Dalgard a futile gesture, for Sssuri lived and breathed, stood free
and armed in the city of his enemies--and the city was dead.

Together they climbed the barrier, and then Dalgard discovered that it
was the rim of an arena which must have seated close to a thousand in
the days of its use. It was a perfect oval in shape with tiers of
seats now forming a staircase down to the center, where was a section
ringed about by a series of archways. A high stone grille walled this
portion away from the seats as if to protect the spectators from what
might enter through those portals.

Dalgard noted all this only in passing, for the arena was occupied,
very much occupied. And he knew the occupiers only too well.

Three full-grown snake-devils were stretched at pulpy ease, their
filled bellies obscenely round, their long necks crowned with their
tiny heads flat on the sand as they napped. A pair of half-grown
monsters, not yet past the six-foot stage, tore at some indescribable
remnants of their elders' feasting, hissing at each other and aiming
vicious blows whenever they came within possible fighting distance.
Three more, not long out of their mothers' pouches scrabbled in the
earth about the sleeping adults.

"A good catch," Dalgard signaled Sssuri, and the merman nodded.

They climbed down from seat to seat. This could not rightfully be
termed hunting when the quarry might be picked off so easily without
risk to the archer. But as Dalgard notched his first arrow, he sighted
something so surprising that he did not let the poisoned dart fly.