The Chessmen of Mars
sacrificed one of his most important pieces and more than lost what
advantage the first move might have given him.
Physically the two men appeared perfectly matched and each was fighting
for his life, but from the first it was apparent that the Black Odwar
was the better swordsman, and Gahan knew that he had another and
perhaps a greater advantage over his antagonist. The latter was
fighting for his life only, without the spur of chivalry or loyalty.
The Black Odwar had these to strengthen his arm, and besides these the
knowledge of the thing that Gahan had whispered into the ears of his
players before the game, and so he fought for what is more than life to
the man of honor.
It was a duel that held those who witnessed it in spellbound silence.
The weaving blades gleamed in the brilliant sunlight, ringing to the
parries of cut and thrust. The barbaric harness of the duelists lent
splendid color to the savage, martial scene. The Orange Odwar, forced
upon the defensive, was fighting madly for his life. The Black, with
cool and terrible efficiency, was forcing him steadily, step by step,
into a corner of the square--a position from which there could be no
escape. To abandon the square was to lose it to his opponent and win
for himself ignoble and immediate death before the jeering populace.
Spurred on by the seeming hopelessness of his plight, the Orange Odwar
burst into a sudden fury of offense that forced the Black back a half
dozen steps, and then the sword of U-Dor's piece leaped in and drew
first blood, from the shoulder of his merciless opponent. An
ill-smothered cry of encouragement went up from U-Dor's men; the Orange
Odwar, encouraged by his single success, sought to bear down the Black
by the rapidity of his attack. There was a moment in which the swords
moved with a rapidity that no man's eye might follow, and then the
Black Odwar made a lightning parry of a vicious thrust, leaned quickly
forward into the opening he had effected, and drove his sword through
the heart of the Orange Odwar--to the hilt he drove it through the body
of the Orange Odwar.
A shout arose from the stands, for wherever may have been the favor of
the spectators, none there was who could say that it had not been a
pretty fight, or that the better man had not won. And from the Black
players came a sigh of relief as they relaxed from the tension of the
past moments.
I shall not weary you with the details of the game--only the high
features of it are necessary to your understanding of the outcome. The
fourth move after the victory of the Black Odwar found Gahan upon
U-Dor's fourth; an Orange Panthan was on the adjoining square
diagonally to his right and the only opposing piece that could engage
him other than U-Dor himself.
It had been apparent to both players and spectators for the past two
moves, that Gahan was moving straight across the field into the enemy's
country to seek personal combat with the Orange Chief--that he was
staking all upon his belief in the superiority of his own
swordsmanship, since if the two Chiefs engage, the outcome decides the
game. U-Dor could move out and engage Gahan, or he could move his
Princess' Panthan upon the square occupied by Gahan in the hope that the
former would defeat the Black Chief and thus draw the game, which is
the outcome if any other than a Chief slays the opposing Chief, or he
could move away and escape, temporarily, the necessity for personal
combat, or at least that is evidently what he had in mind as was
obvious to all who saw him scanning the board about him; and his
disappointment was apparent when he finally discovered that Gahan had
so placed himself that there was no square to which U-Dor could move
that it was not within Gahan's power to reach at his own next move.
U-Dor had placed his own Princess four squares east of Gahan when her
position had been threatened, and he had hoped to lure the Black Chief
after her and away from U-Dor; but in that he had failed. He now
discovered that he might play his own Odwar into personal combat with
Gahan; but he had already lost one Odwar and could ill spare the other.
His position was a delicate one, since he did not wish to engage Gahan
personally, while it appeared that there was little likelihood of his
being able to escape. There was just one hope and that lay in his
Princess' Panthan, so, without more deliberation he ordered the piece
onto the square occupied by the Black Chief.
The sympathies of the spectators were all with Gahan now. If he lost,
the game would be declared a draw, nor do they think better of drawn
games upon Barsoom than do Earth men. If he won, it would doubtless
mean a duel between the two Chiefs, a development for which they all
were hoping. The game already bade fair to be a short one and it would
be an angry crowd should it be decided a draw with only two men slain.
There were great, historic games on record where of the forty pieces on
the field when the game opened only three survived--the two Princesses
and the victorious Chief.
They blamed U-Dor, though in fact he was well within his rights in
directing his play as he saw fit, nor was a refusal on his part to
engage the Black Chief necessarily an imputation of cowardice. He was a
great chief who had conceived a notion to possess the slave Tara. There
was no honor that could accrue to him from engaging in combat with
slaves and criminals, or an unknown warrior from Manataj, nor was the
stake of sufficient import to warrant the risk.
But now the duel between Gahan and the Orange Panthan was on and the
decision of the next move was no longer in other hands than theirs. It
was the first time that these Manatorians had seen Gahan of Gathol
fight, but Tara of Helium knew that he was master of his sword. Could
he have seen the proud light in her eyes as he crossed blades with the
wearer of the Orange, he might easily have wondered if they were the
same eyes that had flashed fire and hatred at him that time he had
covered her lips with mad kisses, in the pits of the palace of O-Tar.
