Troy Denning: The Cerulean Storm

“The same thing you are,” Rikus replied, stopping a few paces from Tay’s head. The wounded giant growled and reached toward Rikus with his uninjured hand but stopped short when the mul placed his blade between the titan’s fingers and himself. “What you do to those people, I do to your friend.”

Yab frowned and scratched his ear. He stared at Rikus and muttered to himself in muffled tones, then shrugged and stepped into the faro fields.

“Where are you going?” Rikus asked, puzzled by the giant’s peculiar retreat.

“Don’t hurt Tay, or all these people die. And I can find plenty more, too.” The giant stepped behind Rasda’s Wall and disappeared from sight.

Rikus started to pursue, then thought of the plantation behind the ridge and decided to wait. By pursuing immediately, he would only provoke Yab into a fit of destructive rage. Instead, the mul thought it wiser to interrogate Tay about the condition of the farm and its inhabitants, then decide what to do.

Before Rikus could begin his inquiries, Magnus stepped to his side. “I sent a wind-whisper to Sadira.”

“Is she coming?” Rikus asked.

“Not yet,” the windsinger replied. “She and the others were just leaving for the council meeting, and at the time it looked like you had things well in hand. Should I tell her I was wrong?”

Rikus shook his head. “Let’s see what Tay has to say.” He waved a hand toward Rasda’s Wall. “Keep a watch and let me know if you see Yab coming back from the farm.”

“He’s probably too busy gathering more hostages, but I’ll keep an eye turned in that direction.” The windsinger positioned himself so that one of his round eyes was directed toward the ridge and the other toward Rikus.

Gripping his sword with both hands, the mul laid the blade across the giant’s immense gullet. “What are you and Yab doing here?”

“We c-came for our Oracle.” Tay could not keep his plump lips from quivering as he spoke. “Two Tyrians stole it, your king and a nobleman.”

Rikus frowned. “Tithian and Agis of Asticles?”

“That sounds like what our chief called them.” Tay kept platter-sized eyes fixed on the mul’s face.

“Don’t lie to me,” the mul said. He pressed down until a trickle of blood ran from beneath his blade. “Agis is no thief. Besides, he wouldn’t help Tithian.”

“Not even to kill the Dragon?” asked Magnus, still watching Rasda’s Wall.

“What do you mean?” Rikus asked.

Instead of answering, the windsinger asked Tay, “What does this Oracle of yours look like?”

“A ball of black obsidian, no bigger than you,” replied the giant.

“It sounds like the Dark Lens,” Magnus noted.

“The Oracle!” the giant insisted. “If you don’t return it, we’ll raze every farm in the valley.”

Paying the giant’s threat no attention, Rikus asked the windsinger, “How did you know he was talking about the Lens?”

Magnus shrugged modestly. “Tithian had to be looking for something when he snuck out of Tyr,” he said. “My guess is that Agis caught him, and they both found the Lens in the giants’ possession.”

“They stole it!” Tay growled. “And you’ve got to give it back-or something bad’s going to happen to us all.”

“What?” Rikus demanded.

“Only the chiefs know,” Tay answered. “But giants won’t be the only ones to suffer. We were guarding the Oracle for everyone on Athas.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Rikus threatened.

“Not at the moment,” said Magnus.

The windsinger pointed toward Rasda’s Wall, where Yab’s head had just appeared above the low shoulder. He was looking back toward the plantation, yelling, “Come quick, Sachem Patch! Tay’s hurt.”

“What hurt him?” From the faintness of the reply, Rikus guessed that this giant was a considerable distance away-probably in the fields on the far side of the farm.

“A little bald man,” yelled Yab. “He looks kind of like a dwarf.”

“Tay let a dwarf hurt him?” chuckled a fourth giant. “What did Tay do-slip on the blood when he stomped it?”

A storm of laughter erupted behind the outcrop, and Rikus knew he had seriously underestimated the number of giants attacking the plantation. Apparently, while Yab and Tay chased down the escaping paupers, most of the war party had remained behind to destroy the farm itself.

Rikus looked back to Tay. “How many warriors in your group?”

“Eight,” Tay said. He smirked at the mul.

“We’d better run for it,” Rikus said. He stepped away from Tay, pulling the windsinger along with him.

“No!” boomed Tay. “Stop!”

Rikus looked up and saw the giant’s hand descending toward their heads, balled up in a tight fist as large as a shield. The mul shoved Magnus in one direction and dived in the other. Tay’s fist landed between them, cracking stones and raising a plume of orange dust. In the next instant, they were both on their feet and scrambling over the rocky ground at their best sprint.

It took a dozen steps and two more close calls before they were safely out of the crippled titan’s reach, and even then they continued toward the far end of the valley at their best pace.

Magnus came over to Rikus’s side. “Should I send for Sadira now?”

Before answering, the mul glanced over his shoulder. Yab was stepping out from behind Rasda’s Wall, no longer carrying his shoulder satchel. Behind him came another giant, much larger than either himself or Tay. This one wore a black shawl draped over one eye.

“Call her,” Rikus said. “But tell her not to do anything until she sees eight giants. If we let any of them escape, it could take days to track them down.”

The windsinger nodded, then a soft, lilting strain rose from deep within his throat. So perfect was his breath control that his voice betrayed no hint of strain, even though he was still running. As Magnus repeated the message, air whirled around the windsinger’s head with a hushed, melodic hissing that sounded to the mul like whispering ghosts.

Magnus completed the message, finishing with, “To my brother, the parching wind, I commit these words. Carry them to the ears of Sadira and no one else.”

An eerie silence replaced the hissing of the wind. Then Rikus saw a series of dust-whirls skipping across the desert as Magnus’s spell streaked toward Tyr.

The mul and the windsinger ran another dozen steps before boulders began to crash down on all sides of them, filling the air with flying chips of stone and the mordant smell of powdered rock. A billowing cloud of sand and dust engulfed them, and Rikus heard Magnus cry out. The windsinger slammed to the ground amid a mad clatter of rocks.

“Magnus!” Rikus called, whirling around.

“Here,” came the reply. Through the clearing dust, Rikus saw Magnus pushing himself to his knees. “It just glanced off me.”

Rikus went to the windsinger’s side and took his arm. “Can you still run?” He helped his big friend to his feet.

“Perhaps a little slower than before,” Magnus replied, looking back toward the farm. “But we’d be wiser to duck.”

Following his friend’s gaze, Rikus saw Patch, Yab, and five more giants charging past Tay. The titans were all struggling to retain their balance, having launched another flight of boulders while on the run. The jagged shapes were already descending toward the mul and his companion.

Rikus dropped to the ground and covered his head. A tremendous crack sounded ahead as a boulder smashed into a huge, half-buried stone and shattered it. A jagged shard of basalt scuffed Rikus’s back, then he heard the boulder clattering across the rocky ground and felt warm blood flowing down his ribs.