The Crimson Legion

TWO THE BLACK WALL

The scalding wind had died away, leaving the fumes from the burning argosy to rise skyward in arrow-straight trails. Rikus stood in the shade of the fortress-wagon, drinking from one of the water casks his warriors had thrown from its cargo hold. Also gathered around the keg were Neeva, Sadira, Agis, and the commanders of the legion’s three different contingents: the templar Styan, the noblewoman Jaseela, and a freed half-giant gladiator named Gaanon. The thri-kreen K’kriq waited patiently at the mul’s back, showing no interest in the water or the company.

The rest of the legion stood nearby, clustered in a hundred small assemblies of fifteen to twenty warriors. At the center of each group rested a keg of Urikite water, upon which the Tyrians were gorging themselves. Soon Rikus would give the order to drain the casks into the barren Athasian sands, and it was only natural for them to use as much of the precious liquid as they could.

“Are you mad, Rikus?” Agis snapped, throwing his wooden dipper back into the open water barrel. He waved an arm at the dead half-giants, crippled driks, and disassembled siege engines littering the valley’s red sands. “It’s one thing to burn an argosy or kill a few driks, and quite another to assault a trained legion of Urikite regulars.”

Rikus looked westward, toward the sandy hill over which the enemy’s army had disappeared a short time earlier. So far, none of the observers he had sent after the Urikites had returned, and he took their absence to mean the column was continuing toward Tyr. The mul was as distressed as he was surprised that his enemy had not stopped to fight. To him, their willingness to abandon their siege engines and the argosy suggested that they were confident they could sack Tyr without these things.

“Our attack comes from the rear,” Rikus said, his eyes narrowed in determination. “That gives us an advantage.”

“Being outnumbered five-to-one is no advantage!” Agis exclaimed. The three company commanders lowered their gazes to the packed sand of the road, wanting no part of an argument between Agis and Rikus.

Lowering his voice, Agis continued, “This has less to do with protecting Tyr than taking your petty vengeance on Family Lubar.”

“A slave’s vengeance is never petty,” said Neeva. “You’d know that if your back had ever felt the lash.”

Before the argument could continue, K’kriq pointed two chitinous arms at the sky. “Who that?” he demanded.

Rikus looked upward and gasped. There, hanging far up in the blistering pink sky, was the cloudlike head of King Tithian. It looked to be made of misty green light, though its vaporous nature did not prevent the king’s sharp features and hawkish nose from appearing anything less than distinct.

As Rikus’s companions turned to see what he was looking at, Tyrian warriors began to cry out in delighted astonishment. As they watched, the head dropped like a meteor, until it hung less than a hundred feet overhead and blocked out so much of the sky that the day faded to the purple hues of dusk. The entire legion broke into a rousing cheer that the mul knew would not soon end. Like the rest of Tyr, most gladiators credited the crafty king with freeing them. They had no knowledge of Agis’s role in forcing Tithian to issue his famous First Edict.

“Tithian! What’s he doing here?” demanded Neeva, yelling to make herself heard above the tumult.

“How did he get here?” asked Rikus. “I thought he didn’t know magic!”

“He doesn’t,” Sadira answered. She gestured at the apparition and uttered an incantation. A moment later, she added, “And that doesn’t feel like normal sorcery to me.”

“It isn’t the Way, either,” said Agis, rubbing his temples. “I can sense the presence of Tithian’s thoughts, but their power is boosted far beyond anything he’s capable of.”

Agis and Sadira studied each other with troubled expressions, while Rikus and Neeva nervously awaited their conclusion. Finally, Agis dared to speak the possibility that troubled the four. “It could be dragon magic.”

“Dragon magic? What’s that?” asked Jaseela. The silky-haired woman’s words were slurred, for, in a battle preceding Kalak’s overthrow, a half-giant had hit her in the head. Now, one hazel eye drooped low over a smashed cheekbone, her nose curled down her face like a snake’s tail, and her full lips were twisted into a lopsided frown that dipped so low it touched the broken line of her jaw.

“Dragon magic is sorcery and the Way used together,” Sadira explained.

“Tithian can’t do that-can he?” gasped Neeva.

The king spoke, preventing an answer. “Soldiers of Tyr, I have been watching,” said Tithian. His voice echoed over the battlefield like a peal of thunder, instantly silencing the warriors. “Well have you executed my plan!”

