The Crimson Legion

by Denning, Troy

  “So that we may die in his quarries!” Rikus shouted.

  Though he yelled at the top of his lungs, his voice sounded meek and timid compared to the magical thunder of the woman’s commands. Nevertheless, the pens were so silent that he knew his words carried even to the far side of the pit.

  “Better to die years from now than to die today,’ the woman answered. “Throw down your weapons. Mighty Hamanu will show no mercy to those who disobey. You have no choice.”

  “You have every choice!” Rikus screamed.

  “Heed not the mul!” the woman boomed, drowning out Rikus’s voice. “His way is death!”

  She began to repeat those phrases over and over again, preventing the mul’s voice from being heard. Rikus gave up trying to outscream her and faced Jaseela. “Send word to the companies to prepare for battle.”

  The noblewoman did not immediately move to obey. Instead, she looked toward the gate, where the templars reluctantly remained on guard. “Someone warned Hamanu to expect us,” she hissed. “That’s why the Urikites moved so quickly to seal us off!”

  “There’s no time for that now!” Rikus snapped. “Do as I ordered.”

  Despite his command, the mul was thinking the same thing as Jaseela. The ease with which Hamanu had slipped his forces into place certainly suggested that the sorcerer-king had been expecting the attack. Not wishing to believe that his attack on Urik had been a predictable one, the mul preferred to think his enemy’s foreknowledge had come from magical divination—anything except his own imprudence.

  The mul looked toward the gate. Styan and his templars remained at their posts. Many were casting nervous glances at Rikus and at the woman on the wall, who was still booming her call for surrender. Behind the templars, Caelum’s dwarves had already taken up their arms and stood in disciplined formation. Neeva stood with Caelum at the head of the company, her eyes fixed on the templars in front of her.

  Satisfied that nothing onimous was occurring there, Rikus looked back to the slave pens. He was just in time to see a long shaft fly from the pits and sail straight toward the woman’s torso. A few inches shy of its target, the spear struck an invisible barrier and came to an abrupt halt. A stunned cry rang across the enclave. As the spear fell harmlessly away, the templar threw her arms up and retreated from sight.

  Taking advantage of the quiet that followed, Rikus yelled, “Warriors of Tyr, freed men of Urik. The choice is yours. You can live for a few short years toiling in Hamanu’s quarries, or you can take up weapons and fight!”

  A restless murmur rustled through the pens, but Rikus did not hear the resounding cheer for which he had hoped.

  He raised a hand for silence and continued. “You know what to expect if you return to your pens. If you take up the fight, I can only promise that, win or lose, you will die free.”

  There followed a long and painful silence as each slave pondered the value of life in chains. Here and there, Rikus saw frightened men and women retreating to the shelter of their pens, but most of the Urikite slaves and all of the Tyrians remained in their companies.

  At last, a haggard old man cried, “Live or die, I fight with Tyr!”

  Six templars appeared at the top of the fortress wall. In the next instant, they began raining white flashes of lightning and golden balls of fire down into the slave pens. Rikus had no sooner picked out Rasia than he saw her raising a hand in his direction.

  “Jump, K’kriq!” he yelled.

  The thri-kreen leaped straight out of the tower. Rikus dropped through the trap door, his good hand slapping the ladder’s rungs in a barely successful attempt to break his fall. He had no sooner slammed into the ground than an enormous roar shook the tower and a tongue of yellow flame shot down the ladder after him. He scrambled away just as the tower collapsed in a charred heap.

  K’kriq grabbed Rikus with all four hands and dragged him behind the burning remains of the tower, where he would be out of sight to the Urikite templars. “Hurt?”

  “No,” Rikus answered. “I’m—”

  The mul’s reply was cut short by the sound of dwarves screaming from his left. He looked in the company’s direction just in time to be blinded by a brilliant flash of golden light erupting in their midst. A terrific boom rolled across the cobblestones, followed in short order by a chorus of Urikite war cries. The angry shouts of dying dwarves came an instant later.

  As the mul’s vision cleared, he saw that a stream of Hamanu’s Imperial Guard was pouring through the gate and dispatching Caelum’s company with cruel efficiency. The half-giants wore full suits of inix-scale armor. In one hand they carried long wooden lances, and in the other drik-shell shields. From their belts hung huge obsidian swords.

