Honcho, without moving his head, spoke through thin lips. "She wants you. I had not counted on this. Not so soon. Be very careful now. I cannot help you. But perhaps it will not be so bad after all...if you win."

Win? For a moment he did not understand. Then Blade saw the byplay enacted before him and did understand. There was no mystery. It was as primitive, as elemental, as s.e.x. Or death. Or Totha.

The young Pethcine had been lounging nearby. He appeared taller than most of them and his body bulged with muscle. All this while he had been glowering at Blade. Now he rose from his stool and went to the throne and said something to the girl. She stared at him coldly. Org slapped his fat leg and shouted with laughter.

Totha gave the young man a push. He scowled and clutched at her arm, shouting angrily.

Totha balled her fist and struck him hard in the face. She picked up a cup and dashed the contents into his face. The Pethcine stepped back and glared from Totha to Blade. Org shouted with laughter again and pounded on his paunch with a balled fist.

Totha stood up and came toward Blade. Her hips were sinuous and she reminded him of a very beautiful snake. Her bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s jounced with each step.

"Be careful," whispered Honcho. "Do not offend her. She rules Org. She has only to ask and she gets. Our heads if she desires them. Be very careful!"

Blade understood then what Honcho had really meant by putting himself in jeopardy. Here in the Gorge he was shorn of many of his technical powers. Honcho, at the moment, was as vulnerable as Blade himself.

The next moment he forgot Honcho.

Totha stood before Blade. She raised herself on tiptoe and peered into his eyes. She put dainty hands on his big shoulders and caressed them. She ran her fingers down his arms and around his chest and brushed them over his smooth-fleshed middle. She smiled at him.

"I believe you are a G.o.d," said the girl. "Perhaps not Mazda, but a G.o.d just the same. I want you. Totha wants you."

She pressed herself against Blade. She crushed her firm bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s against him. She reached and pulled his head down to meet her lips. Her tongue struck at his mouth and again he thought of a lovely snake.

"Totha wants you," she said again. "You will kill Gutar for me. I have grown tired of him anyway."

Blade held her closely. Her skin was petal smooth and smelled of s.e.x and death. Over her shoulder he saw King Org giving orders and men were bringing weapons. Blade also saw Honcho. The neuter's lips moved.

"Be sure you kill him!"

Chapter Six.

The mob of Pethcines, sensing blood, left off drinking and copulating in public and rose to their feet in one great shouting horde.

"Gutar! Gutar! Gutar!"

Honcho stood off to one side, his arms folded. He did not speak to Blade again. This was the unforeseen event and the neuter could not help. This in no way dismayed Blade. He was confident.

Totha kissed him once more and pressed herself against him, then went back to her throne where she sat and smiled at him in encouragement. King Org motioned for Blade to approach the throne. Gutar was already there. He cursed and spat at Blade's feet as the big man came up.

King Org was happy at the prospect of a fight He scratched his ringlet of beard and leered at Blade.

"This is well. It will settle much. If you are indeed Mazda you will Mil Gutar. If not he will surely kill you. He is the champion of all the Pethcines and has already killed three men today."

Org waved a hand toward the heads and bodies still littering the sands of the arena. "They challenged Gutar, as it was their right to do on this time of Sacer. Had any of them won they would have had the right to Totha. You have won her without a fight, for she wants you. But you must fight to keep her. I, Org of the Pethcines, say it. What weapons will you have, O Mazda?"

The last was said with a cunning little wink of the fat enshrouded eyes.

Blade had been studying the proffered weapons. He wanted none of them.

Blade drew the rapier from its scabbard with a rasping flourish. "I will have a shield," he said. "None else."

As he spoke he glanced at Honcho. The neuter did not look happy. Blade smiled. Honcho's carefully laid plans would go up in smoke if Blade were killed.

Gutar thought Blade's smile was disdain for him. He leaped at Blade with a roar of rage, still unarmed. Blade moved swiftly, tripping the st.u.r.dy Pethcine as he rushed past. Gutar went sprawling heavily on his face. The crowd stopped shouting. King Org looked thoughtful. Totha clapped her hands. Honcho nearly smiled.

Org pointed a fat round ringer at Gutar, who was getting up and looking a bit crestfallen. "You will wait, Gutar, until I give the word. Or I will kill you!"

Gutar retired to confer with his Pethcine friends. He was stripped down now. Naked. It was the way the Pethcines fought.

Org said: "Shields are not permitted in private combat. You must fight naked, with only your weapons. You really wish to use only that stick, that thing?" Org gazed doubtfully at the slender rapier.

Before Blade could answer Gutar was shouting. "Let him have his shield! And I, Gutar, will use a bow." One of his men handed him a short bow and a quiver with three arrows in it. Blade guessed that there was tradition for this.

