The Crimson Legion

THREE VILLAGE IN THE SAND

The thirsty Tyrians stood beneath an arch of golden sandstone, taking what shelter they could from the white-hot sky. Their eyes were fixed far below, on the slowly spinning sails of a small windmill. With each rotation, the mill pumped a few gallons of cool, clear water from a deep well and dumped it into a covered cistern.

Unfortunately, the cistern stood in the middle of a small village. The plaza surrounding it was basically round in shape, with a jagged edge of curving salients that resembled tongues of flame. The circle was paved with cobblestones of crimson sandstone, and the whole thing reminded Rikus too much of the scorching ball of fire hanging in the center of the midday sky.

The huts enclosing the plaza also resembled the sun, with rounded red flagstone walls. The buildings stood only about five feet high, and none were covered by any semblance of a roof. From his position on the hillside, Rikus could look directly down into their interiors and see the stone tables, benches, and beds with which they were furnished. Of course, on Athas there was little need to protect one’s belongings from rain, but the mul thought it foolish that the residents left themselves and their belongings exposed to the brutal sun all day long.

The huts, standing in a series of concentric rings, were enclosed by a single low wall of red brick. At the moment, the wall was manned by eight hundred Urikite troops. Two hundred more stood at the edges of the plaza, their spears pointed inward toward a frightened mass of men and women huddling together in the circle.

The prisoners were all short, standing only about chest high to their guards, and with squat, angular builds that made even Rikus look undermuscled by comparison. Their bodies were completely hairless and sun-darkened to deep mahogany, save for a patch of orange skin covering the ridge of thick bone along the top of their heads.

Towering above the dwarves, in the center of the circle next to the cistern, stood Maetan of Family Lubar and four large bodyguards. Though the distance separating them was great enough that Rikus could not make out the Urikite’s expression, the mul could see that the mindbender was sipping water from a wooden dipper and staring up at the arch where he and his companions stood.

The mul shifted his gaze from his enemy to the terrain surrounding the dwarven town. On the side closest to Rikus, slabs of orange-streaked sandstone, speckled with purple spikeball and silvery fans of goldentip, rose at steep angles to become the foothills of the Ringing Mountains. The other side of the village was dominated by a barren mound of copper-colored sand.

Thirsty Tyrian warriors covered the dune and the sandstone slabs, sitting in plain sight and staring down at the cistern with yearning eyes. In the olive-tinged hours just after dawn, Rikus’s legion had taken up positions surrounding the village and had been awaiting the order to attack ever since. But with the Urikites waiting for his troops to make the first move, Rikus was in no hurry to give the order.

“If we attack, Maetan kills the dwarves,” the mul growled, shaking his head and facing the five people with him. “If we don’t, we die of thirst.”

The Tyrian army had run out of water two days ago after five days of tracking Maetan and fighting a running battle to keep him from regathering the Urikite army. Thanks to his mul blood, Rikus was not suffering too badly from the lack of water. The same was true of K’kriq, who only drank once every ten or twelve days in the best of times.

Unfortunately, the rest of their companions were not so hardy. Neeva’s lips were cracked and bleeding, her green eyes sunken and gray, and her skin peeling away in red flakes. Jaseela’s black hair had become stiff as straw and the tip of her swollen tongue protruded from the drooping side of her mouth. Styan’s throat was so constricted that he could hardly gasp when he tried to speak.

Gaanon was the worst off, though. Because of his great size, he required more water than most warriors, and thirst was taking its toll on him faster than anyone else. His throat was so swollen that it choked off his breath if he didn’t consciously hold it open. Simply taking a few steps strained his big body so severely that he had to lie motionless in order to calm his pounding heart. To make matters worse, the wound in the half-giant’s thigh had festered, and now a steady dribble of yellow pus ran from the puncture. Rikus had no doubt that Gaanon would die if he did not have water soon.

“I don’t know what to do.” the mul admitted.

“There is only one thing we can do,” Styan whispered. Still dressed in his black cassock, he was the only one of the group wearing anything more than a breechcloth, halter, and a light cape. He claimed the heavy cloak trapped a layer of moisture next to his skin, but Rikus had his doubts.

“Yes,” Jaseela agreed. “We must leave.”

“Are you mad?” Styan croaked.

“I won’t be responsible for the death of an entire village,” the noblewoman countered, waving her hand toward the crowded plaza below.

