Piers Anthony - Sos the Rope

Sos concurred. In the headlong drive for empire, it seemed a culpable waste to chance Sol in the circle for anything less than a full tribe. Accidents were always possible. But they had already learned that their leader had other things on his mind these days than his empire. Sol proved his manhood by his battle prowess, and he could allow no slightest question there, even in his own mind. He had continued his exercises regularly, keeping his body toned.

Perhaps it took a man withOut a weapon to appreciate just how deeply the scars of the other kind of deprivation went.

Bog launched into his typical windmill attack, and Sol parried and ducked expertly. Bog was far larger, but Sol was faster and cut off the ferocious arcs before they gained full momentum. He ducked under one swing and caught Bog on the side of the head with the short, precise flick Sos had seen him demonstrate before. The club was not clumsy or slow in Sol's hand.

The giant absorbed the blow and didn't seem to notice. He bashed away without hesitation, smiling. Sol had to back away and dodge cleverly to avoid being driven out of the circle, but Bog followed him without letup.

Sol's strategy was plain. He was conserving his strength, letting the other expend his energies uselessly. Whenever there was an opening, he sneaked his own club in to bruise head, shoulder or stomach, weakening the man further. It was a good policy-except that Bog refused to be weakened. "Good!" he grunted when Sol scored-and swung again.

Half an hour passed while the entire tribe massed around the arena, amazed. They all knew Sol's competence; what they couldn't understand was Bog's indefatigable power. The club was a solid weapon, heavier with every swing, and prolonged exercise with it inevitably deadened the arm, yet Bog never slowed or showed strain. Where did he get such stamina?

Sol had had enough of the waiting artifice. He took the offense. Now be laid about him with swings like Bog's, actually forcing the bigger man to take defensive measures.

It was the first time they had seen it; for all they had known until that point, Bog had no defense, since he had never needed it. As it was, he was not good at it, and soon got smashed full force across the side of the neck.

Sos rubbed his own neck with sympathetic pain, seeing the man's hair flop out and spittle fly from his open mouth. The blow should have laid him out for the rest of the day. It didn't. Bog hesitated momentarily, shook his head, then grinned. "Good!" he said-and smote mightily with his own weapon.

Sol was sweating profusely, and now took the defensive stance from necessity. Again he fended Bog off with astute maneuvers, while the giant pressed the attack as vigorously as before. Sol had not yet been whacked upon head or torso; his defense was too skilled for the other to penetrate. But neither could he shake his opponent or wear him down.

After another half hour he tried again, with no better effect. Bog seemed to be impervious to physical damage. After that Sol was satisfied to wait.

"What's the record for club-club?" someone asked.

"Thirty-four minutes," another replied.

The tinier Tor had borrowed from the hostel indicated a hundred and four minutes. "It isn't possible to keep that pace indefinitely," he said.

The shadows lengthened. The contest continued.

Sos, Tyl and Tor huddled with the other advisors. "They're going on until dark!" Tor exclaimed - incredulously. "Sol won't quit, and Bog doesn't know how."

"We have to break this up before they both drop dead," Sos said.

"How?"

That was the crux. They were sure neither participant would quit voluntarily, and the end was not in view Bog's strength seemed boundless, and Sol's determination and skill matched it. Yet the onset of night would multiply the chances for a fatal culmination, that nobody wanted. The battle would have to be stopped.

It was a situation no one had imagined, and they could think of no ethical way to handle it. In the end, they decided to stretch the circle code a bit.

The staff squad took the job. A phalanx of them charged into the circle, walling off the combatants and carrying them away. "Draw!" Sav yelled. "Tie! Impasse! Even! No decision!"

Bog picked -himself up, confused.

"Supper!" Sos yelled at him. "Sleep! Women!"

That did it. "Okay!" the monster clubber agreed.

Sol thought about it, contemplating the extended shadows. "All right," he said at last.

Bog went over to shake hands. "You pretty good, for little guy," he said graciously. "Next time we start in morning, okay? More day."

"Okay!" Sol agreed, and everyone laughed.

That night Sola rubbed liniment into Sol's arms and legs and back and put him away for a good twelve hours' exhaustion. Bog was satisfied with one oversized meal and one sturdy well-upholstered lass. He disdained medication for his purpling bruises. "Good fight!" he said, contented.

The following day he went his way, leaving behind the warriors he had conquered. "Only for fun!" he explained.

"Good, good."

They watched him disappear down the trail, singing tunelessly and flipping his club end-over-end in the air.

CHAPTER TEN

"My year is up," Sos said.

"I would have you stay," Sol replied slowly. "You have given good service."

"You have five-hundred men and an elite corp of advisors. You don't need me."

Sol looked up and Sos was shocked to see tears in his eyes. "I do need you," he said. "I have no other friend."

Sos did not know what to say.

Sola joined them, hugely pregnant. Soon she would travel to a crazy hospital for delivery. "Perhaps you have a son," Sos said.

"When you find what you need, come back," Sol told him, accepting the inevitable.

"I will." That was all they could say to each other.

He left the camp that afternoon, travelling east. Day by day the landscape became more familiar as he approached the region of his childhood. He skirted the marked badlands near the coast, wondering what mighty cities had stood where the silent death radiated now, and whether there would ever be such massive assemblages of people again. The books claimed that nothing green had grown in the centers of these encampments, that concrete and asphalt covered the ground between buildings and made the landscape as flat as the surface of a lake, that machines like those the crazies used today had been everywhere, doing everything. Yet all had vanished in the Blast. Why? There were many unanswered questions.

A month of hiking brought him to the school he had attended before beginning his travels as a warrior. Only a year and a half had elapsed, but already it had become a entirely different facet of his existence, one now unfamiliar to him and strange to see again. Still, he knew his way around.

He entered the arched front doorway and walked down the familiar, foreign hall to the door at the end marked "Principal." A girl he did not remember sat at the desk. He decided she was a recent graduate, pretty, but very young. "I'd like to see Mr. Jones," he said, pronouncing the obscure name carefully.

"And who is calling?" She stared at Stupid, perched a ever upon his shoulder.

"Sos," he said, then realized that the name would mea nothing here. "A former student. He knows me."

She spoke softly into an intercom and listened for th reply. "Doctor Jones will see you now," she said, an smiled at him as though he were not a ragged-bearded dirt-encrusted pagan with a mottled bird on his shoulder.

He returned the gesture, appreciating her attention though he knew it was professional, and went on through the inner door.

The principal rose immediately and came around the desk to greet him. "Yes of course I remember you! Clas of '107, and you stayed to practice with the-the sword wasn't it? What do you call yourself now?"