Troy Denning: The Verdant Passage

Rikus turned, growling, “So, you want to do a little stick fighting?”

He began whirling his remaining stick in a series of randomly changing patterns, then advanced on the gaj behind the blurred, whistling shield he was creating with his weapon.

As the gladiator stepped within striking range, the front side of the gaj’s shell rose two feet off the ground. Rikus glimpsed a pulpy white body and a tangle of knobby-jointed legs. Suddenly the beast withdrew its head beneath the shell, taking the singing stick along with it. The shell dropped back to the ground. The gaj’s barbed mandibles, all that remained visible of the head, clacked once and reopened menacingly.

“Now what, Rikus?” cried a guard.

“Crawl under there and fight it!” suggested another.

His face reddening with embarrassment, Rikus looked over his shoulder. Only Neeva’s face remained serious. Even Sadira was grinning at his predicament.

“This thing doesn’t want to fight,” he called. “Why don’t three or four of you come down here instead?”

His challenge brought a fresh round of chuckles from the spectators, but none of them volunteered.

Rikus placed his stick between his teeth and circled around to the gaj’s side, where its pincers would not be able to seize him. He squatted down next to the shell and grabbed the underside of the lip, then heaved with all his might.

The carapace rose from the ground, and something clattered inside. Rikus heaved harder, pushing it higher. Six canelike legs shot out and planted themselves firmly in the sand, three to a side. The shiny black limbs were about as thick as Rikus’s forearm, divided into five segments by a series of knotted joints. Each limb ended in two-pronged claws that now clutched at the sand in a futile effort to hold the shell down.

With the singing stick still clenched in his teeth, Rikus shifted his grip and lowered his body again so that he could push the shell the rest of the way over. This time, it required more effort to raise the beast. On the opposite side of its body, the gaj had extended its legs well beyond its shell and was using them to counter its attacker’s efforts. Nonetheless, Rikus was slowly lifting one side. Even a creature like the gaj was no match for the dense muscles of a mul.

The carapace rose higher, and the legs closest to Rikus left the ground. The mul saw that, beneath the shell, the gaj’s body was divided into three white sections: the head, a narrow midsection from which sprang all six legs, and a bloated, heart-shaped abdomen. At the end of the abdomen was a ring of red-tinged muscle.

As Rikus pushed the shell perilously close to tipping, the gaj curled its abdomen forward so that the ring of muscle pointed toward its attacker. The muscles tightened and opened a hole the size of the mul’s thumb. There was a loud hiss, and a puff of gas brushed the gladiator’s face.

Rikus immediately spat the fighting stick from between his clenched teeth, letting it fall to the sand as he dropped the gaj. He spun away and ran several steps before he dropped to his knees and retched. His throat was filled with such a burning stench that he could hardly stand to breathe, and his skin tingled beneath a moist, foul-smelling substance.

“Think the creature is helpless, Rikus?” asked Boaz, smirking at the stricken gladiator.

Rikus tried to respond, but all he could manage was to gasp a few breaths of fresh air. He grabbed a handful of sand and rubbed it over his face, trying to scour the stinking mist from his cheeks.

“Rikus, you’re sick!” called Yarig. “You need help!”

“No!” Rikus yelled, managing to bellow the strained reply. If the mul was to win his bet with Boaz and save his friends a lashing, he could not have the dwarf coming to his rescue.

Hoping to stop Yarig from rushing to his aid, the mul rose to his feet. To his surprise, he stumbled and nearly fell again. He still felt nauseous, and his head was spinning as though he had just downed a gallon of wine. The thing had poisoned him!

Through his blurred vision, Rikus saw that his efforts had only added to the dwarf’s determination. Yarig stepped toward the rope that dangled into the fighting pit. “I’m coming, Rikus!”

“Stay where you are, Yarig!” ordered Boaz. “I’ll decide when Rikus leaves the ring.”

Of course, Yarig showed no sign of obeying, but through the haze, Rikus saw Neeva intercept him. Though she was no match for the dwarf’s strength, the woman managed to detain him long enough for a pair of guards to present their speartips to his throat. The dwarf reluctantly stopped moving.

Rikus’s vision was just clearing when both of his fighting sticks sailed over his head and clattered against the rock wall. The mul spun around to face the gaj, his head reeling from the quick motion.

The creature had climbed out of its shallow burrow. Now, standing on all six legs, the crest of its shell was slightly higher than Rikus’s head. It was clacking its mandibles and flourishing the hairy tentacles atop its head, and three of its red eyes seemed fixed on the gladiator.

Without taking his eyes off the gaj, Rikus stumbled back toward the waIl to retrieve his sticks. On the deck above, the guards and Boaz were talking quietly, but Neeva and the other slaves remained silent.

The gaj scuttled forward, its great pincers opened wide. Not wishing to be trapped against the wall, Rikus moved out to meet his opponent, his sticks whistling through the air as if they were whips. The gaj mirrored his approach, whirling its head stalks in small circles as if they were ropes.

Rikus gave a battle yell and ran forward at the best pace his shaky legs would carry him. He lifted a stick to strike, shifting the other into a middle defense. In the same instant, the gaj’s body sank nearly a foot as it gathered its legs beneath itself.

Realizing that it was about to surprise him again, Rikus immediately kicked his feet out from beneath himself. He landed flat on his back with a hard thump. In the same instant, the gaj sprang. The thing’s huge body descended on him, its barbed mandibles clasping where he had stood just a moment before.

Holding his sticks like daggers, he jabbed at the underside of the creature’s soft thorax. The ends of the sticks sank several inches into the soft tissue. Rikus had no way of telling whether he had injured the gaj, or even whether it had felt the blows.

The gaj lifted the back of its shell, and the gladiator saw the tip of its abdomen curling toward him. Rikus kicked at it with all his might and held his breath. A hiss sounded near his feet. The mul withdrew his sticks and jabbed at the gaj’s thorax three more times, then rolled, beating his way through a tangle of slashing legs to pass from beneath the carapace.

As the crimson rays of the sun touched his face and he dared to breathe again, Rikus glimpsed Sadira and the other slaves standing at the edge of the wall, just above the rope that dangled into the pit. The guards who surrounded them seemed more interested in what was happening in the arena than watching the slaves.

The mul scrambled to his feet. “I’m fine!” he called, stumbling backward as he used his sticks to parry a series of wild slashes from a pair of black, jointed legs.

The gaj spun around to face the gladiator with its mandibles. As Rikus feigned a charge, its pincers again closed on empty air. The mul leaped past. He brought his sticks down on the pulpy mass of its head in a rapid cadence of lightning-quick strokes. As he struck, he snapped his wrists, adding velocity to the blows.

The gaj struck him with its hairy tentacles. Bands of searing agony shot through the gladiator’s arms and chest. His entire body seemed to be burning from the inside out, and Rikus feared that he was about to burst into a ball of flame. The mul screamed.