“His plan!” Rikus snorted. His remark was lost in the cheer that rose again from his legion’s ranks.

“You have struck a great blow for Tyr,” Tithian continued. “When you return you shall find your reward.”

This time, even the king’s voice could not be heard over the din of the screaming warriors.

A few moments later, the king’s thin lips began to move again, and the legion fell quickly silent. “Our enemies are foolish to return,” Tithian boomed, his beady eyes turning toward the hill. “You shall drive the Urikites before you like elves before the Dragon.”

An alarmed murmur rustled through the legion’s ranks as the warriors looked west. To Rikus’s astonishment, he saw that a high wall of absolute darkness now ran across the crest of the small hill. He had no way of telling what lay behind it, but he immediately guessed that the Urikites had returned to salvage what they could of their siege engines and the argosy.

Before the mul could give the order to drain the water casks, Tithian continued his speech. “Kill the Urikites, and remember what awaits you in Tyr!” the king cried, his radiant form dissipating into translucent wisps of yellow steam. “With the strategy I have given to Rikus, Tyr cannot lose!”

All eyes turned toward the mul.

“He didn’t tell me anything,” the mul said, speaking quietly, so only those standing next to him could hear.

“Of course not,” Agis said, his brown eyes glimmering with anger. “He’s trying to get us killed.”

“The king would not do such a thing!” objected Styan. The templar was a weary-looking man with sunken eyes and unbound gray hair that hung down to his shoulders. Like the rest of his company, he wore a black cassock that identified him as a member of the king’s bureaucracy. “To suggest he would is treason!”

As Styan spoke, Rikus noticed him slip a small crystal of green olivine into the pocket of his black cassock. Instantly, the mul knew how the king had learned of their initial triumph so quickly. He had once seen another of Tithian’s spies use such a magical crystal to communicate with his master.

“Styan, did the king tell you his strategy?” Rikus asked.

“No. How would he do that?” Like most templars, Styan was a practiced fraud. The only sign he gave that he was hiding the truth was to remove his hand from his pocket.

“If that’s true, Agis must be right about our king’s intentions,” Rikus said. He glanced to the west and saw the wall of darkness descending the hill at the pace of a slow march.

“I also think Agis is right,” agreed Jaseela, one of the few citizens of Tyr who instinctively sensed the truth about the king. “Without Agis and you three to counter his influence, Tithian will find it easy to force his self-serving edicts through the Council of Advisors.”

Rikus looked to Agis, Sadira, and Neeva. “You three leave the battle and go back to keep Tithian in line.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Neeva.

“Finish the Urikites-and kill their commander,” Rikus answered, glancing at the hill. The wall of darkness had descended more than halfway and was now less than a quarter mile away from his legion. “I’ll catch you after the fight.”

Agis’s jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you’re saying this,” the noble gasped. “How can you expect to win the battle now?”

“Because I have to,” Rikus snapped. “Even if I could convince the gladiators to run, the Urikites would only chase us down. By fighting, at least we’ll buy you the time you need to reach the city.”

“We will win,” declared Gaanon. The half-giant was sunburned, with a flattened nose and a gap-toothed mouth. Like many half-giants, he was a consummate mimic who tried to adopt the habits and appearance of those he admired. At present, he had shaved all the hair from his body and, like Rikus, wore only a hemp breechcloth. “To lose is to die,” Gaanon said, repeating a favorite gladiatorial saying.

“I’ll stay, too,” Neeva said.

“So will I and my retainers,” added Jaseela.

The mul looked to Styan. To his surprise, the templar gave a reluctant nod. “The king’s orders were explicit,” said the old man. “We’re to stay with the legion.”

“What did you do to anger our wonderful king?” Jaseela asked, raising the brow over her undamaged eye.

“Your jokes are not amusing,” sneered Styan.

Next, Rikus turned to K’kriq and explained the situation in Urikite, suggesting that the mantis-warrior accompany Agis and Sadira back to Tyr.

“No!” the thri-kreen cried. “Stay with hunting pack. Drive wagon for you, smash black wall.”

“You can pilot the argosy?” Rikus asked.

“Phatim make K’kriq steer when he sleep,” the thri-kreen explained. “Start, stop, turn.”

