With their warriors exhausted from what had become a thirty-hour forced march, Rikus’s lieutenants had counseled him to avoid a fight and flee into the mountains. Recognizing the wisdom of their advice, the mul had led his soldiers up the narrow canyon-and straight into this dead-end crater. To leave, they would have to fight their way past the Urikites below. Normally, the prospect would not have concerned the mul, but the situation was worse than it would have been in Makla. No more than a dozen gladiators could attack from the canyon at a time, and they would be surrounded on all sides by the entire Urikite force.
A hollow clatter sounded from the other side of the wall. Rikus turned to see Neeva carefully picking her way through the tangle of bones covering the crater floor. In one hand, she carried a waterskin and in the other an obsidian short sword. Skewered on the weapon’s black blade was a round cactus about the size of Rikus’s head.
Neeva stopped at the base of the wall, near the rope the sentries had rigged to make scaling the barrier easier. “How about helping me up?” she called. Her eyes were drooping and puffy, the result of a sleepless night of marching.
Rikus lay on his stomach and took the waterskin and the sword so Neeva could climb the rope.
“What brings you up here?” Rikus asked, returning the sword with the cactus. The mul asked the question in his warmest tone of voice, for he hoped that Neeva’s presence meant she had finally decided to forgive him.
“I came to see you,” Neeva said.
As Rikus resumed his seat, Neeva glanced suspiciously at the wound on his chest. “Does that ruby relieve you of the need to sleep?”
Rikus pulled his robe over the sore. There was little point in trying to hide the gem anymore, but it bothered the mul when superstitious gladiators-especially Neeva-paid too much attention to the notorious glowing stone.
“I still need to sleep,” Rikus finally answered. “But right now, I have other things to do.”
“Like worry about Maetan and the Urikites?” Neeva asked, sitting at his side.
“I don’t know if worry is the right word.”
“It’s close enough,” Neeva said, a wry smile on her lips. She pulled her dagger and began chopping the red, finger-length spines off the cactus.
“Where’d you get that?” Rikus asked.
“Drewet asked me to give it to you,” Neeva answered. “She wanted you to know she isn’t frightened by your glowing ruby.”
“That’s good news,” Rikus said, relieved. “At least one gladiator still trusts me-and a pretty one at that.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Neeva warned, slapping Rikus on the leg with the flat of her dagger blade. A jeering grin crept across her lips, then she added, “I guess you haven’t changed so much after all.”
“Me?” Rikus mocked, gestering at Neeva. “You’re the one who’s been different. You’d think something happened between you and Caelum while I was gone!”
By the way Neeva’s face fell, he knew he had touched upon a tender subject. She looked away and chopped the last of the spikes off the ball, leaving nothing but a stubble-covered husk with a leathery skin. “I didn’t come up here to talk about Caelum-or myself.”
“All right, what did you come to talk about?” Rikus demanded, holding his temper in check.
Neeva took the stripped cactus husk off her sword, then cut a small hole in the top. “I just wanted to say that you saved our lives back in Makla. Jaseela thinks so, too, and so does Caelum.”
“That makes three out of a thousand,” Rikus said, gesturing over his shoulder at the rest of the legion. “Everyone else thinks I led them into trap.”
“Not everyone,” Neeva answered, hardly glancing up. “You have the support of the templars.”
“The templars?” the mul asked, shaking his head in amazement. “You’re joking.”
Neeva held the opened cactus toward him. “You know how templars are. They respect strength,” she said. “When you punished Styan, you proved that you were stronger than him.”
“And the dwarves?” Rikus asked. He plunged his hand into the leathery husk and felt dozens of little warm bodies slithering through his fingers.
“Dwarves are dwarves,” Neeva shrugged. “They’re with you as long as you work toward their focus.”
Rikus pulled a handful of white, scale-covered grubs out of the ball. “Nice and juicy,” he said picking out a thumb-sized wiggler and squeezing off its brown head.
Neeva sheathed her dagger, then placed the cactus husk in her lap. “It’s the gladiators you have a problem with. They don’t like magic they can’t understand. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to explain that glowing ruby in your chest. Why don’t you start with me?”
Rikus avoided an answer by placing the headless grub between his teeth and sucking out the insides. It had a rich, gamey flavor a little too sweet for the mul’s taste, but in the Athasian desert a hungry man ate what was available.
Neeva pulled a handful of grubs out of the thornball. As she popped the head off one, she said, “If you won’t tell me about the gem, then tell me how we’re going to get out of here?”
“I don’t know yet,” the mul admitted. “That’s what I was up here thinking about.”
“At least you’re still honest about something with me,” Neeva made a sour face as she consumed her first wiggler, then gestured for Rikus to pass the water.
They ate in silence for several moments, tossing the empty grub skins into the lime-crusted rocks at the base of the wall. Finally Neeva suggested, “Maybe we should ask the others if they have any ideas.”
Rikus shook his head. “And risk what little confidence the gladiators have left in me?” he asked. “Let me think about it for a while before I give Styan another chance to cause trouble.”
Neeva remained thoughtful for a moment, then scraped her hand around inside the cactus and emerged with the last dozen grubs. She gave half to Rikus, then tossed the empty husk into the rocks. “Let’s finish these and go for a walk.”
No, you’re not, hissed a voice from deep inside him. There will be no matings between you and any human, half-dwarf.
Before the mul could respond to Tamar, Neeva smacked Rikus lightly in the stomach. “I meant we should sneak down the canyon and come up with some sort of plan,” she said, giving him a sad smile. “I’m not going to lie with you any more-at least not until things are better with us.”
“What things?” the mul demanded, checking to make sure his robe remained over Tamar’s ruby. “What do you want from me?”
“Three things that, apparently, you can’t give me,” Neeva answered. “Trust, devotion, and love.”
Inwardly, Rikus cursed Tamar for coming between him and his fighting partner. To Neeva, he said, “I do trust you. When this is over, you’ll understand.”
“Perhaps that’s true,” Neeva allowed. “But what about love and devotion? You’re not devoted to any woman, not even Sadira.”
“What do you call our success as a matched pair?” Rikus demanded. “We’ve even stayed together since we killed Kalak. If that’s not devotion, I don’t know what is.”
Neeva looked into the mul’s eyes and smiled patiently. “Devotion is when someone else’s happiness matters to you more than your own,” she said. “What you’re thinking of is loyality. You and I will always have that much.”
Rikus was silent for a time, then asked, “It’s the dwarf, isn’t it?”
Neeva dropped her gaze. “Caelum is there if I want him.”
The mere idea is disgusting, Tamar hissed. I should punish her for even considering it.
Ignoring the wraith, Rikus said, “You don’t have to feel guilty about Caelum. I understand-a heart is capable of loving more than one person at a time.”
“Now you sound like Sadira,” Neeva said bitterly. “She’s wrong. No one can love more than one person at a time-at least not the way I want to be loved.”
“So where does that leave us?” Rikus asked.
“That’s up to you,” Neeva answered. “I’m still here if you want me-but be sure you know what that means.”