The Crimson Legion

by Denning, Troy

  Towering above the dwarves, in the center of the circle next to the cistern, stood Maetan of Family Lubar and four large bodyguards. Though the distance separating them was great enough that Rikus could not make out the Urikite’s expression, the mul could see that the mindbender was sipping water from a wooden dipper and staring up at the arch where he and his companions stood.

  The mul shifted his gaze from his enemy to the terrain surrounding the dwarven town. On the side closest to Rikus, slabs of orange-streaked sandstone, speckled with purple spikeball and silvery fans of goldentip, rose at steep angles to become the foothills of the Ringing Mountains. The other side of the village was dominated by a barren mound of copper-colored sand.

  Thirsty Tyrian warriors covered the dune and the sandstone slabs, sitting in plain sight and staring down at the cistern with yearning eyes. In the olive-tinged hours just after dawn, Rikus’s legion had taken up positions surrounding the village and had been awaiting the order to attack ever since. But with the Urikites waiting for his troops to make the first move, Rikus was in no hurry to give the order.

  “If we attack, Maetan kills the dwarves,” the mul growled, shaking his head and facing the five people with him. “If we don’t, we die of thirst.”

  The Tyrian army had run out of water two days ago after five days of tracking Maetan and fighting a running battle to keep him from regathering the Urikite army. Thanks to his mul blood, Rikus was not suffering too badly from the lack of water. The same was true of K’kriq, who only drank once every ten or twelve days in the best of times.

  Unfortunately, the rest of their companions were not so hardy. Neeva’s lips were cracked and bleeding, her green eyes sunken and gray, and her skin peeling away in red flakes. Jaseela’s black hair had become stiff as straw and the tip of her swollen tongue protruded from the drooping side of her mouth. Styan’s throat was so constricted that he could hardly gasp when he tried to speak.

  Gaanon was the worst off, though. Because of his great size, he required more water than most warriors, and thirst was taking its toll on him faster than anyone else. His throat was so swollen that it choked off his breath if he didn’t consciously hold it open. Simply taking a few steps strained his big body so severely that he had to lie motionless in order to calm his pounding heart. To make matters worse, the wound in the half-giant’s thigh had festered, and now a steady dribble of yellow pus ran from the puncture. Rikus had no doubt that Gaanon would die if he did not have water soon.

  “I don’t know what to do.” the mul admitted.

  “There is only one thing we can do,” Styan whispered. Still dressed in his black cassock, he was the only one of the group wearing anything more than a breechcloth, halter, and a light cape. He claimed the heavy cloak trapped a layer of moisture next to his skin, but Rikus had his doubts.

  “Yes,” Jaseela agreed. “We must leave.”

  “Are you mad?” Styan croaked.

  “I won’t be responsible for the death of an entire village,” the noblewoman countered, waving her hand toward the crowded plaza below.

  “They’re only dwarves,” objected Styan. “And crazier than most, judging from their village.”

  Rikus raised his hand to silence them. Their comments had provided no help, for he was already well aware of the situation either his legion died, or the dwarves did. “What do you think?” he asked Neeva.

  She did not hesitate. “This is our fight, not that of the dwarves. We can’t sacrifice them to save ourselves.”

  “We’re also saving Tyr,” Styan added.

  “You care less about Tyr than you do about the dwarves,” Jaseela hissed.

  “That’s enough.” Rikus stepped between them. “I know what we have to do.”

  “What?” gasped the templar. From his hostile inflection, Rikus knew that Styan would not be happy with any answer that did not mean water.

  Rikus faced the village again, where Maetan was wasting water by pouring it over the heads of his captives. “We’ll capture the cistern—without letting Maetan kill anyone.”

  “It’s well to say such things,” Styan said, “but as a practical matter—”

  “We’ll try!” Rikus snapped, keeping his gaze fixed on Maetan. Though he did not say so aloud, he feared that Maetan would wipe out the dwarven village even if his legion left. At the very least, the hungry Urikites would loot the dwarves to the point of starvation.

  “How?” It was Jaseela’s soft voice that asked the question.

