Caelum turned to Jaseela, his eyes still confident of victory. “What do you think?”
The noblewoman shook her head. “It’s a good plan,” she said. “But not if it assures victory at the price of integrity. I say no.”
The dwarf frowned at her. “You can’t mean that.”
When Jaseela nodded, Caelum looked to Neeva. She stood several yards beyond the noblewoman.
Neeva avoided the dwarf’s gaze by looking down the mountainside. A great cloud of ash had risen between the leaders and their troops, obscuring their view of the advance. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the battle.
“What about Caelum’s plan?” Rikus pressed. He knew what her answer would be, but if the dwarf did not hear it from her lips he would not be satisfied.
Neeva faced the mul with pleading eyes. “Don’t do this, Rikus.”
“You’ve got to answer,” the mul said.
Neeva glared at him for a moment, then softened her expression and looked to Caelum. “Your river would save lives in the long run, but we just can’t execute a hundred of our own warriors.”
Caelum jaw’s fell. “Why are you siding with Rikus?” he demanded. “My plan is good-”
“You heard her answer. That’s the end of it,” the mul insisted, enjoying the dwarf’s disappointment. “Now join your warriors. We’ve got a fight to win.”
With that, Rikus drew his sword and led the way toward the base of the mountain. The others followed, descending the slope in a series of great leaps. Each time they landed, their feet sank deep into the ash. They then slid a few feet before launching themselves down the hill again.
The two subcommanders that Rikus trusted most, Neeva and Jaseela, went toward the flanks. He and Gaanon charged to the center to lead the handpicked company of gladiators that would spearhead the attack, with the templars to their left and the dwarves to their right.
After more than a minute of rapid descent, Rikus and Gaanon entered the billowing gray cloud behind their warriors. The mul immediately began to cough and choke, his mouth coated with dry, bitter ash. The fine grit blocked out the weak light of the moons, and everything went black. Even Rikus’s dwarven sight was of little use, for it could not penetrate the airborne soot. The only heat emanation he could see was a white glow coming from somewhere deep below the cinder-covered surface of the volcano.
Within a few steps, the mul and the half-giant cleared the worst part of the ash cloud and found themselves in the midst of the Tyrian line, which continued to descend in a steady march. Followed closely by Gaanon, Rikus passed through the tangled ranks, his superstitious gladiators scrambling to move aside before he brushed against them. Twice the mul had to stifle sharp responses as he overheard someone whisper, “Murdering sorcerer!”
When he slipped out of the crowd, Rikus saw he had almost reached the bottom of the hill. Two dozen steps away, the cinders spilled off the mountain in great fan-shaped heaps more than thirty feet high. Guthay, the larger of Athas’s flaxen moons, lit the southern sides of the cinder heaps in brilliant yellow light. The northern sides, lit by smaller Ral, seemed almost dark by comparison, with the pale, milky glow washing over their gentle slopes.
Beyond the ash fans, the terrain became a jumble, with the tips of sharp, jagged boulders protuding from a shoal of black shadows. A few yards into the murkiness stood the triple-ranked silhouettes of a Urikite line, the yellow crests of Hamanu’s lion gleaming brightly on most of their dark tunics, and the red double-headed Serpent of Lubar glimmering more faintly on the rest.
Though he was not surprised to find the Urikites waiting for his attack, Rikus was immediately struck by the lack of archers and slingers in the army. All three ranks were armed with long spears angled toward the approaching Tyrians, with black shields slung over their free arms and obsidian short swords dangling from their belts.
“Something’s wrong,” Rikus observed, stopping at the top of an ash heap. The Tyrian warriors halted behind the mul, awaiting his order in intense silence. “Maetan’s not stupid. He can’t think his soldiers will beat our gladiators in hand-to-hand combat.”
“He’s made mistakes before,” said Gaanon.
“Not this obvious,” Rikus answered, running his eyes along his foe’s ranks.
There was no time to count, but the enemy line was nearly as long as that formed by the fifteen hundred warriors in Rikus’s legion. Considering that the Urikites stood three deep, the mul estimated that Maetan had more than four thousand troops. That number did not include any reinforcments hiding in the darkness beyond the lines.
As Rikus studied the Urikite lines, his warriors began to whisper and mutter to each other. Thanks to the Scourge, he heard every word they said.
“What’s he waiting for-his skeletons?”
“He’s giving them time to think about what we’re going to do to them-or about what they’re going to do to us.”
“Look at how many there are! We’ll never kill them all.”
Realizing that the longer he waited, the more nervous his warriors would grow, the mul pointed his sword toward the Urikite line. “For Tyr!” he bellowed.
“For Tyr!” thundered the warriors.
His ears ringing from his legion’s war cry, Rikus led the way down the ash heap. His warriors’ footfalls raised a choking cloud of ash that robbed them of breath and left them with hardly enough air to keep their lungs filled.
By the time Rikus stepped onto the broken ground of the delta, his ears had stopped ringing. Despite the soot coating their throats and clogging their lungs, his men were still screaming, promising death to the Urikites and despair to their families.
Rikus paid their yells no attention, for the Scourge also brought another voice to his ears-a much more sinister voice, speaking in the hushed tones of a magical incantation. “In the mighty name of King Hamanu, I command the glass rock to rise before our enemies!”
“Magic!” Rikus shouted. “Maetan has templars.”
“Isn’t it enought that he outnumbers us?” Gaanon cried.
Before the mul could answer, a hissing, crackling noise sounded from the enemy line. A long spike of black glass shot from the ground, and Rikus stopped just short of impaling himself on it. Screams of pain and anguish filled the night as Tyrians were gored by the rock. Those not killed outright by the jagged shards of obsidian had their toes and feet sliced to bloody ribbons.
A loud rasp sounded beneath the mul’s feet, and he jumped backward in time to avoid being sliced by a razor-sharp plate of black glass emerging from the ground. He retreated up the ash heap to gain a better vantage point and saw that the templar’s barricade of obsidian had brought his legion to a halt. Most of his warriors were staring at the strange rampart in dumbfounded silence, although a few were cursing and groaning as they vainly attempted to slip between the jagged splinters. In other places, the jingle of the shattered obsidian rang out as more cautious warriors tried to smash a path to their opponents.
“Call them back,” Rikus ordered, pointing at the brave Tyrians who were trying to press the attack. “We’re going to have to go around.”
While Gaanon sent messengers to relay the order, Rikus turned his attention to his left flank. A short distance away, the enemy’s barricade curled toward the mountain, forming a large pen with a steep slope at its back. From what the mul could see, Jaseela’s company stood outside the pen. Fortunately the noblewoman had been wise enough to halt her advance when the rest of the legion stopped moving. Rikus sent a messenger with word to clear a passage through the curved end of the barricade.
Next, Rikus faced Neeva’s end of the line. There, he saw that the barricade gradually grew lower and less menacing, disappearing entirely just beyond Caelum’s dwarves. Neeva’s company was lost in the shadows spilling out of the canyon, but Rikus could hear the sounds of battle tolling in the darkness.