Org looked at Blade. "You agree?"

It changed the odds, especially as Gutar was also armed with a short heavy sword and a long throwing net, but Blade's reply was curt. "I agree. Let us be on with it. before Gutar has time to think and loses his courage."

The big Pethcine howled in new rage at the insult, as Blade had intended. He was confident, but not overconfident. He had not counted on arrows, and would have to match them with psychological arrows of his own. So he stared in contempt at Gutar and said, "Are you ready, Gutar? Or do you wish to weep a little first? Or perhaps to pray?"

This time Gutar did not answer. He leaped out into the center of the arena and waited, crouching, near the great stone. He swung the net slowly back and forth in his left hand, the short, broad-bladed sword in his right, the bow and quiver slung across his broad shoulders.

A shield was flung at Blade. It was small, hardly larger than a dinner plate, made of hide with a central boss of gleaming metal. At once he began to have misgivings; this was not his idea of a shield and it was little cover for his huge body. In exposed flesh area Gutar was going to have a distinct advantage.

Now Blade stood naked except for the rapier and the shield. He glanced at Totha. She was leaning forward on her throne, her eyes glued on his body, and she was not looking at his face. He saw a sharp little red tongue lick around her wide mouth and again he thought of a snake.

Blade faced Gutar. He had the reach with the rapier, his arms were longer, but there was the net that could entrap either Blade or his weapon. He began to circle Gutar, moving slowly to the right, hoping that the other would rush him. If he did Blade could end it quickly.

Gutar was too wise to rush. Now that the fight had actually begun he seemed to have lost his rage This, Blade knew, was an old hand. A cool hand. Already he sensed the reasons why Gutar was champion of all the Pethcines.

Gutar turned with Blade's movement, moving his sword in short glittering circles but making no effort to rush.

"Kill, Gutar! Kill-kill-kill-kill!"

It was, Blade thought wryly, something of a partisan crowd.

Gutar flung the net. He was skillful. Blade had been expecting it, yet he could not move fast enough to avoid it. The net settled over his head and shoulder, not heavy, but binding him and cramping his sword arm. Gutar rushed at him, his broad flat face contorted in a grin of malice. He did not swing the short sword, as Blade had expected, but thrust with it in an upward disemboweling stroke.

Blade's sword arm was netted. He acted without thought, and dropped the shield and tossed the rapier from his useless right hand to his free left hand. It was a dangerous move. If he dropped the rapier while still netted he was finished.

Blade did not miss. He caught the rapier in time to parry Guitarrquote s thrust down and away from his naked belly. The point ripped his inner thigh, a slight wound. At the same time Blade b.u.t.ted Gutar in the face with his head and swung a chopping hand blow to the Pethcines temple. The net impeded him, but still he got enormous force into the blow. Gutar fell away, mouthing curses, f ailing on all fours.

Blade leaped backward as Gutar, still on his knees, swung in a backhand slash at his exposed genitals. Blade ripped off the net and twirled it at the crouching man and in the same fluid motion retrieved his shield and changed his rapier back to his right hand.

He went in a long feral lunge trying to take Gutar from behind and beneath the left shoulder blade.

Gutar rolled away from the fluttering net. He had never dropped his sword. He kept rolling. Blade's lunge missed. Gutar was on his feet and again on the defensive, backing away slowly, his left hand up and fumbling for the quiver now.

Blade leaped with the net and went into the attack again. He feinted in tierce, to force Gutar to parry high. Gutar did as he must to save his eyes. Blade stepped, leaned, and went into a long quarter thrust that would ram the teksin through the Pethcine's heart and out the back.

By some miracle Gutar's clumsy blade was back in position, parrying the lunge. Blade frowned. Miracle? No. This savage, this barbarian, was as skillful with his crude sword as Blade was with the rapier. In that instant Blade knew he was in for a real fight. One he could possibly lose. His foot touched one of the heads and he kicked it away without looking. His head might be on the sand if he made any more mistakes. Blade had never really been afraid of anything in his life, and he did not know fear now, but he did become cautious. He must begin to plan a strategy, a campaign. This was going to take skill and brains. Blade knew that he was not going to wear Gutar down physically. Blade was in superb shape, as he always was, but he guessed that Gutar was, too.

Neither of them was sweating yet. Gutar was still backing nimbly away, trying to get his bow down off his shoulder. He now had an arrow clutched in his teeth. Blade went swirling into the attack again. Gutar managed to parry the thrusts but the bow was still on his shoulder. Every time he reached for it Blade slashed at him furiously. The shield he clutched in his left hand was growing smaller every moment.

