CHAPTER IX

This was Amara's great arena. The oval pit was full twenty feet deep and floored with sand ... sand that here and there was churned and trodden, stained dark brown with men's life blood.

Above the pit, seats rose into the star-flecked night in steep-banked tiers.

Those seats were full, now--packed from pit to rim with the savage, dark-faced _Malya_ breed, a blood-lusting horde whose cries for slaughter rose in great, swelling waves like the screams of primeval beasts.

In the forefront, ringing the rim of the pit, sat the _Malya_ chieftain and his court--the old raiders, the men of power, the warriors and their women.

And there, too, sat another woman, a slim, lovely _Malyalara_, placed close beside the chief himself.

Talu.

Slave girl no longer, she now wore a gown of richest _kalor_. Jeweled clips held the rippling, blue-black hair, and a jewel-studded harness accented her shoulders' softness, her throat's clean curve, the bare breasts' proud, firm swell.

Ankle-deep in the sand of the pit, Shane surveyed them, one and all.

Now the _Malya_ chief leaned forward across the rim, a long fighting knife in his hand. His deep-set eyes gleamed anticipation. "You are the first, Earthman ... you and this knife against a _zanth_!"

Boldly, Shane met the chieftain's stare. "And if I win--?"

For the fraction of a second a sort of dull, throbbing silence seemed to fall over the crowd. Then it broke in a gale of wild, tumultuous laughter, echoing and re-echoing upward to the stars.

"If you win--?" the _Malya_ chieftain choked. "Have you stayed too long in the sun of Mercury, _chitza_? No man has ever come out of the pit over a _zanth_."

"What holds for other men is not for me. I asked: what if I win?"

* * * * *

Admiration showed in the _Malya's_ dark face. "If you fight as boldly as you talk--small wonder that the _Chonyas_ made you _gar_!" And then: "If you win, you'll live--but here, on Amara, forever a slave."

"I ask no more," Shane came back coldly. Again his blue eyes swept the crowd, the sparkling night of a thousand stars. For a moment his gaze lingered on Talu, catching the fever in her eyes, the tension carved in every line. The noise of the shouting horde above beat down upon him. The fetid stench of the _zanth_ came to his nostrils from the tunnel-chute.

"Your weapon, Earthman!" cried the _Malya_ chief, and threw it down. "Keeper, prepare to loose the _zanth_!"

In one swift motion, Shane swept up the knife. Then, quickly, he moved to the shadows along the wall of the pit, out of the smoky torches' flickering glare.

In the tunnel, the _zanth_ roared thunderously. Shane caught a glimpse of the panic on Kyrsis' pale face, where she sat in the prisoners' cage; of the fear that crawled in Quos Reggar's great lobed eyes.

Overhead, the _Malya_ chieftain cried, "Turn loose the _zanth_!"

The heavy-grilled gate at the tunnel mouth swung up. In the blackness beyond, the _zanth's_ eyes burned like coals of fire. Again it roared, and then again. Then, slowly, it came forward, out into the pit, there to stand for a moment, blinking against the glare.

Shane sucked in air. This _zanth_ was big, bigger than any he had ever seen ... well over twenty feet. The murderous, serrated tail alone measured at least seven, and the great jaws were of a size to snap a man in two in a single bite. Its scales were big as dinner plates, and as thick, horny with age. Spurs and claws gleamed in the torchlight like curved knives.

Then the great, ringed nostrils flared as the creature scented Shane. The spiked diamond head came round, twisting and turning on the monstrous, snake-like neck; darting and probing to the full five feet of its length. The stink of its breath swept over the Earthman in a nauseous wave.

Shane stood very still.

But already the _zanth_ was turning. The bulging eyes gleamed redly, searching for him.

The knife-haft was slippery in Shane's hand. A rill of sweat crept down his spine.

The _zanth_ paused now, the spiked head moving sinuously to and fro. The tail flicked the blood-stained sand. Its powerful, armor-scaled body seemed to draw together.

