The Crimson Legion

by Denning, Troy

  Rikus rolled onto his good side and saw that he had landed between Hamanu and the nervous war-templar. More than a dozen startled half-giants stared over the two men’s shoulders with shocked expressions. Several of the guards raised their spears to attack, but the sorcerer-king stopped them with a wave of his hand.

  Hamanu used his staff to gesture at the war-templar. “Niscet, the slave is yours to kill.”

  With a pale face, the war-templar reached for the steel sword hanging from his belt.

  “No, Niscet,” the king said. “With your hands.”

  “Mighty King, the gladiator is armed. I can’t kill him without a weapon!”

  “No?” Hamanu replied, his handsome features animated by the glow of brutal delight. “What a pity for you.”

  Rikus rolled toward Niscet, slicing upward with his sword. The blade opened a long gash in the templar’s abdomen, slicing through the scale armor hidden beneath his yellow robe. The templar screamed in pain and, as the mul crashed into his legs, fell face-first on top of Rikus.

  The mul scrambled from beneath the dying man, then struggled to his feet. As he whirled around, he glimpsed K’kriq and several gladiators leaping from the wall. Then Rikus found himself facing a pair of half-giants who had moved forward to protect Hamanu.

  “Leave this pathetic would-be regicide to me,” said the sorcerer-king, stepping between the two guards. He fixed his yellow eyes on the mul, then asked, “Rikus, is it not?”

  For a reply, Rikus jumped forward, swinging the Scourge at the sorcerer-king’s neck. A few inches shy of its target, the blade rang out as though it had struck stone. A shimmering blue aura flared around Hamanu’s body, and red and black sparks sputtered high into the air as the mul’s magical sword passed through the barrier. Rikus yelled in triumph, already relishing the sight of the sorcerer-king’s head flying off his neck.

  The mul’s cry fell abruptly silent as the Scourge reached Hamanu’s flesh. The sorcerer-king glanced down at the blade, then calmly placed a finger under it and moved it aside. There was a thin line of blackish red blood where Rikus’s blow had gently touched Hamanu, but otherwise the king remained uninjured.

  “Answer me!” Hamanu boomed.

  The sorcerer-king’s voice roared over Rikus like thunder. The mul’s ears, made more sensitive by the Scourge’s magic, reverberated with agony. Rikus stumbled away, stunned, his head filled with terrible, sharp pain. He did not stop until he reached the center of the street, where he felt a pair of spear-points in his back. He glanced up and saw the snarling faces of two half-giants looming over him.

  Hamanu followed the mul, his fangs bared and his angry golden eyes fixed on Rikus’s cringing form. “You are Rikus, are you not?” he demanded.

  The mul nodded.

  Behind the sorcerer-king, Rikus’s gladiators continued to pour over the wall, screaming ferocious war cries and leaping into battle with the Imperial Guard. Already the Tyrians had beaten the half-giants away from the wall and were slowly pressing the fight toward Hamanu.

  For a moment, the sorcerer-king regarded Rikus with a look of bemusement. Finally, he shook his head. “You are a daring fool, Tyrian. There was a time when I would have been amused by such audacity—but no longer.”

  That said, Hamanu muttered an incantation. Rikus felt a surge of energy being pulled from his inner being, the same as when Sadira used her cane to cast a spell. A queasy feeling of horror came over the gladiator, for he knew what the sensation meant: in preparation for using his dragon magic, the sorcerer-king was drawing power from Rikus’s body. The mul’s knees began to tremble, and his breath came in labored gasps. Deep within the obsidian ball that capped Hamanu’s steel staff, a ghostly red light flickered to life.

  A surge of anger washed over Rikus as he realized how completely in Hamanu’s power he was. Determined not to stand idly by while his life drained away, the mul sprang away from the spears at his back. At the same time, he swung the Scourge at the sorcerer-king’s staff, severing it before the half-giants or Hamanu realized what had happened. The obsidian globe dropped to the ground, shattering into a dozen pieces. There was a brilliant flash of red, then a glowing wisp of scarlet smoke rose from the shards and writhed about, sizzling and hissing like a mad serpent.