  “What happened to Styan?” demanded Rikus, searching in vain for sight of any of the templar’s men.

  “I think we owe Caelum an apology,” said Jaseela, stepping to his side. “Styan’s whole company has betrayed us.”

  “But slaves with us,” K’kriq said, peering around the edge of the burning tower.

  Rikus followed the line of the thri-kreen’s gaze and noted that most of the slave companies were anxiously pressing forward to join the battle.

  “Those quarry slaves will never fight through the half-giants at the gate,” Jaseela said, shaking her head at the situation in the slave pens.

  “Let’s give Hamanu something to worry about,” Rikus said. He turned around and pointed at the wall separating the slave compound from the templar quarter. “Take the slave companies and scale that wall.”

  “And then what?” Jaseela asked.

  “Send the first ten companies into the other quarters of the city. They’re to destroy everything they can—clog wells, topple bulidings, burn tents, anything that causes problems. If they meet a Urikite company, they’re to run, not fight. The more chaos we spread through the city, the better.”

  Jaseela nodded. “And with the rest?”

  “Take the rest of the army and attack across the slave boulevard. Drive into the noble quarter and sack it, too. The more Hamanu has to worry about, the easier it will be for me to ambush him.”

  “To what?” Jaseela gasped, glaring at the mul from the scarred side or her face. She shook her head as if he were mad, then added, “The gladiators are right: you’ve either lost your mind, or it’s been taken over by the thing in your chest.”

  Rikus was too hurt to respond immediately. Though he had been aware of the gladiators’ resentment since the episode in the Crater of Bones, he had not heard anyone else put their doubts into words. “Is that what my warriors are saying?”

  “Yes,” Jaseela answered. “And who can blame them? It was madness to bring us into Urik—and now this!”

  “I brought the legion here because it’s the only way to save it,” Rikus snapped. “The slave revolt will force Hamanu to recall his army—so our warriors can go home.”

  Jaseela shook her head. “I don’t believe it. You don’t have to attack Hamanu to start the revolt.”

  “Maybe not,” Rikus admitted. “But if I kill him, Urik’s slaves will be free and Tyr will have one less enemy. If he kills me, the time I buy in fighting could make the difference between starting the revolt or not.”

  The color rose to Jaseela’s unmarred cheek. After a short pause, she asked, “Do you expect to come back?”

  Rikus grinned. “I hope to,” he said.

  The noblewoman closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry for what I said,” she offered. “And I’m sorry that your warriors doubt your motivations. You don’t deserve that.”

  Rikus frowned, unsure of how to accept the apology and not sure that it was necessary for Jaseela to make. “Thanks,” he said awkwardly. “Now, go get your companies.”

  Jaseela nodded, then drew her sword and ran toward the first of the slave companies. Rikus turned toward the dwarves in time to see one of Caelum’s crimson sunballs erupt in the gateway. A pair of half-giants bellowed in agony, then collapsed in a pile of charred bone
and ash.

  Several of Styan’s templars appeared on the other side of the gateway, backing away from an enemy Rikus could not see. The mul frowned, for if they had changed sides, he could not imagine from whom they were retreating. An instant later, he heard a tremendous clatter as a handful of small boulders sailed into sight and struck the men dead.

  Two of Hamanu’s yellow-robed templars took the place of Styan’s men, pointing their hands into the battle. Lightning bolts crackled from their fingers, shooting from dwarf to dwarf. More than a dozen of Caelum’s warriors fell, filling the air with the stink of singed flesh. Finally, the sizzling streaks crashed into the ground, spraying shattered cobblestones everywhere. As the shards rained back to the ground, Rikus was relieved to see Neeva and Caelum among those still alive.

  Unfortunately, the rest of Caelum’s company was not faring so well. Although twenty or thirty wounded half-giants lay thrashing and groaning on the ground, the cobblestones were slick with the blood and gore of dead dwarves. Rikus guessed that more than a hundred had already fallen, and it won’t be long before the remainder joined them.

