More Than Fire

While he had been talking, he had looked around hoping to see the beamer. No luck.

"Ah!" Red Orc said. "So that is it! Is the Khringdiz still alive?"

"No. Did Anana escape with you?"

"I do not know. I was able to crawl out from my prison after it collapsed. I lost much skin getting through some very tight openings. And then I saw Wemathol riding his airboat. I jumped down on him from a pile and knocked him off the boat. Unfortunately, that kept on going. During the struggle with Wemathol, his beamer fell through a hole in the floor and I could not find it later. When I broke his neck, I put on his boots and headband and took his dagger. I deceived you long enough to get you into this situation. And now I am here to end the saga of Kickaha."

"I'll see about that. What makes you believe that you can defeat me? You're inferior to me, though you're a Lord and I'm a leblabbiy."

"How can you say that?" Red Orc said loudly.

"You had to use me to get into Zazel's World after you had failed during a search of many thousands of years. I was the one who deceived Dingsteth and talked it into releasing us. You didn't have the imagination to think of the ghost-of-Zazel idea. I had you at my mercy when I locked you up here. You'd still be there if Khruuz hadn't gated the palace. So, what makes you think you're a better man than I am?"

"You're a leblabbiy, a descendant of the artificial humans we Thoan made in our factories!" Red Orc howled. "You are inherently inferior because we made your ancestors inferior to us! You were made less intelligent than we! You were made less strong and less swift! Do you think that we would be stupid enough to make beings who were our equals?"

"That may have been the case when you first made them," Kickaha said. "But there is such a thing as evolution, you know. If I am indeed one of a lowly lesser breed, why is it I have killed so many Lords and gotten out of so many of their traps? Why do they call me the Trickster, the Slayer of Lords?"

"You have slain your last Lord!" Red Orc bellowed. "From now on, I will be known also as Kickaha's Killer."

"Old English saying: `The proof is in the pudding.' Get ready to choke on what I'm going to feed you," Kickaha said.

Red Orc was getting into a terrible fury, and that would shape his judgment. Or was he just pretending to be overwhelmed with anger so that his enemy would be too confident?

"I'm pleased you have the dagger," Kickaha said. "It gives you an advantage you really need."

"Leblabbiy!" the Thoan screamed.

"Don't just stand there and call me names like some ten-year-old kid," Kickaha said. "Try me! Attack! Let's see what you got!"

Red Orc yelled and ran at Kickaha, who stooped and picked up the marble chunk that had struck him in the forehead. He wound up like a baseball pitcher, which he had been when in high school. He aimed the stone for the Thoan's chest. But Red Orc stabbed at it, and it struck the point of the dagger. This was knocked loose from his grasp. No doubt, it also paralyzed his hand for a moment. In that time, Kickaha, yelling a war cry, was on him. Red Orc tried to dodge him, but Kickaha slammed into him and squeezed his hands around the thick neck and forced him to stagger backward. The Thoan tried to box both Kickaha's ears; Kickaha ducked his head so that he was struck on its upper part. The blows made his head ring, but he pulled the Thoan close to him, banged his head against Red Orc's (it was a question who was more dazed by this), and then fastened his teeth on Red Orc's neck.

The Thoan fell backward, taking Kickaha with him. Red Orc came out the worse from the fall. His breath whoofed out, and he had to fight Kickaha at the same time that he was trying to get his wind back. Kickaha was now in his own rage. He saw red, though it might have been his own blood or the Thoan's. Despite the impact and his loss of breath, Red Orc managed to turn over, taking Kickaha with him, and they rolled until they were stopped by a debris heap. Kickaha had fastened his teeth on the Lord's jugular vein and was biting as deep as he could. He did not expect to cut through the vein. He was no sharp-fanged great ape, but he strove to shut off the flow of blood.

Kickaha's body was pressed against Red Orc's left arm so tightly that, for some seconds, Red Orc could not get it free. But he brought the other arm up and over, a finger hooked. It dug deeply into Kickaha's right eye, and then was yanked back toward Red Orc. Kickaha's eye popped out and hung by the optic nerve. He was not aware of his other pains; his fury overrode them. But this one pierced through the haze of red.

Nevertheless, he kept on biting the vein. Red Orc then began slamming the side of Kickaha's head with the edge of his hand. That hurt and dazed Kickaha so much that he unclamped his teeth and rolled away. He was only vaguely aware that the optic nerve had been torn loose. When he stopped rolling, the lost eye flat, its fluid pressed out of it, stared up at him, a few inches from the other eye.

That sent a surge of energy through him. He got to his feet at the same time that Red Orc rose. He charged immediately. Red Orc turned to meet him. He was borne backward as Kickaha's head slammed into his belly. Kickaha fell, too, but reached out and squeezed the Thoan's testicles. While Red Orc writhed in agony, Kickaha got up and jumped on him with both feet. The Thoan screamed; the bones of his rib cage were fractured.

That should have been the end of the fight. But Red Orc was not the man to be stopped by mere crippling and high pain. His hand shot out and gripped Kickaha's ankle even as he writhed, and he yanked with a strength he should not have possessed. Kickaha fell backward, though he twisted enough to keep from falling completely on his back. His shoulder struck the floor. Red Orc had half turned, his grip still powerful. Kickaha sat up and pried one of the Thoan's fingers loose and bent it back. The bone snapped; the Thoan screamed again and loosed his clutch.

Kickaha got onto his knees and slammed his fist against the Thoan's nose. Its bridge snapped. Blood spurted from his nostrils. Nevertheless, in a wholly automatic reaction, he hit Kickaha's jaw with his fist. It was not the knockout blow it would have been if Red Orc had not been weakened. It did make Kickaha's head ring again. By the time his senses were wholly back, he saw that Red Orc was getting back onto his feet. And now he was swaying as he stood above Kickaha.

"You ca

"That's no big deal. I am Kickaha."

Kickaha's voice sounded feeble, but he rolled away while the Thoan staggered after him. Red Orc stopped when he saw the dagger on the ground, and he went to it and picked it up.

"I will cut off your testicles, just as I cut off my father's," he said, "and I will eat them raw, just as I ate my father's."

"Easier said than done," Kickaha said. He stood up. "What you did to so many people, especially what you did to Anana, will drive me on, no matter how you try to stop me."

"Let us get this over with, leblabbiy. It is no use for you to keep hoping you will overcome me. You will die."

"Sometime. Not now."

The Thoan waved the dagger. "You will not get by this."

Looking at the man's face, squeezed with agony, and at his bent-over posture, Kickaha thought that he might be able to dance around Red Orc until he collapsed. But the chances were fifty-fifty that he might crumble first.

His hand brushed against the deerskin pouch containing the Horn. In his fury, he had forgotten about it. He pulled it out from the pouch and gripped its end as if it were a club. Ancient Shambarimen had not made the instrument to be used as a bludgeon. But it would serve. He advanced slowly toward the Lord, saying, "It will be told that you had to use a knife to kill an unarmed man."