Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 2 - The Crimson Legion (31 page)

As Rikus studied the Urikite lines, his warriors began to whisper and mutter to each
other. Thanks to the Scourge, he heard every word they said.

“What's he waiting forÑhis skeletons?”

“He's giving them time to think about what we're going to do to themÑor about what they're
going to do to us.”

“Look at how many there are! We'll never kill them all,”

Realizing that the longer he waited, the more nervous his warriors would grow, the mul
pointed his sword toward the Urikite line. “For Tyr!” he bellowed.

“For Tyr!” thundered the warriors.

His ears ringing from his legion's war cry, Rikus led the way down the ash heap. His
warriors' footfalls raised a choking cloud of ash that robbed them of breath and left them
with hardly enough air to keep their lungs filled.

By the time Rikus stepped onto the broken ground of the delta, his ears had stopped
ringing. Despite the soot coating their throats and clogging their lungs, his men were
still screaming, promising death to the Urikites and despair to their families.

Rikus paid their yells no attention, for the Scourge also brought another voice to his
earsÑa much more sinister voice, speaking in the hushed tones of a magical incantation.
“In the mighty name of King Hamanu, I command the glass rock to rise before our enemies!”

“Magic!” Rikus shouted. “Maetan has templars.”

“Isn't it enough that he outnumbers us?” Gaanon cried.

Before the mul could answer, a hissing, crackling noise sounded from the enemy line. A
long spike of black glass shot from the ground, and Rikus stopped just short of impaling
himself on it. Screams of pain and anguish filled the night as Tyrians were gored by the
rock. Those not killed outright by the jagged shards of obsidian had their toes and feet
sliced to bloody ribbons.

A loud rasp sounded beneath the mul's feet, and he jumped backward in time to avoid being
sliced by a razor-sharp plate of black glass emerging from the ground. He retreated up the
ash heap to gain a better vantage point and saw that the templar's barricade of obsidian
had brought his legion to a hah. Most of his warriors were staring at the strange rampart
in dumbfounded silence, although a few were cursing and groaning as they vainly attempted
to slip between the jagged splinters. In other places, the jingle of shattering obsidian
rang out as more cautious warriors tried to smash a path to their opponents.

“Call them back,” Rikus ordered, pointing at the brave Tyrians who were trying to press
the attack. “We're going to have to go around.”

While Gaanon sent messengers to relay the order, Rikus turned his attention to his left
flank. A short distance away, the enemy's barricade curled toward the mountain, forming a
large pen with a steep slope at its back. From what the mul could see, Jaseela's company
stood outside the pen. Fortunately the noblewoman had been wise enough to halt her advance
when the rest of the legion stopped moving. Rikus sent a messenger with word to clear a
passage through the curved end of the barricade.

Next, Rikus faced Neeva's end of the line. There, he saw that the barricade gradually grew
lower and less menacing, disappearing entirely just beyond Caelum's dwarves. Neeva's
company was lost in the shadows spilling out of the canyon, but Rikus could hear the
sounds of battle tolling in the darkness.

“At least we've still got a little luck to spare,” the mul sighed, relieved that the
templar's magic had not been strong enough to entrap his legion. Rikus slipped down from
the heap, then motioned for Gaanon to follow him toward Neeva's company. “Maetan's
templars may have slowed us down, but they won't save him.”

“Of course not,” the half-giant agreed. “But how are we to get at him with this wall in
our way?”

“Go around it, of course.”

As he moved toward Neeva's brigade, the mul ordered everyone he encountered to go in the
opposite direction, toward Jaseela's company. Soon, the legion was streaming toward the
far end of the field, shouting dire threats over the obsidian barricade that protected the
Urikites.

When Rikus reached Caelum's dwarves, they were stubbornly hacking away at the obsidian
barricade and refusing to flee. The mul grabbed the first one he came to, shoving him
roughly toward Jaseela's flank.

“Go!” he ordered. “You'll just get yourself killed if you try to fight the Urikites
through this wall.”

The dwarf picked up his warhammer and returned to the obsidian barricade. “Maetan is over
there,” he grunted, hardly glancing at Rikus.

Caelum hurried to the mul's side. “Why are you fleeing the battle?”

