The Crimson Legion

by Denning, Troy

  It hardly mattered. He had only one hope of survival: perhaps the unseen creature had a supply of water with it. The lirrs seemed to sense Rikus’s change in attitude, closing the distance between them and their prey. They moved so silently that Rikus doubted he would have heard them had it not been for the Scourge of Rkard. He paid them no attention, relying on their natural caution to keep them at bay while he investigated the noise.

  After Rikus had progressed less than twenty agonizing limps up the hill, whatever was hiding behind the boulder shifted position, creating a loud crackle. Fearing that their hard-won prey was about to walk into the waiting arms of some other hunter, the lirrs charged after Rikus in a mad scramble. The mul spun around to face the creatures, knowing that he was inviting attack from the rear—but having no other choice.

  The lirrs leaped at him en masse, their claws slashing and their jaws snapping. Behind Rikus, stones rattled as the mysterious creature left its hiding place and came after him. Cursing his bad luck, the mul threw himself at the central lirr, leading with the tip of his sword. After impaling itself, the beast slid down the blade, clawing and biting at the gladiator’s head. The other two beasts, surprised by the maneuver, sailed past and met the creature that had been lurking behind the boulder.

  Rikus released the sword and dropped to the ground, allowing the saurian to land on top of him. The beast feebly raked the mul’s flanks and opened more than a dozen shallow scratches, then gave its death shudder and fell motionless. At the same time, from behind Rikus came several moments of scratching and roaring as the other two lirrs battled whatever had jumped at the mul from the rocks.

  A thick scale shattered loudly as it was struck, then the lirr howled in pain and fell aruptly silent. Afraid that he would soon be facing whatever had killed the beast, Rikus crawled from beneath the lirr he had killed and pulled his sword free of its body.

  When he looked up, he saw a cyclone of flashing arms and claws as a thri-kreen grappled with the last lirr. As Rikus watched, the hulking mantis-warrior managed to grasp the saurian with three claws, then used his fourth hand to rip a scale off the beast’s throat. Finally, the insect-man bent down and inserted its mandibles into the exposed skin. The lirr howled, then began to convulse as the thri-kreen’s poison paralyzed it.

  “K’kriq?” Rikus croaked, only half-lowering his sword.

  The thri-kreen tossed the lirr on top of the other he had downed, then used two arms to point at the one Rikus had slain. “Good kill,” said the mantis-warrior. “Lirr strong.”

  “Why didn’t you show yourself?” Rikus demanded. His parched throat ached with each word.

  K’kriq’s antennae curled at the question. “And ruin lirr hunt?”

  “Give me another waterskin,” Neeva ordered, tossing aside the one Rikus had just drained.

  It was just past dawn, and a short time ago K’kriq had walked into the oasis camp bearing the mul’s half-conscious form in his arms. Rikus now lay on a soft carpet of burgundy moss, his head and shoulders cradled in Neeva’s arms. The puffy yellow crown of a chiffon tree shaded his face, and the honey-scent of its green blossoms filled his nose.

  Over the mul’s shoulders was a robe of soft hemp, which he had made K’kriq fetch before bringing him into camp. Tamar’s ruby still peered out from his chest, and Rikus had no wish for his followers to see. Several of those followers were gathered around him at the moment, including Styan, Caelum, Jaseela, and Gaanon. K’kriq had returned to the desert to retrieve the lirr carcasses.

  Caelum handed his waterskin to Neeva, but cautioned, “He shouldn’t drink too much at once—”

  “He’ll drink as much as he likes,” Neeva snapped, opening the skin’s mouth and offering it to Rikus.

  The mul took the skin, but did not immediately lift it to his lips. His stomach was bloated from the first one he had emptied, and he even felt a little dizzy.

  “I told you to wait for me,” Rikus said, casting an accusing look at Neeva.

  “We did,” Caelum offered. The dwarf raised his red eyes to meet the mul’s, at the same time laying his palm on Neeva’s shoulder.

  Rikuse eyed the dwarf’s hand bitterly. “That’s strange. There was no one there when I came out.”

  “I waited five days, Rikus,” Neeva said, her ivory brows raised in a mixture of apology and anger.

