in now for his own pride's sake, and Ross felt
_he_ had to win for his life. They circled warily, Ross watching his
opponent's eyes rather than those half-closed hands held at waist level.

Back at the base he had been matched with Ashe, and before Ashe with the
tough-bodied, skilled, and merciless trainers in unarmed combat. He had
had beaten into his bruised flesh knowledge of holds and blows intended
to save his skin in just such an encounter. But then he had been
well-fed, alert, prepared. He had not been knocked silly and then
transported for miles slung across a horse after days of exposure and
hard usage. It remained to be learned--was Ross Murdock as tough as he
always thought himself to be? Tough or not, he was in this until he
won--or dropped.

Comments from the crowd aroused Ennar to the first definite action. He
charged, stooping low in a wrestler's stance, but Ross squatted even
lower. One hand flicked to the churned dust of the ground and snapped up
again, sending a cloud of grit into the tribesman's face. Then their
bodies met with a shock, and Ennar sailed over Ross's shoulder to skid
along the earth.

Had Ross been fresh, the contest would have ended there and then in his
favor. But when he tried to whirl and throw himself on his opponent he
was too slow. Ennar was not waiting to be pinned flat, and it was Ross's
turn to be caught at a disadvantage.

A hand shot out to catch his leg just above the ankle, and once again
Ross obeyed his teaching, falling easily at that pull, to land across
his opponent. Ennar, disconcerted by the too-quick success of his
attack, was unprepared for this. Ross rolled, trying to escape
steel-fingered hands, his own chopping out in edgewise blows, striving
to serve Ennar as he had Tulka.

He had to take a lot of punishment, though he managed to elude the
powerful bear's hug in which he knew the other was laboring to engulf
him, a hold which would speedily crush him into submission. Clinging to
the methods he had been taught, he fought on, only now he knew, with a
growing panic, that his best was not good enough. He was too spent to
make an end. Unless he had some piece of great good luck, he could only
delay his own defeat.

Fingers clawed viciously at his eyes, and Ross did what he had never
thought to do in any fight--he snapped wolfishly, his teeth closing on
flesh as he brought up his knee and drove it home into the body
wriggling on his. There was a gasp of hot br