a question:
“What is it?”
The merman’s yellow eyes turned from the wall to his companion. Behind his hatred of this place there was another emotion Dalgard could not read.
“This is the place of sorrow, the place of separation. But they paid—oh, how they paid—after that day when the fire fell from the sky.” His scaled and taloned feet moved in a little shuffling war dance, and his spear spun and quivered in the sunlight, as Dalgard had seen the spears of the mer-warriors move in the mock combats of their unexplained, and to his kind unexplainable, rituals. “Then did our spears drink, and knives eat!” Sssuri’s fingers brushed the hilt of the wicked blade swinging from his belt. “Then did the People make separations and sorrows for them! And it was accomplished that we went forth into the sea to be no longer bond but free. And they went down into the darkness and were no more—” In Dalgard’s head the chant of his friend skirled up in a paean of exultation. Sssuri shook his spear at the wall.
“No more the beast and the death,” his thoughts swelled, a shout of victory. “For where are they who sat and watched many deaths? They are gone as the wave smashes itself upon the coast rocks and is no more. But the People are free and never more shall Those Others put bonds upon them! Therefore do I say that this is a place of nothing, where evil has turned in upon itself and come to nothing. Just as Those Others will come to nothing since their own evil will in the end eat them up!”
He strode forward along the wall until he came to the barrier, seemingly oblivious of the carrion reek which told of a snake-devil’s den somewhere about. And he raised his arm high, bringing the point of his spear gratingly along the carved surface. Nor did it seem to Dalgard a futile gesture, for Sssuri lived and breathed, stood free and armed in the city of his enemies—and the city was dead.
Together they climbed the barrier, and then Dalgard discovered that it was the rim of an arena which must have seated close to a thousand in the days of its use. It was a perfect oval in shape with tiers of seats now forming a staircase down to the center, where was a section ringed about by a series of archways. A high stone grille walled this portion away from the seats as if to protect the spectators from what might enter through those portals.
Dalgard noted all this only in passing, for the arena was occupied, very much occupied. And he knew the occupiers only too well.
Three full-grown snake-devils were stretched at pulpy ease, their filled bellies obscenely round, their long necks crowned with their tiny heads flat on the sand as they napped. A pair of half-grown monsters, not yet past the six-foot stage, tore at some indescribable remnants of their elders’ feasting, hissing at each other and aiming vicious blows whenever they came within possible fighting distance. Three more, not long out of their mothers’ pouches scrabbled in the earth about the sleeping adults.
“A good catch,” Dalgard signaled Sssuri, and the merman nodded.
They climbed down from seat to seat. This could not rightfully be termed hunting when the quarry might be picked off so easily without risk to the archer. But as Dalgard notched his first arrow, he sighted something so surprising that he did not let the poisoned dart fly.
The nearest sleeping reptile which he had selected as his mark stretched lazily without raising its head or opening its small eyes. And the sun caught on a glistening band about its short foreleg just beneath the joint of the taloned pawhands. No natural scales could reflect the light with such a brilliant glare. It could be only one thing—metal! A metal bracelet about the tearing arm of a snake-devil! Dalgard looked at the other two sleepers. One was lying on its belly with its forearms gathered under it so that he could not see if it, also, were so equipped. But the other—yes, it was banded!
Sssuri stood at the grille, one hand on its stone divisions. His surprise equaled Dalgard’s. It was not in his experience either that the untamed snake-devils, regarded by merman and human alike as so dangerous as to be killed on sight, could be banded—as if they were personal pets!
For a moment or two a wild idea crossed Dalgard’s mind. How long was the natural life span of a snake-devil? Until the coming of the colonists they had been the undisputed rulers of the deserted continent, stupid as they were, simply because of their strength and ferocity. A twelve-foot, scale-armored monster, that could tear apart a duocorn with ease, might not be successfully vanquished by any of the fauna of Astra. And since the monsters did not venture into the sea, contact between them and the mermen had been limited to casual encounters at rare intervals. So, how long did a snake-devil live? Were these creatures sprawled here in sleep ones that had known the domination of Those Others—though the fall of the master race of Astra must have occurred generations, hundreds of years in the past?
“No,” Sssuri’s denial cut through that. “The smaller one is not yet full-grown. It lacks the second neck ring. Yet it is banded.”
The merman was right. That unpleasant wattle of armored flesh which necklaced the serpent throat of the devil Dalgard had picked as his target was thin, not the thick roll of fat such as distinguished its two companions. It was not fully adult, yet the band was plain to see on the foreleg now stretched to its full length as the sun bored down to supply the heavy heat the snake-devils relished next to food.
“Then—” Dalgard did not like to think of what might be the answer to that “then.”
Sssuri shrugged. “It is plain that these are not wild roamers. They are here for a purpose. And that purpose—” Suddenly his arm shot out so that his fingers protruded through the slits in the stone grille. “See?”
Dalgard had already seen, in seeing he knew hot and terrible anger. Out of the filthy mess in which the snake-devils wallowed, something had rolled, perhaps thrown about in play by the unspeakable offspring. A skull, dried scraps of fur and flesh still clinging to it, stared hollow-eyed up at them. At least one merman had fallen prey to the nightmares who ruled the arena.
Sssuri hissed and the red rage in his mind was plain to Dalgard. “Once more they deal death here—” His eyes went from the skull to the monsters. “Kill!” The command was imperative and sharp.
Dalgard had qualified as a master bowman before he had first gone roving. And the killing of snake-devils was a task which had been set every colonist since their first brush with the creatures.
He snapped the cap off the glass splinter point, designed to pin and then break off in the hide so that any clawing foot which tore out an arrow could not rid the victim of the poisonous head. The archer’s mark was under the throat where the scales were soft and there was a chance of piercing the skin with the first shot.
The growls of the two feeding youngsters covered the snap of the bow cord as Dalgard shot. And he did not miss. The brilliant scarlet feather of the arrow quivered in the baggy roll of flesh.
With a scream which tore at the human’s eardrums, the snake-devil reared to its hind feet. It made a tearing motion with the banded forearm which scraped across the back of one of its companions. And then it fell back to the blood-stained sand, limp, a greenish foam drooling from its fangs.
As the monster that the dead devil had raked roused, Dalgard had his chance for another good mark. And the second scarlet shaft sped straight to the target.
But the third creature which had been sleeping belly down on the sand presented only its armored back, a hopeless surface for an arrow to pierce. It had opened its eyes and was watching the now motionless bodies of its fellows. But it showed no disposition to move. It was almost as if it somehow understood that as long as it remained in its present position it was safe.
“The