Shane forgot to breathe.

The _zanth_ lunged.

* * * * *

Shane dived as the great spiked head lanced forward. The jaws snapped shut where he had been with a clacking like the sound of monstrous castanets.

After that, there was no time for anything but action.

For even before the Earthman hit the ground, the thing was whirling. The claws of its eight feet sprayed the sand like a windstorm. Again, it lunged.

Desperately, Shane rolled out of the way.

But now the serrated, seven-foot tail lashed out at him, with a force that would have smashed through a solid brick wall.

Again Shane rolled--in, towards the _zanth's_ body.

One of the feet clawed for him. A six-inch talon raked a bloody path along his side.

Panting, the Earthman scrambled away--back to the shadows, the wall of the pit.

The _zanth_ whirled; charged.

Taut-muscled, Shane waited till the diamond head hammered forward. Then, in the last instant, he leaped aside.

The _zanth's_ head smashed against the wall of the pit. Savagely, Shane stabbed for the crevice where the jaw-plates met, trying for the creature's tiny brain.

But the tough cartilage turned away the blade. With a roar, the _zanth_ struck at him.

Shane leaped high into the air, and the awful head passed beneath him. Twisting, he landed on the writhing, tree-thick neck; balanced there for a precarious moment.

The _zanth_ reared back, clawing for him, and Shane sprang clear. Again he took up his stand against the wall.

This time, the _zanth_ broke off its charge to flail at him with its tail. Barely in time, the Earthman got out of the way. He was breathing hard, now--his whole body shaking under the strain.

The _zanth_ lunged.

Desperately, Shane snatched up a handful of sand, hurled it straight into the oncoming monster's glaring eyes.

The creature came up short, shaking its head.

Shane moved like a striking _quirst_. Again he snatched sand, hurled it.

* * * * *

The _zanth_ raised its head high, to the full length of the five-foot neck. Clawing, it leaped at the Earthman. The awful talons shredded his clothes, tore at his flesh.

Shane threw himself sideways.

The head lanced towards him.

He slashed at the eyes with his knife, felt the steel bite in.

A wild roar burst from the creature's throat. It threw itself at Shane in a frenzy, clawing and snapping and threshing.

Once more, Shane sprang aside--then darted back before the creature could make the double turn. Leaping to its neck, he threw himself flat upon it, clinging to it with legs and one arm as to a writhing log, while with the other hand, the knife hand, he stabbed again and again at the bulging eyes.

The _zanth_ roared its agony. Twisting and jerking, it struggled to unseat the Earthman. One clawed foot reached his leg; laid it open. But still Shane clung to his place, slashing and stabbing.

Blindly, the monster crashed against the pit's wall. It reared, then surged forward, clawing its way up the sheer face. The great spiked head rocked and swayed; beat against the stonework in a spasm of pain, less than three feet below the rim.

A fierce light flamed in Shane's eyes. Clutching the base of the spike, he suddenly let go the _zanth's_ neck with his legs. His toes dug into the overlap between the scales, and all at once he was running upward--up the snake-neck, onto the diamond head itself.

And then, before the _Malyas_ realized what was happening, he leaped from the head to the rim of the pit. The fighting knife flashed in a savage arc. A warrior's shout choked off in a rush of blood. The others about him scrambled back from the slashing blade.

Behind Shane, back in the pit, the _zanth_ screamed and hurled itself upward. Its head came over the rim. With a mighty, surging leap, its forefeet followed. A terrible roar burst from its throat as it caught the scent of the _Malya_ warrior's blood, and it clawed its way onward, upward, out of the pit and into the rising tiers of seats.

* * * * *

It was a nightmare, a world gone mad. Wildly, the screaming _Malyas_ fled. But the _zanth's_ great tail lashed out and a score of them fell, crushed or smashed into the pit. The knife-claws tore; the great jaws ran ruby-red with blood.

