Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 2 - The Crimson Legion (6 page)

“What now?” asked Gaanon.

Before answering, Rikus took a moment to study K'kriq's progress. The thri-kreen turned
his mekillots straight into the long file of Urikites rushing toward the battle, followed
closely by hundreds of
gladiators.
The maneuver brought the enemy's charge to an abrupt halt and sent those leading it
scrambling for their lives. The soldiers that did not fall to the mighty reptiles'
snapping jaws were quickly killed by Rikus's warriors.

“It looks like K'kriq has this part of the fight well in hand,” the mul said, turning his
gaze toward the terrain behind the battle. “Let's find the commander.”

“This is no time to think of vengeance,” objected Neeva.

“Sure it is,” Rikus countered. He spotted a small group of figures upon the shoulder of a
small sand dune that had spilled down from rocky bluffs of the valley wall. Several
messengers were running from them toward the growing rout in front of K'kriq's mekillots.
“At the most, we can kill only a Few thousand Urikites. The rest will flee, regroup, and
probably attack Tyr later. But if we slay their commander today, we'll finish the battle
for good.”

With that, Rikus returned to the rear of the wagon and gathered a small force of
gladiators from the long line still pouring through the wall of darkness. He sent the rest
to the other side of the argosy to reinforce the warriors who did not have the benefit of
K'kriq's mekillots, then started toward the sand dune with his company.

They reached the base of the dune at a run, sweating heavily. Rikus charged straight up
the steep side, stopping to rest only when they were within a few dozen yards of the top.
At the crest waited a small line of Urikites, their spears pointed down at the gladiators.
They peered over the top of their shields as they nervously awaited the Tyrian attack.

Rikus ordered his followers to spread out, deciding to let the Urikites contemplate their
fate and give his warriors a few moments to rest. He took the opportunity to look over his
shoulder and saw that the battle was going better than he had dared to hope. Jaseela had
turned her flank back toward the main attack. The sands between her company and the argosy
were red with Urikite blood and littered with more than two thousand Urikite soldiers.
Many thousands more were fleeing the field in a long stream, pursued closely by howling
knots of Tyrian gladiators.

On the far side of the argosy, the scene was not so lopsided. Even with the extra
reinforcements Rikus had sent their way, the Tyrians were badly outnumbered and barely
holding their own in the vicious combat. Styan and his templars were doing little to help
the situation, merely harassing the Urikite flank with half-hearted forays that were
easily turned back.

Nevertheless, the mul was not worried. Having routed half the enemy legion, K'kriq was
moving toward the troubled spot as fast as his lumbering beasts could carry him. Yet as
Rikus watched, the thri-kreen suddenly guided the mekillots into a knot of gladiators. The
reptiles began crushing and biting not Urikite soldiers, but Tyrian warriors.

“He betrayed us!” cried Gaanon, taking a step back down the dune.

Rikus caught the half-giant's arm. “That makes no sense. Why would he have bothered to
help us in the first place?” asked the mul. He studied the thri-kreen's distant form more
carefully, and was barely able to see that K'kriq's head was turned toward the crest of
the dune.

The mul looked to the top of the dune again, and quickly found what he was searching for.
In the middle of the enemy line, standing between a pair of burly bodyguards, was a small
bald man of feeble build and delicate features. His pale lips were pinched tight in
concentration, and his gray eyes were fixed on K'kriq's form. Over the bronze breastplate
that covered his gaunt chest, the sickly-looking man wore a green cloak bearing the
two-headed Serpent of Lubar.

“Maetan!” Rikus hissed.

“What?” asked Neeva.

“Maetan of Family Lubar,” the mul explained, pointing at the little man. Rikus had last
seen Maetan over thirty years ago, when Lord Lubar had brought his sickly son to see the
family gladiator pits, but the mul had no trouble recognizing the pointed chin and thin
nose that had distinguished the boy's face even then. “His father was a master of the Way.
My guess is that he is, too.”

“He's taken control of K'kriq's mind,” Neeva surmised.

Rikus nodded, then waved his gladiators forward, hoping to disrupt the mindbender's
concentration and free the thri-kreen again. “Attack!”