“They’re only dwarves,” objected Styan. “And crazier than most, judging from their village.”

Rikus raised his hand to silence them. Their comments had provided no help, for he was already well aware of the situation either his legion died, or the dwarves did. “What do you think?” he asked Neeva.

She did not hesitate. “This is our fight, not that of the dwarves. We can’t sacrifice them to save ourselves.”

“We’re also saving Tyr,” Styan added.

“You care less about Tyr than you do about the dwarves,” Jaseela hissed.

“That’s enough.” Rikus stepped between them. “I know what we have to do.”

“What?” gasped the templar. From his hostile inflection, Rikus knew that Styan would not be happy with any answer that did not mean water.

Rikus faced the village again, where Maetan was wasting water by pouring it over the heads of his captives. “We’ll capture the cistern-without letting Maetan kill anyone.”

“It’s well to say such things,” Styan said, “but as a practical matter-”

“We’ll try!” Rikus snapped, keeping his gaze fixed on Maetan. Though he did not say so aloud, he feared that Maetan would wipe out the dwarven village even if his legion left. At the very least, the hungry Urikites would loot the dwarves to the point of starvation.

“How?” It was Jaseela’s soft voice that asked the question.

The mul had no answer. Not for the first time that day, his thoughts turned to Sadira and Agis, but he quickly tried to put them out of his mind. By now, they were halfway back to Tyr. No matter how much he lamented the absence of the half-elf’s sorcery or the noble’s mastery of the Way, he and his legion had to solve this problem on their own.

For what seemed an eternity, Rikus simply stood and watched Maetan dump water on the dwarves. Finally, a plan occurred to the mul. “We’re going to surrender,” he said, facing his companions.

“What?” they asked together.

Rikus nodded. “It’s the only way to put ourselves between the Urikites and dwarves before the fighting starts.”

“This is beyond belief,” Styan said, his strained voice cracking with anger.

“Without weapons, we’ll all be at a severe disadvantage,” Jaseela said. “We’ll lose a lot of warriors.”

“Not if we lead with gladiators,” Rikus offered. “In the pits, before you learn to fight with weapons, you learn to fight without them.” He glanced at Neeva and asked, “What do you think?”

The big woman remained quiet for several moments. Finally, she asked, “Are you doing this because you’re afraid we won’t catch Maetan again?”

“If Maetan was all I’m after, we would have attacked by now,” Rikus snapped. Neeva’s question hurt more than it should have, and he realized there was some truth to what she implied. Still, he thought he was making the right decision. “Besides, this is the only way I see to give both us and the dwarves a chance to survive.”

When Neeva offered no further argument, Styan said, “The templars won’t have any part of it.”

“That’s your choice,” Rikus said. “If you think this is a bad idea, I won’t ask you to send your company along.”

“We’re ready to fight, but for Tyr-not any dwarven village,” he sneered. The templar reached into his pocket and withdrew the small crystal of green olivine that would allow him to contact Tithian. “And I don’t think the king will want us to sacrifice our warriors for a bunch of dwarves, either. I warrant we’ll have a new commander in a matter of-”

Rikus clasped the templar’s hand. “This isn’t the king’s decision,” he said, prying the stone from Styan’s fingers. “You have only two choices. Join us and help, or wait here and hope we succeed.”

Styan stared at Rikus, then jerked his hand out of the mul’s grasp. “I’ll wait.”

Paying the templar no further attention, Rikus slipped the stone into his leather belt pouch, then gave Neeva and Jaseela instructions to be passed along to the others. Rikus laid his cahulaks aside, then moved to leave.

K’kriq stepped to his side and started down the sandstone slope with him. Rikus stopped and shook his head, “I have to go alone, K’kriq,” he said. Though the thri-kreen was quickly learning Tyrian, Rikus spoke in Urikite. He did not want any misunderstandings.

The thri-keen shook his bubble-eyed head and laid a restraining claw on the mul’s shoulder. “Pack mates.”

Rikus removed the claw. “Yes, but don’t come until the fight starts,” he said, starting down the hill again.

K’kriq ignored his order and followed. The mul stopped and frowned at the thri-keen. As much as he valued the mantis-warrior’s combat prowess, the mul remembered how easily Maetan had taken control of K’kriq’s mind in the last battle. He did not want to risk the same thing happening before the fight was in full swing.