  The mul’s jaw slackened. It seemed inconceivable that he had lain in Bory’s coffin for five days.

  “I’m to blame,” Caelum said, stepping toward the mul. “I convinced Neeva you were dead.”

  Rikus looked up, his eyes black pits of ire. He wasn’t sure why the dwarf’s admission made him so angry, but there was no denying that it did. “I wouldn’t get too close just yet,” the mul growled.

  Caelum’s angular face betrayed no shock or fear. He remained standing in front of the mul.

  “What did you want us to do?” Neeva demanded. “We couldn’t get inside.”

  “They could have waited for you as long as they wished,” Styan said, nodding to the mul. “Under my command, the legion has been pursuing Maetan closely—”

  “And would have pursued him right to the gates of Urik—without ever attacking,” growled Jaseela, sneering at the templar. She looked at Rikus straight-on, the beautiful half of her face a dizzying contrast to the disfigured side. “They thought you were dead, Rikus. What else would you have wanted them to do?”

  “Nothing,” the mul snapped, looking away. “Neeva will tell me what happened while I was gone.”

  With the exception of Caelum, the others took the hint and quickly left.

  The dwarf, however, acted as though it had not occurred to him that Rikus meant to dismiss him as well as the others.

  “Caelum, when I said I wanted to talk to Neeva, I meant without you here,” Rikus growled.

  The dwarf looked up, his face a mask of perfect composure, then pointed at the wounds on the mul’s savage leg. “I will call upon the sun to mend your wounds.”

  “No,” the mul said. After hearing the dwarf admit that he had convinced Neeva to abandon her vigil at the citadel, and seeing how he had squeezed the woman’s shoulder, the thought of allowing Caelum to touch him annoyed Rikus no end. “Not now.”

  “It’s best if I heal you immediately,” the dwarf said, raising a hand toward the sun. “You’re losing strength by the minute.”

  Rikus shoved the dwarf away. “I won’t have you touching me,” he shouted.

  “The heat has affected your mind,” Neeva said.

  “Has it?” Rikus demanded. “He’s the one who told you to leave me behind! Why should I want his help now?”

  Without a word, Neeva pinned Rikus into her lap. “Lie down and let Caelum use his magic—the legion can’t wait here long enough for you to recover on your own.”

  The dwarf lifted his hand to the sky again, and soon it was glowing red. Knowing that what Neeva said was true, Rikus looked away and allowed Caelum to touch him. It felt as though the cleric had poured molten steel into the veins.

  When Rikus looked back, the flesh was fiery red. Trying to take his mind off the pain, he asked, “What of Maetan?”

  “Styan managed to keep him from returning to Urik, but he’s retreated into a village called Makla,” Neeva answered.

  Rikus cursed. “I know the village,” he said, his teeth clenched against the pain in his leg. “It’s a supply base for quarry gangs. It’s protected by a small Urikite garrison.”

  As the wounds on Rikus’s legs closed, Caelum removed his hand and reached up to open the mul’s robe. Rikus caught him quickly. “No. These wounds need no attention.”

  Caelum scowled. “Animal scratches are the most dangerous of all,” he said. “And from the ichor staining the robe, I’d say these have already gone foul. If I don’t attend to them now, the poison could kill you.”

  Rikus shook his head. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “And I’ve had about as much healing as I can stand for one day.”

  “Don’t be a f
ool,” Neeva snapped.

  Before Rikus could stop her, she jerked his robe open. Beneath it were scratches the lirrs had inflicted on him, a burn in the center of his chest that had already started to heal, and, on his left breast, a festering sore about the size of the coin.

  At its base, the inflamed sore glowed bright red scarlet, but the skin around the rupture’s lip had turned an ugly dark green. From the center of the wound oozed a steady flow of yellow purulence that almost obscured the red face of the ruby lodged in its center. From deep within the gem glowed a tiny spark of crimson that drew the eyes of both Caelum and Neeva straight toward it.

  “What’s that?” Neeva demanded.

  “I’m not sure,” the mul lied. “After I killed Umbra, I passed out for several days. When I woke up, it was in my chest.”

