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Chapter 18




O’BRIEN REMOVED HIS RAGS of uniform, folding the clothing neatly before putting it down on the mattress.

“Get undressed,” he ordered Grimes.

“Why?”

“It’s the rule.”

“We’re issued with armour, I suppose?” asked Grimes as he shrugged out of his coveralls, assisted unnecessarily by Shirl and Darken.

“Armour?” O’Brien laughed harshly. “Not on your sweet Nelly. The customers pay to see naked flesh, to see it torn and bleeding. But come on, all of you. Let’s get the show on the road.”

Following the big man they walked through the cave. Heads turned to follow their progress. Some expressions were sympathetic. Most said, all too clearly, Thank the Odd Gods that it’s not us. This time.

There was a small, metal door in the rock wall which opened when they were almost up to it, which closed after them. They walked along a short tunnel, came to a brightly lit recess which, fantastically, seemed to be a shop, although the shopkeeper behind the wide counter was dressed as a Roman soldier, the only anachronisms in his attire being the wrist companion and the holstered stungun.

He smiled greasily at the gladiators.

“And what can I do you for today, Mr. O’Brien? Your usual battleaxe, I suppose? And for the ladies? Spears and boomerangs and a nulla nulla?” Behind him an assistant was taking the lethal tools down from racks. Grimes stared. There was indeed a remarkably comprehensive collection of weaponry. He was pleased to see that there were crossbows very similar to the ones that he had already used. “And for the new gentleman? I assume that he’ll be wanting a long range weapon—unless you’re changing the make-up of your team.” He addressed Grimes directly. “We have a nice line in shuriken, sir. There’s been no demand for them since Mr. Komatsu and Miss Tanaka—er—left us.”

“An arbalest,” said Grimes. “And a dozen quarrels.” He added, “Please.” To antagonise this fat slob, who would be quite capable of issuing sub-standard weaponry, would be foolish.

“An arbalest we can do you, sir. But not a dozen quarrels. Two only is the rule. Of course, you can use them more than once—if you can get them back, just as Miss Shirley can do with her boomerangs . . .”

The assistant took an arbalest down from the rack, held it up for Grimes’ inspection.

“To your satisfaction, sir?” asked the pseudo-centurion. “Good. Then let us not keep the customers waiting—your customers, that is. Your props will be waiting for you in the arena. And the best of luck, Mr. O’Brien. We shall be watching on our trivi.”

“Thank you,” O’Brien said before moving on. Then, when the party was out of earshot beyond a bend in the tunnel, “That two-faced bastard! But we have to be polite to him . . . My dream is to have him out on the sand against me one day . . .”

They came to the last door. They stepped through it into hot air, into dazzling sunlight reflected from white, freshly raked sand. Trumpets blared martial music, accompanied by drums and cymbals. There was some applause but it was bored rather than enthusiastic.

Grimes, squinting against the harsh light, looked around him. There were the tiers of canopied seats ringing the huge arena. O’Brien’s team, he thought, would not be playing before a capacity house; nonetheless only about a third of the seating was unoccupied. Some members of the audience were dressed for the occasion in rather phoney looking togas and gowns. There was a royal box under a very elaborate canopy, the human occupants of which were clad in imperial purple. The non-human ones were (but of course) Shaara.

“Our weapons,” said O’Brien, walking towards where these had been set down on the sand.

There was the wicked-looking battleaxe, the two long spears, the steel arbalest with two short quarrels. There were a nobbly wooden club and two boomerangs, but these were cruciform and not of the familiar crescent shape. An arbalest and boomerangs, thought Grimes, and that royal box within range . . . But the air shimmered above the fence dividing the lower tier of seats from the arena. It must be, he decided, a forcefield.

The music ceased.

An amplified voice announced, “And now, for our second event, Battler O’Brien and his team versus the sand rays of Sere! May the best beings win!”

O’Brien had picked up and was hefting the long-handled axe, the women had their own weapons in hand. Grimes loaded the arbalest. He wished that he had a pouch of some kind for the spare quarrel.

“Sand rays,” muttered O’Brien. “Do you know them, Grimes? They skim over the surface, not quite flying. All teeth and leathery wings. There’ll be six of the bastards. Aim for the single eye. Your crossbow will be better against ’em than Shirl’s boomerangs . . .”

Would it be? Grimes wondered. Far too little effort had been required to cock the arbalest. It would not have anything like the range of the weapons that he had acquired at Camp Diana.

Again the trumpets brayed!

At the far end of the arena gates opened. In the darkness beyond them Grimes saw something stirring, a shadowy undulation. The gladiators waited tensely. “Try not to move,” whispered O’Brien. “Movement attracts them.” The audience waited impatiently. “Send Battler O’Brien in to chase them out!” screamed a woman. “He’s just standing there doing nothing—and we’re paying for it!”

“I’d like to send you in, you fat bitch!” O’Brien muttered. The trumpets brayed again.

“You, O’Brien!” roared a voice from the speakers. “Jump up and down! Dance!”

“Get stuffed,” O’Brien said. Probably he was heard; directional microphones must be trained on the team.