Deciding to put his order in terms that K’kriq seemed to understand, Rikus pointed at Gaanon. “If I’m a pack mate, so is Gaanon,” he said. “Stay here and protect him.”

The thri-keen looked from the mul to the half-giant. “Protect?” His mandibles hung open in confusion.

“Guard, like your young,” the mul explained.

“Gaanon no hatchling!” K’kriq returned, cocking his head at Rikus. Nevertheless, the thri-keen turned away and went to the half-giant’s side, shaking his head as though the mul were crazy.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Rikus descended the sandstone alone. As he approached the village gate, which did not stand even as tall as he did, he raised his hands above his head to show that he was unarmed. The mul could have reached the top of the village wall without leaving his feet, and caught the railing atop the gatehouse with a good leap.

When Rikus had reached a comfortable speaking distance, a Urikite officer showed his bearded face above the wall. “That’s far enough,” he called, using a heavily accented version of the common trade dialect. “What do you want?”

“I’ve come to surrender my legion to Maetan of Urik,” Rikus answered. He did his best to look both remorseful and angry.

“Maetan has no use for your legion-except as slaves,” the officer returned, his dark eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Better slaves than corpses,” Rikus answered. Though he did not mean them, the words stuck in his throat anyway. “We’ve been out of water for days.”

“There’s plenty in here,” the officer answered. He grinned wickedly and studied the mul for a moment, then motioned for the gate to be opened.

Rikus stepped through, allowing himself to be siezed by the officer and several soldiers. They bound his hands and slipped a choking-loop around his neck, then led him toward the windmill and cistern at the center of the village. They passed a dozen rows of the round huts. As he peered down into them, Rikus could not help noticing that they were all arranged in a similar manner. To one side of the doorway was a round table surrounded by a trio of curved benches. On the other side of the door stood a simple cabinet holding a variety of tools and weapons. The beds, stone platforms covered with several layers of assorted hides, were located opposite the door. The only variations between individual buildings came in the number of beds and how neatly the residents kept their homes.

When they reached the plaza, Rikus’s escorts pushed him roughly through the ring of guards, then used the tips of their spears to prod him toward Maetan. As Rikus passed, the dwarven prisoners stepped aside and studied him with dark eyes that betrayed both respect and puzzlement. A few commented to each other in their own guttural language, but were quickly silenced by sharp blows from the mul’s escorts.

In the center of the plaza, Maetan of Urik waited beside the stone cistern, still holding the dipper in his hand. His cloak was so covered with dirt and grime that it was more brown than green, and even the Serpent of Lubar had faded from red to pastel orange. The mindbender’s thin lips were chapped and cracked, and his delicate complexion seemed more pallid and sallow than Rikus remembered from the battle.

As the soldiers pushed Rikus to their commander’s side, the Urikite’s four bodyguards stepped forward to surround the prisoner. The brawny humans all wore leather corselets and carried steel swords. Rikus raised an eyebrow at the sight of so many gleaming blades, for each was worth the price of a dozen champion gladiators. On Athas, metal was more precious than water and as scarce as rain.

After staring into the eyes of Rikus’s escort for a few moments, Maetan waved the officer away. “How do you know my name, boy?” the mindbender demanded, addressing Rikus in the fashion of a master to a slave.

Rikus was surprised by the question, for his escort had not made a verbal report to their commander. Realizing Maetan must have questioned the officer using the Way, Rikus reminded himself to guard this own thoughts carefully, then answered the question. “We’ve met before, many years ago.”

“Is that so?” asked Maetan, his cold gray eyes fixed on Rikus’s face.

“You were ten. Your father brought you to see his gladiators pits,” the mul said, remembering the meeting as clearly as if had been the day before.

Until he had seen Maetan for the first time, Rikus thought that all boys learned to be gladiators, working up through the ranks until they became trainers and perhaps even lords themselves. When Lord Lubar had brought his sickly son to the pits, however, Rikus had taken one look at the boy’s silken robes and finally understood the difference between slaves and masters.

Maetan studied the mul for a time, then said, “Ah, Rikus. It has been a long time. Father had high hopes for you, but, as I recall, you barely survived your first three matches.”

“I did better in Tyr,” the mul answered bitterly.

“And now you wish to return to Family Lubar,” Maetan observed. “As a slave?”

“That’s right,” the mul said, swallowing his anger. “Unless we get water, my warriors will die by sunset tomorrow.”

