Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 2 - The Crimson Legion (32 page)

Rikus stepped back to the battleline, ignoring the raging pain caused by the spearhead
embedded in his shoulder and fighting without regard
for the risks he took. Soon, Urikite corpses were heaped so high that the mul's foes began
to jump down at him as if leaping from a wall. It made no difference to the gladiator. His
sharp blade sliced through them at all angles, and the mound continued to grow.

Rikus was jolted back to his senses when a horrific boom sounded from the Crater of Bones.
A crimson light flashed across the sky a moment before the ground began to buck. The mul's
feet were swept from beneath him, and he fell to the ground, landing atop a half-dozen
bleeding corpses. A pair of stunned Urikites tumbled down the body pile toward him,
scattering their shields and spears behind them.

In the next instant, shrill whistles and screeching cries filled the night. Hissing
streaks of flame dropped out of the sky, bringing with them the stench of sulfur. As the
fiery globs crashed to the battlefield, agonized pleas for help rang from both sides of
the line.

The two Urikites that had been corning at Rikus returned to their feet before the wounded
mul could regain his. They threw themselves on top of him, one grabbing the shaft in his
shoulder and the other pinning his sword arm to the ground.

The mul howled in pain, then smashed his forehead into the face of the Urikite pinning his
arm. As the soldier rocked backward, Rikus ripped his band free and pulled the Scourge
across the bodies of both attackers.

Covered in fresh, hot blood, the mul pushed the wounded men away and rolled to his knees.
The situation around him was the same in all directions, with Urikites and Tyriacs
wrestling on the ground while reinforcements jump into the melee from both sides. Long
streamers of fire lit the sky as burning blobs of molten rock dropped to the ground and
burst into red sprays of liquid flame.

A sizzling whoosh sounded from above the mul's head, then a streak of orange light
momentarily stunned him. Tiny droplets of liquid fire spattered over his body, filling his
nostrils with the stench of his own burning skin. Screaming in pain and blind rage, the
mul threw himself on the men he had just wounded and rolled over their bodies to suffocate
the embers charring his flesh.

“Rikus hurt?”

The gladiator looked up and saw K'kriq standing over him. Although the thri-kreen's
carapace was scorched and burned in a dozen places, the mantis-warrior seemed to be
enduring the rain of fire with far less discomfort than the mul.

“I'll live,” Rikus muttered, gritting his teeth at the pain.

“Then come.”

The thri-kreen pulled Rikus to his feet with two arms. With the other two he pointed to
the mouth of Drewet's canyon.

A broad rivet of white-hot rock was pouring out of the gorge, sweeping onto the delta in a
glowing, steadily flowing river. The Urikite troops not in the front lines of the battle
were caught by the lava. Panicked, they clambered over each other in an effort to flee,
but to little avail. The molten stone pursued the screaming soldiers relentlessly, lapping
at their heels and overtaking those who fell. As Rikus watched, hundreds of soldiers burst
into columns of yellow flame, flaring for a brief instant before they vanished in a wisp
of smoke and ash.

Caelum had won the battle for him, but Rikus could not help but wonder what the real price
would be.

Parley

“Rikus . . . Rikus . . . Rikus ..
.”

The mul straightened the sling holding his left arm, then hung the Scourge of Rkard from
the scabbard hooks on the Belt of Rank. The company outside had been droning oil name for
two days, and now that he had recovered from his wounds enough to stand, Rikus was
prepared to face them.

“Would you like me to stand with you?” asked Neeva. No one else had been brave enough to
follow Rikus up into the room.

“No, I'd better do this alone,” he answered.

After stepping onto a small balcony that overhung Makla's central plaza, he looked down
upon the company of chanting corpses. Some were naked, with bits of singed cloth clinging
to their blistered hides, and blackened stubs of bone where their hands and feet should
have been. A few others had lost their legs from the waist down, and supported themselves
only by clinging to huge boulders that hovered in the air before them. The largest part of
the crowd had been reduced to whirlwinds of ash crowned by the vague outline of a
pain-racked face. All had been part of Drewet's doomed company. At the head of the crowd,
over a small circle of blackened and cracked cobblestones, burned an orange pillar of
flame. The grisly undead band had appeared in Makla only hours behind the Tyrian legion,
and neither Caelum's magic nor threats of violence had convinced them to move.

