"My lord?"

"I back the beast. Will you take five to one against the man?"

"Seven would be better, my lord."

"Six." Yunus Ambalo was impatient. "Thirty against five in thousands. A deal?" He turned back to face the arena as Kemmer nodded, confident the bet was as good as won. "And you, my dear? A thousand that the man falls within two minutes?"

"Accepted." She glanced at the clock then back at Dumarest. Suddenly, against all logic, she felt that he would win.

It was a confidence he didn't share. The creature was fast, sand pluming from beneath the long, tapered body as it writhed toward him. A moment to study detail and then he had sprung to one side, net lashing, spear levelled, the point rasping against a silicon-loaded hide as the beast turned and snapped with snouted jaws lined with flat, grinding teeth.

A thing from the desert. Life adapted to live even in the hostile environment of Harge. The body, snake-like, was segmented and scaled. The head was a conical projection split into the vise-like jaws. The eyes were covered with thick plates of transparent tissue. There was no observable ears, no feet, no neck, no weak points which Dumarest could recognize. Twelve feet long, three high, the creature was a mass of flexible sinew and iron-like muscle.

He jumped as the tail lashed toward him, landing to jump again, boots hitting the creature's back, gaining leverage to lift his body again in a long spring to one side. He'd turned in the air and landed, the net splaying from his left hand, the mesh badly aimed yet falling over the snout. Immediately he stabbed with the spear, the point glancing from the protective covering of an eye, skidding over the scaled carapace. An attack which took time and only his speed and agility saved his legs from been snapped by the vicious blow of the tail. Again he dodged, ran to the far end of the arena, ran again as the sannak writhed over the sand directly toward him.

The clock registerd the passing of forty seconds.

Four hundred kren clipped from the prize but Dumarest wasn't thinking of that. If he'd been the slow-moving clod he'd appeared he would be down by now, flesh and bone crushed by the sannak's jaws. No real contest and he wondered why Matpius had matched him against the beast The answer lay in the avid faces ringing the arena; their desire for blood, the spectacle of butchery.

He jumped again, pluming sand rising to catch his throat and sting his eyes, grit sent to fog the air as the snake-like thing lashed itself forward with sweeps of body and tail. Again Dumarest lashed out with the net, snarling as the mesh failed to open, trying again then throwing it aside so as to leave both hands free to manipulate the spear. To face the creature was useless, scaled and protected it couldn't be harmed with the weapons he possessed, but if he could get behind it he might stand a chance. The scales would overlap and the spear could be thrust between them. Hurt, the thing could turn and expose its stomach and, if that was softer than its back, the contest would still be won.

A chime and the first minute had passed, a sound lost in the roar of the crowd as Dumarest jumped again, feeling the rasp of the lashing tail against the sole of his boot, landing to thrust the spear beneath a scale. Tissue held then yielded, green ichor welling from between the plates. A minor wound but on which convulsed the sannak so that, as if impelled by a spring. Dumarest rose high into the air, to turn, to land sprawling on the sand as his feet slipped on buried slime. A moment in which he was helpless and one in which the sannak attacked.

"God!" Ellain felt the contraction of her stomach, the chill which warred with mounting, sensual heat. "No! Dear God, no!"

She could see it now in imagination as she had seen it in reality before. The long snout thrusting, jaws parting, closing to the shriek of the victim, the crunch of bone. The jerk and then retreat as the severed limb was dragged free to be eaten while the hapless man watched blood jet from severed arteries to stain the stand. And then the rest, the crawling, the pleading, the terror and the final, horrible, slobbering death.

"No!" she cried again. "No!"

It almost seemed he heard her. Certainly he moved and with a speed which blurred his limbs so that one moment he sprawled helpless, the next he was standing, feet distant, the spear recovered and reflecting splinters of brilliance as again it thrust at the emerald stain on the scales.

"Clever," mused Yunus. "He's discovered a vulnerable point and is concentrating on it. A pity that he is wasting his time."

"Time," she said and looked at the clock. "You owe me a thousand."

A debt he acknowledged with a jerk of his head, his attention once again concentrated on the man and the beast in the arena. The creature had been made to bleed but from a point tough with inner sinew and flexible bone. A thing he knew but which the man could not. How long would it take him to change his pattern of attack?

The third bell and Dumarest realized he was doing nothing more than irritating the sannak. Backing, spear held before him, he reassessed the problem. The creature was armored, protected against winds and dust which could strip the surface of stone. It was at home in an environment in which no unprotected man could live for a minute. But no creature was totally invulnerable. Nothing alive was proof against injury and death.

He moved as again the snake-like body lunged toward him. Jumping he landed on the far side and noted how quickly the thing could turn. As it twisted the scales gaped, lifting to compensate, providing a target for anyone standing at the rear. Useless information; he was alone, what had to be done must be done by his own effort. Not the scales, then, and the stomach hugged the sand. The eyes were protected. The mouth?

It had to be the mouth.

He waited, taking his time, ignoring the clock, the chiming bell which registered the dimunition of the prize he didn't expect to win. It would be prize enough if he walked alive from the sand. A bonus if he remained unhurt.

"Move!" A woman screamed from the stands. "Attack, you coward!"

A soft and pampered creature who would fly into a panic at the slightest injury. One matched by a man who added his own insults, made brave by the comforting knowledge that he would never have to answer for his sneers. Dumarest ignored them as he ignored everything but the creature before him.

Like himself it had slowed down, the initial fury replaced by an instinctive caution. Strength and energy now had to be husbanded against the time of supreme effort when life and death hung in the balance and could be decided by an extra modicum of stamina. And yet it was a beast while he was a man. If it had the brawn he had the brain.

He tempted it, moving, retreating, the spear a darting irritation at the eyes, the jaws. Jaws which parted to snap, to miss, to snap again a little wider than before. To reveal a throat ridged and lined like the maw of the grinder it was. A target at which he stabbed, steel vanishing from sight, the point a lance which stung and was withdrawn, teeth rasping over the blade as Dumarest jerked it from between the jaws.

Again, green staining the polished metal. A third time and then, with a sudden rush, the thing was on him, following the point instead of withdrawing from it, the small but cunning brain learning from experience. Dumarest spun, the spear hampering his movements, throwing him off-balance as sand dragged at his feet. Holding him as the jaws parted to close like a vise on his boot just below the left knee.

"Earl!" Kemmer had seen and stood, stunned, his face was a mask of horror. "Earl!"

A cry lost in the thunder of the crowd rose, yelling, scenting the end. Once a sannak had hold the outcome was predictable.