The huts, standing in a series of concentric rings, were enclosed by a single low wall of red brick. At the moment, the wall was manned by eight hundred Urikite troops. Two hundred more stood at the edges of the plaza, their spears pointed inward toward a frightened mass of men and women huddling together in the circle.
The prisoners were all short, standing only about chest high to their guards, and with squat, angular builds that made even Rikus look undermuscled by comparison. Their bodies were completely hairless and sun-darkened to deep mahogany, save for a patch of orange skin covering the ridge of thick bone along the top of their heads.
Towering above the dwarves, in the center of the circle next to the cistern, stood Maetan of Family Lubar and four large bodyguards. Though the distance separating them was great enough that Rikus could not make out the Urikite’s expression, the mul could see that the mindbender was sipping water from a wooden dipper and staring up at the arch where he and his companions stood.
The mul shifted his gaze from his enemy to the terrain surrounding the dwarven town. On the side closest to Rikus, slabs of orange-streaked sandstone, speckled with purple spikeball and silvery fans of goldentip, rose at steep angles to become the foothills of the Ringing Mountains. The other side of the village was dominated by a barren mound of copper-colored sand.
Thirsty Tyrian warriors covered the dune and the sandstone slabs, sitting in plain sight and staring down at the cistern with yearning eyes. In the olive-tinged hours just after dawn, Rikus’s legion had taken up positions surrounding the village and had been awaiting the order to attack ever since. But with the Urikites waiting for his troops to make the first move, Rikus was in no hurry to give the order.
“If we attack, Maetan kills the dwarves,” the mul growled, shaking his head and facing the five people with him. “If we don’t, we die of thirst.”
The Tyrian army had run out of water two days ago after five days of tracking Maetan and fighting a running battle to keep him from regathering the Urikite army. Thanks to his mul blood, Rikus was not suffering too badly from the lack of water. The same was true of K’kriq, who only drank once every ten or twelve days in the best of times.
Unfortunately, the rest of their companions were not so hardy. Neeva’s lips were cracked and bleeding, her green eyes sunken and gray, and her skin peeling away in red flakes. Jaseela’s black hair had become stiff as straw and the tip of her swollen tongue protruded from the drooping side of her mouth. Styan’s throat was so constricted that he could hardly gasp when he tried to speak.
Gaanon was the worst off, though. Because of his great size, he required more water than most warriors, and thirst was taking its toll on him faster than anyone else. His throat was so swollen that it choked off his breath if he didn’t consciously hold it open. Simply taking a few steps strained his big body so severely that he had to lie motionless in order to calm his pounding heart. To make matters worse, the wound in the half-giant’s thigh had festered, and now a steady dribble of yellow pus ran from the puncture. Rikus had no doubt that Gaanon would die if he did not have water soon.
“I don’t know what to do.” the mul admitted.
“There is only one thing we can do,” Styan whispered. Still dressed in his black cassock, he was the only one of the group wearing anything more than a breechcloth, halter, and a light cape. He claimed the heavy cloak trapped a layer of moisture next to his skin, but Rikus had his doubts.
“Yes,” Jaseela agreed. “We must leave.”
“Are you mad?” Styan croaked.
“I won’t be responsible for the death of an entire village,” the noblewoman countered, waving her hand toward the crowded plaza below.
“They’re only dwarves,” objected Styan. “And crazier than most, judging from their village.”
Rikus raised his hand to silence them. Their comments had provided no help, for he was already well aware of the situation either his legion died, or the dwarves did. “What do you think?” he asked Neeva.
She did not hesitate. “This is our fight, not that of the dwarves. We can’t sacrifice them to save ourselves.”
“We’re also saving Tyr,” Styan added.
“You care less about Tyr than you do about the dwarves,” Jaseela hissed.
“That’s enough.” Rikus stepped between them. “I know what we have to do.”
“What?” gasped the templar. From his hostile inflection, Rikus knew that Styan would not be happy with any answer that did not mean water.
Rikus faced the village again, where Maetan was wasting water by pouring it over the heads of his captives. “We’ll capture the cistern-without letting Maetan kill anyone.”
“It’s well to say such things,” Styan said, “but as a practical matter-”
“We’ll try!” Rikus snapped, keeping his gaze fixed on Maetan. Though he did not say so aloud, he feared that Maetan would wipe out the dwarven village even if his legion left. At the very least, the hungry Urikites would loot the dwarves to the point of starvation.
“How?” It was Jaseela’s soft voice that asked the question.
The mul had no answer. Not for the first time that day, his thoughts turned to Sadira and Agis, but he quickly tried to put them out of his mind. By now, they were halfway back to Tyr. No matter how much he lamented the absence of the half-elf’s sorcery or the noble’s mastery of the Way, he and his legion had to solve this problem on their own.
For what seemed an eternity, Rikus simply stood and watched Maetan dump water on the dwarves. Finally, a plan occurred to the mul. “We’re going to surrender,” he said, facing his companions.
“What?” they asked together.
Rikus nodded. “It’s the only way to put ourselves between the Urikites and dwarves before the fighting starts.”
“This is beyond belief,” Styan said, his strained voice cracking with anger.
“Without weapons, we’ll all be at a severe disadvantage,” Jaseela said. “We’ll lose a lot of warriors.”
“Not if we lead with gladiators,” Rikus offered. “In the pits, before you learn to fight with weapons, you learn to fight without them.” He glanced at Neeva and asked, “What do you think?”
The big woman remained quiet for several moments. Finally, she asked, “Are you doing this because you’re afraid we won’t catch Maetan again?”
“If Maetan was all I’m after, we would have attacked by now,” Rikus snapped. Neeva’s question hurt more than it should have, and he realized there was some truth to what she implied. Still, he thought he was making the right decision. “Besides, this is the only way I see to give both us and the dwarves a chance to survive.”
When Neeva offered no further argument, Styan said, “The templars won’t have any part of it.”
“That’s your choice,” Rikus said. “If you think this is a bad idea, I won’t ask you to send your company along.”
“We’re ready to fight, but for Tyr-not any dwarven village,” he sneered. The templar reached into his pocket and withdrew the small crystal of green olivine that would allow him to contact Tithian. “And I don’t think the king will want us to sacrifice our warriors for a bunch of dwarves, either. I warrant we’ll have a new commander in a matter of-”
Rikus clasped the templar’s hand. “This isn’t the king’s decision,” he said, prying the stone from Styan’s fingers. “You have only two choices. Join us and help, or wait here and hope we succeed.”
Styan stared at Rikus, then jerked his hand out of the mul’s grasp. “I’ll wait.”
Paying the templar no further attention, Rikus slipped the stone into his leather belt pouch, then gave Neeva and Jaseela instructions to be passed along to the others. Rikus laid his cahulaks aside, then moved to leave.