Blade kept up his furious attack. The slim rapier darted and spun and glimmered and kept probing for Gutar's heart. Gutar parried frantically, sometimes barely, but he parried. He gave up the attempt to get the bow off his shoulder and trudged slowly backward, at times using his sword with two hands, turning Blade's thrusts again and again.

A small worry nudged at Blade. He was beginning to breathe a little hard. Not so the Pethcine. His deep chest moved in an easy rhythm; his eyes were slits of hate, staring at Blade out of the flat Mongoloid face.

Blade began to work Gutar around toward the great stone where lay the Sacred Sword. Gutar realized instantly what was happening and tried to swerve away, but Blade would have none of it. The rapier licked in and out, a dainty sliver with a deadly sting, and at last Blade drew blood. He ran Gutar through the right shoulder, but high and ripping only a few muscles. Blood streamed. Gutar sneered and spat at Blade and paid no attention to the blood. Nor did he try again to get to the bow. Blade gave him no time.

Steadily now Blade worked him back toward the stone. When he got him backed against it he could finish him off. Soon. A feather of panic stirred in Blade. He was sweating now and the breath was whistling in his nostrils. Who would have thought that this creature could be so skillful, or keep it up so long?

Gutar backed against the stone. He tried to sidle away to his right and Blade blooded him. Gutar tried it to his left and Blade nicked his chest. He began a series of feints designed to draw Gutar's defense higher and higher. Blade, now that the end was near, found new energy and a cruelty he had not known he possessed. He began to toy with Gutar, continually feinting his guard high and higher, then nicking him before the sword could come down again. Half a dozen times Blade could have run the Pethcine through and did not.

But now Gutar was gushing blood in half a dozen places. The roaring of the mob was one vast incessant dinning wall of noise that Blade had long ago shut out of his mind.

Now! Blade felt an instant's shame. He had been playing with Gutar and that was cruel, and he had not been cruel before. Nor had he ever relished killing before. Now he was cruel and he did relish killing. He was going to enjoy killing Gutar.

The rapier went driving in for the kill. Gutar was faster. He bent, stooped, so low that the rapier got him in the left shoulder, sc.r.a.ping the bone, instead of the heart. Gutar scooped a handful of sand and flung it in Blade's face. His aim was perfect. Blade, both eyes full of sand, stinging and tearing, staggered backward. He caught his balance and lowered the rapier for defense, at the same time clawing and sc.r.a.ping at his eyes. They began to clear, just in time to see Gutar stoop again and throw something at him. More sand. Blade took a backward step and shielded his eyes with his hand. That trick would not work again.

Gutar had not thrown sand. The head, whirled by the hair and hurled with all the Pethcine's vast strength, struck Blade like a cannonball full in the face.

Blade was stunned. He went lurching backward and his feet caught in the forgotten net. He fell heavily on his back and the rapier skittered from his hand. Gutar, blood streaming from him in fountains, raised his sword and rushed at Blade with a harsh cry. He was on Blade, and slashing downward, before the big man could roll out of danger.

Blade could see well enough now to raise his shield and parry the first blow. Or partially parry it. The descending sword slashed away half the shield. Gutar slashed again and his blade struck the shield's boss and exploded in a shower of sparks. Gutar jammed one foot into Blade's chest with enormous force, pinning him, and raised his sword for the death stroke. The mob was going blood mad.

Blade watched the cruel short sword glint downward. He fended with the half shield and at the same time reached up and grabbed at the bow still slung over Gutar's shoulder. Blade tugged down with all his strength. The bowstring caught about the Pethcine's thick neck. He strained back, trying to recover balance for a last blow. Blade pulled. Gutar lost his footing and came smashing down atop Blade.

They were both covered with blood. Blade wriggled partially from under Gutar, managed to get half astride the man, meaning to ride him, using his weight, and throttle him with the bowstring.

The bowstring broke. Gutar, his body lubricated with blood, squirmed free of Blade, rolled onto his back and thrust up with his sword. Blade fell away. His vision was clearing now, but he could not find his rapier. He hurled the broken shield at Gutar and backed away. Gutar brushed the shield away with a ma.s.sive forearm and began to stalk Blade, forcing him back against the huge stone just as Blade had done a few minutes before.

Blade dared not take his eyes off Gutar. His bare feet touched nothing but sand as he retreated. He was not going to find the rapier! His back touched the stone. Gutar made a fierce guttural sound in his throat and rushed.

Blade's outflung hand brushed back over the top of the stone altar. His fingers touched the hilt of the great sword. They closed around it. The muscles in Blade's right shoulder and arm knotted and corded as he lifted the sword in his right hand and swung it, level and flashing like a scythe, at the grinning, blood-drenched Gutar.

