"Douglas Hill - The Last Legionary 04 - Planet Of The Warlord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hill Douglas)

along its length.

There were only two rules governing the individual combat of the Battle Rites. First, quite simply,
there was to be no killing. A combatant could wound, maim and disable opponents as much as he liked.
But if anyone was killed, even accidentally, the killer would at once be disqualified, fined, and forbidden
ever to compete again. Which, it had seemed to Keill, would not be much comfort to the victim... But it
was the rule.

The second rule banned all high-technology weapons. Competitors could use only primitive,
traditional weapons, and a team of inspectors made sure that this rule was strictly observed.

Keill Randor was the first man for twenty years to fight in the Battle Rites using only his bare
hands.

The arena began to echo with the yells and grunts of furious combat, the clash of weapons, as the
club-wielder edged warily closer to Keill. Still Keill had not moved. Then the other man's eyes glittered,
and he lunged forward, the bladed club slashing with surprising speed towards Keill's legs.

But Keill was no longer there. Without apparently gathering or bracing himself, he had leaped тАУ
not just above the weapon, but high in the air, above the very head of the squat club-wielder.

The man had perhaps only just noticed that his opponent was somehow in the air above him,
when Keill's boot slammed down with measured precision on the top of the hairless pate.

The impact drove the squat man face-down and unconscious on to the artificial turf that was the
arena's floor. By then, using the club-wielder's head as a springboard, Keill had flung himself into a
controlled, headlong dive at two other combatants.

One was a heavily built woman, wearing a decorated helmet and body armour, swinging a long
two-handed sword. She was facing a tall, powerful man whose body was entirely covered with a pelt of
thick white fur, and who was defending himself with a short stabbing spear, a wickedly barbed metal
head on a wooden shaft. Neither of them was aware of Keill until he crashed down upon them, all three
tumbling to the ground in a tangle of flailing limbs and weapons.

Few eyes in the crowd could have been quick enough to see the movement of Keill's fist. The
blow travelled only a few centimetres, but Keill had instantly found the balance he needed to put all his
power behind it. As he came to his feet to confront the fur-covered warrior, the woman remained down,
gasping and retching weakly, with a deep, fist-sized dent in her armour directly over the pit of her
stomach.

The crowd whooped as the furred man feinted at Keill, and then stabbed towards him,
lightning-quick, with the short spear. But the point struck only empty air. Keill had spun inside the blow,
close to the furred body, with his back to his opponent. As he did so, the edge of his right hand chopped
down at the thick haft of the spear, slicing through it as cleanly as if lie had used an axe. And in the same
instant his left elbow drove backwards in a precise smash against the edge of the white-furred jaw.

He had carefully weighted the blow, mindful of the rules. So it was only the jaw that broke, and
not the neck, as the furred man crashed to the ground. The crowd screamed with delirious joy. It
screamed again as Keill leaped without pause towards the other competitors.