Jandar of Callisto

13. AT SWORD'S POINT

As I sprang over the low partition and into the royal box, I heard Darloona gasp with astonishment. Turning, I smiled at her amazement and saluted with the naked sword.

"We meet again, Princess," I observed. She regarded me with a mingling of amazement and outrage―and perhaps there was just a hint of joyful relief mixed therein as well, for I had no reason to assume that she meant me ill.

"Jandar―you?" she asked puzzledly. "It was you who slew the deltagar and set the slaves in revolt?"

I smiled and nodded. It was even as I had expected. With my flesh disguised with the bleaching agent supplied by Lukor's s theatrical friend, my yellow locks dyed jet-black, the Princess had not known for sure that it was I until she had looked me full in the face. For my blue eyes, unique among the races native to this world of Thanator, alone gave me away. And I sensed the reason for the bewilderment that gripped her. From our past experiences, and the various misunderstandings between us, she thought me either a cunning and treacherous rogue, or an arrant coward.

Yet here I was, for once cast in the role of a hero!

It must have seemed a baffling contradiction to her. But her companion in the royal box felt different emotions. Thuton's drawling, silken voice sounded from behind me, and I turned from my Princess to face his mocking smile with a level stare.

"So, the barbarian returns, eh?" he sneered. "I had thought you safely consigned to servile labors more fitting to one of your lowly rank and savage ways than mingling with your betters!"

Beneath his condescending sneers I sensed a red rage trembling for release. I resolved to needle him a little before we crossed swords at last.

"Save for the Princess Darloona and a certain gentleman, I have not yet encountered any in this city better than myself," I replied calmly. "And surely the treachery involved in seeking to sell your royal guest into the hands of her greatest enemies, the Black Legion, puts yourself forever beyond the comparison."

His eyes narrowed and a dull flush stained his paper-white cheeks. I could see from the sidewise glance he directed at Darloona's startled face that he had of course kept all knowledge of his secret dealings with Arkola of the Chac Yuul from her. He bent a coldly furious gaze on me and his purring voice lost its sleekness and became harsh with menace.

"Mind your tongue, fellow, in the presence of the Princess, and cease spewing these despicable lies, or―" and here one strong white hand strayed suggestively to the hilt of his sword "―perhaps the lesson in civilized behavior I gave you when last we met was inadequate and you require a bit of further tutoring!"

I laughed easily. "Yes, I recall how soundly you defeated me when last we stood at sword's point," I remarked casually. "But do not bank on our last bout too much, Thuton. Then my arms were weary from a night spent with them chained above my head, and I was moreover weakened from a wound in the fore arm dealt by the tusk of a vastodon, whom I slew, rescuing the Princess from certain death."

My gaze became cool and insolent, raking him from head to foot, lingering on the slight suggestion of a paunch that was visible above his jeweled girdle, on the dark circles dissipation had traced beneath his bloodshot eyes, and on his foppish and almost feminine elegance of dress.

"Today you may find me in somewhat better condition for swordplay," I hinted. "Indeed, I might succeed in teaching you a lesson or two in―manners."

His face went hard and ugly, and his hand went to the hilt of his sword. But behind me I heard an exclamation from Darloona.

"What insolence!" she said, and her tones were scathing. My heart sank just a trifle: I had hoped to restore myself somewhat in her esteem. But I had forgotten the code of gentlemanly behavior which was almost religiously observed by the warriors of Thanator. And I had offended against its prime tenet ―a gentleman of Callisto does not boast of his prowess, but remains silent, letting his actions speak for him.

Noting her reaction, Thuton smirked.

"Shall I teach this crude buffoon another lesson, my lady?" he inquired. Darloona raked me with a haughty eye and nodded. He made me a mocking half-bow, and drew his sword with a flourish. We exchanged no salutes, but engaged at once.

All about us was raging turmoil, shouting guards, screaming and milling throngs of hysterical arena-goers, and battling slaves seeking freedom. But I soon forgot about them, concentrating on the smiling face of Thuton. The universe narrowed and shrank, until the three of us―the Princess, the Sky Pirate, and my self―were enclosed in a private little world of our own, insulated from everything that was going on around us. All we could hear was the click and clang of our blades, feeling each other out, the rasp of our buskins on the stone floor, the sound of heavy breathing. I focused my concentration on that smiling white face that floated before me beyond the flicker of our blades. I yearned and hungered to wipe that smirk away, to bring sweat to that smooth ironic brow, and the gleam of fear to those mocking eyes.

At first, Thuton engaged my point negligently, carelessly. Obviously he thought he was facing a rank novice hardly capable of knowing one end of a sword from the other. I held myself in check, content for the moment merely to turn aside his point whenever it came near me, playing a purely defensive role.

But before long, as he watched me parry every thrust, he became irked at the course of our duel, and pressed me back before a shower of gliding strokes, any one of which could have disemboweled me had I not turned aside each stroke with a practiced twist of the wrist. He glared at me as we disengaged, and I smiled quietly and stood waiting his next attack.