  The two half-giants cried out in astonishment, but were not too stunned to jab their lances at the mul. Rikus parried with the Scourge of Rkard and shattered the shafts before they reached him. Hoping that a thrust would find more purchase in Hamanu’s flesh than had his first slash, the mul whipped his sword around and drove the tip at his foe’s heart. The sorcerer-king merely lifted his gaze from the fragmented obsidian globe and glared at the attacking Tyrian.

  As the blade neared Hamanu’s body, the sorcerer-king’s aura again flashed blue. The Scourge drove through the magical barrier in a spray of hot sparks—then give a loud twang as it reached its target and stopped cold. The blade flexed like an archer’s supple bow.

  Rikus did not even see the sorcerer-king’s counterstrike. He merely felt something hit his jaw with the force of a half-giant’s hammer. Everything went black, and the mul’s knees came perilously close to buckling. Hamanu struck again, and this time Rikus felt each separate knuckle in the sorcerer-king’s hand. The blow knocked him off his feet and sent him sailing through the air, crashing into the half-giants whose spears he had severed. Rikus dropped to the ground at their feet, as angry as he was frightened, certain that he would soon feel their huge swords hacking him into pieces.

  The blows did not come. Instead, as Rikus’s vision began to clear, he heard a mighty groan rumbling over the avenue. Near the wall, the battle raging between his gladiators and the half-giants came to a halt. Terrified shrieks and astonished gasps filled the air.

  Rikus looked in Hamanu’s direction and cried out in shock. In the sorcerer-king’s place was a monstrous cross between Hamanu and a giant lion. Standing twice the height of a half-giant, the creature had a powerful body covered in golden fir, a long tail ending in a huge tuft, and the powerful rear legs of a great cat. The beast’s arms resembled those of a man, though the muscles were sinuous and the hands clawed. Around his neck hung a long golden mane, and atop it sat Hamanu’s head, his fang-filled mouth pushed out to form a small muzzle.

  The great man-lion waved off the half-giants that were looming over Rikus, then fixed his golden eyes on the mul himself. “There is a difference between daring and insolence,” he growled. “Now I shall exact the price one pays for confusing the two.”

  SEVENTEEN

  HAMANU’S

  WRATH

  HAMANU STEPPED TOWARD RIKUS. THE MUL ROSE, swinging the Scourge in desperation. The blade struck the great man-lion in the leg, bouncing off the thick hide with a muted thud. Screaming in frustration, the gladiator lifted his sword again.

  Before Rikus could strike, the sorcerer-king kneeled on top of the gladiator, forcing him to the ground and pinning him in place.

  Hamanu peered down at the mul’s face, yellow beads of hot acid dripping from his fangs. He touched the talon of one finger, as long and as sharp as any dagger, to Rikus’s throat. “Did you think I would be as easy to kill as that doddering fool who ruled Tyr?”

  For the first time in his memory, Rikus felt utterly helpless. His life was completely in Hamanu’s hands. Pinned as he was, the mul could not even fight back and die honorably.

  “I will teach you what happens to the those who resist my will,” Hamanu continued.

  The beast closed his hand around Rikus’s throat and picked him up, at the same time jamming the mul’s sword arm to his side. The king muttered an incantation, then a yellow web wrapped around Rikus so tightly that he could hardly breathe.

  This time, the spell drained no life from the gladiator’s body. Without the obsidian orb that Rikus had smashed earlier, the sorcerer-king could not use dragon magic to draw his energy from animals. Instead, the mul knew, Hamanu had to draw it from plants, as normal sorcerers did. Still, Rikus doubted that the
lack of dragon magic would seriously hamper the ruler of Urik. The fields surrounding the city were well tended and full of crops that Hamanu could tap for his spells.

  Once Rikus was completely swaddled in the sticky web, the sorcerer-king carried him to the fortress wall. There, he tied the cocoon to a merlon, leaving the mul to hang several yards above the cobblestones.

  In the street below, the battle between the Imperial Guard and the gladiators Gaanon had boosted over the wall still raged. As the mul watched, Gaanon used his hammer to crack the skull of a Urikite half-giant, while K’kriq sank his poisonous mandibles into another foe.

