Before climbing out of the trough, Rikus paused to look at the crimson sun. It hung at its zenith, a fiery orb that hovered in the exact center of the blazing white bowl of the mid-day sky.
“White sky,” Neeva said, also studying the sun. “Jaseela should be in position.” Under K’kriq’s guidance, they had sent the noblewoman and Caelum to circle around behind the enemy.
“She’d better be,” the mul said, motioning toward the gorge ahead. Now that he had the Scourge of Rkard in his hand, he could hear officers barking orders to their subordinates. “It sounds like the Urikites are on the move.”
The mul scrambled up the slope at the end of trough, motioning for Neeva, Gaanon, and the rest of the gladiators to do the same. As Rikus charged over the top he saw that the enemy was marching down the canyon in an unruly jumble. The mob was a stark contrast to the disciplined legion he remembered from the first battle. Without exception, the Urikites’ red tunics were tattered and filthy, only half carried their bone shields, and even fewer still possessed their long spears. Most were armed only with obsidian short swords, and their faces were pale and rigid with fear.
Behind them came a towering figure of absolute blackness, herding the ragged force before him like a phantom shepherd driving his flock to slaughter.
“Umbra!” gasped Neeva.
“Good,” said Rikus, rushing straight towaid the shadow monster.
“What’s good about this?” Neeva asked, falling into step at his side.
“If Umbra’s here, then Maetan probably is too.”
“Good,” said Gaanon, his heavy footsteps jarring the ground as he echoed the mul’s words. “I’ll kill them both.”
Behind the trio came hundreds of screaming gladiators, spreading out to meet the mass of Urikites head-to-head. Already, Rikus could see this fight would be to his company’s liking: a grand combat with no tactics and no tricks, blade against blade and warrior against warrior.
The two mobs quickly closed within a dozen yards of each other, and the mul’s concerns were quickly forgotten as battle cries filled his ears.
Rikus sprinted straight for a pair of Urikite spearmen, intending to lop the heads from their weapons and barrel past them into the throng beyond. At the last moment, however, they lifted their spears from the braced position and threw the weapons at his heart. Reacting instinctively, the mul blocked the spears with his sword. To his surprise, even though it struck only a glancing blow, the Scourge sliced the first shaft in two.
The other spear slipped past the arcing blade but abruptly dropped and struck in the lower abdomen. Rikus cried out and staggered under the impact of the sharp point, but did not feel the deep burning of a puncture wound. He looked down and saw that the spearhead had not penetrated his Belt of Rank.
Rikus plucked the weapon from his belt and tossed it aside, grinning at the two petrified Urikites who had attacked him. The men backed away and fled into the enemy mob, screaming about magic and sorcery.
“Cowards!” Rikus yelled, rushing after them. “Running won’t save you!”
He crashed into the Urikite mass, his magic blade slashing and slicing through enemy arms and bodies as easily as it had the spear shaft. Neeva followed on his right, clearing a wide swath with her axe. Gaanon came on the left, his great club launching shattered Urikite bodies in all directions.
The three gladiators tore deeper and deeper into the Urikites mass, a maelstrom of death ripping its way across enemy territory like a wind-storm whirling across the salt flats of the Ivory Plain. Now and then, Rikus raised the Scourge of Rkard to block or parry instead of attack. Each time, when his attacker’s obsidian blade crashed into the ancient steel of the mul’s sword, it shattered.
Soon, Rikus was aware only of what he sensed: his own voice screaming in glee, the sour smell of opened entrails, the flash of his sword, and the spray of blood hitting his bare skin. He reacted without conscious thought, his blade dancing as if it were part of his arm, his legs and his free hand lashing out of their own accord to push some enemy into the path of Neeva’s axe or Gaanon’s club. He loved battle as a thri-kreen loved the hunt, as an elf loved to run, as a dwarf loved to toil. It was for this that the mul had been born: to fight, to kill, to win.
As the battle progressed, Rikus was vaguely aware that, all around him, Tyrian warriors were slashing and hacking at the confused and outmatched enemy. Like him, they had spent their lives training for personal combat and, if their talents were not quite a match for those of a mul, neither could the enemy’s skill compare to theirs. Even in Rikus’s own ears, the screams of the dying Urikites drowned out his jubilant shouts. Out of the corner of his eyes, he glimpsed red tunics falling by the dozens. The coppery smell of blood, rising off the red-stained rocks of the battlefield, filled his nose.
It ended all too soon. Suddenly, Rikus found himself lashing out at his foes’ backs, stumbling over dead bodies as he tried to keep up with the fleeing Urkites.
“Fight,” boomed Umbra’s voice. “Fight and die, or I will have you as my slaves!”
The shadow giant grabbed a few of the fleeing Urikites, absorbing them into his dark body as he had the first time Rikus saw him. This time, his threat had little effect. Hamanu’s soldiers continued to flee, or, when they did heed Umbra’s words, Tyrian gladiators cut them down as quickly as they turned to fight.
“After the cowards!” Rikus screamed, finally working his way free of the tangle of bodies littering the battlefield.
“Death to the coward Urikites!” echoed Gaanon, his voice thundering almost as loudly as Umbra’s.
Now that the Urikites had stopped fighting, Rikus found that the joy was gone from the battle. Nevertheless, he set off after the fleeing enemy. Even their route was working to the Tyrian’s advantage; from the direction they were fleeing, the Urikites would soon run into Jaseela and Caelum. Although the noblewoman’s company was not large enough to stop so many panicked soldiers, it would slow the mob of cowards long enough for the gladiators to finish it off.
As the mul ran, his sharp blade struck down a foe with nearly every step. Because of their heavier weapons, Gaanon and Neeva could hardly keep up with Rikus, but they loped along behind them, finishing off the soldiers that the mul had only wounded.
Suddenly, Rikus found himself staring at a huge shadow. A black hand descended on his right, grasping both a Tyrian gladiator and a fleeing Urikite. A pair of blood-curdling screams sounded above the pained cries of those suffering more mundane deaths, then the bodies of the two men melted into Umbra’s darkness.
“We’ve got Umbra,” panted Neeva, stepping to the mul’s side. “Now what?”
Gaanon stepped to the mul’s other side. The half-giant was speechless; it was as if the sight of a being twice as tall as he had taken his booming voice away.
Rikus looked up and found himself staring into the sapphire orbs of Umbra’s eyes. The shadow giant smiled, then reached down toward Neeva. “You will pay a heavy price for your victory, Tyrian.” The breath rolled from the thing’s mouth on fetid wisps of dark cloud.
Neeva screamed in defiance, hefting her dripping axe and bringing it down on the black hand. The gore-covered blade passed through the shadow with no apparent effect, emerging clean and bright as it hit the rocks at Neeva’s feet. The weapon shattered as if it were glass, and Umbra’s dark fingers closed around her waist.
“Rikus!” she screamed, black shadow already creeping down her thighs and up toward her neck.
Uncertain of what else to do, the mul brought his sword down on the black arm. To his surprise, the magic blade bit into the shadow as if it were flesh. Umbraq screamed in shock and rage. Rikus hacked at the arm again, this time wielding the sword with both hands and bringing it down with all his strength.