It was during one of these pauses that he heard the faint clatter of stones far past the range of the assassins’ tiny bows. At first, the mul thought a halfling might have slipped, but the sound was followed by another rattle, and he knew that was not the case.
“Someone’s out there behind the halflings,” he whispered.
“Someone from the legion?” Neeva asked hopefully.
Rikus shook his head. “We said we didn’t want to be disturbed,” he said. “It has to be a Urikite.”
Neeva changed directions. “Let’s find him and kill him. It might be the halflings’ commander.”
Rikus followed. Like his fighting partner, he wanted nothing quite so bad as to find an enemy that they could fight. Of course, the halflings would never let themselves be caught in hand-to-hand combat, but with a little luck whoever was overseeing them would not be so careful.
The pair’s change in direction caused a flurry of chittering and scuffling. Rikus detected at least nine different halflings relaying messages and adjusting their positions. Normally, he would not have considered nine warriors much of a threat, but the prospect of facing so many halflings sent a shiver down his spine. He did not tell Neeva the bad news.
They had traveled no more than ten yards when Rikus heard the soft tick of an arrow being nocked into a bowstring. Less than a yard away, a scrawny halfling rose from the rocks and pointed a small arrow at Neeva’s back.
“Roll!” Rikus yelled.
The bowstring popped. Neeva cried out in alarm and barely managed to roll away as the arrow shot into the ground where she had been lying.
Rikus launched himself at the halfling, driving the tip of his sword into the assassin’s stomach. The Scourge passed through his foe’s body with surprising ease, not stopping until the tip protruded more than a foot from his back. The halfling’s sallow eyes opened wide, but he did not cry out. Instead, he reached into his hip-quiver for a dart and drove himself forward onto Rikus’s blade, slashing at the mul with the poisoned tip.
Rikus leaned away, then punched the halfling with his free hand. The blow crushed the assassin’s skull and popped an eye from its socket. Casually, the mul kicked the body off his blade.
The twang of bowstrings sounded from directly ahead, then Rikus felt two taps as a pair of arrows sank in his belt. He dropped to the ground instantly, a panicked scream escaping his lips.
“Rikus!” cried Neeva.
Another bowstring popped and the mul heard an arrow clattered to the ground near Neeva. She rolled away, then whispered, “Are you hit?”
To Rikus’s relief, he did not feel either arrow pricking his stomach. “They hit me in the belt,” he said, carefully plucking the darts from the leather girdle and tossing them aside. “No harm.”
He started to crawl toward his fighting partner, but the halflings fired their bows again. Several darts clattered down between him and Neeva. Rikus saw her roll away, then stop to wait for him. The mul started toward her, but again the halflings fired. This time, two of the darts nearly hit him, and two more almost struck Neeva.
“They’re separating us,” Neeva cried. Another bowstring twanged and she barely saved herself by rolling yet farther away from Rikus.
“Let them,” Rikus answered, realizing that by trying to rejoin each other, he and Neeva would only make themselves easy targets. “Go on-we’ll circle around and meet each other up ahead.”
Two more bowstrings popped and Rikus rolled away. When he looked back toward Neeva, she had disappeared into the dusky shadows.
Rikus crawled away as fast as he could. Neeva could take care of herself and, even if she couldn’t, he didn’t see how getting killed himself would help her. As he moved farther away from the halfling he had killed, the pop of bowstrings grew less frequent and the whistled messages of the halflings sounded more urgent.
The sun sank behind the mountains completely, plunging the field into darkness. The moons had not yet risen, so there was only the faint twinkle of the stars to help the halflings see. The mul breathed a sigh of relief as his dwarven vision began to outline the glowing forms of rocks, ground, and halflings. Now he and Neeva stood a good chance of surviving, for, unlike elves and dwarves, halflings could not see in the dark. With the advantage of his dwarven vision, Rikus thought he could circle around to Neeva and escape without suffering a prick from one of the halfling arrows.
His optimism was short lived, however. From the direction in which Neeva had gone came a halfling’s astonished cry. Rikus heard the twang of a bowstring, then his fighting partner grunted in anger. There were a couple of muffled blows.
“Don’t jab that thing at me,” Neeva said.
There was a sharp snap, as though the big woman had broken a spear shaft, or perhaps a halfling’s back, over her knee. Something soft and limp collapsed onto the rocks, then Neeva’s heavy footsteps sprinted away from the altercation.
A cacophony of chirps and whistles sounded from her direction. The field near her came alive with clacking rocks and snapping bowstrings as several halflings, glowing warm red against the orange rocks of the field, rushed toward the sounds of Neeva’s flight.
Rikus leaped to his feet and screamed his loudest battle cry, charging over the broken ground to help his fighting partner. Unfortunately, he could not tell how she was faring. Even with his dwarven vision, he could see no more than ten yards in the darkness.
Soon the red glow of a halfling’s form appeared at the limit of Rikus’s vision. The mul raised his sword, hoping to use the man-eater’s inability to see in the dark to good advantage. As the mul closed in, however, the halfling suddenly stopped and cocked his head as if listening, then lifted his bow and pointed the tip of an arrow directly at Rikus’s chest.
The gladiator dropped to the ground, marveling at how accurate the halfling’s aim was, considering that he was doing it by sound alone. When his kneecap smashed into the jagged point of a large stone, the mul clamped his jaw shut to keep from crying out, biting his tongue in the process.
The bowstring twanged, and the halfling’s arrow sailed over Rikus’s head in a blue streak. The mul returned to his feet as the halfling pulled a poisoned arrow from his hip-quiver and clutched it like a dagger. As Rikus advanced, the halfling closed his eyes, relying solely on his ears to keep him informed of the mul’s location.
Rikus picked up a rock and threw it at his foe’s head, rushing forward behind the flying stone. The missile struck with a sharp crack and the halfling stumbled back. As the mul raised his sword for the kill, the halfling surprised him by throwing himself forward in a mad lunge.
To keep from being stabbed by the poisoned arrowhead, Rikus lunged out of the way and landed face-first in the rocks. The halfling struck the ground a few feet behind him. The mul spun around immediately, swinging his sword in a blind arc. As fast as he moved, by the time he saw his attacker, the assassin was almost upon him.
Rikus knocked aside the hand holding the dart, then brought his sword around in a quick loop and flicked the attacker’s head off. The halfling’s hand took one last slash at the mul, then dropped the arrow.
Behind Rikus, a loud crackle sounded from the direction Neeva had fled, then a brilliant crimson light flared. Remembering the sound he had heard just before he killed his first halfling, Rikus assumed that Neeva had stumbled into a Urikite templar.
“Neeva!” he yelled, leaping to his feet again.
A sharp pain shot through the kneecap he had smashed earlier and his leg nearly buckled. To his relief, however, the Scourge brought the sound of Neeva’s voice to his ears. “Rikus is still alive,” she said. “Come on!”
Not bothering to ask himself to whom she was talking, he limped forward again.