  Rikus looked farther down the street. At the side gate leading into the slave pits, the scene was not as encouraging. Hamanu’s soldiers had driven the Tyrians back to the threshold and were once again threatening to break through into the pens. Luckily, Jaseela had been given plenty of time to move the slave companies out of the pits and into the templar quarter. Rikus couldn’t see if any plumes of smoke were yet rising from distant parts of the city, but he was encouraged by the fact that no Urikites seemed to be moving to attack the noblewoman’s companies. The mul dared to hope that, even if he could not kill Hamanu, he had at least stalled the sorcerer-king long enough for the slave revolt to take hold.

  “It is my wish that you know the fate of those who followed you,” Hamanu said, glancing over his shoulder toward the battle. “Those that you do not see me kill will be left as a special gift for the Dragon.”

  “Gift?” As Rikus asked the question, the cocoon cinched down on his ribs and did not expand again.

  Hamanu looked back at the mul. “Yes, in the Dragon’s Nest, where you camped.”

  “The Crater of Bones,” Rikus gasped. “You must leave many gifts for the Dragon.”

  “Only our proper levy,” Hamanu said, a cruel smile crossing his lips.

  “Levy?” the mul exclaimed. In his shock, he forgot about the cocoon—until it compressed again, and he had difficulty drawing his next breath.

  The sorcerer-king trilled a laugh, his long red tongue wagging from between his fingers. “The Dragon demands a slave levy from each city, or he will extract a terrible vengeance—as the pretender Tithian will discover when he fails to pay Tyr’s allotment.”

  From the sorcerer-king’s amused expression, Rikus could tell that Hamanu enjoyed tormenting him with this news. The mul endured the abuse willingly, for the longer he detained Hamanu, the better the revolt’s chances of success. “The Dragon will demand slaves from Tyr?”

  Hamanu narrowed his eyes and turned to leave, saying, “You have kept me long enough.”

  Before the mul could ask anything more, the sorcerer-king strode toward the battle. Immediately, Rikus tried to pull his sword arm free, but the web held him so firmly that he could not move so much as his little finger. The only result of his efforts was to constrict the web around him more tightly.

  In the street below, Hamanu waded into the company of gladiators that had followed Rikus over the wall. Several of the Tyrians attacked with bone-tipped spears and obsidian battle-axes. The spears broke against his hide, the axe-heads shattered, and the beast showed no sign that he even felt the blows. The sorcerer-king counterattacked savagely, his long claws disemboweling warriors through their armor.

  A stream of scarlet fire shot from the gate leading into the slave pens. Dozens of half-giants and war-templars turned to ash in a mere instant. Once the flames were gone, Neeva and Caelum charged out into the street.

  “No! Go back!” Rikus cried, his heart pounding in fear. The cocoon constricted again, filling his torso with painful cramps. “You can’t stop him,” he finished weakly.

  With the din of clanging weapons and screaming warriors, they did not hear him. The pair turned toward the man-lion, followed closely by a handful of dwarves and a large company of weary gladiators. Rikus watched in horror as Neeva dodged past a half-giant’s lance and knocked a few scales off his leg armor. As he reached for her, she found a seam between the guard’s massive thigh and his lower abdomen. She plunged her sword deep into the crevice, drawing an immediate spray of blood.

  A stooped half-elf stepped to Neeva’s side, intercepting another half-giant who had come forward to lance her. The gladiator beat down the Urikite’s shaft, then thrust his barbed lance under the shield to rip his opponent’s knee to shreds. The half-giant had not even finished collapsing to the ground before Neeva ran a blade across his throat.

  Rikus continued his efforts to work his arm free, but to little avail. He succeeded in moving the blade of his sword a fraction of inch and opened a small tear in the web. The yellow strands only cinched down and pinned the mul’s elbow more tightly against his belly.

  Rikus cursed, then silently complained, What am I suppose to do?

  Watch your legion die, Tamar replied. What else?

  Can’t you help me? the mul pleaded. Summon the other champions, like you did in the Crater of Bones.

  I could, but what good will that do? You would only attack Hamanu again—and destroy us both.

  Near the entrance to the slave pens, the Tyrians formed a wedge with Neeva at the front. They started forward, leaving a wake of corpses, gladiator and half-giant alike, behind them.

  In the midst of his revelry of death, Hamanu paused to look toward the sortie.

  How touching, Tamar observed wryly. The fools will die trying to save you.

