Death in a Bowl
Dyta, the sun, climbed his blue ladder and looked down at the city of Sephar in its mountain fastness. Behind those gray stone walls hummed an activity found there only five days in every twelve moons.
For today was the first of the Game days. Since early morning the streets leading to the great amphitheater were packed with an eager citizenry, pushing and jostling its way toward the arena's several entrances. Those first to arrive had their choice of seats; consequently many had huddled beneath heavy cloaks outside the barred gates during the dark hours, awaiting the moment when they might enter.
It was a colorful throng, every member light-hearted, gay and friendly. Men and women pushed and tugged at their neighbors—friend and stranger alike—to keep the milling mass moving. Most of them carried parcels of food, for the Games lasted each day until the hour of sunset. Whole family groups were numerous: father, mother, and the brood of children. Many of the latter were mere infants, watching the swarm of shifting humanity with wide wondering eyes.
Patrolling the avenues and directing the crowds at the gates were many priests in white tunics. This was to be their day, as well; for shortly before the Games got under way, elaborate rites, honoring the God, were to be held, in which every priest was to take part.
Truly, this was the day of days.
In the great cell beneath Sephar's streets, Tharn, Katon, Vulcar, Rotark, Brosan, Brutan and Gorlat squatted in a group about a huge earthen bowl of stewed meat. They, together with the balance of the prisoners, had been aroused from sleep an hour before sunrise, and had been given food that their strength and endurance might be equal to the tasks ahead.
Katon, seated across from Tharn, caught the Cro-Magnard's eye and nodded significantly.
"For a man who may be dead within a few hours," he said grimly, "you seem very cheerful."
Tharn grinned. "Would you have me seek out Pryak and beg for my life?"
The others laughed. Brutan put down a bone from which he had gnawed the meat, and belched with frank satisfaction. "I will show them how a real man fights!" he declared. "With my bare hands I once slew a leopard!"
Brosan made a derisive sound. "It must have been a very old leopard."
Brutan's complacent expression vanished. "You lie!" he bellowed, glaring belligerently at his heckler. "It was a great, full-grown—"
"Quiet, you fool!" snapped Katon. "This is no time to start a brawl."
Brutan mumbled something under his breath and went back to his bone.
Rotark wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "How many of us will see the end of this day?" he asked in doleful tones. "Take Gorlat, here—so careful not to soil his tunic. It may soak in his own blood before darkness comes again!"
The blond young man kept his mechanical smile. He said: "Not if they give me a knife...."
Something in the soft words brought a momentary silence to the group. What had Vulcar said yesterday about this handsome, graceful youth? "Few men equal him in handling a knife...."
Katon said, "It will be an hour before the Games actually get under way. First they must finish the rites honoring the God-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken—a lengthy ritual. Then the guards will come, select a few of us, give them arms and send them into the arena."
"Somehow," Tharn said thoughtfully, "I wonder if it is wise to wait until the third day before putting our plan into action. After three days many of our men will have died in the arena. We shall need every man we can get."
Katon rubbed his chin, frowning. "True," he admitted. "But to hurry this thing would be fatal. The guards must be satisfied that everything is going smoothly before they relax their watchfulness.
"Although we shall lose men," he continued, "I believe many of the soldiers and citizens of Sephar will join us when the revolt gets under way. Few, I imagine, regard Pryak with favor; they should welcome a chance to end his power and make one of their own men king."
Then and there the germ of an idea was implanted in Tharn's mind—an idea destined to bear fruit in the days ahead.
For the better part of an hour the seven ring-leaders moved about the chamber, talking with groups of prisoners, discussing various phases of the plan Tharn had concocted. So confident did the seven seem, that many a despondent captive was caught up by their infectious spirit and began to grow impatient for the Games to start that the two days might pass the sooner.
At last the noise of sandaled feet sounded in the corridor, and a moment later the door was thrust open.
Five men came in: four well-armed priests wearing white tunics edged in black; and another, who was as different from the nondescript priests as Sadu differs from Botu, the jackal.
Head and shoulders above his companions towered this fifth man; his face was strong and proud, and from either side of a blade-like nose, eyes of blue fire swept over the crowded room.
Katon nudged the Cro-Magnard. "That tall one is Wotar, director of the Games. He is no priest; and before Urim died, was one of Sephar's most powerful nobles. He has been Game director for a long time; and since he seems still in charge, must be high in Pryak's favor."
Wotar may have heard the whispered words, for he glanced sharply in Katon's direction. The glittering eyes stopped at the sight of Tharn, taking in the graceful contours and swelling thews beneath the clear bronzed skin.
"You," Wotar said quietly, crooking a long forefinger at the cave-man.
At first, Tharn did not fully comprehend; but when two of the priests laid hold of his arms, his doubt was gone.
"Goodbye, my friend." Katon's voice was sad. "We shall watch for your return."