He sprang to engage my point in tierce. I countered easily with a demi-contre, and, as I parried, my point glided past his guard to nick him slightly just above the heart, slicing through his tunic.

Darloona gasped, and Thuton's face went all loose with shock. I merely smiled, and stood waiting for the next engagement.

He entered with a thrust in quinte, which I turned aside effortlessly―and again my point slid through his guard, this time to draw a line of crimson down one cheek. He sprang backwards with remarkable agility, staring at me with utter astonishment. I elevated one eyebrow ironically, and stood waiting for his next attack.

It was blatantly obvious that my superb and almost effortless competence had disconcerted him mightily. And lie must have been baffled that I had turned neither of my thrusts into a killing or disabling wound. He engaged my point cautiously a third time, and the air rang with the clang and slither of steel on steel as he felt me out.

I was delighted to see the flushed, congested appearance of his face and the puzzlement in his eyes. And particularly pleased to see a trickle of perspiration slide down his face from his hairline, to mingle with the blood from the slight scratch I had given him on the left cheek.

He was now playing a cautious, defensive bout, even as I had been earlier. Hence, I disengaged and reentered in sixte, and as he parried that―and failed to make a counterthrust―I extended my arm lithely and gave him a similar scratch on the right cheek!

Thuton cried out with astonishment and alarm, disengaged awkwardly, stumbling backwards in his haste to elude my dancing point. And, as I turned to face him again, I caught the expression in Darloona's eyes as she watched my swordplay.

Was it―admiration?

Now Thuton threw all caution to the winds and hurled a storm of ringing steel against my slender blade. He pressed me back with a swift glizade, a dazzling blur of steel, and I gave way before him, but not without a chuckle at his manner of fighting. I know not in which school of the fence the Prince of the City in the Clouds had learned the art, but he fought in a flashy, noisy manner―with much floor-stamping and hand-flourishing, sharp little cries and barked comments, screwing his face up in the most fearsome grimaces―all very impressive to an audience, I suppose, but a little showy for my tastes. I, by way of contrast, fought in a quiet, easy, restrained manner, with a minimum of movement or gesture, content merely to give way before his stamping lunges, and to turn each aside with an adroit twist of the wrist.

We circled the box twice, kicking the chairs out of the way. I let him press me back because I knew he could not keep up this intensity for long. And I was right. Ere long he began to get winded and his wrist and arm were wearying fast, for his blade began to tremble in his grip. He sought to disengage and rest, but now it was my turn to press him, and I slid past his guard and gave him another nick above the heart. Again I extended it into a scratch, drawing a parallel line across the breast of his tunic, slitting the material to the bare skin.

I continued to press him and a few moments later I slit his tunic at the shoulder, and next at the other shoulder―and all the time, blowing like a beached whale, his face black with effort, he was trying to disengage. When I finally had him virtually helpless, I had cut away the whole front of his tunic, laying him naked to the navel. His sword arm was trembling with exhaustion by this time and the glint of fear shone in his eyes at long last.

Thuton was a fine swordsman and he had learned from a master of the art. It was not that I was by very much his superior. But for many hours every day for the past month I had practised with novice after novice, ending each day with a bout against one of the finest Swordmasters this planet had ever produced. Naturally my arm was tougher than Thuton's and my swordsmanship, honed and whetted through exhausting hours of continuous practice, was better than his.

Now that I had laid him naked to the waist, I proceeded to cover his torso―which glistened with perspiration―with scratches. I marked him on both shoulders, and drew a scarlet line down his ribs to either side, and I was carefully attempting to write "Jandar" across the breadth of his chest between the nipples, when his nerve broke and he suddenly gave way to rank cowardice.

Squealing like a panic-stricken woman, he literally threw his sword in my face and sprang clumsily out of the box, falling down several steps, to stumble to safety amid the milling throng. It was an act of almost unheard-of cowardice, and even I was amazed. One swordsman just simply does not elude a foeman's blade in such a manner―not on Thanator, at least! Even if you are outmatched hopelessly, the Callistan code of honor demands that you stand and die, if need be, before running away from a duel. Nevertheless, I had broken Thuton's nerve, and he had showed the yellow streak. I had erased my previous humiliation, vindicating myself gloriously, my only regret being that I had not killed him.

To tell the truth my own sword arm was a bit wearied, for the duel had been a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse, and I had not enjoyed much sleep the night before. So I leaned on my blade and caught my breath, watching him run into the safety of the mob. And I wondered if, after all, I would have been able to write my name in the Thanatorian script upon his naked chest even if he had not fled in so cowardly a manner.

The Thanatorian language is written in a cursive hand in a script made up of many hooked, swash tailed characters, not unlike a simplified version of Arabic, and very hard to write with a sword point. It would not have been difficult to write "Jandar" in Roman capitals, but it might well have proven impossible to inscribe Thuton's breast with my cognomen, limited as I was by the intricate nature of the native alphabet. Ah, well, perhaps Thuton and I would meet again, at some later date. At which time I might again attempt to complete the little love note I had been carving on his breast.

