=== apom_ch18_pt3 === 

I never before had seen two green Martian warriors battle with natures weapons and the exhibition of animal ferocity which ensued was as fearful a thing as the most disordered imagination could picture.  They tore at each others eyes and ears with their hands and with their gleaming tusks repeatedly slashed and gored until both were cut fairly to ribbons from head to foot. =

Bar Comas had much the better of the battle as he was stronger, quicker and more intelligent.  It soon seemed that the encounter was done saving only the final death thrust when Bar Comas slipped in
breaking away from a clinch.  It was the one little opening that Dak Kova needed, and hurling himself at the body of his adversary he buried his single mighty tusk in Bar Comas groin and with a last powerful effort ripped the young jeddak wide open the full length of his body, the great tusk finally wedging in the bones of Bar Comas jaw.  Victor and vanquished rolled limp and lifeless upon the moss, a huge mass of torn and bloody flesh. =

Bar Comas was stone dead, and only the most herculean efforts on the part of Dak Kovas females saved him from the fate he deserved. Three days later he walked without assistance to the body of Bar Comas which, by custom, had not been moved from where it fell, and placing his foot upon the neck of his erstwhile ruler he assumed the title of Jeddak of Warhoon. =

The dead jeddaks hands and head were removed to be added to the ornaments of his conqueror, and then his women cremated what remained, amid wild and terrible laughter. =

The injuries to Dak Kova had delayed the march so greatly that it was decided to give up the expedition, which was a raid upon a small Thark community in retaliation for the destruction of the incubator, until after the great games, and the entire body of warriors, ten thousand in number, turned back toward Warhoon. = 

=== end of pt3 ===