“I cannot believe a commander of your stature fears a mob of slaves,” Tarkla said, keeping her blue eyes focused on her village. Many years of outpost life had lined the old woman’s leathery skin with deep furrows, and the cares of her office had etched a permanent scowl into the sagging folds of her face. “You outnumber them by almost three-to-one.”
Maetan’s pale lip twisted into a sneer. “Tarkla, have you ever fought gladiators?”
The old woman shook her head. “Of course not.”
“They fight like wild beasts, not soldiers. The only way to destroy the Tyrian slaves is to corner them and starve them into attacking us-on our terms,” the mindbender said. “Leave the battle tactics to me.”
“Where my village is concerned, I leave nothing to you.” she said. “You claimed that the enemy was so numerous we could not possibly defend Makla. Clearly you were mistaken. It would have been an easy matter for us to hold them off from inside until reinforcements arrived.”
“There are no reinforcements,” Maetan said. He turned his body slightly away from the governor, so that she could not see his hand drifting toward the hilt of his dagger.
“But your messengers-”
“Went only to my family’s estate, so the Tyrian scouts would believe I was sending for more soldiers,” the mindbender said. “Since my family army is already here, there will be no more help.”
“You sacrificed my village for nothing?” Tarkla gasped. “The king shall hear of this!”
“No, he shall not,” Maetan said, silently slipping his weapon from his sheath. “I have already lost one imperial legion. If I am to spare my family further humiliation, I must destroy the Tyrian slaves without risking another.”
Tarkla frowned. “You would sacrifice Makla to protect your honor?” she asked, stepping away.
Before she could move out of reach, Maetan caught her and plunged his dagger into her heart. “It was unavoidable,” he answered.
The village was remarkably quite. A handful of Urikite half-giants and several dozen village soldiers had fallen just inside the stockade, but there was little real sign of battle. The templars and most of Rikus’s gladiators were rushing toward the center of the village, eager to take control of the water supply as fast as possible.
“Something’s wrong here,” Rikus said, studying the relative calm.
“It’s too easy,” Gaanon agreed.
The mul led his small group of gladiators toward the main gate. Along the way, he saw perhaps a dozen skirmishes beween his warriors and village guardsmen, but there was little sign of the fierce battle he had expected. A few minutes later, they reached their goal without incident. There, Rikus found Caelum and his dwarves stoically standing guard just out of arrow range of the stone gatehouse.
“What’s happening here?” Rikus asked. He could see frightened faces peering out of every arrow loop in the two-story building.
“When the alarm sounded, most of the garrison rushed to defend the gatehouse,” Caelum answered.
“They didn’t count on your sword and my strength,” Gaanon surmised, glancing at the breaches he and the mul had opened together.
“Perhaps,” Caelum answered, keeping his eye fixed on the gatehouse. “But it doesn’t seem to me that the entire village garrison should fit inside there.”
“It shouldn’t,” Rikus said.
“I’ve sent a few of my brethren to search the rest of the village,” Caelum said.
“Good,” Rikus replied distractedly. “Send half of your men to get some water-”
“But we’re watching the gatehouse,” Caelum objected.
“That’s why you’re only sending half of them,” Rikus answered, shaking his head at the dwarf’s single-mindedness. “When your scouts report back, send me word of what they found. I’ll be at the cistern.”
The mul turned toward the center of the village himself, but did not go directly to the square. Instead, he took his time, poking his head into barracks and opening slave pens as he went. The barracks showed every sign of being inhabited, but the soldiers’ uniforms and weapons were all missing, as if the garrison had been summoned away on short notice. Most of the slave pens, too, were empty, but Rikus finally came to one where a handful of wretches with heavily bandage hands and feet were cowering in fear.
“Come out of there,” Rikus called, lowering the exit ladder to them. “You’re free now.”
The slaves regarded him with suspicious glances.
“We’re from Tyr,” Gaanon explained. “We’ve captured Makla, so come out!”
The haggard slaves glanced at each other, then slowly began to hobble up the ladder. When they left the pit, they kept their eyes focused on the ground, as they would in the presence of their overseers.
Rikus pointed toward the nearest barracks. “Go and take what you need from there,” he said. “After that, you’re free to leave the village or join our army-it’s your choice.”
The slaves looked up, their eyes betraying confusion and disbelief. It was hardly the jubilant sort of reaction Rikus expected from newly freed men and women, but he could understand why they might be shocked. In the pits, they had no way of knowing that the village had been invaded and their captors driven off-especially since there had been few sounds of battle to suggest what was happening.
The last slave was a young half-elf with an intelligent spark to his pale green eyes. Rikus caught him by the shoulder, then asked, “Why is the village so empty?”
The fellow shrugged. “Last night, when we returned with our quarry bags, Maetan of Family Lubar was here with a big army. During the night, he took it, along with most of the garrison, and left. They sent the quarry gangs into the hills.”
“Why did they leave you behind?” demanded Gaanon, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
In answer, the half-elf pointed to the bloody bandages on his feet. “After seven days in the Smoking Crown, it’s all you can do to hobble to the water plaza.”
Rikus paid little attention to the exchange, for he was too busy cursing under his breath. Maetan had again anticipated him, pulling his army out of the village just in time to keep it from being trapped against the boiling lake.
“The spy!” hissed the mul.
His thoughts leaped immediately to Styan, but he did not understand when Maetan would have had a chance to convert the templar to his cause. As much as Rikus did not want to admit it, it seemed more likely that the spy was someone who had been in contact with the mindbender. That left Caelum, his dwarves, or even K’kriq as possibilities-though the mul refused to believe it was the thri-kreen. He was tempted to blame Styan outright, but in the end Rikus decided to bide his time and keep a close watch on all the possibilities.
Once he had reached this decision, Rikus instructed his gladiators to search the pens for more abandoned slaves, then led Gaanon to the central square. There was no sign of a battle there, either. Many of his gladiators were massed around the basin, pushing and shoving at each other in an effort to get at the water. Those that had already had their fill were lounging around the edges of the plaza, dozing contentedly or joking rudely. Neeva and Jaseela were on the pier, turning the water-screw themselves in order to keep the cistern filled.
In front of the closest marble mansion, Styan stood in the midst of a dozen casks of wine. Though Caelum had surreptitiously used his magic to heal the wounds the templar had suffered from his lashing, there were dark stains on the old man’s cassock where some of the cuts had reopened and were seeping blood. Nevertheless, Styan seemed in good spirits, filling mugs of wine and giving them to his templars to pass out to eager gladiators.
Rikus found the scene as unsettling as he had the quarry slave’s report on Maetan’s sudden departure. There was a festival spirit hanging over the whole square that seemed out of place in the middle of what should have been a very serious battle.