  The mul had no answer. Not for the first time that day, his thoughts turned to Sadira and Agis, but he quickly tried to put them out of his mind. By now, they were halfway back to Tyr. No matter how much he lamented the absence of the half-elf’s sorcery or the noble’s mastery of the Way, he and his legion had to solve this problem on their own.

  For what seemed an eternity, Rikus simply stood and watched Maetan dump water on the dwarves. Finally, a plan occurred to the mul. “We’re going to surrender,” he said, facing his companions.

  “What?” they asked together.

  Rikus nodded. “It’s the only way to put ourselves between the Urikites and dwarves before the fighting starts.”

  “This is beyond belief,” Styan said, his strained voice cracking with anger.

  “Without weapons, we’ll all be at a severe disadvantage,” Jaseela said. “We’ll lose a lot of warriors.”

  “Not if we lead with gladiators,” Rikus offered. “In the pits, before you learn to fight with weapons, you learn to fight without them.” He glanced at Neeva and asked, “What do you think?”

  The big woman remained quiet for several moments. Finally, she asked, “Are you doing this because you’re afraid we won’t catch Maetan again?”

  “If Maetan was all I’m after, we would have attacked by now,” Rikus snapped. Neeva’s question hurt more than it should have, and he realized there was some truth to what she implied. Still, he thought he was making the right decision. “Besides, this is the only way I see to give both us and the dwarves a chance to survive.”

  When Neeva offered no further argument, Styan said, “The templars won’t have any part of it.”

  “That’s your choice,” Rikus said. “If you think this is a bad idea, I won’t ask you to send your company along.”

  “We’re ready to fight, but for Tyr—not any dwarven village,” he sneered. The templar reached into his pocket and withdrew the small crystal of green olivine that would allow him to contact Tithian. “And I don’t think the king will want us to sacrifice our warriors for a bunch of dwarves, either. I warrant we’ll have a new commander in a matter of—”

  Rikus clasped the templar’s hand. “This isn’t the king’s decision,” he said, prying the stone from Styan’s fingers. “You have only two choices. Join us and help, or wait here and hope we succeed.”

  Styan stared at Rikus, then jerked his hand out of the mul’s grasp. “I’ll wait.”

  Paying the templar no further attention, Rikus slipped the stone into his leather belt pouch, then gave Neeva and Jaseela instructions to be passed along to the others. Rikus laid his cahulaks aside, then moved to leave.

  K’kriq stepped to his side and started down the sandstone slope with him. Rikus stopped and shook his head, “I have to go alone, K’kriq,” he said. Though the thri-kreen was quickly learning Tyrian, Rikus spoke in Urikite. He did not want any misunderstandings.

  The thri-keen shook his bubble-eyed head and laid a restraining claw on the mul’s shoulder. “Pack mates.”

  Rikus removed the claw. “Yes, but don’t come until the fight starts,” he said, starting down the hill again.

  K’kriq ignored his order and followed. The mul stopped and frowned at the thri-keen. As much as he valued the mantis-warrior’s combat prowess, the mul remembered how easily Maetan had taken control of K’kriq’s mind in the last battle. He did not want to risk the same thing happening before the fight was in full swing.

  Deciding to put his order in terms that K’kriq se
emed to understand, Rikus pointed at Gaanon. “If I’m a pack mate, so is Gaanon,” he said. “Stay here and protect him.”

  The thri-keen looked from the mul to the half-giant. “Protect?” His mandibles hung open in confusion.

  “Guard, like your young,” the mul explained.

  “Gaanon no hatchling!” K’kriq returned, cocking his head at Rikus. Nevertheless, the thri-keen turned away and went to the half-giant’s side, shaking his head as though the mul were crazy.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Rikus descended the sandstone alone. As he approached the village gate, which did not stand even as tall as he did, he raised his hands above his head to show that he was unarmed. The mul could have reached the top of the village wall without leaving his feet, and caught the railing atop the gatehouse with a good leap.

  When Rikus had reached a comfortable speaking distance, a Urikite officer showed his bearded face above the wall. “That’s far enough,” he called, using a heavily accented version of the common trade dialect. “What do you want?”

  “I’ve come to surrender my legion to Maetan of Urik,” Rikus answered. He did his best to look both remorseful and angry.

