Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur. Страница 149

The gong tolled the rounds, five, six and seven, Manfred had never been forced to fight this long. Always his victories had come swiftly, ending in that sudden barrage of blows that smashed his opponent into the canvas. However, the hard training that Uncle Tromp had imposed upon him had given him long wind, and toughened his legs and arms. He felt strong and invulnerable still, and he knew it had to come soon. He had only to wait it out. The American was tiring. His punches no longer snapped with quite the same velocity. The mistake must come and Manfred waited for it, containing his passionate hunger to see the American's blood.

it came halfway through the seventh round.

The American threw one of those straight hissing lefts, and not even seeing it, sensing it with animal instinct, Manfred reared back pulling in his chin and the blow brushed his face but stopped short.

Manfred was poised on the balls of his feet, with his weight back but ready to move forward, his right arm was cocked, the fist clenched like a blacksmith's hammer, and the American was a hundredth part of a second slow on the recovery. Seven hard rounds had tired him and he dragged a fraction, and his right side was open. Manfred could not see the opening, it was too minute, too fleeting, but again that instinct triggered him and experience guided his arm; he knew by the set of the American's shoulders, the angle of his arm and the cock of his head where the opening was.

it was too quick for conscious decision, and the punch was already launched before he could think but the decision was made instinctively and it was to end it in one.

Not his usual two-handed, swarming battering finish, but the single stroke, decisive and irretrievable, that would end it all.

It began in the great elastic muscles of his calves and thighs, accelerating like a stone in the swing of a slingshot through the twist of his pelvis and spine and shoulders, all of it channelled into his right arm like a wide roaring river trapped in a narrow canyon; it went through the American's guard and burst into the side of his dark head with a force that made Manfred's teeth clash together in his own skull.

It was everything he had, all his training and experience, all his strength, all his guts and his heart and every finely tuned muscle was behind that blow, and it landed solid and cleanly.

Manfred felt it go. He felt the bones of his right hand break, snapping and crackling like dry twigs, and the pain was a white electric thing that flared back up his arm and filled his head with flames. But in the pain was triumph and soaring joy for he knew it was over. He knew he had won.

The flames of agony cleared from his vision and he looked to see the American crumpled on the canvas at his feet, but the wild soaring of his heart stopped and turned to a plunging stone of despair. Cyrus Lomax was still on his feet. He was hurt and staggering, his eyes dull and sightless, his legs filled with cotton waste and his skull with molten lead, tottering on the very brink, but he was still on his feet.

Kill him! screamed the crowd. Kill him! Manfred could see how little it needed, just one more with the right hand, for the American was out on his feet, just one more. But there was no more, nothing left. The right hand was gone.

The American was reeling about drunkenly, bouncing off the ropes, knees sagging and then by some immense effort of will recovering again.

The left hand. Manfred summoned it all, everything that remained. I've got to take him with the left. And through his own agony he went after him again.

He threw the left hand, going for the head, but the American smothered it with an uncoordinated forward lunge, and he threw both arms around Manfred's shoulders and clinched him, clinging to him like a drowning man. Manfred tried to throw him off and the crowd noise was a berserk thunder, the referee shouting above it Break! Break! but the American held on just long enough.

When the referee got them apart, Cyrus Lomax's eyes were sighted and focused; and he backed away in front of Manfred's desperate efforts to land with the left hand, and the bell rang.

What is it, Manie? Uncle Tromp seized him and guided him to his corner. You had him beaten. What went wrong? My right, Manfred mumbled through the pain, and Uncle Tromp touched it, just above the wrist and Manfred almost screamed. The hand was ballooning, the swelling spreading up the arm even as they stared at it.

I'm throwing in the towel, Uncle Tromp whispered. You can't fight with that hand! Manfred snarled at him, No! His eyes were fierce and yellow as he looked across the ring to where they were working on the dazed American, cold compresses and sal volatile, slapping his cheeks, talking to him, talking him round.

The bell rang for the start of the eighth round and Manfred went out and saw with despair the new strength and coordination with which the American was moving. He was still afraid and uncertain, backing off, waiting for Manfred's attack, but getting stronger every minute, obviously puzzled at first by Manfred's failure to use the right hand again, and then realization dawning in his eyes.

You all gone, he growled in Manfred's ear in the next clinch. 'No right hand, white boy. I'm going to eat you up now! His punches started hurting, and Manfred began to back away. His left eye was closing up and he could taste the coppery salt of blood in his mouth.

The American shot out a hard straight left-hander, and instinctively Manfred blocked with his right, catching the blow on his glove; the pain was so intense that blackness shaded his vision and the earth tipped under him, and the next time he was afraid to block with the right and the American's punch got through and slammed into his injured eye. He could feel the swelling hanging on his face like a bloated blood-sucking tick, a fatpurple grape that closed the eye completely and the bell rang to end the eighth round.

Two more rounds, Uncle Tromp whispered to him, compressing the swollen eye with an ice-pack. Can you see it out, Manie? Manfred nodded and went out to the gong for the ninth and the American came eagerly to meet him, too eagerly, for he dropped his right hand for the big punch and Manfred beat him to it, slamming in a hard left-hander that jolted Lomax back on his heels.

If he had had the use of his right hand Manfred could have taken him yet again, following up in that raging cross storm of blows that no opponent could survive, but the right was maimed and useless, and Lomax ducked away, backing off, recovering and circling in again, working on Manfred's eye, trying to cut it open and with the last punch of the round he succeeded. He slashed the fat purple sac that closed the eye with a glancing left, catching it with the inside of the glove, ripping it open with the cross hatching of the laces, and it burst. A sheet of blood poured down Manfred,s face and splashed over his chest.

Before the referee could hold them up to examine the damage, the gong sounded and Manfred staggered back to his corner as Uncle Tromp rushed out to meet him.

I'm going to stop it,he whispered fiercely as he examined the terrible wound. You can't fight with that, you could lose the eye., 'If you stop it now, Manfred told him, I will never forgive you. His voice was low, but the fire in his yellow eyes warned Tromp Bierman that he meant every word. The old man grunted. He cleaned the wound, and applied a styptic pencil. The referee came to examine the eye, turning Manfred's face to the light.

Can you go on? he asked quietly.

For the Volk and the Ffthrer, Manfred answered him softly, and the referee nodded.

You are a brave man! he said and signalled for the fight to continue.

That last round was an eternity of agony, the American's blows sledge-hammered Manfred's body, laying bruises on top of deep seeping bruises, each of them sapping Manfred further, reducing his ability to protect himself from the blows that followed.