Troy Denning - The Crimson Legion

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.”

Rikus’s eyes were fixed on the hand of Caelum, which was glowing fiery red and smoking from the fingertips. It shone so brightly that it was translucent, save for the dark network of thick bones buried beneath the flesh.

“Hold him tightly,” the dwarf said. “For its magic, the sun demands payment in pain.”

Rikus pulled Gaanon into his lap, slipping his hands beneath his friend’s massive arms and locking his thighs around the half-giant’s thick waist. “You’re sure this will work?” asked the mul.

Caelum glanced at the disk of flame hanging in the olive-tinged sky. “Each morning, do you also doubt that the sun will burn itself free of the Sea of Silt?”

“No, but this is-”

“May I proceed?” Caelum interrupted, using his free hand to point at his glowing palm, “This is quite as painful for me as it will be for your friend.”

At the other end of Gaanon’s long body, Neeva gripped an ankle under each of her muscular arms. “I’m ready.”

Rikus nodded to Caelum, and the dwarf plunged two smoking fingers into the half-giant’s ulcerating wound. Tongues of light shot outward from the wound like the strands of a spiderweb. Gaanon’s leg grew as translucent as Caelum’s hand, his veins showing through his skin like thick cord.

The gladiator’s eyes popped open. A thunderous bellow roared from his lips and echoed off the huts of Kled. He instinctively tried to sit up, and it took all of Rikus’s abundant strength to hold him down. At the half-giant’s ankles, Neeva repeatedly bounced on the flagstones as she struggled to keep his legs relatively motionless.

Gaanon pulled against Rikus’s arms, trying to reach down and knock the dwarf away from his wound. The mul held him, but only barely. Keeping a wary eye on the screaming half-giant, Caelum continued to hold his fingers in the wound. Slowly, the color faded from his hand and the flesh once again grew opaque. When all the fire had left his fingers, the dwarf withdrew them and stuffed a wad of cloth into the freshly scorched puncture.

The half-giant’s leg continued to glow, and Rikus fancied that he could even see tiny flames flickering along the sinews and veins. Gaanon stopped screaming and laid his head back in Rikus’s arms. A moment later, he closed his eyes and fell to breathing in the heavy rhythms of deep slumber.

“It’s safe to release him now,” Caelum said. He secured the plug in the half-giant’s thigh by wrapping a bandage around the leg, then glanced at Neeva. “You’re very strong. Because you held him so well, my work was much easier than it could have been.”

Neeva wrinkled her brow and did not reply, unsure of how to accept the compliment.

“What now?” Rikus asked, laying the half-giant’s head on the ground. “Do we pour water down his throat?”