The big sword hummed a threnody, whispering, as it came around. Blade felt the tremor along the shaft as it bit into Gutar's neck.

Gutar's head leaped into the air, hovered for a moment, then fell and bounced away to the right.

For a long moment the Pethcine's headless body stood confronting Blade. The short sword was still raised to strike. A jet of blood leaped two feet into the air as the body still stood like a grotesque statue. At last the sword fell, the knees buckled, and the squat and dying body crashed down in a writhing heap.

Blade put the point of the huge sword in the sand and leaned on it. Only gradually did he become aware of the dead silence in the arena; the air was as devoid of life as the still quivering trunk of Gutar. It was an instant before Blade really understood it. He had not been thinking. He had been fighting for his life. Then he understood: he had touched the Sacred Sword! Worse. He had used it, defiled it, to Mil the champion of all the Pethcines. Now, surely, they would tear him limb from limb.

And there was nothing he could do. He wiped blood and sweat from his face, still leaning on the sword, and waited. He was bone weary.

Totha leaned and spoke to her father, Org. Org glanced quickly at Honcho and raised a finger. Honcho approached the throne and there was much whispering. Blade waited, breathing easier now, his heart still thudding.

King Org, Totha, and Honcho were approaching him. The silence in the arena persisted, as if no one even dared to breathe.

They were close now. Then Honcho and Totha halted and King Org came on alone. He fell to his knees before Blade. He reached to touch the b.l.o.o.d.y sword, ran his finger along the steel, and marked his forehead with the blood.

Org's voice filled the arena: "Mazda! HE WHO COMES TO THEY! Mazda! Who has come to us, to the Pethcines instead, to lead us back into Tharn and to our heritage. Mazda! Lord Mazda! We welcome you. We accept you. We obey you. Give me, Lord Mazda, a sign of your love."

So that only Blade could hear, Org said: "Touch me on the shoulder with the sword. Then Totha will come. Do the same with her. Then go with her, follow her, quickly! Take the sword with you."

Blade nodded. He was, then, going to get out of this alive. He raised the great sword and touched Org on the shoulder with the b.l.o.o.d.y point.

Then Totha came forward. Honcho remained where he was. The neuter's face was impa.s.sive, his eyes nearly closed, and he did not look happy.

Totha knelt before Blade. She touched the sword and smeared blood on her forehead as her father had done. Her voice was light, clear and melodious, carrying far as she spoke.

"Accept my love also, Lord Mazda. And give me yours."

Blade touched her bare shoulder with the sword. Gutar's blood had not yet thickened and some of it ran down her collar bone and trickled like a red worm between her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Totha stood up and extended her hand. "Come with me," she said softly. "Do not speak. Bring the sword with you."

She led Blade across the arena, over the crimsoned sand, her hand firm and strong in his. He could feel her trembling and knew that she was terribly excited.

Blade could feel the thousands of Pethcine eyes on him as they walked behind the throne and approached a narrow pa.s.sage. Two guards stepped aside and fell to their knees at a sharp command from the girl. They bowed their heads and did not look at Blade.

The pa.s.sage was narrow, twisting and turning, and lit by flaring torches in sconces. As they rounded the first turning Blade could hear Org speaking to the crowd again, then the sudden crashing roar of what sounded like acceptance and approval.

Totha led him into a small chamber cut in the stone. A single torch glowed smokily against the wall. In one corner was a pallet of skins. A water jar, its sides glistening with moisture, hung from a peg. Blade took his hand from Totha's and stepped toward the water jar. She tugged at him fiercely.

"I am thirsty," said Blade. "And I would wash and bathe my wound. Have you something to bind it with?"

Totha held him fast She fell on her knees before him and pressed her mouth to the wound on his thigh.

"I will bind it with my lips."

Blade leaned on the sword and stared down at her. Some of her excitement transferred itself to him. A faint tremor began in his legs as her mouth caressed him. He put a big hand on her glistening head and she made a soft moaning sound.

Her scarlet stained mouth gaped up at him, the perfect little bones of her teeth glinting through the blood. When she spoke her voice was trembling, yet oddly firm and commanding. "We are alone. When we are alone you are not Mazda, but you are still my Lord. Only do not misunderstand. I rule. You do not. I command. You obey. I desire. You give.

"I thank you for slaying my brother, Gutar. I had grown very weary of him. When I have become weary of you I will have you slain also, but that time is far to come. Obey me, Lord, and submit with all your great body to my desires. None will come. None dares intrude on Totha in this place."

As she began her phallic worship Blade's hands closed around the jeweled hilt of the great sword. He closed his eyes and let his body surrender, but his brain was clear and active.

He had come far into the labyrinth, still had far to go, and he could see no glimmer of light ahead. Yet it must be there.