Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 10.djvu/82

82 Holors walked over to it.

"Come on then," he said. "You ask for a fight, and just as I get ready to start you lie down and go to sleep."

He heard a lot of chattering voices.

"A chief! A chief! A king! A killer king!"

Dozens of ape-men had been watching his fight from holes and cracks in the rocks, and they howled approval of his convincing victory.

In a moment or so he was surrounded by them, shouting, worshipping, plucking curiously at his clothing.

"A chief! A champion fighter! Be our king! Be our king! Help us to kill the humans!"

One larger than the rest shuffled forward. He had a forbidding eye, his body was marked with the scars of many old battles, and his huge club had snakes' teeth fixed into it to give added point to its observations.

"That right?" the newcomer asked. "You a king? You a killer-fighter?"

"You said it," returned Vans heartily. "Me number one great fighting champion chief. Me make good king, great fighting champion king."

"Greeting!" said the newcomer, in friendly fashion. And at the same instant lashed out sideways with his club at the Martian's head.

The treacherous suddenness of the blow would have killed almost any man, but Vans had seen the calculating look in the eyes of the other, estimating the distance, and had known what was coming. The pretended friendliness did not deceive the veteran of a hundred fights.

Vans ducked aside from the blow.

At once there began a serious fight in the ring of blue-haired, red-chested and cheeked apemen. It was the near-champion of all Martians against a local champion of the apemen. The Martian had great skill and his strength was not much inferior to that of the ape, but the ape had long claws on feet and hands, and dangerous teeth. His reach, too, was very long. Standing on bent knees, his knuckles touched the ground.

Vans could not duck and grip him by the legs, or the snakes' teeth in the club would have made holes in his back. This ape was much too experienced a fighter to make a wild rush. He was wary, and cunning. The first thing, Vans realized, was to make him drop the club. He seized the hand that held the club by the wrist. The lightning speed of the movement startled the ape-king, but he strove to regain his advantage by striking at Vans' face with the claws of the other hand. Vans gripped that wrist also.

The ape tried to strike at Vans with the nails on its feet, but luckily its legs were much too short. Vans concentrated on making the ape drop the club. Abandoning the club, the ape made a violent effort to break loose. Vans' grip was broken. The club fell.

The two antagonists circled each other, warily.

HE ape-king had discovered from the strength of Vans' grip that the Martian was a match for him. Mostly, he regarded men with contempt. So soft were their bodies, and so easily were they killed provided one could catch them without deathrays, that killing them gave little pleasure. It was too easy. But this man was different. He was hard to kill. A man worth taking some trouble over.

And Vans had, for his part, realized that fighting this ape-man was a job to