"I will be back," Tharn promised from the doorway. Then he was gone, the great door crashing shut behind him.
Tharn, preceded and followed by guards, was led along the corridor to where it ended before a narrow door. In response to Wotar's knock it opened, disclosing a small chamber almost filled with a miscellany of weapons of every type known to prehistoric man. An attendant stood in the center of the room, awaiting instructions from the director.
"No weapons," Wotar said briefly. He turned to the cave-man. "You are to go directly to the arena's center and wait for whatever I send against you. Make a good fight of it and the crowd will be for you. That can mean much to you. If you manage to kill your opponent, return here at once. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Wotar nodded to the attendant and the arena door was opened, flooding the room with sunshine. Tharn, blinking in the sudden light, stepped out on to the white sands of Sephar's Colosseum.
That which met his eyes was something Tharn was never to forget. The sandy floor was perhaps three hundred feet in length and half as many in width—a perfectly symmetrical ellipse surrounded by a sheer stone wall twelve feet in height. Beyond that wall the spectator stands began, tier upon tier of stone benches sloping up and back for fifty yards to the last row.
The thousands of seats were filled with a shifting mass of humans, most of whom had risen as Tharn came into sight.
Never before had the cave-man seen so many people at one time; and the noise and confusion affected him exactly as it would any jungle denizen. His first instinctive impulse was to retreat, not because of fright, for he knew no fear, but because it was strange and unpleasant and, worst of all, there was that infernal din which only man of all animals can long endure.
The cave lord halted and half turned as though to withdraw, but the crowd, believing him to be afraid, set up an ear-splitting clamor of catcalls, whistlings and raucous shouts that whirled the barbarian about in sudden anger.
For a long moment he glared at the multi-eyed beast above him; then a slight sound at his back aroused him to his immediate surroundings.
He wheeled just as a huge figure launched itself at his neck. Before Tharn could prevent it, strong fingers closed about his throat and the impact of a solid body sent him staggering, saved from falling only by superhuman effort.
During the seconds in which all this transpired, Tharn had discovered what it was that had leaped cat-like upon him. He saw a great hulk of a man, naked except for a pelt about his loins; a man with muscles bulging so in arms, legs and shoulders as to constitute a deformity. He was not quite so tall as Tharn, with an ugly, hairy face, contorted with rage.
With the speed of a striking snake Tharn's hands came up, caught the wrists at his throat and tore away those choking fingers as though they were so many strands of cobweb. Then Tharn seized the other before he could twist free—caught him by thrusting an arm between the crotch of those gnarled legs while the other hand held to a hairy forearm. Lifting him thus, Tharn swung the man aloft like a bundle of grass, then flung him heavily to the sands a dozen paces away.
The onlookers came to their feet with a swelling roar of approval. This was what they had come to see; and they set up a deafening clamor that seemed to shake the stands. Tharn never heard them.
Now the dazed enemy was scrambling to his feet. Before he was fully erect, Tharn was upon him with the silent ferocity of Jalok, the panther. Grabbing the cringing man by the throat, the cave-man lifted him bodily from the sands, and holding him at forearm's length, shook him as a terrier shakes a rodent; shook him until the screaming voice was stilled as the senses fled and the white figure hung limp and motionless within Tharn's grasp.
Then, while the crowd watched in thrilled horror, Tharn dropped to one knee, placed the dead weight of his unconscious foe against his leg and snapped the man's spine as he might have broken a slender branch.
Rising, Tharn tossed aside the lifeless body and, not deigning to acknowledge by look or gestures the pandemonium of acclaim, disappeared through the arms-room door.
On the same morning that the Sepharian Games had opened, a band of fifty warriors, clothed only in animal skins about their middles, halted on the outskirts of an impenetrable forest which towered across their path. At their backs was a broad prairie that had required many days to cross.
The leader of the group, a man of heroic proportions, called together three of the men and engaged them in earnest conversation. Several times he gestured toward the mouth of a game trail leading into the jungle; but the others continued to shake their heads as though unconvinced.
"He would not go that way," one of them was saying. "In that direction are high hills, and beyond those are great mountains he could not hope to pass."
"We do not know that he came even this far," said another of the three. "We lost his trail over two suns ago; he may have changed his path many times since then."
Their leader silenced them with a wave of his hand. "You have told me nothing to change my mind. The trail lies ahead; when we can go no farther will be time enough to turn back and seek in a new direction."
A few minutes later the last of the band had passed from view between the walls of vegetation lining the narrow path.
Dylara, seated just behind the retaining wall of the arena, watched Tharn's broad back pass through the little doorway. About her was the murmur of many voices exclaiming over the exhibition of brute strength they had just witnessed. Dimly she heard Alurna telling of being rescued by that same forest god, the three nobles from Ammad serving as audience.