“Then you stay,” he said, warmly slapping the thri-kreen’s hard carapace. The mul checked on the advancing wall of darkness and saw that it had reached the bottom of the hill, only two hundred yards away. He ordered Gaanon and the gladiators to throw the Urikite water on the burning argosy, then turned to Agis and Sadira. “You two had better go now.”

“Fight well,” Agis said, holding his hands palm up in a formal gesture of farewell. “I will be hoping that Hamanu’s soldiers do not.”

“It won’t matter,” Rikus answered, returning the noble’s gesture by clasping both upturned hands. “They’ll fall.”

“We can only hope,” Sadira said. She stepped to the mul’s other side and squeezed his arm. “Do what you must, love, but be careful.” She glanced at Neeva, then added, “I want both you and Neeva back alive.”

“We’ll be fine,” Rikus replied. He took her head between his hands and gave her a lingering kiss. “You and Agis are the ones who should be careful. After all, we’re only out-numbered. You two are facing Tithian.”

With that, Agis and Sadira trotted away from the battle. Rikus turned to Styan and Jaseela, assigning the templar to take his company to the left flank of the wall of darkness and Jaseela to take hers to the right.

When he issued no further instructions, Styan asked, “And what do you wish us to do there?”

“Fight,” Rikus answered, scowling. “What do you think?”

“Your battle plan doesn’t seem very complete,” ventured Jaseela. “Are we to push the flanks in on themselves, slip past to attack from the rear, hold our positions, or what?”

“How can I tell you that? I don’t know what will happen any more than you do,” Rikus answered, motioning for them to return to their companies. “You’ll know what to do.”

After Jaseela and Styan left, Rikus ordered the gladiators to fall in behind the argosy, then turned toward the wagon himself. The muffled hissing and sputtering of dying fires sounded from inside the wagon, and huge billows of white steam poured from every opening. Gaanon’s helpers were hefting the huge water casks into the cargo door. Inside, the vapor was so thick that Rikus could barely make out the half-giant’s form as he grabbed a keg and disappeared deeper into the wagon.

From what Rikus could see, the back of the wagon had been burned down to its frame of mekillot bones. Forward of the cargo door, the argosy was still more or less intact, with gray fumes rising from the upper levels and steam from the lower. Clearly, the wagon would never carry supplies again, but it might serve to bull through a line of Urikites-assuming that was what the Tyrians found on the other side of the dark wall.

“Smash those casks and take up your weapons,” Rikus yelled, sweeping his arm at the large number of water barrels that had not yet been hoisted into the wagon. “The argosy will hold together long enough for what we need.”

As the warriors obeyed, he led Neeva and K’kriq into the steaming wagon. They stumbled forward, coughing and choking, finding their way toward the pilot’s deck by green halos of light shining from the glass balls on the walls. Although Gaanon had already put out most of the flames in this part of the wagon, the walls and floors were still flecked with the orange embers of smoldering fires. The heat in the corridors was thick and oppressive, scalding Rikus’s bare skin and searing his nose and lips with each cautious breath.

Paying the heat no attention, K’kriq led the way up to the pilot’s deck. As they climbed the ladder, Rikus heard the hiss of evaporating liquid and saw Gaanon throwing water from a large barrel as though it were a mere bucket. The half-giant’s efforts were to little avail, for the fire had already burned through the back wall in numerous places, with yellow flames shooting between the planks in many more. Fortunately, the air on the deck was now clear, for any smoke drifting into the room was sucked back through the holes in the rear wall.

“That’s enough, Gaanon,” Rikus called. “Get your club.”

The half-giant breathed a sigh of relief and smashed the water barrel, still half-filled, against the burning wall. Gaanon disappeared in the resulting cloud of steam, but his heavy footsteps let the mul know that the huge gladiator was moving toward the ladder.

Rikus followed K’kriq to the pilot’s chair. After pausing long enough to stomp on Phatim’s half-charred body, the thri-kreen stood motionless and stared out over the mountainous shells of the mekillots. Fifty yards beyond the great reptiles was the Urikites’ curtain of blackness.

After the thri-kreen had concentrated for a moment, all four mekillots raised their shell-covered heads and started to lumber forward. The argosy lurched once, then settled into its familiar, swaying rhythm. The distance between the wagon and the Urikite wall closed quickly.

