PRINCESS OF CHAOS

By BRYCE WALTON

The howling, slavering mob in the blood-spattered arena hated the half-breed Moljar—prayed gibberingly for his death. But Moljar looked coldly up at the Princess and licked dry lips. He would not die—while she lived!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Moljar planted his columnar legs wide apart beside the dying saurian and blinked blood and sweat from his eyes. Only slightly strained after three hours of the Red Moon Games, his seven foot height of Terran-Martian muscles gleamed damply in the blazing arc lights of the Colosseum. His lungs sucked hungrily at the dense Venusian air as he waited for whatever would next be sent against him, the champion of them all.

Through sweat-blurred vision he watched the climbing tiers of eager spectators, a high curvature outlined against the crimson mist. Red Moon Games! Bi-monthly slaughter, ordered by the Princess Alhone when the unnatural filtering of the reflected sun's rays spread a carmine glow through the fog.

The grey sands of the arena were daubed with sprawled forms of monsters and men alike. Out of the shambles, Moljar's black barbarian eyes shone as they swung up to fix on the Princess Alhone where she sat with a retinue in her private observation box. Her grey-furred, semi-human body glimmered softly beneath the blue-glowing effulgence that always bathed her in its royal cold light.

Her heavily jeweled paw raised, dropped. The signal.

A roar of sadistic anticipation swelled, echoing from the misty range of hills, beyond Venus Port, out across the Sea of Mort that washed its marble walls.

Moljar shifted toward the gates. His hands flexed about the alloy bar. At Princess Alhone's gesture, the gates across the arena lifted. The monstrous beast, somewhat resembling a Mesozoic saber-tooth tiger of Terra, charged out straight for Moljar in a blinding burst of speed and power.

The half-breed swung the pitiful weapon which had jokingly been granted him, a five-foot length of compressed alloy. It cracked against the giant cat's skull. Moljar leaped aside as the beast plunked on its face, rolled in a flurry of sand and blood. Tendrils of gore oozed from its shattered skull as it lumbered erect and charged again, erratically now, circling 

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