The cave-girl was trying hard to analyze the tangled emotions resulting from Tharn's appearance. Something related to the sensation she had known when he had taken her in his arms after striking Sadu dead, had come back to her. Why did sight of him make her heart leap with that peculiar breathless swoop? No one else she had ever known could effect it so. How handsome, how magnificent he had appeared, standing there on the white sands, sweeping the crowd with a contemptuous glance before leaving the arena.
She stole a glance at the handsome profile of Jotan as he listened politely to Alurna's story. How fortunate she was to have won the love of this man. In him were qualities all women sought in the men of their choice. Good-looking, kindly, thoughtful, an honorable position in his world—what more could any man offer?
Yet only Tharn, untamed man of the caves, could make her heart leap and thrill—something Jotan might never be able to do.
Last night a priest had come to the great room where she had been taken upon her return to Sephar. He had brought her to Jotan's quarters, and she had spent the night there, sharing a room with the princess Alurna, who had welcomed the opportunity of leaving the palace.
The two girls had little to say to each other. Alurna had regarded the slave-girl with unmasked loathing; while Dylara, after the first cold rebuff of her attempt to be friendly, had withdrawn into a shell of silence.
On the following morning, however, Alurna had surprised Dylara by displaying an attitude of warm friendliness toward her. Behind this sudden change was the secret decision of the princess to undermine Jotan's attempts to win the slave-girl....
Just as the second event was about to get under way, Jotan got up, excused himself and made his way to the section of the stands reserved for Pryak and the Council of Priests. There he took a seat beside the high priest.
Pryak glanced at him with a questioning lift of his eyebrows.
"O Voice of the God," said Jotan, "my men and I have kept our promise to attend the opening of the Games. We are anxious to start on our journey, and ask your permission to depart without further loss of time."
Sephar's enthusiastic reception of the Games thus far, had put the king in high humor.
"As you wish, Jotan," he said, rising and placing his hands on the other's shoulders. "I ask of the God a safe and uneventful journey for you and your men. And to Jaltor of Ammad, I send my greetings and avowals of lasting friendship. Explain to him my reasons for placing Urim's daughters in his care. He will approve, I am sure."
"All you have asked shall be done," promised Jotan. "And now, Pryak, king of Sephar and Voice of the God, I bid you farewell."
Turning, Jotan hurried along the stone aisle to his own lodge and waiting friends. Once there, he raised himself to his full height and waved both arms above his head.
Directly across the arena a group of some forty or fifty warriors rose in a body and started toward the nearest exit.
"Come," Jotan said, motioning to the balance of those in his party. "We start at once for Ammad."
Dylara stood up, casting one last look toward the closed doorway through which Tharn had passed not long before. He had been her last tie with the old life. Now she was about to leave all that behind, to go into a new world at the side of a man she greatly admired. Why was her heart so heavy? Was it because she would never again see the caves of her people—the face of her father? Or was it because Tharn was lost to her, forever? Even should he come through the Games alive, she would be gone—separated from him by the vast distance between Sephar and the country Jotan called home.
Jotan had told her something of the long stretches of untracked jungles and waterless plains between Sephar and Ammad. From others of the visitors she had heard stories of savage beasts and wild tribes of men that haunted the mountain trails and forest-cloaked ravines to the south. And beyond the mountains began a level monotony of grasslands that reached to still more mountains forming the boundary to Ammad itself.
The street before the building allocated to the visitors swarmed with hurrying figures bearing a wide assortment of articles to be bound into individual packs for easy handling.
Jotan took active charge. Quickly the line of march began to take form. Broad-shouldered men swung compact bundles to their backs; well-armed warriors took up their positions; and last of all, strongly made litters of animal skins stretched between long poles, arrived for use of the two female members of the party.
Dylara, following the example set by Alurna, seated herself in the exact center of the sheet of skins as it lay in the street. Two brawny attendants stepped forward, bent, one at either end of the wooden poles, and in perfect unison swung the rods to their shoulders.
From his position at the column's forefront, Jotan looked back and waved a greeting to the two girls. Satisfied that all were in place, he shouted a command and the safari got under way.
Across the city they marched, through wide-flung gates in the great walls, and on across the cleared space beyond. Before them rose the majestic trees and thick matted foliage of the forbidding jungle; and here, leading directly southward through a tangled maze, was the beginnings of a well-beaten trail, the first of many such roadways the little cortege must follow before far-off Ammad could be reached.
Just before the marchers entered the forest, Dylara turned to look back at Sephar's walls, grim and impressive under the sun's flaming rays. Still behind those sullen piles of rock was the man she could not forget. Something deep within her whispered that she had found love only to lose it; that happiness for her lay in forgetting, forever, the stalwart young giant who had snatched her from a peaceful, uneventful life.
Once more she looked back, and abruptly the stone walls wavered and dimmed as hot tears flooded her eyes....