When the black curtain showed no sign of adjusting to the advancing argosy, Rikus asked, “What’s wrong with them? They can’t just let us punch through their formation.”

“Maybe they can’t see us through the black wall,” suggested Neeva. “For all we know, there might not be anyone on the other side.”

A brilliant flash of silver erupted from the wall, and Rikus decided she was wrong.

“Magic!” the mul cried.

K’kriq spun around, using two of his hands to grab each gladiator and pull them into the shelter of his carapace. In the same instant, the sound of shattering glass crashed over the deck, drowning out even the thunder of the magical bolt that had demolished the window. Shards scraped along one of the mul’s shoulders that had been left exposed, opening several long but shallow lacerations in his tough hide. Neeva escaped without injury.

When the attack passed, Rikus stepped away from K’kriq. The mantis-warrior stood ankle deep in broken glass, but there was not even a scratch on his tough carapace.

A pair of smoking red balls shot from the dark wall ahead. Instead of streaking toward the pilot’s deck, however, the flaming spheres sizzled straight at the lead mekillots. All four reptiles stopped in their tracks, retracting their heads as the crimson spheres hit. Great rivers of flame washed over their shells, then the earth rumbled and the argosy lurched to a stop as the great beasts dropped to the ground.

The mekillots lay motionless as wisps of fire danced over their shells, but the mighty beasts did not seem to be either panicked or in pain. A moment later, after the flames had faded to smoke, they returned to their feet and jerked the argosy into motion again. This time, they trundled forward more rapidly, in the mekillots’ equivalent of a charge. Without looking away from the animals, K’kriq pointed a single arm toward the back of the deck.

“Go,” he said. “Bad place for soft-skins.”

“What about you?” Rikus asked, taking Neeva and moving toward the back of the deck.

In answer, the thri-kreen dropped to the floor and pulled his limbs beneath his carapace, leaving only his compound eyes visible.

Neeva started down the ladder without another word. Behind her, Rikus took the time to glance out the front of the deck. The lead mekillot had reached the curtain of darkness. The tips of their noses had no sooner disappeared into the black barrier than the mul heard the sizzle and sputter of more fireballs.

Screaming, he threw himself into the pit, knocking Neeva off the ladder as he dropped past her. The gladiators crashed headlong into Gaanon’s massive form, and all three tumbled to the floor in a heap. A loud whoosh sounded over their heads. Long tongues of crimson flame shot down the wall, licking at their legs and their backs, stopping just shy of the floor itself.

When Rikus spun over, he saw nothing but a blazing inferno overhead. There were flames of every color: red, yellow, white, blue, and, he thought, even black. He could not see the wall or ceiling, only raging fire.

Despite the holocaust, the argosy continued to trundle forward.

Rikus and his companions collected their weapons and rose. Not seeing how the thri-kreen could have survived such a firestorm, the mul touched his hand to his forehead, then held it toward where he imagined K’kriq’s charred remains would be lying. “You fought like the Dragon,” he said, giving the mantis-warrior the gladiator’s greatest farewell salute.

With that, the mul led the way back toward the cargo door. They reached it just as the argosy itself was passing from the Tyrian side of the dark wall to that of the Urikites. From this side, the barrier was not opaque. Rather, it had the translucent quality of a sheet of thinly cut obsidian, and the Tyrian gladiators were visible on the other side as dim, charging shapes.

Rikus saw immediately that his use of the fortress-wagon had upset his opponent’s carefully laid battle plans. The Urikite regulars had been spread out in long ranks behind the black wall, and most of them were now wildly rushing toward the wagon. Already, hundreds were gathered near the argosy to await the Tyrian gladiators. With some of their spears pointed toward the wagon and some toward the gladiators following it, the soldiers were in a disorganized mess that Rikus knew his gladiators would quickly decimate.

Rikus could see that the Urikites were a little more organized at the far side of the valley. A fair-sized company was marching toward Jaseela’s flank. He could only assume that, on the other side of the wagon, a similar company of Urikites was rushing toward Styan’s templars.

A series of brilliant flashes flared from near the front of the wagon, followed immediately by several deafening cracks. The smell of burning wood and charred bone filled Rikus’s nostrils, then the argosy ground to quick halt. When he peered around the edge of the door, the mul saw a small group of yellow-robed templars standing near the front of the wagon. Their smoking fingers were pointed at the thick shaft that connected the mekillot to the wagon.