  Though Rikus did not like lying, he intended to tell Neeva the truth later. With Caelum present, however, the mul thought it best not to mention the wraiths—especially since they wanted him to recover the same book that he was supposed to be returning to the dwarves of Kled.

  “You woke up and it was there?” Caelum asked, incredulous.

  “That’s what I said!” the mul snapped, pulling his robe closed.

  Caelum calmly reopened the robe, then began poking and prodding at the sore. His fingers were quickly coated with rancid-smelling yellow goo. Rikus winced in pain and pushed the dwarf’s hand away. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “I believe it to be a sort of magic vex,” Caelum explained, cleaning his hands on Rikus’s robe. He raised a hand toward the sun. As his fingers turned red, he said, “With the power of the sun, perhaps I can rid you of the stone.”

  “You’d better know what you’re doing,” Rikus growled. He did not know which appealed to him less: remaining at the mercy of Tamar, or being indebted to Caelum for ridding him of the wraith.

  Instead of replying to the mul’s threat, Caelum laid his hand to the glowing wound.

  Where the dwarf touched him, Rikus felt a brief sensation of burning. An instant later, Caelum’s face went pale and he let out a terrified shriek. A gray shadow crept from the mul’s festering wound and moved over the dwarf’s hand, darkening the glowing flesh. The blotch slowly spread up the cleric’s arm, slipping onto his shoulders and up over his head until only the dwarf’s red eyes shone from the shadow. Even they quickly faded from view, rolling back in their sockets as Caelum toppled over.

  Rikus screamed, feeling as though someone had shot a flaming arrow into his heart. The inside of his chest erupted into a shattering agony, and tongues of searing pain ran down into his legs and out into his arms. With each passing moment, the raging anguish grew worse, until the mul feared that a fire was consuming him from the inside out. In Rikus’s mind, smoky tendrils of blackness rose to cloud his thoughts, and his ears were filled with a loud, pulsing roar.

  Tamar’s voice came to him over the throbbing in his ears. Your dwarven ally cannot save you, she hissed.

  The fire inside Rikus’s body grew unbearable. He rolled away from Neeva’s grasp, then lay on the ground thrashing in pain until, at last, his thoughts turned to smoke.

  The mul did not die. Instead, Rikus saw himself inside his own mind, walking blindly through an endless bank of mordant gray fumes. As he moved onward, choking and gasping from the caustic haze, his possessions slowly disappeared: first the robe he had been wearing to hide Tamar’s gem, then his sandals and the Belt of Rank, and finally even his breech-cloth. He found himself completely naked and without equipment, save for the Scourge of Rkard floating at his side as if sheathed in an invisible scabbard.

  The mul continued to wander through the hazy landscape of his mind for what seemed like hours, but may have been days or merely minutes. Occasionally he shouted for Neeva, and even for Caelum, but there was never an answer. Rikus’s stomach began to churn with anxiety, for he had seen a similar haze before.

  Once, after losing a gladiator fight with a horrid beast brought in from the desert wastes, Rikus had hovered near death for several days. During that time, he had found himself standing atop a distant cliff, overlooking an endless curtain of gray nothingness. That ashen haze had looked exactly like the dingy fog that now enclosed him.

  A shiver of dread ran down the mul’s back. In retaliation for letting Caelum try to destroy her, the wraith may have killed them both.

  “Tamar! What did you do to me?” Rikus yelled. With his scream, the mul’s fear gave way to anger. He set off through the gray haze at a sprint, reaching for his sword and shouting, “Come out, wraith!”

  No sooner he had grasped the Scourge’s hilt than the gray haze disappeared. He saw that he was standing in midair, upside down with an even surface of granite many feet below. In the next instant, he crashed to the polished floor, barely tucking his chin in time from keep from landing on his head.

  A roar of raucous laughter sounded all around him. He found himself in a vast room smelling of unwashed men and lit by dozens of opened-hearthed fireplaces. Around each fire whirled the lithe silhouette of a tall dancing girl, singing and shouting ribald invitations to the drunken men watching her. Serving slaves wandered the crowd, making sure that each spectator had a full cup of potent, foul-tasting broy.

  At Rikus’s back, a silky voice called, “See, you’re not dead.”