As she watched him she could not but compare his swordplay with that of
the greatest swordsman of two worlds--her father, John Carter, of
Virginia, a Prince of Helium, Warlord of Barsoom--and she knew that the
skill of the Black Chief suffered little by the comparison.
Short and to the point was the duel that decided possession of the
Orange Chief's fourth. The spectators had settled themselves for an
interesting engagement of at least average duration when they were
brought almost standing by a brilliant flash of rapid swordplay that
was over ere one could catch his breath. They saw the Black Chief step
quickly back, his point upon the ground, while his opponent, his sword
slipping from his fingers, clutched his breast, sank to his knees and
then lunged forward upon his face.
And then Gahan of Gathol turned his eyes directly upon U-Dor of
Manator, three squares away. Three squares is a Chief's move--three
squares in any direction or combination of directions, only provided
that he does not cross the same square twice in a given move. The
people saw and guessed Gahan's intention. They rose and roared forth
their approval as he moved deliberately across the intervening squares
toward the Orange Chief.
O-Tar, in the royal enclosure, sat frowning upon the scene. O-Tar was
angry. He was angry with U-Dor for having entered this game for
possession of a slave, for whom it had been his wish only slaves and
criminals should strive. He was angry with the warrior from Manataj for
having so far out-generaled and out-fought the men from Manator. He was
angry with the populace because of their open hostility toward one who
had basked in the sunshine of his favor for long years. O-Tar the
jeddak had not enjoyed the afternoon. Those who surrounded him were
equally glum--they, too, scowled upon the field, the players, and the
people. Among them was a bent and wrinkled old man who gazed through
weak and watery eyes upon the field and the players.
As Gahan entered his square, U-Dor leaped toward him with drawn sword
with such fury as might have overborne a less skilled and powerful
swordsman. For a minute the fighting was fast and furious and by
comparison reducing to insignificance all that had gone before. Here
indeed were two magnificent swordsmen, and here was to be a battle that
bade fair to make up for whatever the people felt they had been
defrauded of by the shortness of the game. Nor had it continued long
before many there were who would have prophesied that they were
witnessing a duel that was to become historic in the annals of jetan at
Manator. Every trick, every subterfuge, known to the art of fence these
men employed. Time and again each scored a point and brought blood to
his opponent's copper hide until both were red with gore; but neither
seemed able to administer the coup de grace.
From her position upon the opposite side of the field Tara of Helium
watched the long-drawn battle. Always it seemed to her that the Black
Chief fought upon the defensive, or when he assumed to push his
opponent, he neglected a thousand openings that her practiced eye
beheld. Never did he seem in real danger, nor never did he appear to
exert himself to quite the pitch needful for victory. The duel already
had been long contested and the day was drawing to a close. Presently
the sudden transition from daylight to darkness which, owing to the
tenuity of the air upon Barsoom, occurs almost without the warning
twilight of Earth, would occur. Would the fight never end? Would the
game be called a draw after all? What ailed the Black Chief?
Tara wished that she might answer at least the last of these questions
for she was sure that Turan the panthan, as she knew him, while
fighting brilliantly, was not giving of himself all that he might. She
could not believe that fear was restraining his hand, but that there
was something beside inability to push U-Dor more fiercely she was
confident. What it was, however, she could not guess.
Once she saw Gahan glance quickly up toward the sinking sun. In thirty
minutes it would be dark. And then she saw and all those others saw a
strange transition steal over the swordplay of the Black Chief. It was
as though he had been playing with the great dwar, U-Dor, all these
hours, and now he still played with him but there was a difference. He
played with him terribly as a carnivore plays with its victim in the
instant before the kill. The Orange Chief was helpless now in the hands
of a swordsman so superior that there could be no comparison, and the
people sat in open-mouthed wonder and awe as Gahan of Gathol cut his
foe to ribbons and then struck him down with a blow that cleft him to
the chin.
In twenty minutes the sun would set. But what of that?
CHAPTER XVIII
A TASK FOR LOYALTY
Long and loud was the applause that rose above the Field of Jetan at
Manator, as The Keeper of the Towers summoned the two Princesses and
the victorious Chief to the center of the field and presented to the
latter the fruits of his prowess, and then, as custom demanded, the
victorious players, headed by Gahan and the two Princesses, formed in
procession behind The Keeper of the Towers and were conducted to the
place of victory before the royal enclosure that they might receive the
commendation of the jeddak. Those who were mounted gave up their thoats
to slaves as all must be on foot for this ceremony. Directly beneath
the royal enclosure are the gates to one of the tunnels that, passing
beneath the seats, give ingress or egress to or from the Field. Before
this gate the party halted while O-Tar looked down upon them from
above. Val Dor and Floran, passing quietly ahead of the others, went