Rikus decided to switch tactics. Remembering how, during the battle to capture the argosy, Agis had rescued him from Phatim’s mental attack, the mul substituted his own image for the one Maetan had introduced into his mind. Instead of a young boy, he saw himself as a mature gladiator, stronger than the trainer and hardened by hundreds of fights.
He felt a queasy feeling in his stomach as a surge of energy rose from deep within himself, changing the young mul in his thoughts from a boy to a man. This new Rikus slapped a hand over the grimy fingers covering his mouth, then used the heel of his other hand to drive his captor’s elbow into the air. Keeping the trainer’s pudgy hand damped over his lips, the mul ducked under the entangling arm, then snapped it at the elbow by pushing down with one hand and pulling up with the other.
As soon as the trainer’s hand left his mouth, Rikus screamed, “Now, Neeva!” The words sounded both in Rikus’s mind and in the dwarven village.
Neeva raised her brow and Jaseela shook her head in confusion. Caelum peered at the mul as if he had gone sun-mad, then slowly shifted his gaze to Maetan. The mindbender was wincing as though his own arm had been broken.
Hoping to spur his companions into action, Rikus kicked at Maetan’s guards, gasping, “He’s taken over my-”
The mul’s attack and his explanation came to an abrupt end as Maetan recovered from the shock of Rikus’s mental counterattack. Inside the mul’s mind, the trainer whirled around, changing from a man to a vulgar, hairy spider. The immense, bulbous thing lashed out with two clawed legs, forcing Rikus to retreat, then snapped at him with two pincers dripping brown venom.
Rikus dodged to the side, trying to change himself into an equally large scorpion. The effort was too much for him. A spurt of energy rose from deep within his stomach, then abruptly faded away. The mul felt queasy and weak, his legs trembling with exhaustion and his heart pounding at his ribs like a smith’s hammer. He barely managed to keep his feet as the spider attacked again.
In the plaza, Neeva and Jaseela realized what was happening. Neeva dislocated the knee of the nearest bodyguard with a lightning-fast kick, ripping his steel sword from his hands. She drew the blade across the rope that bound Rikus’s hands, cutting him free, then turned and sliced a second guard open in one fluid motion. Jaseela grabbed this man’s blade and raised it to the sky crying, “Now, Warriors of Tyr!”
A great shout rose from her retainers and the gladiators. The plaza broke into a clamor of thuds, cracks, and pained cries as the Tyrians moved to strip the weapons from their captors’ hands.
Seeing this, Caelum raised a hand toward the sun and uttered a series of words in a strange, rasping language that vaguely resembled the sound of a crackling fire. His bronze arm turned blazing crimson. He pointed at Rikus’s head, saying, “This will protect you, Tyrian.”
Rosy light steamed from the dwarf’s fingers and gathered around the mul’s head in a scintillating sphere. Inside Rikus’s mind, a fiery wall sprang up between him and the spider, just as the horrid thing leaped at him. The beast disappeared into the flames, screeching in anger.
Instantly, Rikus’s mind was free of the mindbender’s attack, his attention returning to the plaza and the present. The mul’s legs felt as heavy as iron, his breath came in deep gasps, and his arms ached with fatigue-but he was free to act.
Looking past Maetan’s two surviving bodyguards, Rikus grinned at the mindbender. “Now it’s my turn,” he said, stepping forward.
The Urikite’s face, already betraying the pain he had suffered from the fire inside Rikus’s mind, went pale. “Kill him!” Maetan ordered, stepping back. “The dwarf, too!”
Rikus dodged the clumsy lunge of Maetan’s first guard, twisting away as the sword thrust past his body. He grabbed the man’s arm with both hands, holding it steady as he brought a knee up to break the bone. The mul caught the sword as it dropped to the ground. Then he spun around and smashed the pommel into the next Urikite’s jaw. The soldier collapsed into an unconscious heap.
Realizing he had left his back exposed, Rikus glanced over his shoulder and saw the last bodyguard stepping toward him with a raised sword. Without bothering to face his attacker, the mul leveled a vicious thrust kick at the soldier. The heel of his foot drove square into the man’s ribs. The Urikite stumbled backward, gasping for breath and holding his side.
“Should have broken him in two,” Rikus said, realizing for the first time how much energy he had expended in his mental battle against Maetan.
The mul stepped toward the gasping Urikite, who raised his sword into a defiant guarding position. Snorting in derision, Rikus feinted an attack, then slashed the bodyguard’s hand off at the wrist. With his free hand, the mul grabbed the back of the soldier’s head and pulled downward, smashing it into his knee. There was a loud crack. Blood sprayed over the mul’s leg, and the lifeless Urikite fell to the ground with a cracked forehead.
Rikus looked around and saw that he was no longer in danger. On all sides of the plaza, the Urikites were already retreating down the narrow lanes between the dwarven huts, pressed hard by the Tyrian warriors who had stolen their spears and obsidian short swords. Every moment or two came a pained scream from deep within the warren of stone huts, attesting to the fact that the dwarves were taking vengeance on their former captors.
Rikus returned his attention to the immediate vicinity, searching for Maetan. He spotted the mindbender twenty-yards away, at the end of the one of the sun plaza’s curving salients. He stood between two huts, his gray eyes fixed on the mul.
When Rikus stepped toward the mindbender, Maetan’s bitter voice echoed inside his head. Don’t be a fool, boy. As he spoke, the Urikite’s frail-looking body grew translucent before Rikus’s eyes. I will find you when I’m ready to end our fight.
With that, Maetan faded entirely from sight. Rikus started to yell for a search party, then decided against it. Remembering how the mindbender had ridden a whirlwind away from their first battle, the mul realized that the Urikite would not have shown himself without being sure of his escape. It would take more than cornering a part of the Urikite legion to kill Lord Lubar.
Caelum came to the mul’s side. “Only in the words of our storytellers have I heard of men who fight like you, Tyrian,” he said. He held his hands toward Rikus, palm up in the sign of friendship. “I am named Caelum.”
“I’m Rikus,” the mul said, putting his sword beneath his arm so he could return the dwarf’s greeting. “Without your help, I’d be dead. I owe you a life.”
“And we owe you many,” the dwarf replied, gesturing toward the plaza.
Now that the battle had moved away from the circle, Rikus could see that their quick victory had not come without a price. Nearly two-hundred gladiators, and more than a few of Jaseela’s retainers, lay bleeding and groaning around the perimeter of the plaza. Already, the dwarven men and women who lived closest to the square were bringing bandages and satchels of soothing herbs to help the wounded.
As they studied the scene in the plaza, Neeva, who was standing a dozen yards away, screamed, “Look out!”
She snatched a spear from a dead Urikite and threw it in Caelum’s direction. The weapon streaked to the ground about a yard behind the dwarf, striking something soft and fleshy. A man’s voice cried out in pain, then an obsidian dagger clattered to the ground at the dwarf’s heels. Rikus peered over Caelum’s shoulder and saw that his fighting partner had killed a Urikite who had been preparing to attack the dwarf from behind. Caelum looked from the dying soldier to Neeva, his mouth opened in astonishment. “I’ve been saved by a queen!”
“Not quite,” Rikus chuckled, motioning Neeva over. She had no sooner joined them than Caelum seized her hands and fell to his knees. “You saved my life,” he said, kissing her palms. “Now I give it to you.”