Rikus regarded the argosy with renewed respect. He was beginning to see why the fortress wagons were a favored mode of caravan travel. Any tribe of raiders could catch one, but stopping it might well prove to be impossible.
After the bolts had passed, Neeva gestured at Sadira’s hand, which was the only part of the winsome half-elf showing from beneath the mul’s massive body. “You’d better get off before she suffocates.”
As soon as Rikus rose to his knees, Sadira turned her pale eyes on him and frowned. “How do you expect me to cast spells from underneath you?”
Before Rikus could apologize, Sadira pointed the cane at the argosy. “Nok!” she cried. A purple light glimmered within the weapon’s pommel.
Rikus cringed, hoping that what happened next would not frighten his own superstitious gladiators as much as it injured the Urikites. Normal magic drew spell energy from the life force of plants, but Sadira’s cane extracted its power from a different source.
Sadira called, “Dawnfire!”
Rikus experienced an eerie tingle in his stomach, then started to grow queasy. Behind him, gladiators gasped and cried out in alarm as they, too, felt the cane drawing its energy from their life spirits.
The sick feeling stopped an instant later, and a ball of scarlet flame streaked to the argosy. The roiling sphere spread out like a fog, engulfing the rear quarter of the wagon in ruby-red fire. The Urikites in the towers plunged from their stations, screaming in agony, and in half a dozen places the back wall burned away like parchment.
Despite the sorceress’s devastating attack, the mekillots continued to pull the argosy forward, oblivious to what was happening behind them.
“Into the wagon!” Rikus cried, resuming his charge-and hoping that his gladiators were not too distracted by Sadira’s magic to follow.
Hundreds of battle cries informed him they were not, and soon he was leading a mass of screaming men and women after the smoking argosy. A few muffled clacks sounded from inside the wagon, but Sadira’s attack had taken its toll. Less than half-a-dozen black bolts shot from the arrow loops, and only one found its mark.
Rikus charged over the scalded body of a woman dressed in the yellow cassock of Hamanu’s templars, then caught up to the argosy. Without breaking stride, he whirled a cahulak and tossed it into one of the smoking holes overhead. After tugging the rope to set the blades, the mul swung up and onto the lowest deck of the wagon’s rear firing platform.
The horrid stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils. Fighting the urge to gag, Rikus looked around and saw that the deck had been reduced to a shambles. Scorched bodies and smashed weapons lay scattered everywhere. Flames licked at the rear wall in a dozen places, searing even the mul’s bronzed skin and filling his lungs with caustic fumes. Through the smoke, Rikus could see a doorway leading deeper into the argosy. To either side of this doorway, a ladder ascended through a manway in the ceiling.
Facing the rear of the wagon again, Rikus kneeled and gave Neeva a helping hand up. As she climbed onto the deck, she peered past his legs and said, “Two behind you.” Her voice was as calm as if she had been spotting birds leaving their roosts at dawn.
The mul spun on his heels, swinging a cahulak at the full length of its rope. Through the haze, he saw two soot-covered Urikites pointing their crossbows at him. Rikus dodged to one side, and the soldiers triggered their weapons. A pair of bolts sizzled past his head, thumping into the wood at the back of the wagon. At the same time, the cahulak took the first guard in the knee, its blade sinking deep into the joint. The mul tugged the rope, pulling the man off his feet.
The second soldier reached for the obsidian short sword hanging at his side. Rikus sprang at this one, planting his foot squarely on the lion embroidered on the Urikite’s red tunic. The man dropped to the floor clutching his chest.
As Rikus finished off the two soldiers he had disabled, Neeva reached down to help Agis into the wagon. Once the nobleman was inside, he helped Sadira up, and behind her came a steady stream of gladiators. Soon the platform was crowded with Tyrian warriors, all coughing and gasping from the thick smoke. The mul directed a few up the ladders to eliminate any survivors on the higher decks, then motioned for his friends and the others to follow him through the back doorway.
After descending half a dozen steps, they found themselves in a corridor where the smoke was not so thick. On the walls hung a series of nets. Each held a glass ball that swung in time to the rhythmical sway of the wagon, casting a flickering green light over the floor.
The hall ran a dozen yards to both the right and left, then turned toward the front of the wagon. The mul motioned for the first squad of gladiators to follow him and his companions into the narrow hall. “Tell those behind you to go the other way,” he ordered.
They started down the corridor at a cautious jog. Upon rounding the first corner, Rikus came face-to-face with ten Urikites carrying leather fire-blankets. The mul cut down the first three before they could reach for their weapons, but not before they screamed an alarm. The rest fell into a deep slumber as one of Sadira’s spells dropped a blue cloud of magical powder over their heads.
“Easier than I thought,” Rikus observed. “Maybe we’ll take this argosy back to Tyr as a battle prize.”
Agis shook his head, saying, “Your victory declaration is hasty. The battle just grew more challenging.”
The mul faced forward to see a hulking thri-kreen stomping toward him. The huge insect-man stood so tall that his short antennae brushed the ceiling, and as he moved forward his yellow carapace knocked the glowing balls from both walls. He held weapons in three of his four arms-a whip, an obsidian short sword, and a gythka, a short pole-arm with blades of crystal rock at both ends.
“Sadira?” Neeva asked hopefully.
“I can’t do anything without killing us, too,” the sorceress answered.
“Give me some room,” Rikus said.
“I’ll aid you with the Way,” Agis said, motioning the rest of the group back around the corner.
“I’d appreciate that.” Rikus gave the noble a nervous grin, then added, “Not that I need help.”
Despite his brave words, the mul shared his companions’ concern. As menacing as the thri-kreen’s four arms and weapons were, the beast’s mouth posed the real danger. In his days as gladiator, he had fought many mantis-warriors, and he knew that if he allowed the thing to so much as nip him with a mandible, the beast’s saliva would paralyze him.
The thri-kreen waded through the blue cloud of Sadira’s sleep spell without suffering the slightest hint of drowsiness. The mul set his cahulaks to whirling in an interweaving pattern, then calmly awaited his foe’s approach.
With little hesitation, the mantis-warrior jabbed the tip of his gythka at Rikus, also lashing out with his whip. With one cahulak, the mul knocked the gythka aside and allowed the thri-kreen’s whip to wrap itself around his other cahulak. Rikus stepped forward, moving into striking range for his weapons. The thri-kreen leveled a short sword at Rikus’s throat, and the mul ducked in time to keep the beast from lopping his head off. Before Rikus could recover, the thri-kreen’s clacking mandibles descended toward his neck.
Rikus dropped to his back and kicked upward with his heel, catching the mantis-warrior square in the thorax. The blow would have smashed a man’s chest, but it hardly even rocked the thri-kreen. After a momentary pause, the chattering mandibles continued their descent, dripping saliva over the mul’s face. Heart pounding in fear, Rikus swung both cahulaks at his foe’s bulging eyes.
The mul’s reach fell short and the bone blades smashed into the thing’s snout, barely scratching the beast’s chitinous armor. Nevertheless, the attack gave the thri-kreen pause, and he retracted his head, moving his vulnerable eyes out of Rikus’s range. The mul hammered his cahulaks at the carapace on his foe’s chest, driving the huge insect off him.