Sos the Rope

CHAPTER NINE

In the spring Sol reappeared, lean and scarred and solemn, toting his barrow. More than two hundred men were there to greet him, tough and eager to the last. They knew his return meant action for them all.

He listened to Tyl's report and nodded matter-of-factly. "We march tomorrow," he said.

That night Sav came to share his tent again. It occurred to Sos that the staffer's departure and return had been remarkably convenient, but he did not comment directly. "Your bracelet got tired?"

"I like to keep moving. 'Bout run out of ground."

"Can't raise much of a family that way."

"Sure can't!" Say agreed. "Anyway, I need my strength. I'm second staff now."

Yes, he thought forlornly. The first had become second, and there was nothing' to do but abide by it. The winter had been warmer than the spring.

The tribe marched. The swords, fifty strong, moved out first, claiming their privilege as eventual winners of the point-score tournament. The daggers followed, winners on index, and then the sticks, staffs and clubs. The lone morningstar brought up the rear, low scorer but not put out. "My weapon is not for games," he said, with some justice.

Sol no longer fought. He stayed with Sola, showing unusual concern for her welfare, and let the fine military machine Sos had fashioned operate with little overt direction. Did he know what his wife had been doing all winter? He had to, for Sola was pregnant.

Tyl ran the tribe. When they encountered a single man who was willing to come to terms, Tyl gave the assignment to the group corresponding to the man's weapon and let the leader of that group select a representative to enter the circle. The advantage of the extended training quickly showed: the appointed warriors were generally in better physical shape than their opponents and superior strategists, and almost always won. When they lost, more often than not the victor, perceiving the size and power of the tribe, challenged the group leader in order to be incorporated into it. Tyl allowed no one to travel with the tribe who was not bound to it.

Only Sos was independent-and he wished he were not. A week out they caught up to another tribe. It contained about forty men, and its leader was typical of the crafty oldsters Sos had anticipated. The man met Tyl and surveyed the situation-and agreed to put up just four warriors for the circle: sword, staff, sticks and club. He refused to risk more.

Disgruntled, Tyl retired for a conference with Sos. "It's a small tribe, but he has many good men. I can tell they are experienced and capable by the way they move and the nature of their scars."

"And perhaps also by the report-of our advance scouts," Sos murmured.

"He won't even send his best against us!" Tyl said indignantly.

"Put up fifty men and challenge him yourself for his entire group. Let him inspect the men and satisfy himself that they are worth his trouble."

Tyl smiled and went to obtain Sol's official approval, a formality only. In due course he had forty-five assorted warriors assembled.

"Won't work." Tor muttered.

The wily tribemaster looked over the offerings, grunting with approval. "Good men," he agreed. Then be contemplated TyL "Aren't you the man of two weapons?"

"Sword and stick."

"You used to travel alone and now you are second in command to a tribe of two hundred."

"That's right."

"I will not fight you."

"You insist upon meeting our master Sol?"

"Certainly not!"

Tyl controlled his temper with obvious difficulty and turned to Sos. "What now, advisor?" he demanded with irony.

"Now you take Tor's advice." Sos didn't know what the beard had in mind, but suspected it would work.

"I think his weak spot is his pride," Tor said conspiratorily. "He won't fight if he thinks he might lose, and he won't put up more than a few men at a time, so he can quit as sqon as the wind blows against him. No profit for us there. But if we can make him look ridiculous-"

"Marvelous!" Sos exclaimed, catching on. "We'll pick up four jokers and shame him into a serious entry!"

"And we'll assign a core of chucklers. The loudest mouths we have."

"And we have plenty," Sos agreed, remembering the quality of heckling that had developed during the intense intergroup competition.

Tyl shrugged dubiously. "You handle it. I want no part of this." He went to his tent.

"He really wanted to fight himself," Tor remarked. "But he's out. He never laughs."

They compared notes and decided upon a suitable quartet for the circle. After that they rounded up an even more special group of front-row spectators.

The first match began at noon. The opposing sworder strode up to the circle, a tall, serious man somewhat beyond the first flush of youth. From Sol's ranks came Dal, the second dagger: a round-faced, short-bodied man whose frequent laugh sounded more like a giggle. He was not a very good fighter overall, but the intense practice had shown up his good point: he had never been defeated by the sword. No one quite fathomed this oddity, since a stout man was generally most vulnerable to sharp instruments, but it had been verified many times over.

The sworder stared dourly at his opponent, then stepped into the circle and stood on-guard. Dal drew one of his knives and faced him-precociously imitating with the eight-inch blade the formal stance of the other. The picked watchers laughed.

More perplexed than angry, the sworder feinted experimentally. Dal countered with the diminutive knife as though it were a full-sized sword. Again the audience laughed, more boisterously than strictly necessary.

Sos aimed a surreptitious glance at the other tribe's master. The man was not at all amused.

Now the sworder attacked in earnest, and Dal was obliged to draw his second dagger daintily and hold off the heavier weapon with quick feints and maneuvers. A pair of daggers were generally considered to be no match for a sword unless the wielder were extremely agile. Dal looked quite unagile-but his round body always happened to be just a hair out of the sword's path, and he was quick to take advantage of the openings created by the sword's inertia. No one who faced the twin blades in the circle could afford to forget that there were two, and that the bearer had to be held at a safe distance at all times. It was useless to block a single knife if the second were on its way to a vulnerable target.

Had the sworder been a better man, the tactics would have been foolhardy; but again and again Dal was able to send his opponent lumbering awkwardly past, wide open for a crippling stab. Dal didn't stab. Instead he flicked off a lock of the sworder's hair and waved it about like a tassel while the picked audience roared. He slit the back of the sworder's pantaloons, forcing him to grab them hastily, while Sol's men rolled on the ground, yanked up their own trunks and slapped each other on shoulders and backs.

Finally the man tripped over Dal's artful foot and fell out of the circle, ignominiously defeated. But Dal didn't leave the circle. He kept on feinting and flipping his knives as though unaware that his opponent was gone.

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.

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.