At the rear of the argosy, the first of the gladiators emerged from the darkness, screaming their battle cries and charging into the disorganized Urikites.

“Let’s fight!” the mul yelled, raising his cahulaks.

Rikus leaped from the smoky wagon into the bright crimson light. He had no sooner landed than a pair of Urikite soldiers jabbed their spear tips at him, simultaneously raising their shields to protect their faces. Rikus swung a cahulak, cutting their weapons off at the heads.

Before the mul could move forward to finish them, Gaanon’s joyful warcry boomed over his shoulder. The half-giant slipped past the mul and leveled his mighty war-club at the spearless Urikites, smashing their bucklers as if they were glass. The blow knocked the pair back into the crowd and sent a half-dozen men sprawling. Neeva followed Gaanon’s attack, smashing bones and rending flesh on both the fore- and back-swings of her axe.

It was all Rikus could do to keep his companions from wading into the midst of the Urikite mob. “Wait!” he called, hitting their shoulders with the shafts of his cahulaks. “Leave them to the others. Come with me.”

Rikus moved toward the front of the wagon, where Hamanu’s yellow-robed templars continued to attack the mekillots with bolts of energy and balls of fire. Though no longer attached to the argosy, the reptiles remained in their harnesses and were turning back toward the Urikite lines.

To the mul’s amazement, the shape of a thri-kreen was hunched down on the centershaft between the rear mekillots. His carapace was black with soot, and one of his four arms seemed to be hanging limply at his side, but the mantis-warrior apparently remained in command of the reptiles.

The templars were so intent on stopping K’kriq that they did not even notice Rikus and his two companions coming up behind them. The mul killed four with a quick series of strikes. In the few seconds it took him, Neeva and Gaanon finished the other five.

When the magical barrage fell silent, K’kriq peered up from between his mekillots. He raised a clawed hand in Rikus’s direction, calling, “The hunt is good!”

The thri-kreen’s mekillots snapped and stomped into the soldiers massed near the argosy, ripping a wide swath of destruction through the middle of the throng. Aided by the enemy’s confusion and fear, the Tyrian gladiators tore into their foes like a cyclone into a faro field. Within moments, the coppery smell of blood filled Rikus’s nose and the shrieks of dying Urikites rang in his ears.

“What now?” asked Gaanon.

Before answering, Rikus took a moment to study K’kriq’s progress. The thri-kreen turned his mekillots straight into the long file of Urikites rushing toward the battle, followed closely by hundreds of gladiators. The maneuver brought the enemy’s charge to an abrupt halt and sent those leading it scrambling for their lives. The soldiers that did not fall to the mighty reptiles’ snapping jaws were quickly killed by Rikus’s warriors.

“It looks like K’kriq has this part of the fight well in hand,” the mul said, turning his gaze toward the terrain behind the battle. “Let’s find the commander.”

“This is no time to think of vengeance,” objected Neeva.

“Sure it is,” Rikus countered. He spotted a small group of figures upon the shoulder of a small sand dune that had spilled down from rocky bluffs of the valley wall. Several messengers were running from them toward the growing rout in front of K’kriq’s mekillots. “At the most, we can kill only a few thousand Urikites. The rest will flee, regroup, and probably attack Tyr later. But if we slay their commander today, we’ll finish the battle for good.”

With that, Rikus returned to the rear of the wagon and gathered a small force of gladiators from the long line still pouring through the wall of darkness. He sent the rest to the other side of the argosy to reinforce the warriors who did not have the benefit of K’kriq’s mekillots, then started toward the sand dune with his company.

They reached the base of the dune at a run, sweating heavily. Rikus charged straight up the steep side, stopping to rest only when they were within a few dozen yards of the top. At the crest waited a small line of Urikites, their spears pointed down at the gladiators. They peered over the tops of their shields as they nervously awaited the Tyrian attack.

Rikus ordered his followers to spread out, deciding to let the Urikites contemplate their fate and give his warriors a few moments to rest. He took the opportunity to look over his shoulder and saw that the battle was going better than he had dared to hope. Jaseela had turned her flank back toward the main attack. The sands between her company and the argosy were red with Urikite blood and littered with more than two thousand Urikite soldiers. Many thousands more were fleeing the field in a long stream, pursued closely by howling knots of Tyrian gladiators.

