgar Stro, but he did not lack courage.
His massive frame dangled and clanged with golden ornaments, barbaric dyed leem pelts flaunting weird colors. He towered there, glowering in the light from the Suns of Scorpio, his indigo-dyed hair waving with the violence of his movements, his arms bulging with muscle.