Maetan’s gaze swept along the line of gladiators ringing the village. “Why not come and take it?” he asked. “I’ve been asking myself for hours why you haven’t attacked. We couldn’t stop you.”

“You know why,” Rikus answered, glancing at the dwarves.

The Urikite turned his white lips up in the semblance of a smile. “Of course, the hostages,” he smirked.

“Giving up won’t save Kled, Tyrian,” cackled the voice of an old dwarf, using the language of Tyr.

Maetan’s head snapped in the direction of the speaker, an aged dwarf with jowls so loose they sagged from his chin like a beard. “Did I give that man permission to speak?”

A bodyguard pushed through the crowd toward the dwarf. As the Urikite grabbed him, the old dwarf made no effort to resist or escape. Instead, he said, “See? Nothing good comes-”

The Urikite’s pommel fall across the back of the speaker’s skull. The old dwarf collapsed to the ground, striking his head on the hard flagstones with a sickening thud. Indignant cries of astonishment and anger rustled through the crowd. One defiant dwarf stepped toward the guard, his fists tightly clenched and his rust-red eyes fixed on the bodyguard’s face. Aside from the color of his eyes, the dwarf was unusual in that he stood nearly five feet tall and had a crimson sun tattooed on his forehead. His build did not make him resemble a boulder quite so much as his fellows.

“Be quiet, or I’ll have his head removed completely,” Maetan snapped, using the smooth-flowing syllables of the trade tongue.

The dwarf stopped his advance, though the anger and hatred did not drain from his eyes. At the same time, a resentful murmur rustled through the throng as the dwarfs who understood the Urikite’s words translated the threat for their fellows. The plaza slowly fell silent.

After pausing to sneer at the red-eyed dwarf, Maetan returned his attention to Rikus. “So, Tyr’s legion will surrender on behalf of the dwarves of Kled?”

“Yes,” Rikus said. “This isn’t their fight. We have no wish to see them harmed.”

“You’ll understand if I’m reluctant to believe you,” Maetan said.

“It should surprise no one that the freed men of Tyr place a higher value on justice than a nobleman of Urik,” Rikus countered. One of the bodyguards tightened the choking loop around the mul’s neck; Maetan himself showed no reaction to the insult. Rikus continued, “If we intended to attack, we would have done it by now.” He was forced to gasp by the rope constricting his throat.

“I’m sure you intend to tell me what I stand to gain by accepting your surrender. Why shouldn’t I stay here and let your legion die of thirst?” The mindbender motioned for the guard to ease the tension on the mul’s throat.

“Two things,” Rikus said, swallowing hard. “First, you’d do well to return home with two thousand slaves. That’s all you’re going to bring back from Tyr.”

Maetan’s thin lips twitched in anger, but he gave no other indication of his feelings. “And the second?”

Rikus pointed his chin toward his warriors surrounding the village. “Even a Tyrian’s concern for justice goes only so far.”

Maetan shocked Rikus with a quick answer. “I accept.” The mindbender pointed at the tall dwarf with the rust-colored eyes and motioned for him to come forward. As the defiant-looking man obeyed, Maetan said, “Caelum speaks Tyrian. He’ll relay your words to the gladiators.”

The dwarf’s mouth fell open. “How did you-”

“That’s not for you to know,” a bodyguard snapped, pushing the dwarf toward Rikus.

“The courage of you and your men is admirable, but not very wise,” Caelum said, looking into the mul’s eyes. His jawbone, chin, and cheeks were well-defined and pronounced, but not as massive as those of most dwarves. There was even a certain symmetry and grace of proportion between his nose and the rest of his face, with uncharacteristic laugh lines around the corners of his mouth and eyes. “If you do this, there’s nothing to stop the Urikites from killing us all.”

“The choice is ours,” Rikus said, deliberately avoiding the dwarf’s red eyes. If Maetan was capable of reading Caelum’s mind, the mul did not want to plant any suggestion of what he had planned. Instead, he pointed to the sandstone arch on the hillside above. “Just deliver the message to the people up there.”

Once the dwarf was out of sight, Maetan sneered at Rikus. “Your men will be sold into slavery as you asked,” he said. “You, however, shall die a slow and bitter death for the pleasure of King Hamanu.”

