SOS the Rope (21 page)

    It was three days before Bog showed up, as big and happy as ever. He had not changed a bit in two years. Sos wanted to rush out and shake the giant's hand and hear him exclaim "Okay!" again, but he could not; he was a nameless stranger now and would have to meet and overcome the man anonymously.

    This selection made clear why Tor had arranged the terms as they were. Bog was entirely indifferent to power in the tribal sense. He fought for the sheer joy of action and made no claims upon the vanquished. The messenger bad only to whisper "Good fight!" and Bog was on his way.

    And Tar had chosen well in another respect, for Bog was the only man Sos knew of who shared virtual physical invulnerability. Others had tried to prevail over the nameless one by skill and had only been vanquished. Bog emplayed no skill, just inexhaustible power.

    The day was waning, and Tar prevailed upon Bog to postpone the battle until morning. "Tough man, long fight," he explained. "Need all day."

    Bog's grin widened. "Okay!"

    Sos watched the huge man put away food for three and lick his lips in anticipation as several lovely girls clustered solicitously around him and touched the bracelet upon his wrist. Sos felt nostalgia. Here was a man who had an absolute formula for perpetual joy: enormous power, driving appetites and no concern for the future. What a pleasure it would be to travel with him again and bask in the reflected light of his happiness! The reality might have been troubling for others, but never for Bog.

    Yet it was to preserve the goodness in the system that he fought now. By defeating Bog he would guarantee that there would always be free warriors for such as Bog to fight. The empire would never swallow them all.

    They waited only long enough for the sun to rise to a reasonable height before approaching the circle in the morning. The men of the camp were packed so tightly Tor had to clear a path to the arena. Everyone knew what the stakes, were, except possibly Bog himself, who didn't care; but the primary interest was in the combat itself. Only twice, legend said, had Bog been stopped-once by the onset of night and once by a fluke loss of his weapon. No one had ever actually defeated him.

    It was also said, however, that he never entered the circle against the net or other unfamiliar weapon.

    Bog jumped in, already swinging his club enthusiastically, while Sos remained outside the ring and stripped to his trunks. He folded the long tunic carefully and stood up straight. The two men looked at each other while the audience studied them.

    "They're the same size!" a man exclaimed, awed.

    Sos started. He, the same size as the giant? Impossible!

    Nonetheless, fact. Bog was taller and broader across the shoulders, but Sos was now more solidly constructed. The doctors had given him injections, in the underworld operatory to stimulate muscular development, and the inserted protective materials added to his mass. He was larger than he had been, and none of the added mass was fat. He probably weighed almost twice what he had when he first set out in search of adventure.

    Each man had enormously overmuscled shoulders and arms and a neck sheathed in scars; but where Bog slimmed down to small hips. and comparatively puny legs, Sos had a midriff bulging with protective muscles and thighs so thick he found it awkward to run.

    Now he carried no weapon: he was a weapon.

    He stepped into the circle.

    Bog proceeded as usual, swinging with indifferent aim at head and body. Sos ducked and took other evasive action. He had stood still to accept the blows of the staff, as a matter of demonstration, but the club was a different matter. A solid hit on the head by such as Bog could knock him senseless. The metal in his skull would not dent, but the brain within would smash itself against the barrier like so much jelly. The reinforced bones of arms and legs would not break, but even the toughened gristle and muscle would suffer if pinched between that bone and the full force of the club. Bog could hurt him.

    Sos avoided the moving club and shot an arm up behind Bog's hand to block the return swing. He leaped inside and drove the other fist into Bog's stomach so hard the man was pushed backward. It was the rock-cracking blow.

    Bog shifted hands and brought the weapOn savagely down to smash Sos's hip. He stepped back to regain balance and continued the attack. He hadn't noticed the blow.