“Rikus ... Rikus . . . Rikus ...”

Their rasping chant did not change tone or inflection, and the mul could not even tell if
they knew he had come to answer their call. He forced himself to stare at their gruesome
forms for several moments, determined not to show the fear he felt inside.

Rikus raised his good arm for silence, but the warriors continued to chant his name. “I'm
sorry you died,” he called, speaking above them. “I tried to save you.”

The orange flame, which the mul assumed to be Drewet, advanced a pace. The entire company
followed, angrily shouting, “Hurray for Rikus!”

The mul stumbled backward, shocked by the anger in their voices. When the company came no
closer, Rikus recovered his composure and returned to the edge of the balcony. This time,
he gripped the stone rail to prevent himself from retreating againÑand to keep his hand
from trembling.

“I had to save the rest of the legion,” Rikus said. Once again, he had to shout to make
himself heard, for the company had resumed its chant. “You were doomed anyway.”

Drewet led the company another pace closer, and again they shouted, “Hurray for Rikus!”

The mul's knuckles turned white, but he did not step from the railing. “What do you want?”
he asked. Though he tried to speak in a demanding tone, there was an undertone of dread
and fear in his voice.

This time, only Drewet spoke. “Tell us why,” she demanded, moving closer. Tongues of flame
began to lick at the underside of the stone balcony.

“I told you,” Rikus answered, feeling his legs begin to quiver, “To save the legion.”

The rest of the company came forward. “Hurray for Rikus!”

As they resumed their chant, it was all the mul could do to keep from turning and running.
“If you want my life, then come and try to take it,” he yelled.

With a trembling hand, he reached for his sword.

Don't you fool!
commanded Tamar.
Until you bring me the book, your life is not your own to throw away.
When Rikus moved his hand away from his scabbard, she continued.
Your warriors only wish to be dismissed. They are in pain.

How do you know?
the mul demanded.

Look at them,
Tamar said, a bemused note in her voice.
Any fool can see they suffer the agony of their deaths. They would have abandoned their
bodies long ago, had they been able.

Rikus returned his hand to the railing. “You're free to leave.” After a moment, when the
company continued to chant his name, he yelled, “Go. Leave your pain behind you!”

“Tell us why!” Drewet screamed.

She rose into the air until she hovered in front of the balcony. An orange tendril lashed
out and touched Rikus's sling, instantly setting the bloody cloth on fire. Screaming in
alarm, the mul pulled his aching arm free, then ripped the rag from his neck and flung the
flaming thing into the square.

Drewet's company moved closer and chanted his name more loudly. Thinking that he had been
a fool to listen to Tamar's advice, Rikus retreated to the back of the balcony. Drewet
followed, moving so close that the heat of her flaming form stung Rikus's skin. He drew
his sword and held the blade in front of himself.

The Scourge won't protect you,
Tamar warned.

But she won't listen!

How do you expect the warriors to accept their fate when you will not accept the onus
for choosing it?
Tamar asked.
If you shrink from your destiny, it will destroy youÑand I have no wish to find another
agent to recover the book for me.

I am not your pawn!

Tamar let her silence be her reply.

At his back, the mul heard Neeva's voice. “I'll get Caelum!”

“No,” Rikus said, accepting Tamar's advice. Though he distrusted the wraith as much as he
despised her, the mul did not doubt that she was trying to save his life. As she had
pointed out, she still needed him to recover the book. “I need no protection from my own
warriors.”

Keeping his eye fixed on the pillar of fire in front of him, Rikus slowly sheathed his
sword and moved forward. Drewet backed away. When she was once again hanging over the
square, the mul stopped and looked down at her company. They continued to cry his name,
their voices bitter with resentment and pain. Rikus studied their tortured forms for
several moments, his heart growing heavy as he accepted the full burden of what he had
done.

At last, he was ready to dismiss Drewet's company. “You died so I could win the battle,”
he called, fixing his gaze on the flaming pillar before him. “I would do it again.”

*****

The chanting stopped, and Canth looked up from the mug of bitter-smelling broy that a
friend had poured for him. Like the rest of his fellows, the burly gladiator and his
fire-mates had made their camp at the western end of townÑas far away from Rikus and his
company of dead disciples as they could.

