"You'll die alone," said Moljar, "if you stand by me."
She tossed her head. The cat was bearing down, shrieking in blind hate.
"You think you've won, barbarian. Wait 'til the _kristons_ are turned
loose on us."
"I wait," said Moljar simply. "I've waited a long time, and I can wait
forever. And someday I'll kill her. Alhone's pelt I'll have and give to
my people to whom I pledged it."
His blood-spattered arm swept aside as the giant cat ploughed past in
its sightless, pounding charge. He swung his bar again. It crunched
through tissue and bone and brain, and the cat dropped suddenly like a
stone. Its sleek gold and black body shivered and twitched as it died.
He planted a sandaled foot on the carcass and raised his face toward
the Princess Alhone's royal booth. Reluctantly, a smattering of
applause rose. Princess Alhone's silkily furred body was standing now.
Motionless.
Moljar's voice rang out clear through the mist. "Moljar waits for
worthy opposition. He is bored."
"Dirty half-breed dog!" howled a voice. Thousands joined in a thunder
of obscene and filthy epithets.
Moljar laughed loudly. He saw Alhone's slim alien form tense as the
saber tooth's had before a charge. And he began walking toward her
across the blood-stained sands.
He paused as she raised a jeweled paw again. Moljar's eyes narrowed
as the almost invisible vibrational force-wall rose up before the
spectators and the rim of the vast arena.
"_Kristons!_" screamed Mahra behind him. "The wall protects the
audience."
He heard the high whirring whine of the huge tri-winged, armor-plated
insects as they were released into the arena. They dove and circled,
maddened by the miasmic death vapor overhanging the stadium.
Like a trapped beast, the half-breed turned this way and that. Beads of
sweat stood out on his heaving chest. He wiped his sweat-slippery hands
on his leather tunic, then dried them in the sand, before he gripped
his alloy bludgeon again. Then with the long eerie cry of the wild
desert tribes he sprang into the air to meet the hurtling drive of the
_kriston_ that had singled him out.
The blinding speed of its wings distorted his perspective. The alloy
bar, caught in their blurring motion, spun from his stunned hands. He
cursed as he fell beneath its flight.
Dimly, he heard the joyous roaring of the throngs who watched him
fall. As he rolled aside he heard Mahra's frightened scream. He felt
the spearing slash of the _kriston's_ poisonous barbed fang. His arms
whipped out, hands closed on the horned tip. He was on his feet heaving
outward. He felt tendons rip and a sudden freedom as the tongue tore
from the _kriston's_ throat. Its death cry sounded like escaping steam.
He was running toward the outcast Terran girl who was dodging the
worrying darting movements of another _kriston_. He swung the grotesque
whip-like tongue of the one he had slain as he ran.
He stopped. The creature attacking Mahra suddenly became a lifeless
charred hulk. The other _kristons_ were plunging into the sand,
smoking, burning. His eyes swung up. The force-wall was gone. The
heat ray on the roof landing above the catacombs had destroyed the
_kristons_ before their work was done. The heat ray was only used for
emergencies. What had moved the Anghorians to save them?
Miraculously, the three still lived. Moljar, Mahra, and the Martian
outlaw Gasdon who had blinded the squid by punching out its eyes.
Having no scent faculties it was flapping tentacles helplessly in its
phosphorescent bog.
* * * * *
An aimless hum of fear and hysteria exploded outward from the throng.
They were fleeing from the stands, trampling, yelling frantically, some
burning their way through the choked exits of the Colosseum. They were
jammed in its elevators, blocking its corridors and archways.
Gasdon came running toward Moljar and the girl. His towering body,
dripping mucous from the squid battle, was as large as Moljar's, but
lacked its agility and integration of movement. His ugly face was
twisted in fanatical purpose.
"Now we fight!" he shouted, "for her! I've wanted to meet Moljar, the
half-breed freak, before witnesses who will testify to your defeat."
Mahra laughed. "Morons. I'll choose my own lover. And I certainly can't
imagine him being either of you!"
"What witnesses will see you, Gasdon?" asked Moljar. "They run for
their lives. Their pure hearts pump thin water."
A loud speaker blared:
THE MISTMEN! VENUS PORT IS UNDER ATTACK. TAKE TO THE JUNGLES. MISTMEN
HAVE DESTROYED VENUS PORT COMMUNICATIONS. THEY ARE SACKING, PLUNDERING,
KILLING. FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES! THE MISTMEN! VENUS PORT HAS BEEN ATTACKED
AND....
Mahra trembled with uncontrollable fears. Her mutant's mind clouded
over with the significance of the descending terror. Gasdon, his
egomaniacal feud with Moljar forgotten for the moment, shivered, and
his green eyes probed the thick cloud blanket.
Moljar's intuitive senses stirred darkly. Mistmen. Scourge of Venus,
super-scientific pirates, they appeared mysteriously out of the fogs to
loot and kill. Protected by force shields of thick grey, impenetrable
mists, they appeared in sudden ruthless violence, sacked, slew, and
vanished into the unknown land that spawned them.
Now, they were actually attacking Venus Port!
The stands were empty, except for the dead and dying who had been
trampled or burned by the stampeding crowds. They and the Princess
Alhone, amid her personal bodyguard. She was standing now, her slender,
evil grace swaying in the ever-present blue glow.
She motioned to Moljar. He trembled. "This is the time," he said very
low in his throat like a growling dog. "I have waited long."
He strode across the reddened sands towards her. Her yellow cat-eyes
veiled her study of his approach. Her feral body leaned tautly as it
waited. The half-breed looked up. She was only fifteen feet above him;
he could leap the distance.
Her high mewing voice said, "They have dared attack Venus Port! If they
continue, they will soon be undisputed rulers of my planet. Soon, with
such boldness, the Mistmen might even rule the System. Moljar, would
you like freedom?"