  “Maetan has no use for your legion—except as slaves,” the officer returned, his dark eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “Better slaves than corpses,” Rikus answered. Though he did not mean them, the words stuck in his throat anyway. “We’ve been out of water for days.”

  “There’s plenty in here,” the officer answered. He grinned wickedly and studied the mul for a moment, then motioned for the gate to be opened.

  Rikus stepped through, allowing himself to be siezed by the officer and several soldiers. They bound his hands and slipped a choking-loop around his neck, then led him toward the windmill and cistern at the center of the village. They passed a dozen rows of the round huts. As he peered down into them, Rikus could not help noticing that they were all arranged in a similar manner. To one side of the doorway was a round table surrounded by a trio of curved benches. On the other side of the door stood a simple cabinet holding a variety of tools and weapons. The beds, stone platforms covered with several layers of assorted hides, were located opposite the door. The only variations between individual buildings came in the number of beds and how neatly the residents kept their homes.

  When they reached the plaza, Rikus’s escorts pushed him roughly through the ring of guards, then used the tips of their spears to prod him toward Maetan. As Rikus passed, the dwarven prisoners stepped aside and studied him with dark eyes that betrayed both respect and puzzlement. A few commented to each other in their own guttural language, but were quickly silenced by sharp blows from the mul’s escorts.

  In the center of the plaza, Maetan of Urik waited beside the stone cistern, still holding the dipper in his hand. His cloak was so covered with dirt and grime that it was more brown than green, and even the Serpent of Lubar had faded from red to pastel orange. The mindbender’s thin lips were chapped and cracked, and his delicate complexion seemed more pallid and sallow than Rikus remembered from the battle.

  As the soldiers pushed Rikus to their commander’s side, the Urikite’s four bodyguards stepped forward to surround the prisoner. The brawny humans all wore leather corselets and carried steel swords. Rikus raised an eyebrow at the sight of so many gleaming blades, for each was worth the price of a dozen champion gladiators. On Athas, metal was more precious than water and as scarce as rain.

  After staring into the eyes of Rikus’s escort for a few moments, Maetan waved the officer away. “How do you know my name, boy?” the mindbender demanded, addressing Rikus in the fashion of a master to a slave.

  Rikus was surprised by the question, for his escort had not made a verbal report to their commander. Realizing Maetan must have questioned the officer using the Way, Rikus reminded himself to guard this own thoughts carefully, then answered the question. “We’ve met before, many years ago.”

  “Is that so?” asked Maetan, his cold gray eyes fixed on Rikus’s face.

  “You were ten. Your father brought you to see his gladiators pits,” the mul said, remembering the meeting as clearly as if had been the day before.

  Until he had seen Maetan for the first time, Rikus thought that all boys learned to be gladiators, working up through the ranks until they became trainers and perhaps even lords themselves. When Lord Lubar had brought his sickly son to the pits, however, Rikus had taken one look at the boy’s silken robes and finally understood the difference between slaves and masters.

  Maetan studied the mul for a time, then said, “Ah, Rikus. It has been a long time. Father had high hopes for you, but, as I recall, you barely survived your first three matches.”

  “I did better in Tyr,” the mul answered bitterly.

  “And now you wish to return to Family Lubar,” Maetan observed. “As a slave?”

  “That’s right,” the mul said, swallowing his anger. “Unless we get water, my warriors will die by sunset tomorrow.”

  Maetan’s gaze swept along the line of gladiators ringing the village. “Why not come and take it?” he asked. “I’ve been asking myself for hours why you haven’t attacked. We couldn’t stop you.”

  “You know why,” Rikus answered, glancing at the dwarves.

  The Urikite turned his white lips up in the semblance of a smile. “Of course, the hostages,” he smirked.

  “Giving up won’t save Kled, Tyrian,” cackled the voice of an old dwarf, using the language of Tyr.

  Maetan’s head snapped in the direction of the speaker, an aged dwarf with jowls so loose they sagged from his chin like a beard. “Did I give that man permission to speak?”