As my blade was somewhat sticky with Thuton's gore, I bent and used his thrown-aside cloak to wipe it clean, whereupon I returned it to my scabbard.

All the while Darloona was regarding me with an unreadable expression on her lovely features.

Such was my rather high opinion of the way I had conducted myself in the bit of swordplay just past, I rather naturally interpreted this expression as denoting intense admiration on her part.

Of this incorrect notion I was, ere long, soundly disabused. While I had acquitted myself with the sword well enough, and had doubtless corrected her earlier misapprehension of my manhood, courage, and swordsmanship, I failed, as seemed always to be the case, to read the psychology of the female. For she fixed me with a searing glare of outrage and contempt.

"I know not for what reason you dog my heels, barbarian," she said levelly, her voice shaking with fury, "but I would that I could be rid of you."

The world swung around me dizzily, and I fear I stared at her slack-jawed. I do not recall just what sort of a reaction I had expected her to display towards my recent battle, but it surely was not rage and contempt.

"What―why―" I fumbled for words.

"The Lords of Gordrimator have surely cursed me for my sins," she continued, now almost tearfully. "Why must you continually be bursting in upon my affairs, to their eternal detriment?"

I was baffled in the face of her tearful fury. I had expected praise, perhaps, even admiration―but not a storm of tears!

"My Princess, why do you―"

She stamped her small foot furiously, tossing her crimson mane like a spirited mare.

"Stop calling me that, you―you horeb!" she wailed, naming a particularly repulsive Thanatorian scavenger―something like a pink, naked rat the size of a small dog, whose accustomed habit is to feed on garbage.

Before I could think of anything to say, she blazed at me: "I am not `your Princess'! I want nothing to do with you―nothing, do you hear?"

"I―I hear well enough," I stammered witlessly, "but I―I do not understand. What have I done to offend you?"

She burst into tears, turning to solemn-eyed Koja who had stood quietly through all this, blinking curiously on the scene and doubtless reflecting on the odd mating habits of the human race, so unlike the placid and practical methods enjoyed by his own people,

"Listen to him!" she raged. "Here I am, a guest in the citadel of the powerful Prince of Zanadar, whom I have at length consented to marry, and whom I have persuaded to lend me the uses of his magnificent flying navy―the mightiest fighting force on all of the world―with which I had hoped to wrest my kingdom from the hands of the Black Legion―and along comes this annoying oaf yet once again, to meddle in to my affairs, and ruin all my plans," she stormed amidst a rain of tears.

I was considerably taken aback. But now I understood! I had, for the moment, forgotten that only Luker and myself knew the truth of this matter―that is, that Thuton was treacherously seeking behind Darloona's back to sell her into the very hands of the same bandit legion he was pretending to be willing to battle against! Naturally, she had misinterpreted my actions. I tried to explain the real situation to her, but she stamped her small foot furiously and shook her head until her hair flew about in a flaming cloud and refused to listen to my "clumsy lies," as she called them.

Just then Koja drew my attention to an unfortunate development.

While I had been busied, first with cutting up Thuton and then with countering the enraged accusations of Darloona, the hard-faced Zanadarian guards had at length restored the throng to a semblance of order and were now advancing in a heavily armed squad on the royal box, doubtless with the intentions of capturing Koja, as an escaped prisoner, and me, as the ringleader of the slave revolt.

All of Koja's fellow slaves had, by now, either made their escape by successfully mingling with the crowd, or had been recaptured or slain. Thus there were only he and I to face twenty men armed with swords, bill-hooks, and crossbows―and mailed in full armor, protected by helmet and long kite-shaped Norman-type shields.

And they would be upon us in a minute or two.

I cursed my foolhardy hunger for revenge which had made me draw out my duel with Thuton to such inordinate length. Had I simply run him through when first I had him at sword's point, we could all three of us have been out of the arena and halfway to the Middle City by now, where doubtless we could have found a haven of safety in the Academy Lukor, to which I possessed a key.

But, no! I must play at cat-and-mouse, and dawdle out the duel, so as to show off my newly perfected swordsmanship before the woman I―before Darloona of Shondakor―instead of doing the smart thing, and making an escape while I still had the opportunity.

I choked back a guilty curse, bitterly reflecting on the self-evident fact that while my intentions were usually of the noblest, the most admirable, to the point of the heroic. I somehow or other managed to fumble my every chance to do something worthwhile.

Attempting against impossible odds to set free my friend Koja and the Princess Darloona, I had only bungled the whole matter and thrust both them and myself into even worse danger than before.

But there was no hope for it. Koja and I must stand and fight against twenty armed men. It was hopeless, but there was no other course open to us.

I bitterly cursed my own self-pride and arrogance, wishing I was dead . . . knowing I soon would be.