He planted a sandaled foot on the carcass and raised his face toward the Princess Alhone's royal booth. Reluctantly, a smattering of applause rose. Princess Alhone's silkily furred body was standing now. Motionless.
Moljar's voice rang out clear through the mist. "Moljar waits for worthy opposition. He is bored."
"Dirty half-breed dog!" howled a voice. Thousands joined in a thunder of obscene and filthy epithets.
Moljar laughed loudly. He saw Alhone's slim alien form tense as the saber tooth's had before a charge. And he began walking toward her across the blood-stained sands.
He paused as she raised a jeweled paw again. Moljar's eyes narrowed as the almost invisible vibrational force-wall rose up before the spectators and the rim of the vast arena.
"_Kristons!_" screamed Mahra behind him. "The wall protects the audience."
He heard the high whirring whine of the huge tri-winged, armor-plated insects as they were released into the arena. They dove and circled, maddened by the miasmic death vapor overhanging the stadium.
Like a trapped beast, the half-breed turned this way and that. Beads of sweat stood out on his heaving chest. He wiped his sweat-slippery hands on his leather tunic, then dried them in the sand, before he gripped his alloy bludgeon again. Then with the long eerie cry of the wild desert tribes he sprang into the air to meet the hurtling drive of the _kriston_ that had singled him out.
The blinding speed of its wings distorted his perspective. The alloy bar, caught in their blurring motion, spun from his stunned hands. He cursed as he fell beneath its flight.
Dimly, he heard the joyous roaring of the throngs who watched him fall. As he rolled aside he heard Mahra's frightened scream. He felt the spearing slash of the _kriston's_ poisonous barbed fang. His arms whipped out, hands closed on the horned tip. He was on his feet heaving outward. He felt tendons rip and a sudden freedom as the tongue tore from the _kriston's_ throat. Its death cry sounded like escaping steam.
He was running toward the outcast Terran girl who was dodging the worrying darting movements of another _kriston_. He swung the grotesque whip-like tongue of the one he had slain as he ran.
He stopped. The creature attacking Mahra suddenly became a lifeless charred hulk. The other _kristons_ were plunging into the sand, smoking, burning. His eyes swung up. The force-wall was gone. The heat ray on the roof landing above the catacombs had destroyed the _kristons_ before their work was done. The heat ray was only used for emergencies. What had moved the Anghorians to save them?