“Use magic or the Way, whatever you did when you appeared in the sky at our first battle.” Rikus was not anxious to trust a gem, much less a magical one, to the leader of the slave tribe.
A look of embarrassment crossed Tithian’s face. “That’s not possible,” he said. “The individuals who helped with that aren’t available. If you want me to talk to Wrog, you’ll have to give him the gem.”
Rikus reluctantly passed the crystal to the lask and instructed him in its use. As Wrog held the olivine out at arms length, his eyes opened wide and he curled his lip in alarm. “King?”
The lask remained quiet while Tithian responded. After a few moments, Wrog cast a wary eye at the mul, then looked back into the crystal. He listened to the king, then closed his fist over the gem and glared at the mul.
“Your king says you are no legion of Tyr’s,” Wrog announced. “He says he’ll pay me if you never return to Tyr.”
Realizing that he had run out of options, Rikus spoke to Neeva in a calm voice, relying on the Scourge of Rkard’s magic for her to hear him. “Neeva, take cover. A dozen archers have arrows trained on you right now.”
Wrog curled his muzzle in confusion. “Who are you talking to?”
Before Rikus had a chance to answer, several archers cried out in alarm. “They moved!”
“Shoot!” snapped Wrog. When no bowstrings twanged, the lask repeated his command. “Shoot!”
“They don’t have a clear aim,” Rikus answered. He placed himself in front of Wrog, safely out of arm’s reach. “Neeva, send Laban to fetch the rest of the legion. Prepare for a fight.”
“Quiet!” Wrog ordered, stepping toward the mul.
The bowstrings snapped in rapid succession. Rikus peered through the exit in the floor, glimpsing an insect-sized figure dodging down the canyon. As the arrows streaked toward the gladiator, Caelum rose from behind his cover. The dwarf lifted an arm skyward. In the next instant, a red sphere of flame appeared between the nest and the ground. The arrows sank into the fire shield and disappeared from sight, leaving the archers to gasp in awe.
“Did you stop him?” demanded Wrog, whose golden eyes remained fixed on the mul.
Rikus answered for the archers. “No,” he said, meeting the slave leader’s gaze. “That leaves you with the choice.”
“I’ll kill you all,” Wrog growled.
“That would be stupid, even for a lask,” Rikus said, not yielding any ground. “I’ll soon have two-thousand warriors marching up the canyon.”
Wrog stopped less than a step from Rikus, the sharp points of his fangs several inches above the mul’s head. “You’ll never live to see them arrive,” the lask snarled.
Rikus glimpsed a massive claw swinging toward his head. He stepped inside and blocked the attack on the forearm, at the same time driving his elbow into the lask’s stomach. Wrog hardly seemed to notice the blow, but it opened space enough for Rikus to step under the arm. As the mul passed behind his opponent, he thrust his foot at the back of Wrog’s knee and pushed. The leg buckled, dropping the lask to his knees.
Before Wrog could shout any orders, Rikus leaped across the exit hole toward the Kes’trekels guarding K’kriq. He kicked the first man in the ribs, sending him crashing into the next warrior. The other two guards attacked instantly, one thrusting his spear at Rikus and the other at K’kriq.
Rikus sidestepped the attack coming at him, grabbing the spear along the shaft. He knocked the man unconscious with an elbow to the jaw, then ripped the spear away as the guard fell to the floor. At the same time, the weapon thrust at K’kriq bounced harmlessly off the thri-kreen’s hard shell. The mantis-warrior rolled toward his attacker and sank his mandibles into the man’s leg. As poisonous salva mixed with blood, the man screamed in agony and drooped to the floor in a convulsing heap.
Confused shouts and angry cries filled the small chamber. The Kes’trekels drew their weapons and moved to attack. Rikus spun around and cut the cord binding one of his scout’s hands, then K’kriq cried, “Beware the lask!”
Leaving his spear with the gladiator he had just freed, Rikus stepped toward the exit to meet Wrog. The lask dived across the hole, reaching out with the claws of both hands. The mul ducked and Wrog’s arms slashed the air overhead. The gladiator quickly stood upright again, his shoulders catching his foe in the torso and flipping the huge lask onto his back. Wrog landed on the floor with a great crash.
Angered that he and his legion were being forced to fight fellow slaves, Rikus kicked the lask in the head. “This is stupid!” he yelled, smashing his foot into the lask’s face with each word.
The blows would have smashed a human’s skull, but Wrog shrugged them off and lashed out at the mul’s leg. When Rikus jumped away, the lask rose to his hands and knees. “The mul is mine,” he growled, eyeing several Kes’trekels attempting to sneak up behind Rikus.
The mul allowed Wrog to return to his feet, not wishing to get into a wrestling match with the huge half-man. In this battle, he knew, his advantage lay in speed and skill, not sheer strength.
As he waited, Rikus glanced at K’kriq. Six slaves were surrounding the thri-kreen, hacking at his chitinous shell with bone axes and obsidian short swords. Despite his disadvantage, the mantis-warrior was faring well against them. He rolled to and fro, lashing out with his poisonous mandibles and one of the two arms his attackers had inadvertently freed. Next to him, the scout that Rikus had released earlier was using his spear to hold several foes at bay while the next gladiator in line worked to free their companions.
When Wrog had returned to his feet, Rikus placed himself squarely in front of the hole. “I’m going to break you one bone at a time,” he snarled. Rikus meant every word of what he said, though it was not the bitterness he felt toward the lask that prompted him to speak. Wrog was a powerful fighter, but an inexperienced one. Rikus wanted to goad him into a mistake. “When I’m through with you, my legion will burn your nest off the side of this mountain. Your tribe will curse your memory for refusing to let us pass.”
“Not likely,” the lask growled.
As the mul had hoped, Wrog started his next attack by dashing forward. Two steps into his charge, a spark of understanding lit the lask’s flaxen eyes and he slowed his pace. “Your tricks won’t work,” he said.
Rikus scowled as if disappointed, though he was really far from dissatisfied. A gladiator’s tricks, especially those of a champion, were never as simple as they seemed. He had seen a hundred opponents stop just as Wrog had, and in the end a hundred opponents had fallen to one of the many maneuvers that could follow.
Rikus screamed and rushed forward. Wrog reached for the mul with both clawed hands, a confident sneer on his snout. The lask’s fingers clamped down on the gladiator’s shoulders long before the mul’s shorter arms reached his foe’s body. Rikus grabbed Wrog’s biceps and pushed with all his strength.
The instant the lask pushed back, Rikus reversed himself and pulled Wrog toward him. At the same time, he kicked his feet out, planting one squarely in his foe’s stomach and throwing the other out in front of the knee. As the mul dropped to his back, he pulled the Wrog forward.
The lask’s orange eyes opened wide as he realized he had done exactly what the gladiator had expected. Wrog tore his arms free of the mul’s grip and jumped over Rikus’s head, landing a full step shy of the hole in the floor.
Seeing that he had saved himself from another of the mul’s tricks, Wrog cried out in triumph. “Who’ll break who bone-by-bone?”
Rikus answered the question by throwing his legs over his head and springing off the floor at his enemy. As Wrog turned to face him again, the mul’s feet landed square in the lask’s belly. The unexpected kick sent the half-man stumbling backward. He plunged, screaming, into the hole.
Rikus dropped back to the floor, then leaped to his feet in the same instant, expecting Wrog’s followers to rush him. To his surprise, no one did. The handful of Kes’trekels who were not actively fighting merely kept a watchful eye on the mul, as if defeating their leader had relieved them of the necessity for further combat.