CHAPTER VIII
They dragged Haral out of his cell just after noon.
Wearily, he raised his eyes from his shackled wrists and, squinting at the sudden glare, looked up into the yellow Ulnese sky.
He wondered, bleakly, if he'd ever get another chance to taste its freedom.
Then a Pervod took one arm, a dau the other. Roughly, they hurried him into the central park with shoves and buffets.
A shout went up from the lusting crowd—a shout for blood, a shout for slaughter. A Martian leaped forward to trip him. A Thorian slapped a tentacle savagely across his face, and he knew from the blinding pain that flesh had torn away under its suction.
Then he was stumbling through the blood-soaked sand of the arena to the bank of seats where the raider chieftains waited.
And there was Sark, just as before, sprawled out like some great, slimy slug in his ornate Uranian riding-chair.
The raider's fat-rimmed eyes gleamed bright with murderous triumph now. He bared his teeth in a sinister smirk, and his whole gross body shook with a cruel laughter.