On the far side of the argosy, the scene was not so lopsided. Even with the extra reinforcements Rikus had sent their way, the Tyrians were badly outnumbered and barely holding their own in the vicious combat. Styan and his templars were doing little to help the situation, merely harassing the Urikite flank with half-hearted forays that were easily turned back.

Nevertheless, the mul was not worried. Having routed half the enemy legion, K’kriq was moving toward the troubled spot as fast as his lumbering beasts could carry him. Yet as Rikus watched, the thri-kreen suddenly guided the mekillots into a knot of gladiators. The reptiles began crushing and biting not Urikite soldiers, but Tyrian warriors.

“He betrayed us!” cried Gaanon, taking a step back down the dune.

Rikus caught the half-giant’s arm. “That makes no sense. Why would he have bothered to help us in the first place?” asked the mul. He studied the thri-kreen’s distant form more carefully, and was barely able to see that K’kriq’s head was turned toward the crest of the dune.

The mul looked to the top of the dune again, and quickly found what he was searching for. In the middle of the enemy line, standing between a pair of burly bodyguards, was a small bald man of feeble build and delicate features. His pale lips were pinched tight in concentration, and his gray eyes were fixed on K’kriq’s form. Over the bronze breastplate that covered his gaunt chest, the sickly looking man wore a green cloak bearing the two-headed Serpent of Lubar.

“Maetan!” Rikus hissed.

“What?” asked Neeva.

“Maetan of Family Lubar,” the mul explained, pointing at the little man. Rikus had last seen Maetan over thirty years ago, when Lord Lubar had brought his sickly son to see the family gladiator pits, but the mul had no trouble recognizing the pointed chin and thin nose that had distinguished the boy’s face even then. “His father was a master of the Way. My guess is that he is, too.”

“He’s taken control of K’kriq’s mind,” Neeva surmised.

Rikus nodded, then waved his gladiators forward, hoping to disrupt the mindbender’s concentration and free the thri-kreen again. “Attack!”

A Urikite officer barked a sharp command, and a dark cloud of spears descended from the ridge above. Rikus ducked. Neeva did the same, using her axe handle to deflect a low flying shaft. Like dozens of others, Gaanon was not so quick. One of the javelins struck him in the leg, causing the half-giant to bellow out in pain.

Cursing the effectiveness with which his enemy had stalled the charge, Rikus looked over his shoulder in Gaanon’s direction. The half-giant lay on the steep slope, clutching his leg.

“I’ll be fine,” Gaanon said, plucking the weapon from his leg. “Just give me a moment.”

“Stay here,” Rikus said, taking the spear from him. “You’ll only get hurt.”

He spun around and threw the weapon at Maetan. A bodyguard pushed the mindbender to the ground, putting himself in front of the spear. The Urikite grunted loudly, then dropped off the dune crest and slipped down the slope in a limp heap.

Maetan glared at Rikus for an instant, then returned to his feet and stepped back from the crest until only his gray eyes showed over the top. The mul glanced at K’kriq long enough to see that the thri-kreen and his mekillots remained under the mindbender’s control. Growling in anger, the mul raised his cahulaks and resumed his charge. This time, with no more spears to throw, the Urikites could only draw their obsidian short swords and await the onslaught.

When he reached the summit, Rikus pulled away from the flashing tip of a low strike. He countered by swinging a cahulak at the Urikite’s legs, slicing the veins behind the knee. As the screaming soldier grabbed for his savaged leg, Rikus pulled the man off the crest and sent him tumbling down the sandy slope.

Seeing the disadvantage of this location, the Urikite officer shouted another command and the entire line took two steps backward. Followed by Neeva and the rest of the gladiators, Rikus scrambled over the crest of the dune, being careful to keep one hand free to protect himself. The Tyrians had no sooner crawled onto the ridge than the enemy officer ordered his men forward again, thinking to push the gladiators off the dune.

His strategy might have worked against normal fighters, but gladiators were accustomed to fighting from disadvantaged positions. As the soldiers stepped forward, the Tyrians cut them down in many different ways. Rikus blocked his attacker’s swing with a cahulak, then hooked the other one behind the man’s back and used the Urikite’s own momentum to send him flying off the crest. Neeva swung her big axe and chopped her opponent off at the ankles before he could strike. Other gladiators rolled at the enemy’s feet, protecting themselves with a whirl off lashing blades. Still others leaped up with amazing speed, then beat the astonished soldiers back with sheer strength. When the initial clash ended, half the Urikite company lay bleeding in the sand, and only a handful of Tyrian soldiers had been pushed off the dune.