    Sos circled again, exercising the bruised hip and marveling. The man was not exactly flabby in the stomach; that blow could have ruptured the intestines of an ordinary warrior. The way he had shifted grips on his club showed that there was more finesse to his attack than men had given him credit for. As a matter of fact, Bog's swings were not wild at all, now. They shifted angles regularly and the arcs were not wide. There was no time for a sword to cut in between them, or a staff, and lesser weapons would have no chance at all. Bog had an excellent all-purpose defense concealed within his showy offense.

    Strange that he had never noticed this before. Was Bog's manifest stupidity an act? Had Sos, who should certainly have known better, assumed that a man as big and strong as Bog must be lacking in mental qualities? Or was Bog a natural fighter, like Sol, who did what he did unconsciously and who won because his instincts were good?

    Still, there would be weak points. There had to be. Sos kicked at an exposed knee, hardly having time to set up for the proper angle for dislocation-and had his own leg clipped by a seemingly accidental descent of the club. He parried the club arm again, leading it out of the way, and leaped to embrace Bog in a bear-hug, catching his two hands tOgether behind the man's back. Bog held his breath and raised the club high in the air and brought it down. Sos let go and shoved him away barely in time to avoid a head blow that would have finished the fight.

    Yes, Bog knew how to defend himself.

    Next time, Sos blocked the arm and caught it in both hands to apply the breaking `pressure. It was no use; Bog tensed his muscles and was too strong. Bog flipped the club to the alternate hand again and blasted away at Sos's back, forcing another hasty retreat. Sos tried once more, pounding his reinforced knuckles into the arm just above the elbow, digging for nerves, but had to let go; the club was too dangerous to ignore. He could do a certain amount of weakening damage to Bog's arms that would, in time, incapacitate the man, but in the meanwhile he would be subjected to a similar amount of battery by the club, which would hardly leave him in fit condition to fight again soon.

    It was apparent that simple measures would not do the job. While consciousness remained, Bog would keep fighting-and he was so constructed that he could not be knocked out easily. A stranglehold from behind? Bog's club could whip over the back or around the side to pulverize the opponent-long before consciousness departed- and how could a forearm do what the rope could not? A hammer-blow to the base of the skull? It was as likely to kill the man as to slow him down. Bog being what he was.

    But he was vulnerable. The kick to the crotch, the stiffened finger to the eyeball. . . any rapid blow to a surface organ would surely bring him down.

    Sos continued to dodge and parry, forearm against forearm. Should he do it? Did -any need justify the deliberate and permanent maiming of a friend?

    He didn't argue it. He simply decided to fight as he had to: fairly.

    Just as the club would knock him out once it connected, so one of his own blows or grips would bring down Bog, when properly executed. Since Bog didn't know the meaning of defeat, and would never give in to numbing blows or simple pain, there was no point in such tactics. He would have to end the contest swiftly and decisively-which meant accepting at least one full smash from the club as he set up his position. It was a necessary risk.

    Sos timed the next pass, spun away from it, ducked his head and thrust out in the high stamping kick aimed for Bog's chin. The club caught him at the thigh, stunning the muscle and knocking him sidewise, but his heel landed.

    Too high. It caught Bog's forehead and snapped his head back with force abetted by the impact of the club upon his leg. A much more dangerous blow than the one intended.

    Sos dropped to the ground, rolled over to get his good leg under him, and leaped up again, ready to follow up with a sustained knuckle-beat to the back of the neck. Bog could not swing effectively so long as he was pinned to the ground, and even he could not withstand more than a few seconds of- Sos halted. Suddenly he knew what-had happened. The slight misplacement of the kick, providing added leverage against the head; the forward thrust of Bog's large body as he swung; the feedback effect of the club blow upon the leg; the very musculature constricting the clubber's neck these things had combined to make the very special connection Sos had sought to avoid.

    Bog's neck was broken.

    He was not dead-but the damage was irreparable, here. If he survived, it would be as a paralytic. Bog would never fight again. -

    Sos looked up, becoming aware of the audience he had completely forgotten, and met Tor's eyes. Tor nodded gravely. -

    Sos picked up Bog's club and smashed it with all his force against the staring head.

