Troy Denning - The Verdant Passage

“This is for the wound you gave me last year, Rikus!” Gaanon boomed.

The mul saw the gaj’s head and pincers being forced off the platform directly above him and Neeva. Gaanon’s witless face hovered over the top of the beast’s rust-colored shell. He was glaring at the mul with a gap-toothed sneer.

A faint hiss sounded from beneath the gaj as it released its defensive gas. Gaanon looked as though he would retch, but kept pushing the beast forward. Suddenly the gaj slid down the glassy pyramid appearing as little more than an orange streak as it crashed into Neeva. Rikus jumped out of the way. As he landed on the steep slope, his feet shot from beneath him. The mul tumbled head over heels down to the sandy field.

Gaanon’s brutal laugh boomed over the fighting field. Rikus leaped to his feet, spear in hand and spitting sand. The half-giant’s moronic expression changed to fear when he saw the weapon pointed at him, but Rikus restrained himself from throwing it. Raffaela had no doubt recovered by now. If he threw the spear, she would certainly teleport to him and attack before he could secure another weapon.

Instead, Rikus looked to where the gaj had landed. The beast lay on the ground without moving. Its legs were retracted beneath its carapace, and its head was pointed away from him. The mul heard a muffled scream and saw that Neeva’s trikal protruded from beneath the gaj’s shell. Without pause, he leaped atop the beast.

“Release her!” he demanded.

Neeva lay directly beneath the gaj, flailing wildly at its head. The creature’s tentacles were wrapped around her helmet, frantically trying to remove it.

Release her! Rikus repeated, this time using thought speech.

No , came the reply. Let me have her or I’ll tell the king your true reason for fighting today .

“Then tell him!” Rikus snarled, plunging his spear deep into the monster’s head.

The gaj shuddered and shrieked in pain, but the injury did not prevent it from tearing Neeva’s helm from her head. You should know you can’t kill me , it said. Go, or I tell the king!

“Rikus! Get it off!” Neeva yelled. The gaj tried to snake a tentacle around her head, but she blocked with her forearm. As the stalk entwined her wrist, she howled in pain.

“Its body!” Neeva screeched. “Hit its body.”

The gaj lashed its free tentacle around her head, and she fell silent. Somehow Neeva found the strength to grasp at the stalk. From his own experience, the mul knew even Neeva could not last long once the thing invaded her mind.

Rikus pulled the Heartwood Spear from the beast’s head, then jabbed at its hump. The point passed through the shell as easily as it had penetrated the tareks’ bodies. An ear-piercing shriek sounded from the gaj’s head. It began to lash about fiercely. Rikus pushed the spear in deeper, twisting the shaft like a butter churn.

The gaj stopped struggling. The stench of its defensive gas filled the air. Rikus pulled his spear free and leaped off the beast.

“What are you waiting for?” Neeva gasped, her voice weak and raspy. “I can’t breathe.”

Holding his breath so he would not be weakened by the gaj’s gas, Rikus flipped the lifeless creature onto its back. Using the spear, he removed the tentacles from Neeva’s head and arm. Welts and blisters had already formed where the thing had touched her.

The crowd broke into a horrendous roar. Rikus stepped away from the gaj, drawing a deep breath. He saw that Gaanon’s elven partner had returned to the pyramid’s summit. Both the half-giant and the elf stood at the edge of the platform, staring at him with an air of haughty disdain.

Rikus looked back to Neeva. “Can you fight?”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” she said, though she had still not risen to her feet.

People in the stands cried Rikus’s name, urging him to abandon his partner and attack the pyramid. The mul picked up his spear and looked toward the King’s Balcony. Kalak remained at the rail. He leaned over the edge, staring down at the mul and his partner, his lips curling into a sadistic grin.

Neeva grabbed her trikal and tried to stand. Her knees buckled before she was halfway up. “I’m too weak, Rikus,” she said. “You’ll have to try without me.”

“No,” the mul said. “We’re in this together.”

He lifted the spear as if ready to throw it, pointing the tip toward Gaanon. The half-giant took a step backward. A thunderous roar exploded from the stands, with thousands of voices urging the mul to kill his rival.

Rikus let the uproar continue to build, then glanced down at his fighting partner, who lay gasping on the sand. “For you and Sadira,” he whispered.

Neeva shook her head. “For freedom and Athas.”

With that, Rikus whirled around to face the King’s Balcony. Kalak’s eyes widened.

At that moment, a deafening explosion shook the stadium. A great silver and gold flash shot out of the lower tiers as Sadira made her attack. The bright flare filled the air with a peculiar stench that reminded Rikus of melting copper. The bolt hit an invisible barrier at the balcony’s edge, exploding there into a brilliant cascade of red and blue sparks. The mul glimpsed a magical wall of shimmering force, but it faded away amidst a cacophony of loud sizzles and sharp pops.

Rikus stepped forward. Kalak looked away from the mul, his eyes drawn suddenly to Agis of Asticles in the High Templars’ Gallery. Rikus hurled the spear with all his might. As the enchanted weapon sailed toward its target, an image born of Kalak’s twisted mind, augmented by his mastery of the Way, appeared over the entire stadium: a dragon, fierce and terrible, rose to the height of the great ziggurat.

The image of the dragon reared back, ready to strike. It was in that instant that the Heartwood Spear struck Kalak, sorcerer-king of Tyr, squarely in the chest and passed clear through his body. The king’s screams filled the stadium, then the entire city. The unearthly cries did not fade as the half-giants grabbed their leader and dragged him into his golden palace.

The stadium remained tense, but calm. Most commoners stayed in their seats, too frightened or too stunned to move, filling the air with the steady drone of their astonished voices. Knots of angry nobles yelled at stony-faced templars, trying in vain to make them open the sealed gates. Glowering half-giants stalked the terrace aisles, their massive clubs resting over their shoulders and their red-rimmed eyes scanning the crowd.

It was not the reaction Agis had anticipated. He had envisioned a thunderous uproar, the stands breaking into a riot, the frenzied crowd pouring onto the fighting field. There was none of that. The spectators were too shocked to do as the noble expected, and Larkyn’s half-giants were too efficient to let them.

The crowd’s reaction was not the only thing that had failed to go as Agis had pictured. The timing of the companions’ attack had been perfect, but that was where their success had ended. As powerful and well-placed as Rikus’s throw had been, it had not killed the king. From the High Templars’ Gallery, the noble had seen Kalak gesturing angrily as his half-giants helped him off the King’s Balcony and into the Golden Tower.

Agis turned his attention to the fighting field, where a swarm of templars and half-giants surrounded Rikus and Neeva. The two gladiators were allowing themselves to be escorted toward Tithian’s gallery. Agis suspected their complacence was due to their faith in his influence over the high templar, for he knew that Rikus and Neeva would have died fighting rather than suffer the indignity of execution.

When the swarm of guards stopped below the gallery, Tithian stepped to the edge of the porch and regarded the pair with a spiteful glare in his eyes. Rikus and Neeva glared back, their faces betraying distrust and hatred of the high templar. Agis moved forward, so he would no longer be hidden in the shadows below the canopy. Neeva’s clenched jaw relaxed, but Rikus’s expression merely changed from hatred to defiance.