Confident that he would have his revenge later, Rikus remained silent while Caelum climbed up to the arch. The mul found Maetan’s quick acceptance of their surrender unsettling. He had expected the Urikite to react more suspiciously, pondering the proposal for a few moments. His immediate agreement suggested that the mindbender was already well aware of the dangers of accepting the Tyrian surrender. Still, Rikus did not consider calling off his plan. Whether Maetan had anticipated it or not, it was still the only way to save both his legion and the dwarven village.

A few minutes after Caelum’s departure, the first Tyrians marched into the village. Unlike Rikus, they remained unbound, for tying them would have taken more rope than could be found in all of Kled. As the plaza began to grow more crowded, Maetan moved himself and Rikus to the far side, then ordered the dwarves to return to their homes and stay inside under penalty of death.

Soon the square was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with unarmed Tyrians, all clamoring for water and struggling to reach the cistern at its center-as the mul’s generals had instructed them to do. The Urikites previously standing guard at Kled’s wall now ringed the square, their shields and spears pointed toward Rikus’s warriors.

As the last Tyrians were escorted into the plaza, Jaseela and Neeva were brought to Rikus’s side, along with Caelum. Only the templars and K’kriq, gathered in a small group beneath the arch, remained outside the village.

Ignoring their absence for the moment, Maetan peered at Neeva from between two burly bodyguards. “An excellent girl,” he said, catching Rikus’s gaze with his pearly gray eyes. “Did she also come from my father’s pens? Or doesn’t your mul-brain allow you to remember that much?”

As the mindbender asked the question, a hated memory flashed into Rikus’s mind. In a dark corner of the Lubar pits, a young mul, his body already knotted with muscles and covered with scars, stood alone before a man-sized block of white pumice carved into the semblance of a gladiator.

“Hit it,” growled a familiar voice.

The boy, Rikus at ten years, looked over his shoulder. Neeva stood at his back, a six-stranded whip in her hand. He started to ask her what she was doing in his memory, at a time where she did not belong, but, before his eyes, she changed from an attractive woman to a fat, sweating swine of a trainer.

Rikus shook his head, trying to free himself of the memory. Once before, a mindbender had slipped into his head by hiding behind a memory. Thanks to Neeva’s inappropriate appearance, the mul had no doubt that Maetan was using a similar attack against him now.

The trainer cuffed the side of young Rikus’s head, snarling, “Do as you’re told, boy.”

Rikus tried to ignore the trainer and focus his thoughts on the present, but the memory had a life of its own. The gladiator found himself, as a young mul, facing the punching dummy and tapping it with his fist. The rough surface grated the soft skin of his hand, opening a line of tiny cuts across his knuckles.

The six-strands of the trainer’s whip snapped across Rikus’s bare back, opening a line of cuts that burned like viper bites. The boy clenched his teeth and did not cry out. He had already learned that to show pain was to invite more of it.

“Harder!” the trainer spat. “I swear I’ll strip the hide off your scrawny little bones.”

Rikus punched the statue again, this time with as much force as he could. The blow tore the skin off his knuckles and sent a sharp pain shooting from his hand clear to his elbow.

“Again!” the trainer sneered. His whip cracked and ripped another strip of flesh off the boy’s back.

The young mul hit the dummy again, this time imagining it was the trainer that he was attacking. He struck again and again, throwing his weight behind each blow. Soon he had reduced his hands to unfeeling masses of raw meat and painted the pumice statue red with his blood.

Rikus’s awareness of the present returned, and Maetan looked away. Unfortunately, the mindbender’s probing remained strong enough that the mul could not shut out the painful images inside his mind.

Maetan looked to Neeva and Jaseela, then motioned to the arch where Styan and his black-robed men waited. “Aren’t your templars thirsty?”

“They refuse to come down until they see how you treat us,” Jaseela offered.

“Everyone else is here,” Neeva added, glancing at Rikus.

The mul knew what his fighting partner was hinting at: the Tyrians were ready to attack. Rikus opened his mouth to give the order, but Maetan’s head snapped around and the mindbender fixed his gray eyes on those of the mul.

Inside Rikus’s mind, the fat trainer clamped a pudgy, begrimed hand over the young mul’s mouth. Rikus grasped at the arm and tried to pull it away, but he was still young and far from a match for the older man’s bearish strength. The trainer opened his lips to speak, revealing a mouthful of rotten and broken teeth.

“Forget about the plan,” the trainer said. “We’re really surrendering.”

