The Crimson Legion

by Denning, Troy

  Beyond the ash fans, the terrain became a jumble, with the tips of sharp, jagged boulders protuding from a shoal of black shadows. A few yards into the murkiness stood the triple-ranked silhouettes of a Urikite line, the yellow crests of Hamanu’s lion gleaming brightly on most of their dark tunics, and the red double-headed Serpent of Lubar glimmering more faintly on the rest.

  Though he was not surprised to find the Urikites waiting for his attack, Rikus was immediately struck by the lack of archers and slingers in the army. All three ranks were armed with long spears angled toward the approaching Tyrians, with black shields slung over their free arms and obsidian short swords dangling from their belts.

  “Something’s wrong,” Rikus observed, stopping at the top of an ash heap. The Tyrian warriors halted behind the mul, awaiting his order in intense silence. “Maetan’s not stupid. He can’t think his soldiers will beat our gladiators in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “He’s made mistakes before,” said Gaanon.

  “Not this obvious,” Rikus answered, running his eyes along his foe’s ranks.

  There was no time to count, but the enemy line was nearly as long as that formed by the fifteen hundred warriors in Rikus’s legion. Considering that the Urikites stood three deep, the mul estimated that Maetan had more than four thousand troops. That number did not include any reinforcments hiding in the darkness beyond the lines.

  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 for—his skeletons?”

  “He’s giving them time to think about what we’re going to do to them—or 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 ears—a 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 enought 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 halt. 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 the shattered 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 the—”

  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 a gray pall, Rikus lost sight of his army. On the other side of the obsidian barricade, t
he 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 off the mountain.

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

  The dwarf did not look away from the avalanche. “If you had listened to me earlier—”

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

  The cleric 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 rocks—I 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 in 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 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 a 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 of 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 yet—”

  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 looped 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 head—and 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 rim. 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 reaction 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 through 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 the 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.

  Rikus stepped back to the battleline, ignoring the raging pain caused by the spearhead embedded in his shoulder and fighting without regard for the risks he took. Soon, Urikite corpses were heaped so high that the mul’s foes began to jump down at him as if leaping from a wall. It made no difference to the gladiator. His sharp blade sliced through them at all angles, and the mound continued to grow.

  Rikus was jolted back to his senses when a horrific boom sounded from the Crater of the Bones. A crimson light flashed across the sky a moment before the ground began to buck. The mul’s feet were swept from beneath him, and he fell to the ground, landing atop a half-dozen bleeding corpses. A pair of stunned Urikites tumbled down the body pile toward him, scattering their shields and spears behind him.

  In the next instant, shrill whistles and screeching cries f
illed the night. Hissing streaks of flame dropped out of the sky, bringing with them the stench of sulfur. As the fiery globes crashed to the battlefield, agonized pleas for help rang from both sides of the line.

  The two Urikites that had been coming at Rikus returned to their feet before the wounded mul could regain his. They threw themselves on top of him, one grabbing the shaft in his shoulder and the other pinning his sword arm to the ground.

  The mul howled in pain, then smashed his forehead into the face of the Urikite pinning his arm. As the soldier rocked backward, Rikus ripped his hand free and pulled the Scourge across the bodies of both attackers.

  Covered in fresh, hot blood, the mul pushed the wounded men away and rolled to his knees. The situation around him was the same in all directions, with Urikites and Tyrians wrestling on the ground while the reinforcements jumped into the melee from both sides. Long streamers lit the sky as burning blobs of molten rock dropped to the ground and burst into red sprays of liquid flame.

  A sizzling whoosh sounded from above the mul’s head, then a streak of orange light momentarily stunned him. Tiny droplets of liquid fire spattered over his body, filling his nostrils with the stench of his own burning skin. Screaming in pain and blind rage, the mul threw himself on the men he had just wounded and rolled over their bodies to suffocate the embers charring his flesh.

  “Rikus hurt?”

  The gladiator looked up and saw K’kriq standing over him. Although the thri-kreen’s carpace was scorched and burned in a dozen places, the mantis-warrior seemed to be enduring the rain of fire with far less discomfort than the mul.

  “I’ll live,” Rikus muttered, gritting his teeth at the pain.

  “Then come.”

  The thri-kreen pulled Rikus to his feet with two arms. With the other two he pointed to the mouth of Drewet’s canyon.