    CHAPTER TWENTY

    "Come with me," Sav said.

    Sos followed him into the forest, paying no attention to the direction. He felt as he had when Stupid perished in the snow. Here was a great, perhaps slow-witted but happy fellow-abruptly dead in a manner no one had wanted or expected, least of all Sos himself. Sos had liked the hearty clubber; he had fought by his side. By the definition of the circle, Bog had been his friend.

    There were many ways he could have killed the man, had that been his intent, or maimed him, despite his power. Sos's efforts to avoid doing any real damage had been largely responsible for the prolongation of the encounter- yet had led to nothing. Perhaps there had been no way to defeat Bog without killing him. Perhaps in time Sos could convince himself of that, anyway.

    At least he had seen to it that the man died as he might have wished: by a swift blow from the club. Small comfort.

    Sav stopped and gestured. They were in a forest glade, a circular mound with a small, crude pyramid of stones at the apex. It was one of the places of burial and worship maintained by volunteer tribesmen who did not choose to turn over the bodies of their friends to the crazies for cremation.

    "In the underworld-could they have saved him?" Sav inquired.

    "I think so."

    "But if you tried to take him there-"

    "They would have blasted us both with the flamethrower before we got within hailing. distance of the entrance. I am forbidden ever to return."

    "Then, this is best," Sav said.

    They stood looking at the mound, knowing that Bog would soon lie within it.

    "Sol comes to these churches every few days, alone," Sav said. "I thought you'd like to know."

    Then it seemed, that no time passed, but it had been a month of travel and healing, and he was standing beside another timeless mound and Sol was coming to pray.

    Sol kneeled at the foot of the pyramid and raised his eyes to it. Sos dropped to his own knees beside him. They stayed there in silence for some time.

    "I had a friend," Sos said at last. "I had to meet him in the circle, though I would not have chosen it. Now he is buried here."

    "I, too," Sol said. "He went to the mountain."

    "Now I must challenge for an empire I do not want, and perhaps kill again, when all that I desire is friendship."

    "I prayed here all day for friendship," Sol said, speaking of all the mounds in the world as one, and all times as one, as Sos bad done. "When I returned to my camp I thought my prayer was answered-but he required what I could not give." He paused. "I would give my empire to have that friend again."

    "Why can't we two talk away from here, never to enter the circle again?"

    "I would take only my daughter." He looked at Sos, for the first time since staff and rope bad parted, and if he recognized him as anything more than the heralded nameless challenger, or found this unheralded mode of contact strangh, he did not say. "I would give you her mother, since your bracelet is dead."

    "I would accept her, in the name of friendship."

    "In the name of friendship."

    They stood up and shook hands. It was as close as they could, come to acknowledging recognition.

    The camp was monstrous. Five of the remaining tribes had migrated to rejoin their master, anticipating the arrival of the challenger. Two thousand men spread across plain and forest with their families, sleeping in communal tents and eating at communal hearths. Literate men supervised distribution of supplies and gave daily instruction in reading and figuring to groups of apprentices. Parties trekked into the mountains, digging for the ore that the books said was there, while others cultivated the ground to grow. the nutritive plants that other books said could be raised. Women practiced weaving and knitting in groups, and one party had a crude native loom. The empire was now too large to feed itself from the isolated cabins of a single area, too independent to depend upon any external source for clothing or weapons.

    "This is Sola," Sol said, introducing - the elegant, sultry high lady. He spoke to her: "I would give you to the nameless one. He is a powerful warrior, though he carries no weapon."

    "As you wish," she said indifferently. She glanced at Sos, and through him. "Where is his bracelet? What should I call myself?"

    "Keep the clasp I gave you. I will find another."

    "Keep the name you bear, I have none better."

    "You're crazy," she said, addressing both. .

    "This is Soli," Sol said as the little girl entered the compartment. He picked her up and held her at bead height. She grasped a tiny staff and waved it dangerously.

    "I'm a Amazon!" she said, poking the stick at Sos. "I'm fighting in circle."