Piers Anthony - Sos the Rope

The opposite master watched with frozen face.

Their next was the staffer. Against him Tor had sent the sticks, and the performance was a virtual duplicate of the first. Kin the Sticker fenced ludicrously with one hand while carrying the alternate singlestick under his arm, in his teeth or between his legs, to the lewd glees of the scoffers. He managed to make the staffer look inept and untrained, though the man was neither. Kin beat a tattoo against the staff, as though playing music, and bent down to pepper the man's feet painfully. By this time even some of the warriors of the other tribe were chuckling. . . but not their chief.

The third match was the reverse: Sav met the sticks. He hummed a merry folksong as he poked the slightly bulky belly of his opposite with the end of his staff, preventing him from getting close. "Swing low, sweet chariot!" he sang as he jabbed. The man had to take both sticks in one hand in order ,to make a grab for the staff with the other. "Oh, no John, no John, no John, no!" Say caroled as he wrapped that double hand and sent both sticks flying.

It was not his name, but that man was ever after to be known in the tribe as Jon.

Against their club went Mok the Morningstar. He charged into the circle whirling the terrible spiked ball over his head so that the wind sang through the spikes, and when the club blocked it the chain wrapped around the hand until the orbiting ball came up tight against the dubber's hand and crushed it painfully. Mok yanked, and the club came away, while the man looked at his bleeding fingers. As the star had claimed; his was not a weapon for games.

Mok caught the club, reversed it, and offered the handle to his opponent with a bow. "You have another hand," he said courteously. "Why waste it while good bones remain?" The man stared at him and backed out of the circle, utterly humbled. The last fight was over.

The other master was almost incoherent. "Never have I seen such-such-"

"What did you expect from the buffoons you sent against us?" a slim, baby-faced youngster replied, leaning against his sword. He had been foremost among the scoffers, though he hardly looked big enough to heft his weapon. "We came to fight, but your cavorting clowns-"

"You!" the master cried out furiously. "You meet my first sword, then!"

The boy looked frightened. "But you said only four-"

"No! All my men will fight. But first I want you-and that foul beard next to you. And those two loud mouthed clubbers!"

"Done!" the boy cried, standing up and running to the circle, It was Neq, despite his youth and diminutive stature the fourth sword of fifty.

The beard, of course, was clever Tor himself, now third sword. The two clubbers were first and second in their group of thirty-seven.

At the end of the day Sol's tribe was richer by some thirty men.

Sol pondered the matter for a day. He talked with Tyl and thought some more. Finally he summoned Sos and Tor: "This dishonors the circle," he said. "We fight to win or lose, not to laugh."

Then he sent Sos after the other master to apologize and offer a serious return match, but the man had had enough. 'Were you not weaponless, I would split your head in the circle!" he said.

So it went. The group's months in the badlands camp had honed it to a superb fighting force, and the precise multiweapon ranking system placed the warriors exactly where they could win. There were some losses-but these were overwhelmingly compensated by the gains. Upon occasion Tyl had the opportunity to take the circle against a master, matching a selected subtribe equivalent to the other tribe, as he had wanted to do the first time. Twice he won, bringing a total of seventy warriors into Sol's group, much to his pride.. . and once he lost.

That was when Sol came out of his apparent retirement to place his entire tribe of over three hundred men against the fifty-now One hundred-belonging to the victor and challenged for it all. He took the sword and killed the other master in as ruthless and businesslike an attack as Sos had ever seen. Tor made notes on the technique, so as to call them out as pointers for the sword group. Tyl kept his ranking-and if he had ever dreamed of replacing Sol, it was certain that the vision perished utterly that day.

Only once was the tribe seriously balked, and not by another tribe. One day an enormous, spectacularly muscled man came ambling down the trail swinging his club as though it were a singlestick~ Sos was actually one of the largest men in the group, but the stranger was substantially taller and broader through the shoulders than he. This was Bog, whose disposition was pleasant, whose intellect was scant, and whose chiefest joy was pulverising men in the circle. *

Fight7 "Good, good!" he exclaimed, smiling broadly. "One, two, three a'time! Okay!" And he bounded into the circle and awaited all comers. Sos had the impression that the main reason the man had failed to specify more at a time was that he could count no higher.

Tyl, his curiosity provoked, sent in the first club to meet him. Bog launched into battle with no apparent science. He simply swept the club back forth with such ferocity that his opponent was helpless against it. Hit or miss, Bog continued unabated, fairly bashing the other out of the circle before the man could catch his footing.

Victorious, Bog grinned. "More!" he cried.

Tyl looked at the tribe's erstwhile first clubber, a man who had won several times in the circle. He frowned, not quite believing it. He sent in the second club.

The same thing happened. Two men lay stunned on the ground, thoroughly beaten.

Likewise the two ranking swords and a staff, in quick order. "More!" Bog exclaimed happily, but Tyl had had enough. Five top men were shaken and lost, in the course of only ten minutes, and the victor hardly seemed to be tired.

"Tomorrow," he said to the big clubber.

"Okay!" Bog agreed, disappointed, and accepted the hospitality of the tribe for the evening. He polished off two full-sized meals and three willing women before he retired for the night. Male and female alike gaped at his respective appetites, hardly able to credit either department, but these were not subject to refutation. Bog conquered everything one, two or three at a time.

Next day he was as good as ever. Sol was on hand this time to watch while Bog bashed club, sticks and daggers with equal facility, and even flattened the terrible star. When struck, he paid no attention, though some blows were cruel; when cut, he licked the blood like a tiger and laughed. Blocking him was no good; he had such power that no really effective inhibition was practical. "More!" he cried after each debacle, and he never tired.

"We must have that man," Sol said.

"We have no one to take him," Tyl objected. "He has already wiped out nine of our best, and hasn't even felt the competition. I might kill him with the sword-but I couldn't defeat him bloodlessly. We'd have no use for him dead."

"He must be met with the club," Sos said. "That's the only thing with the mass to slow him. A powerfull, agile, durable club."

Tyl stared meaningfully at the three excellent clubbers seated by Bog's side of the circle. All wore large bandages where flesh and bone had succumbed to the giant's attack. "If those were our ranked instruments, we need an unranked warrior," he observed.

"Yes," Sol said. He stood up.

"Wait a minute!" both men cried. "Don't chance it yourself," Sos added. "You have too much to risk."

"The day any man conquers me with any weapon," Sol said seriously, "is the day I go to the mountain." He took up his club and walked to the circle.

"The master!" Bog cried, recognizing him. "Good fight?"

"He didn't even settle terms," Tyl groaned. "This is nothing more than man-to-man."

"Good fight," Sol agreed, and stepped inside.