To Rikus’s surprise, he heard himself repeating the words. Neeva scowled in anger, and Jaseela’s jaw dropped open.

“What?” they demanded.

Caelum looked from the mul to the two women, rubbing a hand over the bony crest of thickened skull atop his head.

Hoping to alert the two women to his plight, Rikus tried to shake his head-and found himself unable to move. In his mind, the fat trainer’s powerful hand was locked over the boy’s chin, keeping it held firmly in place.

Rikus decided to switch tactics. Remembering how, during the battle to capture the argosy, Agis had rescued him from Phatim’s mental attack, the mul substituted his own image for the one Maetan had introduced into his mind. Instead of a young boy, he saw himself as a mature gladiator, stronger than the trainer and hardened by hundreds of fights.

He felt a queasy feeling in his stomach as a surge of energy rose from deep within himself, changing the young mul in his thoughts from a boy to a man. This new Rikus slapped a hand over the grimy fingers covering his mouth, then used the heel of his other hand to drive his captor’s elbow into the air. Keeping the trainer’s pudgy hand damped over his lips, the mul ducked under the entangling arm, then snapped it at the elbow by pushing down with one hand and pulling up with the other.

As soon as the trainer’s hand left his mouth, Rikus screamed, “Now, Neeva!” The words sounded both in Rikus’s mind and in the dwarven village.

Neeva raised her brow and Jaseela shook her head in confusion. Caelum peered at the mul as if he had gone sun-mad, then slowly shifted his gaze to Maetan. The mindbender was wincing as though his own arm had been broken.

Hoping to spur his companions into action, Rikus kicked at Maetan’s guards, gasping, “He’s taken over my-”

The mul’s attack and his explanation came to an abrupt end as Maetan recovered from the shock of Rikus’s mental counterattack. Inside the mul’s mind, the trainer whirled around, changing from a man to a vulgar, hairy spider. The immense, bulbous thing lashed out with two clawed legs, forcing Rikus to retreat, then snapped at him with two pincers dripping brown venom.

Rikus dodged to the side, trying to change himself into an equally large scorpion. The effort was too much for him. A spurt of energy rose from deep within his stomach, then abruptly faded away. The mul felt queasy and weak, his legs trembling with exhaustion and his heart pounding at his ribs like a smith’s hammer. He barely managed to keep his feet as the spider attacked again.

In the plaza, Neeva and Jaseela realized what was happening. Neeva dislocated the knee of the nearest bodyguard with a lightning-fast kick, ripping his steel sword from his hands. She drew the blade across the rope that bound Rikus’s hands, cutting him free, then turned and sliced a second guard open in one fluid motion. Jaseela grabbed this man’s blade and raised it to the sky crying, “Now, Warriors of Tyr!”

A great shout rose from her retainers and the gladiators. The plaza broke into a clamor of thuds, cracks, and pained cries as the Tyrians moved to strip the weapons from their captors’ hands.

Seeing this, Caelum raised a hand toward the sun and uttered a series of words in a strange, rasping language that vaguely resembled the sound of a crackling fire. His bronze arm turned blazing crimson. He pointed at Rikus’s head, saying, “This will protect you, Tyrian.”

Rosy light steamed from the dwarf’s fingers and gathered around the mul’s head in a scintillating sphere. Inside Rikus’s mind, a fiery wall sprang up between him and the spider, just as the horrid thing leaped at him. The beast disappeared into the flames, screeching in anger.

Instantly, Rikus’s mind was free of the mindbender’s attack, his attention returning to the plaza and the present. The mul’s legs felt as heavy as iron, his breath came in deep gasps, and his arms ached with fatigue-but he was free to act.

Looking past Maetan’s two surviving bodyguards, Rikus grinned at the mindbender. “Now it’s my turn,” he said, stepping forward.

The Urikite’s face, already betraying the pain he had suffered from the fire inside Rikus’s mind, went pale. “Kill him!” Maetan ordered, stepping back. “The dwarf, too!”

Rikus dodged the clumsy lunge of Maetan’s first guard, twisting away as the sword thrust past his body. He grabbed the man’s arm with both hands, holding it steady as he brought a knee up to break the bone. The mul caught the sword as it dropped to the ground. Then he spun around and smashed the pommel into the next Urikite’s jaw. The soldier collapsed into an unconscious heap.

