“Where are we?” asked Neeva.
Rikus glanced over his shoulder to see the female gladiator coming after him. Behind her were close to fifty warriors.
“Templar quarter, I think,” Rikus answered, pointing to a set of crooked lines on a doorjamb. “That looks like writing to me, and only the nobles and templars are allowed to read.”
“This isn’t a noble borough, that’s certain,” Neeva agreed. “No lord would stand for having his house look like everyone else’s.
“Shouldn’t we go the other way, then?” asked Caelum. The dwarf was moving up from the rear of the line. “Maetan said the book was in the townhouse. Surely, that isn’t in the templar quarter.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t come with us,” Rikus said, scowling at the dwarf. “I might-uh-lose my temper again.”
“I’ll take my chances,” the dwarf answered, stepping into line behind Neeva. “If Neeva is here, then this is were I belong.”
“Have it your way,” Rikus said, shrugging.
He turned down the nearest alley and started toward the wall, confident that, in the templar quarter, there would be at least one set of stairs leading to the top of the wall. The narrow lane ran between neat rows of square windows and was crossed every fifty feet or so by a larger avenue. The tidy structure lining the streets were painted identically: the two lower stories in yellow and the upper in blood red. Rikus could not imagine how the inhabitants avoided getting lost in this grid of identical buildings.
The district appeared deserted, with no sign of a templar, slave, or any other citizen. Nevertheless, Rikus knew there were plenty of Urikites about, for he could hear their footsteps echoing down the lanes and occasionally caught the hiss of a whispered conversation.
A few yards after what seemed the hundredth cross-street, the voices suddenly became so clear that the mul swore he was standing only a few yards from them. Nevertheless, none of the templars were visible in any direction.
Rikus heard several of them call upon Hamanu’s name and realized that it no longer mattered whether he could see them or not. “Magic!” he yelled.
The air itself flashed brilliant white, then claps of thunder rolled down the alleys from all directions. A tremendous blast of air struck the mul from behind, sweeping him off his feet. As he slammed to the ground, he heard warriors behind him screaming and pieces of mudbrick clattering down upon the cobblestones.
When Rikus jumped back to his feet, he was flabbergasted by what he saw. Where there had been vacant alley a moment before, a chest-high wall of thorns blocked the way. Peering over the top of this barrier were six yellow-robed templars, some empty-handed and others armed with crossbows.
“Where’d they all come from?” Neeva gasped.
Rikus hazarded a glance over his shoulder. Behind him, in the intersection where most of the templars’ spells had struck, the charred corpses of twenty gladiators now lay scattered across a dozen smoking craters.
“They were invisible!” Rikus snarled.
Loud clacks sounded from all directions as the templars fired their crossbows down the alleys. Rikus spun around in time to see several dark flashes sailing at him, then felt a series of sharp thumps in his midsection as the bolts struck his Belt of Rank. When he did not fall, the mouths of the crossbowmen fell open and they frantically began to reload their weapons.
Behind Rikus, Neeva yelled, “Caelum, no!”
The mul turned his head just enough to glimpse the dwarf slipping past Neeva’s larger form. In his raised hand, the dwarf held a dagger of crimson flame.
Little backstabber! Tamar exclaimed. You were correct. He is the spy!
Rikus lashed out with a rear stomp kick that took Caelum square in the chest. The dwarf’s eyes opened like red saucers, and he sailed past Neeva, crashing to the ground more than two yards away. His hand opened and the fiery dagger fell to the ground. It slowly rolled away, changing from a weapon to a flaming ball.
The fiery ball began to pulsate, then erupted into a blazing sphere that filled the narrow alleyway from top to bottom. It roared away down the lane, leaving nothing but ash and cinder in its path.
“You tricked me!” Rikus cried, trying to shut out the screams of the dying warriors.
The dwarf must die, Tamar replied simply. Finish him, or there will be more accidents.
“No!” Rikus cried.
He turned and charged away, leaving behind Caelum, Neeva, and another dozen dazed survivors. In front of him, a pair of Urikites called upon Hamanu’s magic, then each hurled a glowing pebble in his direction. The stones streaked straight at the mul, trailing flames and smoke.
Rikus’s stomach knotted with fear, and he let out a panicked bellow. Although the mul had worn the Belt of Rank through enough battles to know its enchantment would protect him from normal arrows, he had no idea whether it would shield him from the fiery missiles now streaking at him.
The rocks struck him square in the midsection and exploded. The impacted knocked the mul off his feet, hurled him a dozen steps backward, then dropped him roughly to the street. His breath blasted from his lungs and a sharp pain shot though his back. Rikus opened his mouth to scream, then choked on the stench of sulfur as a storm of golden fire erupted less than a foot over his face.
As the yellow blaze roiled above him, the mul feared he was going to burst into flames himself. The inferno vaporized his robe and seared his bronzed skin. Rikus closed his eyes against the brillant glare, convinced that they would never open again.
Nevertheless, the glow died away a mere instant later, and the mul was surprised to find that he remained completely conscious. His back ached from his tailbone to his neck, his body stung as though it had been scrubbed raw with a whetstone, and the inside of his lungs burned from breathing hot, sulfurous air. To Rikus, the pain hardly mattered. If the belt had not protected him from all the effects of the blasts, it had at least stopped the fire rocks from penetrating his flesh and erupting inside his body.
Roaring his battle cry, the mul resumed his charge. The stunned Urikites barely managed to raise their crossbows before Rikus reached the thorn barrier. He threw himself over head-first. As he somersaulted through the air, he swung his sword at the nearest templar and separated the woman’s head from her shoulders. He landed in a rolling fall and lashed at a pair of legs concealed beneath a yellow robe, then shouted in pain as his wounded shoulder rolled over the hard stones paving the street.
Rikus came up dizzy, his vision blurred and his mind numbed in agony. It did not matter, for he was now fighting on instinct and rage. Something yellow moved in front of him. He swung his sword, and it collapsed to the ground.
A foot scraped the stones at his back. The mul tucked the blade under his armpit and thrust it backward. A Urikite screamed and died.
“In the name of Haman-”
Rikus’s foot drove the air from the man’s lungs in midsentence, smashing several ribs over his heart. The templar fell, clutching his chest.
For a moment, the mul could not find the last templar, then heard a frightened woman’s labored breathing as she fled down the street. Shifting the Scourge to his bad arm, Rikus pulled a dagger from the belt of the man he had just killed. Calmly, he turned and threw it.
The blade disappeared between the woman’s shoulder-blades, sending her sprawling face-first onto the ground.
A loud crack sounded from the other side of the thorn wall. Rikus looked over his shoulder in time to see the orange-white tail of a fiery whip lash down on the barricade. It cut a smoking swath through the hedge, then Neeva and a handful of gladiators poured through the gap.