“I don't like the sound of that,” Canth said, setting his square jaw. “What do you suppose
Rikus is doing now? Has he taught Drewet and her troops a new song at last?” He suppressed
a shudder.

“Who knows?” replied Lor, a brown-skinned woman with a bloody bandage on the stump of her
sword arm. She held her mug out to Jotano, a quiet templar who had endeared himself to the
gladiators through his uncanny knack for finding broy or wine when others had to make do
with water. “I'll wager that whatever he's about, it's no good.”

“A dwarf told me he's learned sorcery so he can be a king like Kalak,” offered Lafus, a
stooped half-elf with an unusually broad face and a bald pate. “The dwarf heard it from
Caelum himself.”

“I don't believe it,” said Canth. “The Rikus I know doesn't care about kings or magic. I
say the ruby has taken over his mindÑand it's going to get us all killed.”

Lafus, always as ready to argue as he was to fight, countered the generous claim. “Because
you once shared a stadium pen with the mul doesn't mean you know him.” He snorted. “How do
you account for those monstrous things in the square?”

Jotano shook his head. “Those are unquiet spirits, longing for rest, not creatures raised
by magic.”

Canth nodded. “And you templars know your magic. Besides, I'll believe Rikus's word over
that of a sun-sick dwarf any day,” he countered. “What makes you think Fire-Eyes knows
what Rikus is doing?” he demanded, using the gladiators' nickname for Caelum.

“My dwarf contact says it came to Caelum from Neeva,” said Lafus, his lip turned up in a
triumphant sneer. “That's why she won't he with Rikus any more.”

In a drink-slurred voice, Lor declared, “Then I'll lie with him.” She raised the stump of
what had been her sword arm. “Maybe his magic will grow my hand back.”

She chuckled grimly, but the others looked away in uncomfortable silence.

After a moment, Canth faced Jotano. Hoping to counter the powerful case that Lafus had
made by invoking Neeva's name, the
square-jawed gladiator asked, “What do you hear in your company's camps, Jotano?”

The templar shrugged and refilled Lor's empty mug. “It matters little to the templars
whether Rikus is learning sorcery or controlled by it,” he said. “Magic is power, and it
is better to have a powerful master than a weak one.”

*****

K'kriq burst into Rikus's room. “Come quick!” he said. “Need you.”

“For what?” the mul demanded. He sat up and placed his legs over the edge of the bed.
During the last three days, he had risen from it only once, when he had gone to dismiss
Drewet's company. “Is Hamanu sending another army?”

“No,” K'kriq said. “Just come.”

Rikus forced himself to stand, gritting his teeth against the pain it caused. The spear
puncture in his shoulder was already scarred over, for Caelum had used his magic to heal
it long ago. Many of his other wounds, including most of the charred holes where he had
been spattered by lava, were still in an awful state.

The canker on his chest, especially, had grown even more disgusting. Tamar's ruby now
resembled the red pupil of an eye, looking out on the world from a black iris that oozed a
constant stream of foul yellow bile. The pestilence had left his arm swollen and useless,
a source of constant pain that sometimes made him gasp.

Rikus put on his robe, then followed K'kriq down the mansion hallway. Like all the other
buildings in the village, this one had not escaped the ravages of the fires the legion had
set during their first retreat. The whole building stank of charcoal, and the ostentatious
murals on its stone walls were lost beneath deep layers of soot.

Nevertheless, the mansion was still more comfortable than anyplace the mul had slept since
leaving Tyr. During the time Rikus and his legion had been trapped in the Crater of Bones,
the slave-keepers of Makla had returned to reconstruct their homes and slave compounds. It
was a mistake they had not long lived to regret. When the Tyrians had returned and
liberated the village, the hundreds and hundreds of quarry slaves had exacted a terrible
revenge on their cruel masters.

K'kriq led the mul into the mansion's great hall, a square chamber with an entrance at
each corner. A fire had burned clear through the floors and ceilings of the upper stories,
and now the slanting rays of the crimson sun shone directly into the room. The ruins of a
massive table and other fine furniture littered the polished floor. On the walls hung
charred streamers of cloth that had once been priceless tapestries.