Forgotten, Shane followed the panicked mob.

Only then, somehow, a voice slashed through to him through the tumult: "Shane--_Shane!_"

He whirled.

Talu was running towards him, across the seats. "This way!"

For an instant he hesitated, then changed his course to meet hers.

She caught his hand. "This way!"

Together, they raced back towards the chief's box at the rim of the pit, and now Shane saw that a trap door in the floor had been lifted.

"Hurry!" cried the _Malyalara_. "In a moment the warriors will bring in a proton cannon to kill the _zanth_, and someone will think of you, too. You must be gone before then!"

Shane shot one look at the pitch-black shaft. "Where does it go?"

"To a passage below the arena that leads to the chief's castle and the ramps. We can steal a flyer there. But hurry!"

Shane shot one quick look back.

The _zanth_ still raged and ravened through the crowd, but already the warriors had rallied to hem it in.

Tightly, he said to Talu: "You first, then."

"First?"

"Do you think I'd let you get behind me?" he clipped bitterly. "Fool that I am, I'll go with you, because I have no choice. But my knife will be in your back every step of the way, ready for your next betrayal."

"'Betrayal'?" she repeated, and now the heat of anger was in her voice, her eyes. "Did you say betrayal, Earthman?"

"What would you call it?" He made no effort to keep the fury from his tone. "Who tripped me when I would have stabbed Quos Reggar? Who shot a second dose of _theol_ into my veins?"

She drew away from him, then, and the look she threw stung like a whip. "Come, _Sha_ Shane. If that is your belief, then I must indeed go first." Lithely, she lowered herself over the edge of the shaft and disappeared down a metal ladder set in one wall.

* * * * *

Knife still in hand, Shane followed. The effort made him shake, and under the strain of climbing, the claw-wound in his side began to bleed again.

Then, at last, they were in the murky passageway below, and Talu was leading him swiftly through the darkness. Once Shane staggered and would have fallen, had not the _Malyalara_ caught him; and once he dropped the knife. But she picked it up again, and her groping hand strayed into the blood as she sought to return the weapon. So she made him sit down while she tore up some garment and bandaged his wounds, and her fingers were very gentle.

They went on again, then, for what seemed endless miles, till at last they came to a huge, dim-lighted ramping-spot where dull black _Malya_ flyers stood in ordered rows, their bubbles pointed up into the starlit sky. And finally they even found one with its lower hatches open, and the girl helped Shane to climb aboard. She strapped him in the pilot's seat, and herself in the other seat beside him.

For a long time, it seemed, he worked at the controls with clumsy fingers, till at last, somehow, they were blasting off, roaring up and up and up into the gaudy heavens. And Talu talked to him, and braced him, and helped him hold the jet-globe steady, while seconds, or maybe hours, ticked by.

Only then, suddenly, the sky about them was full of ships, great black-hulled ships that were built for ranging clear across the void. They came in hundreds--thousands, maybe--blazing in thunderous silence through the blackness of spatial night. And one of the ships swerved and came alongside the little _Malya_ flyer, and a great hatch opened in its side and sucked them in.

Then the hatch slid closed again, and the darkness about them was complete. Even their jets were blacked out, killed by the great ship's pickup neutralizers.

And still Shane sat in silence, staring stupidly straight ahead.

But the body of the girl, Talu, came warm against him in the ebon murk, her voice a fierce, husky whisper in his ear: "You must believe me, Shane! I did not betray you--not ever! The things I did, I had to do, in order to live to pay back the blood debt of my people. You could never have killed Quos Reggar with one thrust, no matter where, for he is a cross-bred mongrel, and his body does not work as ours do."

Shane forced out words: "Why tell me now? Why care about it?"

"Why? Why?" The girl's voice held a tremor now, a fear not even the black could hide. "I tell you so that you will know, and not die hating me to your last breath. That I could not stand! For die we will, and soon--because this ship is one of Reggar's slavers!"