Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 2 - The Crimson Legion (37 page)

Certainly Rikus had reason to be satisfied with those results, but his quick victory had
been followed by a minor setback. The mul had expected Urik's slaves to rise in a
spontaneous revolt as soon as they were freed, but after their captors had been killed,
the slaves had meekly huddled inside their huts, as frightened of their liberators as they
had been of their oppressors. Rikus had found it necessary to send his warriors into the
pits to rouse the timid swarm from their hovels.

While Rikus had been compelled to waste valuable time calling the slaves to arms, Hamanu's
forces had moved with astonishing rapidity to cut the Tyrians off from the rest of the
city. Within minutes of the initial breakthrough, the private bodyguard of the aristocracy
had block the gateways into the noble quarter. At the same time, companies from Urik's
garrison had sealed off the other side of the templar quarter. Hamanu had even managed to
slip several thousand soldiers around the city to block the slave gate from the outside.
It had all occurred so quickly that the mul's sentries had barely sounded the alarm before
the Urikite troops were in place.

“Don't look so worried, Rikus,” called Neeva, climbing up the bone ladder that led into
the tower. “It makes the legion nervous.”

“I can't help it,” the mul said, glancing down as she climbed through the trap door.
“Things aren't going according to plan.”

“Plan?” asked Neeva, grinning. “Did I hear
you
say you're worried about a
plan?”

Rikus felt the color rise to his checks and looked away “You heard me,” he muttered. “The
slaves were too slow to revolt. We're going to have to fight our way out of here on
Urikite terms.”

“It won't be easy, but we can do it,” Neeva said, stepping to his side and looking out
over the slave pens. “More than ten thousand slaves have joined us, and we have close to
one thousand of our own warriors left.” She paused and glanced toward the high wall
protecting Hamanu's compound. “It's the sorcerer-king that worries me.”

“You leave him to me,” Rikus said.

“I intend to,” Neeva answered. “But I'd feel a lot better if I knew how you're going to
stop him.”

Rikus laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. “With this,” the mul said. “When the battle
starts, he'll have to show himself. I'll be waiting.”

Neeva frowned. “And what about his sorcery? What about the Way?”

“My sword and my belt are magic, too,” the mul answered. “As for the Way, I'll have help.”

Not from me,
Tamar interjected.
Not until Caelum and the dwarves are dead.

When the time comes, you will help,
Rikus replied.
You need me alive to recover the book.

Can you be so certain of that?
Tamar responded.

You have no choice,
Rikus said.

Neeva allowed Rikus his moment of silence, expecting him to elaborate on how he intended
to counter Hamanu's mastery of the Way. When he did not, she asked, “What kind of help?”

“The kind that I can't explainÑyet,” Rikus answered, looking toward the gate that led to
the main boulevard.

Styan's templars were guarding the gate, where their presence would not be as likely to
alarm the Urikite slaves. In a broad cobblestone courtyard behind the templars stood
Caelum and the dwarves. “You'd better join your company,” said Rikus. “We'll be ready for
battle soon.”

Neeva returned to the ladder. She hesitated there for a moment, her emerald eyes fixed on
the mul. “Rikus, have you...?”

Her voice cracked with emotion and she let the sentence trail off, but the mul did not
need to hear the rest of it to know what Neeva had meant to ask. Rikus still did not know
how to answer her, for nothing had changed since she demanded his fidelity and love at the
Crater of Bones.

“Good fighting, Neeva,” Rikus said, looking away.

“And you, Rikus,” she answered, starting down the ladder. “Strike hard and fastÑit's our
only chance.”

After Neeva left, Rikus summoned Gaanon, K'kriq, and Jaseela to the tower. He had no
chance to discuss the coming battle with them, however. As the pair was climbing into the
cramped stand, a woman's voice boomed over the slave pens.

“Captives of mighty Hamanu, listen well!”

The slaves fell immediately silent, obviously accustomed to obeying the magically
amplified voice.

“Your leader has delivered you unto Hamanu, and it is by Hamanu's will alone that you
shall survive!” she rumbled, stepping into view high atop the wall of the king's fortress.
The woman wore the yellow cassock of a templar, and in her hand she held a golden staff of
office.

“K'kriq, who's that?” asked Rikus.

“Rasia, Templar of Toil,” answered the thri-kreen. “Brutal woman who herds slaves.”

“Mighty Hamanu allowed you to enter Urik, he allowed you to drive his archers from the
walls, he allowed you to enter his slave pensÑbut he will allow no more!” Rasia
proclaimed. “The city is sealed and you cannot escape. You cannot resist the will of
Hamanu!”

A disparaging murmur rustled through the ranks. The neatly formed columns began to break
up as Urikite slaves faced the woman and angry Tyrian gladiators turned to glare at Rikus.

The mul grabbed Gaanon's arm. “Get a spear and silence her,” he ordered.

The half-giant obeyed immediately, dropping off the tower in a single leap and forcing his
way into the crowded slave pits.

“Captives of Hamanu, great is your despair, for on this day have you been returned to
bondageÑor to death!” the woman continued. “Throw down your weapons and Hamanu the
compassionate will feed you as he feeds his other slavesÑ”

“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 divinationÑanything 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 ominous 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 his 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'mÑ”

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 canÑclog wells, topple buildings, 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 of 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 UrikÑand
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 armyÑso 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
be less one enemy. If he kills me, the time I buy in fighting could make the difference in
starting the revolt or not for the rest of you.”

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.