Spasmodically, Jarl twisted round.
The primitive with the blazing brand still stood statue-like at the corner of the great stone slab.
Black-Mask snarled another order. His henchmen jerked Jarl back—lifting him, swinging him upward, till he hung suspended above the altar.
By instinct, Jarl wrenched against them; felt them, too, stiffen in the face of his resistance.
But if he could not fight them, perhaps there was another way....
Before they could lower him to the slab, he let himself go limp, loose-limbed and unresisting as any corpse.
It broke their balance. He hit the stone with a sodden thud ... lay there unmoving, head lolled back.
For the fraction of a second their grip relaxed.
It was Jarl's moment.... Savagely, then, he lashed out with all his might, in a violent spasm of arms and legs and torso. His feet smashed the metal mask into one primitive's face. His elbow sank fist-deep in another's midriff.