“I'm not running away. But we're not going to win anything by concentrating on breaking
down theÑ”

The mul stopped in midsentence as the distant voice of Maetan's templar came to him. “In
the name of Mighty Hamanu, the slopes of this mountain shall cascade down upon our
enemies.”

Rikus heard a gentle slough high above, then felt the cinder-covered mountain shudder.

“Take the dwarves and run!” Rikus shoved Gaanon toward Jaseela's company. He pointed up
the slope, then yelled, “Maetan's trying to bury us alive!”

Caelum looked in the direction the mul pointed, where a great swath of cinders was
twinkling in the moonlight as it slid down the slope. “Do as he says!” Caelum ordered
frantically, starting to lead his men after Gaanon.

Rikus caught the dwarf by the shoulder. “You come with me.”

The mul took Caelum and moved toward the base of the mountain, where they would not have
to struggle against a tide of dwarves rushing southward. They had taken no more than a
dozen steps when a terrible rumble rolled down from above. Rikus looked up and saw a wall
of cinders crashing down the steep slope. Behind it came the whole mountainside, leaving
nothing in its wake except a roiling cloud of soot.

The mul grabbed Caelum's arm and sprinted, dragging the dwarf toward the northern flank of
the line, where Neeva's company would be trying to fight through to the mouth of the
canyon Drewet's troops guarded. Along the rim of the lava channel ran a line of
white-crusted crags; these, Rikus hoped, would act like a shield to turn aside the cinder
avalanche.

They had barely reached the shelter of this ridge when the avalanche rolled into the ash
heaps at the base of the mountain. A tremendous thump pulsed through the air. The piles
scattered, almost as if a great explosion had forced them into the air from below. Huge
plumes of powdery soot rose skyward, masking the yellow light of the flaxen moons and
spreading over the rocky delta in a choking fog.

In the gray pall, Rikus lost sight of his army. On the other side of the obsidian
barricade, the Urikites were alternately coughing and cheering the templar who, they
believed, had vanquished their enemy with a single spell. Rikus dared to hope their
optimism was misplaced, for the Scourge brought to his ears the rasping, fear-stricken
voices of men and dwarves yelling guidance to each other.

Both the cries of the Urikites and the Tyrians, however, seemed but a whisper compared to
the roar of the avalanche as it continued to pour tons and tons of stone and cinder of the
mountain.

“Can you still summon that river of fire?” Rikus asked, turning his attention from the
landslide to Caelum.

The dwarf did not look away from the avalanche, “If you had listened to me earlierÑ”

“Now is no time to lecture me, dwarf,” Rikus snapped. “I just want to know if you can
still use your magic.”

The clerk nodded. “I'll have to climb high enough to see the flames of the crevice.”

“Go ahead and climb,” Rikus said, pointing toward the mouth of Drewet's canyon. “Stay in
those rocksÑI don't want you getting caught in the avalanche. And don't cast your spell
until I say the time has come.”

“How will I know when that is?” the dwarf asked.

“You'll see Drewet's company leaving the canyon,” Rikus answered. “Or I'll send a
messenger.”

“There'll be no time for a messenger,” Caelum said, pulling a smooth, round rock from his
pocket and handing it to the mul. “Throw that into the air when you're ready.”

Rikus nearly dropped the stone, for it was scalding hot. “What is it?”

“A little surprise I prepared for Maetan,” Caelum answered. “It will also do as a signal.”

With that, the dwarf began scaling the ridge. Rikus slipped the hot stone into a belt
pouch, then turned toward the mouth of Drewet's canyon. Less than a dozen yards away, the
Urikites were lined up many ranks deep, pressing the attack in an attempt to force Neeva's
company back toward the avalanche. The gladiators were standing firm, but if he was to
save Drewet, Rikus needed them to do more than hold their lines.

The mul rushed into the fray. He picked his way around the ash-blurred forms of a dozen
gladiators, then glimpsed the tip of a spear thrusting toward him. Rikus parried, severing
the shaft, then brought his sword down over the top of the Urikite's shield. The vorpal
blade cleaved both shield and man, then the mul found himself standing within the first
rank of the Urikite line.

“For Tyr!” he screamed, but his words were lost in the clash of blade against blade and
the cries of the wounded and dying.

