Amphiskios

Chapter V Battle-Ax Berserk

At dawn the next day, four attackers stood as before on the brow of the opposite hill.

Joe, his right arm badly swollen, laughed mirthlessly. “We kill one and cripple one and there’s still four. A nice game they have.”

“That’s what it is, Joe,” Mary said flatly. “A game. People who can make those little boxes that follow you around could do better than swords. This is like the old Roman amphitheatre. Those guys are gladiators. It’s a big game with the boxes watching. Maybe the boxes flash the battle on screens. Home movies for the public. Hired entertainers.”

Stacey had grown worse during the night. She sat with the empty smile on her lips and her eyes were far away.

Howard said, licking his lips, “Mary, do you think they could have…”

“For my money, yes. They want fun, so they grab us somehow just as we get knocked off and here we are and they have their fun.”

“It… it’s horrible!” Howard said.

“It ain’t pretty,” Mary agreed.

Howard said, “Why don’t we just... well... hold our hands up. If we don’t give them any sport, maybe they’ll—”

“A lot I can do with one hand,” Joe said. “Maybe it’s worth a try.”

Mary stood up, her lips compressed. “No dice, boys. These kids are bloodthirsty. I think they’d like to cut our throats. Why give them the brass ring?”

“What makes you so sure you’re right, Callahan?” Howard asked.

“Take a look,” she said tersely.

The four were advancing across the valley floor as cautiously as their predecessors. Mary looked closely. No, two of them were the same as the day before — the uninjured two, including the dark one with the look of disgust in his eyes.

There was nothing reassuring about their advance.

Howard said, “I still think it’s—”

With a shrill scream Stacey bounded to her feet, shouldering between Mary and Howard. Though she had always been careful on the ledge she ran down at reckless speed. Mary picked herself up off the floor.

“Stacey!” Howard called after her. “Stacey, darling!”

He started to go after her. Joe caught him, held him, said, “Shut up and we’ll see if your plan works. You couldn’t catch her in time anyway.”

They stood and watched the blond girl. This Stacey Murdock was grotesquely changed from the girl who had demanded that they get in touch with Daddy.

Her tan skin was scratched and torn, her hair dirty, her feet scarred by the rocks. She ran toward the four men, her hands outstretched. They heard her panting voice, her incoherent pleading. The lead man dropped sword and shield. Stacey ran to him. Mary saw the dark man make a move toward the lead man as though to object. But it was too late.

As Stacey ran toward the man’s arms he sidestepped her. As she ran by him he caught her blond hair, yanked her backward off her feet. She fell with the small of her back across his bent knee. With one arm across her throat, the other across her hips, he snapped her back like a brittle stick.

He stood up and Mary could see the look of revulsion on his face as though he had disliked touching her. Stacey lay grotesquely bent. The man nudged her with his foot and the four of them looked up at the cave mouth.

Howard Loomis gave an incoherent yell, grabbed the battle axe from the floor and was gone before either Mary or Joe could stop him.

Still yelling in rage and the lust to kill, Howard Loomis, ex-salesman of Briskies, charged the four helmeted warriors.

Mary’s throat tightened at the sight of his hopeless bravery.

By the pure fury of his attack he drove the two men back into their companions.

The slashing axe bounced off shield, rang off helmet, a bright arc in the morning light.

Three men dropped back. One of them faced Howard, parried his blows, waiting for the inevitable pause when Howard grew armweary.

With the short sword, as Howard’s axe sagged, he spitted him carefully through the middle, twisting the wide blade to let air into the wound.

Howard fell onto his face, toppled over onto his side. The swordsman looked triumphantly up at the cave mouth. As he did so, Howard, with one last convulsive effort of the axe he still clutched, hacked at the swordsman’s leg as one would hack at a tree. The axe severed muscle and tendon and artery.

“Good boy!” Joe whispered.

They staunched the flow of blood and one of them helped the injured man down the valley. The remaining two, the dark one and another one, stared up at the cave.

“They’ll wait for their pal,” Joe said.

“No. This thing seems to be run by rules. I say that if there are two of us left they’ll only toss in two of them.”

The two warriors moved cautiously toward the ledge, their shields high, their swords held tightly.