A Urikite officer barked a sharp command, and a dark cloud of spears descended from the
ridge above. Rikus ducked. Neeva did the same, using her axe handle to deflect a low
flying shaft. Like dozens of others, Gaanon was not so quick. One of the javelins struck
him in the leg, causing the half-giant to bellow out in pain.

Cursing the effectiveness with which his enemy had stalled the charge, Rikus looked over
his shoulder in Gaanon's direction. The half-giant lay on the steep slope, clutching a
spear that had lodged itself in his thigh.

“I'll be fine,” Gaanon said, plucking the weapon from his leg. “Just give me a moment.”

“Stay here,” Rikus said, taking the spear from him. “You'll only get hurt.”

He spun around and threw the weapon at Maetan. A bodyguard pushed the mindbender to the
ground, putting himself in front of the spear. The Urikite grunted loudly, then dropped
off the dune crest and slipped down the slope in a limp heap.

Maetan glared at Rikus for an instant, then returned to his feet and stepped back from the
crest until only his gray eyes showed over the top. The mul glanced at K'kriq long enough
to see that the thri-kreen and his mekillots remained under the mindbender's control.
Growling in anger, the mul raised his cahulaks and resumed his charge. This time, with no
more spears to throw, the Urikites could only draw their obsidian short swords and await
the onslaught.

When he reached the summit, Rikus pulled away from the flashing tip of a low blade strike.
He countered by swinging a cahulak at the Urikite's legs, slicing the veins behind the
knee. As the screaming soldier grabbed for his savaged leg, Rikus pulled the man off the
crest and sent him tumbling down the sandy slope.

Seeing the disadvantage of this location, the Urikite officer shouted another command and
the entire line took two steps backward. Followed by Neeva and the rest of the gladiators,
Rikus scrambled over the crest of the dune, being careful to keep one hand free to protect
himself. The Tyrians had no sooner crawled onto the ridge than the enemy officer ordered
his men forward again, thinking to push the gladiators off the dune.

His strategy might have worked against normal fighters, but gladiators were accustomed to
fighting from disadvantaged positions. As the soldiers stepped forward, the Tyrians cut
them down in many different ways. Rikus blocked his attacker's swing with a cahulak, then
hooked the other one behind the man's back and used the Urikite's own momentum to send him
flying off the crest. Neeva swung her big axe and chopped her opponent off at the ankles
before he could strike. Other gladiators rolled at the enemy's feet, protecting themselves
with a whirl of flashing blades. Still others leaped up with amazing speed, then beat the
astonished soldiers back with sheer strength. When the initial clash ended, half the
Urikite company lay bleeding in the sand, and only a handful of Tyrian soldiers had been
pushed off the dune.

The survivors backed slowly away, their fear showing in their faces. The gladiators stood
with predatory grins on their faces, allowing the Urikites' fear to work against them.
Rikus used the momentary lull to search for Maetan's diminutive form and, following the
resentful gazes of several enemy soldiers, found the mindbender running down the gentle
side of the dune.

The mul glanced over his shoulder and saw that K'kriq's mekillots were turning back toward
the argosy. Looking back to the line of frightened Urikites standing ahead, the mul
yelled, “Kill them!”

As the gladiators moved forward, the Urikites began dropping their shields and running
after their fleeing commander. In their panic, they opened a surprisingly large gap
between themselves and the shocked gladiators, who were not accustomed to seeing their
opponents flee in terror. The officer frantically chased after the line, cursing their
cowardice and cutting his own men down from behind. After the initial surprise of the rout
wore off, the Tyrians joined the chase with a chorus of thrilled howls.

Maetan paused near the base of the dune and looked up at the mass of soldiers trailing
behind him. The mindbender's shadow began to lengthen, spreading across the sands like a
dark stain of ink across a parchment. It retained the basic shape of a man, but not the
proportions. Its limbs were long and ropy, with a serpentine body that seemed more
appropriate to a lizard than a man. When it reached a length of four or five times
Maetan's height, a pair of sapphire eyes began to shine from the head. A long azure gash
appeared where the mouth should be, and wisps of ebony gas drifted skyward from this slit.