*****

The battle went terribly. Within minutes, Rikus found himself standing where he had
started, waist-deep in Urikite bodies and coated with the warm, sticky blood of his
enemies. He was vaguely aware that Tyrians stood to each side of him, but there was no
sign that his gladiators were even close to freeing Drewet's company. All he could see
ahead of him was an endless stream of shouting Urikites, marching out of the dark night
and climbing over their dead fellows to continue the attack.

“I thought I'd find you at the center of this mess,” called a familiar voice. Neeva
stepped to the mul's side, and K'kriq to the other. She parried a spear thrust with her
short sword, then used the dagger in her other hand to slice open her attacker's chest.
“What are you doing?”

“Trying to reach the mouth of Drewet's canyon,” Rikus answered, his breath coming in
labored gasps. He was so tired that he could hardly raise his sword, and his legs ached so
badly that he could barely lift them over the bodies piled around him. “I sent Caelum up
the hill. We're going to have to summon his river of fire.”

“No!” Neeva cried.

“Spoil hunt,” complained K'kriq.

A screaming Urikite clambered over the corpses ahead and jabbed a spearpoint at the
thri-kreen's eyes. K'kriq blocked with one arm, then lashed out with the other three,
simultaneously ripping his attacker's shield away and tearing out the man's throat.

“You can't do that to Drewet!” Neeva said. “She'll never escape.”

“If I don't, she'll die anyway, and we'll still lose the battle,” Rikus growled. “Half our
legion's buried in that avalanche, and who knows what's happened to the other half. It's
the only way.”

“The only way to save your legion or the best way to destroy Maetan?” Neeva demanded.

“The only way to survive!” Rikus shouted, “Besides, I haven't given the order yetÑ”

His answer was cut short by the battle cries of a fresh rank of Urikites. As they came
over the corpse pile, one soldier each attacked Neeva and K'kriq, but two thrust their
spears at the mul. Rikus lopped the point off one spear and tried to sidestep the other,
but stumbled when a half-dead soldier clutched at his ankle. The spear took the mul in his
sore shoulder. A wave of agony shot through his body, magnified ten-fold by the tenderness
of the festering wound around the wraith's gem.

Neeva's black blade flashed in front of Rikus's face, snapping the spear just above the
headÑand sending another surge of fire through the mul. At the same time, K'kriq grabbed
the mul's attacker and sank his mandibles into him, filling the Urikite's veins with
poison.

Neeva narrowly avoided being stabbed by another Urikite, parrying with her dagger. She
opened the attacker's throat with a flick of the same blade that had turned the spear. “If
you think we can save Drewet from here, you've taken leave of your senses,” she said,
allowing a broad-shouldered gladiator in a four-horned helmet to take her place. “I'll
send someone to shout a warning from the rise. Maybe she can fight her own way free.”

Rikus and K'kriq fought side-by-side for a few moments longer, but the mul's wound was
taking its toll. His reactions slowed to the point where he found himself lurching about
in clumsy dodges, and the Scourge of Rkard felt as heavy in his hand as a half-giant's
club.

“Cover my retreat, K'kriq,” Rikus yelled, stumbling away from the clamor of the battleline.

The extra room only made the four-armed thri-kreen a more dangerous opponent. He tore into
the approaching soldiers with renewed vigor, their speartips clattering harmlessly off his
hard carapace.

Holding his sword under his arm, Rikus reached into his belt pouch and touched the stone
Caelum had given him. Though it scorched the mul's flesh, he did not remove his hand.
Instead, looking toward the dark canyon where Drewet's company was waiting, he let the
pain build for a few seconds.

At last, he whispered, “I'm sorry. You deserve a better death.”

Rikus pulled out the rock and threw it high over the heads of the Urikites. It disappeared
into the night. Then a loud boom drowned out the furor of the battlefield. A ball of
orange flame flared over the enemy's ranks. The mul glimpsed rank upon rank of Urikite
faces staring up at the blazing globe. They were packed into the area in front of the
canyon shoulder-to-shoulder, and there were still more of them marching out of the
darkness.

“Hundreds and hundreds,” Rikus gasped, once again taking the hilt of his sword. “We never
had a chance.”

The burning sphere descended and incinerated a dozen Urikites unfortunate enough to be
trapped beneath it, but the loss hardly seemed noticeable in the midst of the great
company.