Realizing he had left his back exposed, Rikus glanced over his shoulder and saw the last bodyguard stepping toward him with a raised sword. Without bothering to face his attacker, the mul leveled a vicious thrust kick at the soldier. The heel of his foot drove square into the man’s ribs. The Urikite stumbled backward, gasping for breath and holding his side.

“Should have broken him in two,” Rikus said, realizing for the first time how much energy he had expended in his mental battle against Maetan.

The mul stepped toward the gasping Urikite, who raised his sword into a defiant guarding position. Snorting in derision, Rikus feinted an attack, then slashed the bodyguard’s hand off at the wrist. With his free hand, the mul grabbed the back of the soldier’s head and pulled downward, smashing it into his knee. There was a loud crack. Blood sprayed over the mul’s leg, and the lifeless Urikite fell to the ground with a cracked forehead.

Rikus looked around and saw that he was no longer in danger. On all sides of the plaza, the Urikites were already retreating down the narrow lanes between the dwarven huts, pressed hard by the Tyrian warriors who had stolen their spears and obsidian short swords. Every moment or two came a pained scream from deep within the warren of stone huts, attesting to the fact that the dwarves were taking vengeance on their former captors.

Rikus returned his attention to the immediate vicinity, searching for Maetan. He spotted the mindbender twenty-yards away, at the end of the one of the sun plaza’s curving salients. He stood between two huts, his gray eyes fixed on the mul.

When Rikus stepped toward the mindbender, Maetan’s bitter voice echoed inside his head. Don’t be a fool, boy. As he spoke, the Urikite’s frail-looking body grew translucent before Rikus’s eyes. I will find you when I’m ready to end our fight.

With that, Maetan faded entirely from sight. Rikus started to yell for a search party, then decided against it. Remembering how the mindbender had ridden a whirlwind away from their first battle, the mul realized that the Urikite would not have shown himself without being sure of his escape. It would take more than cornering a part of the Urikite legion to kill Lord Lubar.

Caelum came to the mul’s side. “Only in the words of our storytellers have I heard of men who fight like you, Tyrian,” he said. He held his hands toward Rikus, palm up in the sign of friendship. “I am named Caelum.”

“I’m Rikus,” the mul said, putting his sword beneath his arm so he could return the dwarf’s greeting. “Without your help, I’d be dead. I owe you a life.”

“And we owe you many,” the dwarf replied, gesturing toward the plaza.

Now that the battle had moved away from the circle, Rikus could see that their quick victory had not come without a price. Nearly two-hundred gladiators, and more than a few of Jaseela’s retainers, lay bleeding and groaning around the perimeter of the plaza. Already, the dwarven men and women who lived closest to the square were bringing bandages and satchels of soothing herbs to help the wounded.

As they studied the scene in the plaza, Neeva, who was standing a dozen yards away, screamed, “Look out!”

She snatched a spear from a dead Urikite and threw it in Caelum’s direction. The weapon streaked to the ground about a yard behind the dwarf, striking something soft and fleshy. A man’s voice cried out in pain, then an obsidian dagger clattered to the ground at the dwarf’s heels. Rikus peered over Caelum’s shoulder and saw that his fighting partner had killed a Urikite who had been preparing to attack the dwarf from behind. Caelum looked from the dying soldier to Neeva, his mouth opened in astonishment. “I’ve been saved by a queen!”

“Not quite,” Rikus chuckled, motioning Neeva over. She had no sooner joined them than Caelum seized her hands and fell to his knees. “You saved my life,” he said, kissing her palms. “Now I give it to you.”

“You can have it back,” Neeva said, regarding the dwarf with an expression as amused as it was leery. She disentangled her hands, adding, “You’d do the same for me.”

“For you, I would do that and much more,” Caelum replied, still not rising. “You must accept my gift. I could not live if I did not repay you-”

“Maybe there’s a way for you to do that,” Rikus said, taking the dwarf by the arm and pulling him to his feet. “The mindbender who attacked me used his art to disappear. Can you find him for me?”

Tearing his red eyes away from Neeva, the dwarf shook his head regretfully. “I can offer some protection from the Way, but my powers are those of sun. They are of little help in seeking out a mindbender who wishes to remain hidden-though I wish matters were otherwise. For what he did to our village, the Urikite must be punished.”

“He will be,” Rikus promised. “He’ll pay for what he did to Kled, and for much, much more.”