The survivors backed slowly away, their fear showing in their faces. The gladiators stood with predatory grins on their faces, allowing the Urikites’ fear to work against them. Rikus used the momentary lull to search for Maetan’s diminutive form and, following the resentful gazes of several enemy soldiers, found the mindbender running down the gentle side of the dune.

The mul glanced over his shoulder and saw that K’kriq’s mekillots were turning back toward the argosy. Looking back to the line of frightened Urikites standing ahead, the mul yelled, “Kill them!”

As the gladiators moved forward, the Urikites began dropping their shields and running after their fleeing commander. In their panic, they opened a surprisingly large gap between themselves and the shocked gladiators, who were not accustomed to seeing their opponents flee in terror. The officer frantically chased after the line, cursing their cowardice and cutting his own men down from behind. After the initial surprise of the rout wore off, the Tyrians joined the chase with a chorus of thrilled howls.

Maetan paused near the base of the dune and looked up at the mass of soldiers trailing behind him. The mindbender’s shadow began to lengthen, spreading across the sands like a dark stain of ink across a parchment. It retained the basic shape of a man, but not the proportions. Its limbs were long and ropy, with a serpentine body that seemed more appropriate to a lizard than a man. When it reached a length of four or five times Maetan’s height, a pair of sapphire eyes began to shine from the head. A long azure gash appeared where the mouth should be, and wisps of ebony gas drifted skyward from this slit.

A gap opened between the shadow’s feet and those of Maetan. The shadow beast rolled onto its stomach, then its body began to thicken and it moved into a kneeling position. When it had assumed a full, three-dimensional form, it rose to its feet. The thing stood as tall as a full giant, towering over the men below it like the great trees of the Baffling Forest.

The Urikites stopped their retreat, frightened murmurs of “Umbra!” rising from their disorganized ranks.

Neeva grabbed Rikus by the shoulder and stopped him. “Wait!” she cried. “You can’t do this alone.”

The mul slowed enough to look around and see that Umbra’s appearance had stopped his gladiators as well. The warriors were standing motionless on the slope, their jaws slack with astonishment and their eyes locked on the huge shadow beast. Rikus would have hesitated to say that they were frightened, but they were certainly spellbound.

Umbra pointed a finger at the routed Urikites, then, in a throbbing voice so deep it seemed bottomless, he said, “Fight! Stand and fight, or I swear I’ll take you with me when I return to the Black!”

As if to emphasize the threat, the thing strode halfway up the dune in two steps, then reached down and closed his sinuous fingers around the torsos of two Urikites. Their chests and midsections disappeared in darkness. In vain, they cried for mercy as Umbra’s shadow crept down to their feet and up over their heads. Within an instant, their forms had simply melted into the creature’s black shape.

“Now, form your lines!” Umbra cried. He pointed toward the Tyrians. “For the defense of Lubar and the glory of Urik, die like heroes!”

The Urikites turned around and dressed their lines, pointing their black swords toward the Tyrians.

“For the freedom of Tyr!” Rikus yelled, charging.

Neeva followed close behind, screaming, “For Tyr!” An instant later, a hundred voices were crying the same thing.

Rikus reached the enemy before they had completely reformed their wall, tearing into it in a maelstrom of whirling cahulaks and kicking feet. Almost before he realized it, he had ripped the swords from a pair of Urikites’ hands and felled two more with crippling kicks to the knees. To Rikus’s right, Neeva hacked a defender nearly in two, then killed another with the backswing as she pulled her axe from the body of the first.

No sooner had Rikus and Neeva cleared their opponents away than a tremendous crash reverberated across the sandy dune as the rest of the gladiators hit the enemy line. The clatter of bone and obsidian weapons filled the air, followed by a growing chorus of pained cries. A handful of enemy soldiers threw down their weapons and turned to flee. Umbra prevented the rout from spreading by snatching the cowards and absorbing them into his shadow.