  A bodyguard pushed through the crowd toward the dwarf. As the Urikite grabbed him, the old dwarf made no effort to resist or escape. Instead, he said, “See? Nothing good comes—”

  The Urikite’s pommel fall across the back of the speaker’s skull. The old dwarf collapsed to the ground, striking his head on the hard flagstones with a sickening thud. Indignant cries of astonishment and anger rustled through the crowd. One defiant dwarf stepped toward the guard, his fists tightly clenched and his rust-red eyes fixed on the bodyguard’s face. Aside from the color of his eyes, the dwarf was unusual in that he stood nearly five feet tall and had a crimson sun tattooed on his forehead. His build did not make him resemble a boulder quite so much as his fellows.

  “Be quiet, or I’ll have his head removed completely,” Maetan snapped, using the smooth-flowing syllables of the trade tongue.

  The dwarf stopped his advance, though the anger and hatred did not drain from his eyes. At the same time, a resentful murmur rustled through the throng as the dwarfs who understood the Urikite’s words translated the threat for their fellows. The plaza slowly fell silent.

  After pausing to sneer at the red-eyed dwarf, Maetan returned his attention to Rikus. “So, Tyr’s legion will surrender on behalf of the dwarves of Kled?”

  “Yes,” Rikus said. “This isn’t their fight. We have no wish to see them harmed.”

  “You’ll understand if I’m reluctant to believe you,” Maetan said.

  “It should surprise no one that the freed men of Tyr place a higher value on justice than a nobleman of Urik,” Rikus countered. One of the bodyguards tightened the choking loop around the mul’s neck; Maetan himself showed no reaction to the insult. Rikus continued, “If we intended to attack, we would have done it by now.” He was forced to gasp by the rope constricting his throat.

  “I’m sure you intend to tell me what I stand to gain by accepting your surrender. Why shouldn’t I stay here and let your legion die of thirst?” The mindbender motioned for the guard to ease the tension on the mul’s throat.

  “Two things,” Rikus said, swallowing hard. “First, you’d do well to return home with two thousand slaves. That’s all you’re going to bring back from Tyr.”

  Maetan’s thin lips twitched in anger, but he gave no other indication of his feelings. “And the second?”

&nb
sp; Rikus pointed his chin toward his warriors surrounding the village. “Even a Tyrian’s concern for justice goes only so far.”

  Maetan shocked Rikus with a quick answer. “I accept.” The mindbender pointed at the tall dwarf with the rust-colored eyes and motioned for him to come forward. As the defiant-looking man obeyed, Maetan said, “Caelum speaks Tyrian. He’ll relay your words to the gladiators.”

  The dwarf’s mouth fell open. “How did you—”

  “That’s not for you to know,” a bodyguard snapped, pushing the dwarf toward Rikus.

  “The courage of you and your men is admirable, but not very wise,” Caelum said, looking into the mul’s eyes. His jawbone, chin, and cheeks were well-defined and pronounced, but not as massive as those of most dwarves. There was even a certain symmetry and grace of proportion between his nose and the rest of his face, with uncharacteristic laugh lines around the corners of his mouth and eyes. “If you do this, there’s nothing to stop the Urikites from killing us all.”

  “The choice is ours,” Rikus said, deliberately avoiding the dwarf’s red eyes. If Maetan was capable of reading Caelum’s mind, the mul did not want to plant any suggestion of what he had planned. Instead, he pointed to the sandstone arch on the hillside above. “Just deliver the message to the people up there.”

  Once the dwarf was out of sight, Maetan sneered at Rikus. “Your men will be sold into slavery as you asked,” he said. “You, however, shall die a slow and bitter death for the pleasure of King Hamanu.”

  Confident that he would have his revenge later, Rikus remained silent while Caelum climbed up to the arch. The mul found Maetan’s quick acceptance of their surrender unsettling. He had expected the Urikite to react more suspiciously, pondering the proposal for a few moments. His immediate agreement suggested that the mindbender was already well aware of the dangers of accepting the Tyrian surrender. Still, Rikus did not consider calling off his plan. Whether Maetan had anticipated it or not, it was still the only way to save both his legion and the dwarven village.

  A few minutes after Caelum’s departure, the first Tyrians marched into the village. Unlike Rikus, they remained unbound, for tying them would have taken more rope than could be found in all of Kled. As the plaza began to grow more crowded, Maetan moved himself and Rikus to the far side, then ordered the dwarves to return to their homes and stay inside under penalty of death.