  The mul scrambled to his feet and turned around, where he saw an unclothed woman with a dark complexion and long black hair. She stood before a soft bed of sleeping furs. Her dark eyes narrowed to mere slits, and a wicked smile crept across her wide, full-lipped mouth.

  “Tamar?” the mul gasped.

  The woman nodded, then beckoned him forward with a single long-nailed finger. “You’re learning to use the Scourge,” she said. “Good. You can trust it when you cannot trust anything else—even your own thoughts.”

  As the mul stepped toward the woman, he saw that she stood nearly as tall as he did. Her voluptuous body was sinuous and strong, but she smelled of must and decay. She opened her arms to the mul. “Come. I will teach you to use it against the mindbender.”

  “Why?” the mul asked, stopping short of her embrace. “You must know that after I defeat Maetan, I’ll never give you the Book of Kemalok Kings.”

  Tamar’s smiled turned ominous. “I think you will, when the time comes,” she said, motioning for him to step into her arms. “Now, come here—if you wish to learn more about your weapon.”

  Rikus stood his ground, acutely aware of his own nakedness. “I’ve no wish to couple with you, wraith—even in my thoughts.”

  Tamar’s eyes flashed fiery red, but her voice remained calm and silky when she spoke. “And I have no wish to lie with you, half-dwarf.”

  Nevertheless, she reached out as if to grasp him. Long claws sprouted from her fingertips, and glistening fangs grew from beneath her full lips.

  “Stay away!” Rikus cried, slashing his sword across her stomach.

  The wraith jumped away, but the blade grazed her abdomen and opened a long gash. Tamar cried out, but not in her own voice. Her hair changed from silky black to blonde, her eyes from ruby red to emerald green, and her body from sinuous to powerful.

  The honey scent of chiffon blossoms came to Rikus’s nose. With a sinking heart, he realized that what he saw before him was not inside his mind. He was looking at Neeva, and they were standing under the same chiffon tree beneath which K’kriq had laid him earlier that morning.

  “Why?” asked Neeva.

  She held her hands across the cut Rikus had opened in her stomach, blood seeping through her fingers. Her face did not show pain or anger, only shock and bewilderment.

  “It wasn’t you!” Rikus cried. Such a feeling of remorse washed over him that he felt sick to his stomach. He tossed his sword aside and dropped to his knees. “Forgive me!”

  The scent of mildew and rot returned, and before the mul’s eyes, her face became Tamar’s. Gray smoke rose from the ground, and once again Rikus was trapped in his own mind.

/>   The wraith stepped toward him, her ruby eyes glowing like hot coals. As before, she was naked, and there was a long gash across her stomach in the same place Rikus had wounded Neeva.

  “Fool! Never let go of the Scourge!”

  She slapped the mul with an open palm. The blow rocked his jaw as though she had been holding a warhammer. Unprepared for the attack, Rikus fell over backward, his ears ringing. He closed his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to regain control of his thoughts. Finally, the sound in his ears faded, and he opened his eyes once more. Tamar still stood before him. Keeping a careful eye on her, he returned to his feet.

  “What about Neeva?” the mul demanded. “Is she badly hurt?”

  “Forget about Neeva!” Tamar screamed.

  Again she lashed out, this time with her fist. Rikus tried to block, but the wraith was too quick. He glimpsed her hand coming toward him only an instant before he felt the blow. A terrific thump echoed through the mul’s skull and his head whipped around so hard that it sent a bolt of pain through his neck. Rikus tried to counter by tackling the wraith. She changed to a translucent wisp of light and his arms passed harmlessly through her form.

  Tamar rematerialized in front of the mul, this time armed with the double-edge scythe and wearing the full suit of plate armor in which she had been pictured on her sarcophagus. She kicked Rikus under his chin, rocking him over onto his back.

  “Without the sword, you have no defense,” she snarled, raising her scythe to strike. “You’re lost.”

  As the wraith swung the curved blade toward his throat, Rikus visualized a huge block of stone lying in its path. He felt a queasy sensation in his stomach, then the scythe clanged against the granite slab that had appeared over him.

  Tamar raised an eyebrow. “Do you think that will save you from a mindbender?”