Rikus caught sight of a black blade streaking toward his ribs. He blocked with the shaft of a cahulak, then raked his other weapon across the soldier’s throat. The man dropped his sword and turned away, grasping at the bleeding wound below his chin.

The mul spun around to attack the person who had slammed into his back, then stopped when he realized that she was one of his own gladiators, a red-haired half-elf named Drewet who had earned her fame in the arena by killing a full giant single-handedly. At the other end of her two-pronged lance hung a gasping Urikite, but beyond her were nothing but more Tyrians.

The mul faced the other direction and saw that, on the other side of Neeva, Tyr’s gladiators were beating the last of the Urikites into the sand. At the bottom of the dune, Maetan had not moved. He stood alone, watching the battle with no indication of concern.

Rikus was about to start down the slope when a rustle of astonished cries rose from the Tyrian ranks; Umbra had opened his blue mouth and was facing the battlefield. A wispy stream of blackness shot from between the thing’s lips and poured over the gladiators like a thick, sticky mist. As the billowing mass spread over the slope, Umbra shrunk as if he were spewing his own body over the dune. Horrified screeches and anguished screams rose from whomever the black haze touched.

“Run!” Rikus yelled. He grabbed Neeva’s wrist and sprinted forward, angling toward the bottom of the dune and away from the spreading vapor.

As fast as they ran, it was no use. The black fog caught them only a few steps later, lapping at their legs like the waters of an oasis pond. Instantly, an icy wave of pain shot through Rikus’s feet and up into his thighs. The closest thing he had ever felt to it were frigid rains in the high mountains, but this pain was a hundred times worse. The rain had been uncomfortable and made him shiver, but the darkness stung his skin and numbed his flesh to the bone. His joints stiffened and would not move, reducing his legs to dead, aching weights.

Rikus felt himself falling, and Neeva cried out at his side. He shoved her forward with all his strength, sending her sprawling half a dozen steps ahead of himself. An instant later, the mul landed face-first in the sand.

The blackness did not overtake the rest of his body. He lay sprawled on the dune, groaning loudly as his mind struggled to make sense of the contradicting sensations of scalding sand beneath his torso and the icy numbness in his legs. Rikus looked over his shoulder and saw that Umbra was gone, or rather had spread his entire body over the gentle slope. The mul lay at the edge of the shadowy form, his legs lost in the blackness behind him. In addition to himself and Neeva, Drewet and perhaps six more gladiators had escaped the frigid cloud, some of them by narrower margins than the mul. Most of the company had been engulfed.

Neeva limped back to Rikus, then kneeled at his head and asked, “Are you hurt?”

“I can’t feel my legs,” Rikus answered. As he spoke, a terrible thought occurred to him. “Pull me out, please!” Rikus peered over his shoulder at the darkness beneath his thighs. “My legs must be gone!”

“Calm yourself,” Neeva said, gripping the mul under the arms. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

She pulled him from the shadow. His legs were as white as ivory, but at least they remained attached. The mul put a hand to his thigh. It was colder than anything he had ever felt, and there was no sensation in the leg.

“What’s wrong with them?” the mul cried, wondering if the heat would ever return to his frozen flesh.

As he spoke, Umbra’s black shadow shrank to the size of a normal man. Where the shadow beast had lain, the sand was clean and sparkling. There was not a single corpse, stray weapon, or even a puddle of blood to suggest that there had ever been a battle on the dune.

The shadow slipped down the slope and assumed his rightful place at Maetan’s feet. The Urikite commander hardly seemed to notice, studying the site with an air of distaste. Finally, a small sandspout rose around his body, hiding the mindbender from the mul’s sight.

Rikus pushed off the ground and drew his numb legs up beneath him, then tried to run down the slope. His knees remained stiff as stones, pitching him face-first into the burning dune.

Maetan’s sandspout rose high off the ground, then drifted out into the valley and hung over the heads of a throng of Urikite soldiers that was being pursued by a mob of bloodthirsty gladiators. For a few moments, Rikus feared that Maetan was awaiting an opportunity to launch some devastating mental attack, but at last the whirlwind traced a semicircle in the air and shot up the valley.

Neeva helped Rikus to his feet. “I hate to admit it, but I’m a little surprised,” she said, slipping his bulky arm over her shoulders. “We won.”

“Not yet,” Rikus said, watching the sandspout fade from view. “Not until we have Maetan.”