“O’Brien! Hear this! Unless you do something it’s you and your people for the Snuff Palace—for one performance only!” O’Brien brandished his battleaxe; the sunlight was reflected dazzlingly from the broad, polished blade. It was enough. The sandrays came out of the pen in line ahead, moving fast, the tips of their wings skimming the sand, throwing up a white, glittering spray. They were fearsome beasts, their huge, open mouths rimmed with long, sharp yellow teeth. In the centres of their domed heads balefully gleamed their single golden eyes. Clear of the pen their formation opened up. Grimes selected his target, took aim. The range, he thought, was still too great but it was closing rapidly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shirl throw her first boomerang but did not see what result she achieved. At least she had not aimed at the sand ray that he regarded as his . . .

“Shoot!” O’Brien, was yelling. “Shoot, damn you!”

Grimes, before he pulled the trigger, elevated the arbalest slightly. As he had suspected this was a relatively weak weapon; the trajectory of the quarrel was far from flat. But instinctively—or luckily—he had corrected accordingly. He saw the bolt hit, stooped to fumble for the remaining one in the sand. And then he had to reload.

By this time the sand rays—four of them—were among the gladiators. A huge wing knocked Grimes sprawling. He heard one of the girls scream, O’Brien roaring. He got to his feet, still clutching the arbalest. Miala pushed him over as she danced by, brandishing her long spear. Again he tried to get up but Darleen was standing over him, legs astride. Her heavy club smashed into the open mouth of a sand ray coming in for the kill, splintering sword-like teeth but snatched from her hand by those remaining. The huge, fast-moving body swept her away from Grimes, passed over him in a wave of evil smelling darkness. The long, barbed tail flicked his chest, tearing the skin, drawing blood.

He got once again to his feet.

He ignored the melee over to his right; he got the impression that O’Brien, Miala and Leeuni were well able to take care of themselves. He ran towards where the ray had the struggling Darleen on the ground, worrying her like a terrier with a rat. She was still alive, her long legs, all that could be seen of her, were kicking frantically. Shirl was sprawled on the back of the beast, her arms around the domed head, the fingers of both eyes clawing at the single eye. The tail was arching up, up, over and forward, its spiked tip stabbing viciously down. Blood was running from the girl’s back and buttocks.

Grimes ran around to the front of the fight. He raised his crossbow. At this range he could not miss. Shirl saw him, withdrew her hands. He fired. The steel bolt drove through the tough, glassy membrane protecting the eye, into the brain beneath. The wings flailed in a brief flurry of sand and then were still. Shirl joined Grimes to pull Darleen from under the ray’s head. Her body was a mass of blood, her own and the green ichor from the animal’s wounds.

But she could still grin up at them.

“I knocked most of the bastard’s teeth out,” she whispered, “but he could still give me a nasty suck . . .”

But what of the others?

The fight was almost over. Only one ray still survived and Miala and Leeuni were leaning on their long spears, watching O’Brien finish it off. Its tail was gone, and one wing. It was floundering around in a circle on the greenstained sand, whining almost supersonically. With a dazzling display of axemanship the big man was hacking off the other wing, piece by piece, working in from tip to root. The crowd, to judge from the applause, was loving the brutal spectacle.

It sickened Grimes.

He took the long spear from Leeuni’s unresisting hand, awaited his chance and then drove the sharp point into the sand ray’s eye.

The death flurry was both short and unspectacular. O’Brien lowered his axe, stood there glaring madly at Grimes.

He howled, “What did you do that for?”

“I was putting the beast out of its misery.”

“You had no right. It was mine. Mine!”

Axe upraised again the maddened O’Brien charged at Grimes, who brought up the spear to defend himself. The blade of the weapon, still sharp, sheared off the head of the spear and, on the second swing lopped short the shaft with which he was trying to hold off his berserk assailant.

It was Darleen who saved Grimes’ life. Or Shirl. Or both of them. A thin slab of sand ray’s wing, flung by Shirl with force and accuracy, struck the descending blade of the axe, deflecting it. And Darleen, coming up behind O’Brien, hit him, hard, on the back of the head with her nulla nulla

He gasped, staggered.

Darleen hit him again.

He stumbled, sagged. He dropped the battleaxe then followed it to the sand. His hands made scrabbling motions.

The crowd was roaring, screaming. Grimes looked towards the royal box. A tall, portly man, wearing a purple toga and with something golden on his bald head, had both arms extended before him, was making a gesture that Grimes had no trouble in interpreting, with which he had no intention of complying.

Darleen, on the point of collapse herself but still holding her club, asked doubtfully, “Shall I?”

“No,” said Grimes. “No.”

The amplified voice came from the speakers, “Grimes! The verdict is thumbs down!”

“No!” he shouted defiantly.

“Darleen! Shirl! The verdict is thumbs down!”

“No!” they called.

Grimes heard movement behind him, turned to see the advancing guards in their archaic helmets and breastplates, their metallic kilts. Their pistols were modern enough.

Luckily they were only stunguns, Grimes thought as the blast hit him.

Before he lost consciousness he wondered if this were so lucky.







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