  Not if I can help it, Rikus said. He shook his head, the only part of his body free to move from side-to-side. “Go back!” he cried, causing himself another wave of agony as the cocoon tightened.

  The wedge continued forward, oblivious to the mul’s command. The sorcerer-king pointed five claws of one hand toward the advancing Tyrians, uttering a spell. Bolts of energy streaked from his fingers, each one arcing into the center of the wedge and burning a hole into the chest of a different gladiator.

  Instead of falling, the victims screamed and reached for their injuries, then broke formation and began running about in all directions. As they moved, wisps of yellow smoke poured from their wounds and spread throughout the company. Wherever the fumes passed, gladiators gave strangled cries, then collapsed clutching their throats.

  Hamanu looked away from the battle and returned his attention to the gladiators he had been destroying before the wedge had formed.

  Rikus closed his eyes, unable to bear the pain of watching Neeva die. He heard several more choking warriors fall, then the Scourge brought Caelum’s voice to him: “To the ground!”

  The mul opened his eyes in time to see other survivors do as the dwarf asked. Once the others were out of the way, the men who had been struck by Hamanu’s spell fled the confines of the formation, not wishing to spread the deadly fumes among their fellows.

  Caelum thrust an arm toward the sun, and his hand began to glow. From his fingers issued a shimmering mantle of blistering air, which spread outward and covered the gladiators like a blanket. The mantle hung over their heads, the heat rising from it and carrying away the deadly yellow fumes.

  As the dwarf saved the lives of his companions, Rikus noticed that Gaanon was slipping along the wall toward him.

  Another fool, Tamar commented.

  He’ll make it, Rikus insisted, noting that Hamanu had shown no sign of seeing the large gladiator. I’ll soon be back in the fight.

  For all the good that will do. It would be wiser to slip away unnoticed.

  Abandon my legion?

  It will perish with or without you.

  After the smoke had cleared, Neeva returned to her feet at the head of a decimated formation, with Caelum at her back and two dozen gladiators scattered among the bodies of their fellows. Rikus guessed that three times as many half-giants remained between the Tyrians and Hamanu.

  Neeva stepped forward, carrying the attack to the throng of Urikites crowding the street. The other survivors closed ranks behind her.

  “What are you doing?” Rikus whispered, sadly shaking his head. “Can’t you see
your plan’s hopeless?”

  The first of Hamanu’s half-giants thrust his lance at Neeva. Screaming in anger, she sidestepped it and slipped forward, driving her sword into her attacker’s abdomen. As the dying Urikite stumbled away, another stepped forward and pushed his lance into Neeva’s stomach.

  “No!” Rikus hissed.

  The stooped half-elf gladiator swung his lance at Neeva’s attacker. The barbed head raked across the Urikite’s face, and the Imperial Guard fell away holding his eye. A moment later, a long spear pierced the half-elf’s throat. He died clutching at the shaft. Rikus saw Neeva pull the shaft from her stomach and turn to attack the half-elf’s killer, then lost sight of her as the rest of the street erupted into a jumbled melee.

  Rikus looked toward Gaanon. The half-giant had been forced to stop ten yards shy of the fortress wall. Hamanu had all but eliminated the gladiators fighting him, and was now unknowingly swinging his tail across Gaanon’s route as he faced the last of the brave Tyrians. One of the survivors was K’kriq, who stood with his carapace against the wall, using all four hands to keep one of the sorcerer-king’s claws away from his face.

  All at once, the thri-kreen reversed tactics and clawed at his foe’s arms, pulling it toward him. As Hamanu’s massive hand closed around K’kriq’s throat, the mantis-warrior stabbed at the sorcerer-king’s wrist with his poisonous mandibles.

  Hamanu roared in laughter. Holding his victim with one hand, he reached down and tore the thri-kreen’s shell away. As pulpy white thorax was exposed, K’kriq screeched in pain. The sorcerer-king studied the strange flesh for a moment, then began ripping it to shreds.

  At the far end of the avenue, Jaseela led a company of Urikite slaves from a side gate, and more slaves were emerging from other exits. Some carried swords, spears, bone clubs, or other weapons they had scavenged from the templar quarter, but most were armed with only hammers and rock picks.