  Fortunately, help was on the way. Most of the Tyrian warriors had been in the slave pits organizing the Urikite slaves, and now they were rushing toward the gate to join the fight. Rikus estimated that they would arrive in plenty of time to prevent the Imperial Guard from breaking through into the pits.

  Seeing that there were no more orders to give, the mul reached for his sword. With some surprise, he realized that he had been so busy giving orders that he had not even considered drawing it yet.

  “I’m getting to be too much of a general,” he grumbled.

  “Too far from hunt,” K’kriq agreed. “No joy.”

  As Rikus’s hand touched the Scourge’s hilt, the horrid sounds of battle all came to him at once: death screams, clanging weapons, deafening explosions, officers shouting orders, his own breath roaring in and out his lungs, the four-beat cadence of the thri-kreen’s heart. For a moment he reeled, too stunned by the incredible din to move.

  K’kriq caught Rikus by the shoulder. “Go now!”

  Cringing at what sounded like a shout to him, Rikus concentrated on the sound of K’kriq’s beating heart and said, “You don’t have to come with me.” Immediately the sounds of battle faded to mere background noise. Rikus was dimly aware of each individual sound, but was no longer overpowered by them. “You understand what I’m doing?”

  K’kriq spread his antennae to indicate a positive answer. “Hunt big game,” he said. “K’kriq come.”

  Rikus smiled, then started to move along the edge of the pit toward Hamanu’s fortress. Behind him, the crack and thunder of war magic rumbled almost constantly from the gateway. The screams of the dying blurred into a single, long shriek.

  The mul moved slowly along the base of the wall separating the slave compound from the boulevard outside, carefully listening for a single sound. With the Scourge’s aid, he had little trouble hearing the muffled noises coming over the wall: the tramp of hob-nailed boots, war-templars shouting harsh commands to the half-giants of the Imperial Guard, the heavy breathing of messengers as they ran back and forth between the gateway and Hamanu’s fortress. Often, a loud explosion or a pained scream temporarily overwhelmed the other sounds coming from the street.

  After Rikus and K’kriq had progressed close to fifty yards along the wall, Gaanon caught up to them and fell into line without a word. Behind the half-giant followed a small company of warriors.

  “What are you doing here?” Rikus asked.

  “Jaseela told us what you’re doing,” answered the half-giant.

  After a short pause, Rikus asked, “So?”

  “We volunteered to help,” answered one of the men, a square-jawed brute named Canth. “Over the past few weeks, some of us haven’t understood what you’re doing,” he said. “But now—well, we can’t let you try this alone.”

  Rikus smiled. “My thanks,” he said. “I could use the help.”

  Before continuing on his way, the mul took a moment to check on the battle near the gate. The entrance yard had been reduced to a wasteland of smoking craters, littered with the charred bodies of dwarves, gladiators, and enemy half-giants. The Urikites had been turned back, and Tyrian gladiators were forcing their way out of the slave pits. Farther away, several lines of Urikite slaves were climbing ropes and disappearing over the southern wall, unruffled by the barrage of war magic being hurled at them from Hamanu’s fortress.

  Rikus turned back to the wall and moved forward once again. Finally, a dozen yards shy of Hamanu’s fortress, the mul heard what he had been listening for.

  “Mighty King, the Imperial Guard is fighting valiantly in your name,” said a nervous man. “Surely you can see that?”

  “The only thing I see is my guard being beaten back,” responded a sharp, bitter voice.

  There was a short pause before the man replied. “The Tyrians are gladiators, Mighty Hamanu. They’re trained to—”

  “This battle has already cost me more slaves than we stand to gain by capturing the Tyrians,” spat Hamanu. “If we lose many more, the officers of the Imperial Guard will be working my obsidian quarries.”

  The mul needed to hear no more. “Hamanu is on the other side,” he whispered. “Boost me up to have a look, Gaanon.”

  The half-giant laid his great hammer aside, then obediently made a stirrup for the mul’s foot.

  When Gaanon lifted him high enough to peer over the wall, Rikus saw the reason for Hamanu’s anger. A short distnace down the boulevard, dead half-giants and Urikite templars covered the street so thickly that they hid the cobblestone pavement. Tyrian gladiators were charging out of the gate leading to the slave pits, rushing forward to press the attack against the Imperial Guard.