A gap opened between the shadow's feet and those of Maetan. The shadow beast rolled onto
its stomach, then its body began to thicken and it moved into a kneeling position. When it
had assumed a full, three-dimensional form, it rose to its feet. The thing stood as tall
as a full giant, towering over the men below it like the great trees of the halfling
forest.

The Urikites stopped their retreat, frightened murmurs of “Umbra!” rising from their
disorganized ranks.

Neeva grabbed Rikus by the shoulder and stopped him. “Wait!” she cried. “You can't do this
alone.”

The mul slowed enough to look around and see that Umbra's appearance had stopped his
gladiators as well. The warriors were standing motionless on the slope, their jaws slack
with astonishment and their eyes locked on the huge shadow beast. Rikus would have
hesitated to say that they were frightened, but they were certainly spellbound.

Umbra pointed a finger at the routed Urikites, then, in a throbbing voice so deep it
seemed bottomless, he said, “Fight! Stand and fight, or I swear I'll take you with me when
I return
to
the Black!”

As if to emphasize the threat, the thing strode halfway up the dune in two steps, then
reached down and closed his sinuous fingers around the torsos of two Urikites. Their
chests and midsections disappeared in darkness. In vain, they cried for mercy as Umbra's
shadow crept down to their feet and up over their heads. Within an instant, their forms
had simply melted into the creature's black shape.

“Now, form your lines!” Umbra cried. He pointed toward the Tyrians. “For the defense of
Lubar and the glory of Urik, die like heroes!”

The Urikites turned around and dressed their lines, pointing their black swords toward the
Tyrians.

“For the freedom of Tyr!” Rikus yelled, charging.

Neeva followed close behind, screaming, “For Tyr!” An instant later, a hundred voices were
crying the same thing.

Rikus reached the enemy before they had completely reformed their wall, tearing into it in
a maelstrom of whirling cahulaks and kicking feet. Almost before he realized it, he had
ripped the swords from a pair of Urikites' hands and felled two more with crippling kicks
to the knees. To Rikus's right, Neeva hacked a defender nearly in two, then killed another
with the backswing as she pulled her axe from the body of the first.

No sooner had Rikus and Neeva cleared their opponents away than a tremendous crash
reverberated across the sandy dune as the rest of the gladiators hit the enemy line. The
clatter of bone and obsidian weapons filled the air, followed by a growing chorus of
pained cries. A handful of enemy soldiers threw down their weapons and turned to flee.
Umbra prevented the rout from spreading by snatching the cowards and absorbing them into
his shadow.

Rikus caught sight of a black blade streaking toward his ribs. He blocked with the shaft
of a cahulak, then raked his other weapon across the soldier's throat. The man dropped his
sword and turned away, grasping at the bleeding wound below his chin.

The mul spun around to attack the person who had slammed into his back, then stopped when
he realized that she was one of his own gladiators, a red-haired half-elf named Drewet who
had earned her fame in the arena by killing a full giant single-handedly. At the other end
of her two-pronged lance hung a gasping Urikite, but beyond her were nothing but more
Tyrians.

The mul faced the other direction and saw that, on the other side of Neeva, Tyr's
gladiators were beating the last of the Urikites into the sand. At the bottom of the dune,
Maetan had not moved. He stood alone, watching the battle with no indication of concern.

Rikus was about to start down the slope when a rustle of astonished cries rose from the
Tyrian ranks; Umbra had opened his blue mouth and was facing the battlefield. A wispy
stream of blackness shot from between the thing's lips and poured over the gladiators like
a thick, sticky mist. As the billowing mass spread over the slope, Umbra shrunk as if he
were spewing his own body over the dune. Horrified screeches and anguished screams rose
from whoever the black haze touched.

“Run!” Rikus yelled. He grabbed Neeva's wrist and sprinted forward, angling toward the
bottom of the dune and away from the spreading vapor.

As fast as they ran, it was no use. The black fog caught them only a few steps later,
lapping at their legs like the waters of an oasis pond. Instantly, an icy wave of pain
shot through Rikus's feet and up into his thighs. The closest thing he had ever felt to it
were frigid rains in the high mountains, but this pain was a hundred times worse. The rain
had been uncomfortable and made him shiver, but the darkness stung his skin and numbed his
flesh to the bone. His joints stiffened and would not move, reducing his legs to dead,
aching weights.