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throne of the Third Jed was empty. Surrounding our jed, we shouldered our way
to
the foot of the dais; but he did not mount to the throne. Instead, he stood on
the floor facing the six jeds; and his voice and his manner were truculent as he
addressed them.
"You sent warriors to arrest me," he said. "They are dead. There is no one in
Morbus with the power or authority to arrest me. There are some among you who
would like to be jeddak and rule the rest of us. The First Jed would like to be
jeddak. The time has come for us to determine which one is fit to be jeddak, for
I agree with others of you that seven men cannot rule as well as one. Divided
authority is no authority."
"You are under arrest," shouted the First Jed.
The Third Jed laughed at him. "You are giving additional proof that you are not
fit to be jeddak, for you can only issue orders you cannot enforce them."
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The First Jed looked down at his followers, addressing his chief dwar. "Seize
him!" he commanded. "Take the traitor dead or alive."
The warriors of the First Jed moved toward us, forcing their way slowly through
crowds of other warriors. I chanced to be standing in the front row, facing the
oncoming hormads. A big warrior was the first to shoulder his way through to us.
He made a pass at me with his sword. He was very slow and clumsy, and I had no
difficulty stepping quickly to one side and avoiding it. He had put so much into
that blow, that, when he missed me, he lost his balance and came tumbling into
my arms. That was wonderful! I hoisted him in to the air and threw him fully
fifty feet from me, so that he alighted in the midst of his companions, knocking
many of them to the floor.
"Good work, Tor-dur-bar!" shouted the Third Jed. "You shall have all the meat
you want for that."
A second man reached me and I threw him all the way across the room. I was just
beginning to appreciate what enormous strength I had. It seemed absolutely
incredible that any creature could be so strong. After that there was a lull
during which the Third Jed succeeded in making himself heard again.
"I, the Third Jed," he thundered, "now proclaim myself Jeddak of Morbus. Let
the
jeds who will swear allegiance to me rise!"
No one rose. It looked bad for the Third Jed, as the chamber was packed with the
warriors of the other jeds. It also looked pretty bad for us. I wondered what
the Third Jed would do. It seemed to me that his life was forfeit anyway, no
matter what he did. He turned and spoke to the dwars clustered about him, and
immediately orders were given for us to fall back to the doorway. Then the
fighting began as the other jeds ordered their warriors to prevent our escape.
The Third Jed called me by name. "Clear a way to the door, Tor-dur-bar!" he
cried. It seemed to me that he was banking rather too heavily upon my strength;
but I enjoyed fighting, and this looked like an excellent opportunity to get my
fill of it. I forced my way back through our own ranks to what was now the front
rank of our attack, and here I found that fate had given me a great advantage in
one of my deformities. My enormously long arm was my sword arm, which,
backed by
my super-human strength and a long sword, permitted me to cut a swath through
the enemy line that opened a path as by magic, for those that I did not mow down
turned and fled before the intensity of my attack.
There were heads and arms and legs and halves of bodies writhing and squirming
on the floor; there were heads screaming and cursing under foot, and headless
bodies dashing about the room colliding with friend and foe indiscriminately. If
there ever was a shambles it was there in the great council chamber of the seven
jeds of Morbus. The hormads were, for the most part, too stupid to know fear;
but when they saw their officers fleeing from me, their morale was shattered;
and we won to the door with scarcely a casualty on our side.
From there our officers led us out of the palace into the city and down the long
avenue to the city gates. There they knew nothing of what had been going on in
the palace, and swung the gates open at the command of the Third Jed. Of course,
they couldn't have stopped us anyway, for we greatly outnumbered the guard at
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the gates.
I wondered where we were going as we marched out of the city of Morbus; but I
was soon to discover, for at the first of the outer villages that we came to,
the Third Jed demanded its surrender, and announced that he was the Jeddak of
Morbus. He swore the officers and warriors into his service, promoted many of
the former, promised increased rations to the latter, left a dwar to represent
him and marched on to new conquests.
Nowhere did he meet with opposition, and in three days he had conquered all of
the island of Morbus except the city itself. The dwars he left behind organized
the local warriors to oppose any force that might be sent out by the six jeds
remaining in command of the city, but during those three days no army marched
out of Morbus to contest the right of the new jeddak to rule.
On the fifth day we marched back to a large village on the coast, near the city;
and here Ay-mad, Jeddak of Morbus, established his capital. This is the name he
took, the literal translation of which is One-man, or Number One Man, or First
Man. Anyway, he was head man; and I think that of all the seven jeds he was best
fitted to be jeddak. He had a physique and face suited to his new role, and he
possessed one of the best brains of any of the hormads that I had knowledge of.
Of course all that had happened seemed at the time to have placed me in an
utterly hopeless position. Janai was in the city beyond any hope of my succoring
her. I was separated from The Warlord and from Ras Thavas. I was only a poor
hormad without influence or position. I could do nothing, and by now I must
have
been so well known in the city that I could not possibly enter it
surreptitiously. My hideous features must by this time have become all too well
known to the followers of the six jeds to permit me the slightest hope of
entering the city unrecognized.
When we finally encamped in the new capital of Ay-mad I threw myself upon the
ground with my fellow hormads and awaited the issuance of the slimy animal
tissue that was our principal reward for the conquests we had made. It satisfied
most of the poor, moronic, half-witted creatures who were my comrades; but it
did not satisfy me. I was endowed with more brains, more ability, more
experience, more physical strength than any of them. I was by far a better man
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