  As encouraging as the mul found the sight, however, it was another that drew his attention. A few yards away from the gate, most of Styan’s company lay scattered over the boulevard, their lifeless bodies sprawled beneath the feet of the Imperial Guard. Most of the men held swords or other weapons in their hands. They had obviously died fighting. Rikus even picked out Styan’s long gray hair, crowning a lifeless body sprawled across one of the few half-giants that had fallen in the battle. Whatever the templar may have been, and no matter how much trouble he had caused, the mul now realized that he could not have been a traitor.

  Rikus frowned. “If Styan isn’t the traitor, then who is?” he asked himself.

  Why does there have to be a spy? Tamar countered. You are stupid enough to be your own traitor. Only a fool would try this.

  Rikus ignored the wraith and looked down at Gaanon. “Lift me the rest of the way up. Send everyone else over as fast as you can.”

  An instant later, Rikus found himself looking down upon the slave boulevard from atop the narrow wall. He paused for less than a second, only long enough to see that the street below was crowded with half-giants, and to glimpse a worried war-templar standing beside a tall, vigorous man wearing a golden tunic. In his hand, the tall man held a long staff of pure steel, with a great globe of obsidian on the top.

  Not wishing to give his victim the benefit of even a moment’s warning, Rikus threw himself from the wall. Though the figure wore no crown, the obsidian globe atop his staff left no doubt in the mul’s mind that this was Hamanu. The glassy black balls allowed those who had mastered both sorcery and the Way to draw upon the life force of men and animals for their spells. Only a sorcerer-king could control such powerful magic.

  Rikus’s plan was as hasty as his fall. As the mul’s shadow fell across the king, Hamanu looked up and sneered. Then he flicked his wrist ever so slightly.

  Rikus felt the world lurch. He continued to fall, but in slow motion. As he drifted another foot downward, he had many moments to study the face of his foe. The sorcerer-king had close-cropped silver hair, dark skin stretched tight over ruthless features, and eyes as yellow and heartless as gold.

  Rikus swung his sword, trying to overcom
e the terrible sense of dread settling over him. The blade hardly moved, leaving the mul with little to do except despair at how easily Hamanu had countered his attack.

  Fool! laughed Tamar. You let him use the Way on you.

  Help me! Rikus demanded. He could not keep the desperation from his plea.

  Caelum is still alive, Tamar retorted. I will do nothing—until I am confident you will foil the dwarf’s plan and give me the book.

  I’ve already promised it to you, Rikus said.

  And to the dwarves, as well, the wraith reponded. I require further reassurances.

  Hamanu will kill me! How will you find the book then?

  If you wish my help, swear on Neeva’s life, Tamar answered, ignoring his question. Otherwise, I will allow Hamanu to slay you—and your legion perishes.

  As Rikus continued to descend, Hamanu smiled, revealing four large canines and a mouthful of needlelike incisors.

  I swear, Rikus answered.

  A sick feeling of guilt came over the mul, but he did not try to rationalize his duplicity. The time to choose between the two promises he had made would come later—if he lived long enough for it to come at all.

  Be ready, Tamar said.

  Rikus felt an ominous pang over his heart as Tamar struggled to free him. Again, he tried to swing his sword, but to no more effect than the first attempt. He simply continued to sink toward Hamanu at a torpid pace. Still grinning, the sorcerer-king stepped effortlessly from beneath Rikus and moved his steel staff into a guarding position.

  He’s too strong! Tamar reported, her voice now alarmed and weak from exertion. You must help. See yourself on the ground, where you should be if you fell normally.

  Rikus shifted his gaze to the cobblestones at the sorcerer-king’s feet and pictured himself standing there. A surge of energy rose from deep within himself. Again he felt the eerie pang over his heart as Tamar mustered her own energies.

  Suddenly the mul found himself lying on the street. He did not recall breaking free of Hamanu’s mental grip, or feeling his skull crack into the stones, or even the sensation of falling as he covered the last few feet between him and the ground. In one instant, he was simply lying with his face pressed against the hot cobblestones, his vision a white blur, his body washed in agony.