It was evidently unused to its victims retaliating and it hissed in apparently puzzled anger as my sword gashed a wound in its snout. It drew back its head and began to uncoil, so that soon the head had risen high above me and I was in its shadow. Down came the gaping maw and I thought it would take me in one gulp. I raised the sword point-first and as the mouth was almost upon me, the fetid breath almost overpowering, I dug the sword-point into the beast's soft palate.

It screamed and threshed backwards. Meanwhile, the Argzoon warrior had come in and hacked at the beast's head with his axe. It turned on him and the sweeping head caught him off balance.

He fell and the N'aal Beast opened its mouth, about to snap off his head.

Then I saw my chance. I leapt on to the N'aal Beast's back—on to its upper head and, running over that flat head, straddled it just above the eyes.  All this took only a few seconds, as the Argzoon below tried desperately to fend off the snapping jaws.

I raised my sword in both hands over the creature's right eye.

I plunged the blade downwards.

The steel sank in. The head jerked backwards and I was flung—swordless now—from my perch.

The N'aal Beast turned again towards me. The sword still protruded from its eye so that it made an even more grotesque sight as it came at me.

The Argzoon axe-man leapt up again and came to stand by me, evidently intending to protect me now that I was unarmed.

The beast let out a chilling, reverberating scream, and the gaping mouth, forked tongue flickering rapidly, flashed down on us.

Only inches before it reached us, the head suddenly turned and flung itself upwards. The beast uncoiled its whole length and began to shoot up so that I felt it would leave the pit altogether. I caught a glimpse of spectators scattering—and then it flopped down, almost striking us and finishing us by crushing us beneath its weight.

My sword had done the trick. I had killed it. It had clung on to life longer than anything should have. I half-credited its supernatural origin then!

I bent towards the great head and removed my sword. It slid out easily.

Then I realized that nothing was really saved. I was still imprisoned and, though armed, there were some two hundred Argzoon above us, ready to destroy us at a word from Horguhl.

"What do we do?" I asked my new friend.

"I know," he said, after some thought. "There is a small opening—look there, at the base of the pit on the other side." I followed his pointing finger. He was right. There was an opening large enough to take a man but not large enough for the head of the N'aal Beast.

"What is it?" I asked.