Twice I had engaged in hand-to-hand combat, as Joro's Fighting Man, in the Annual Sport—the wars between the cities. Twice I had fought, and now one contest remained.
I had a long ugly scar on the inside of my right arm. My left foot was prosthetic from the calf down. My right eye was gone; I wore a false one next to the cheekbone that had been restored by a series of grafts. Flesh healed quickly and bone knitted fast in Uru. The Uru doctors could heal anyone who lived.
But they could not heal the dead and there was no quarter in the Sport. I expected none for myself as I had given none to the two men I had killed. Two down and one to go. If I won the third I'd be a noble like Joro, my patron, my fighting days over. If I didn't I'd be dead.
Joro had started me out in the back rank, where the danger was least. But I moved up fast, and fought.
Again I was in the back rank, because of my old wounds—but I knew I'd move up this time, too, though there were two good men ahead of me. Like me they were Joro's men, each of us equipped for the Sport.
The equipment:
Steel-claw appendages on our hands.
Feet shod in hooves, sharpened to razor-edge.
Teeth fitted with fangs.
A diagram explained the pattern of battle better—U for Urula, T for Tara. Us against Them, even as in Madison Square Garden or the San Francisco Cow Palace: