And to the dwarves, as well, the wraith reponded. I require further reassurances.
Hamanu will kill me! How will you find the book then?
If you wish my help, swear on Neeva’s life, Tamar answered, ignoring his question. Otherwise, I will allow Hamanu to slay you-and your legion perishes.
As Rikus continued to descend, Hamanu smiled, revealing four large canines and a mouthful of needlelike incisors.
I swear, Rikus answered.
A sick feeling of guilt came over the mul, but he did not try to rationalize his duplicity. The time to choose between the two promises he had made would come later-if he lived long enough for it to come at all.
Be ready, Tamar said.
Rikus felt an ominous pang over his heart as Tamar struggled to free him. Again, he tried to swing his sword, but to no more effect than the first attempt. He simply continued to sink toward Hamanu at a torpid pace. Still grinning, the sorcerer-king stepped effortlessly from beneath Rikus and moved his steel staff into a guarding position.
He’s too strong! Tamar reported, her voice now alarmed and weak from exertion. You must help. See yourself on the ground, where you should be if you fell normally.
Rikus shifted his gaze to the cobblestones at the sorcerer-king’s feet and pictured himself standing there. A surge of energy rose from deep within himself. Again he felt the eerie pang over his heart as Tamar mustered her own energies.
Suddenly the mul found himself lying on the street. He did not recall breaking free of Hamanu’s mental grip, or feeling his skull crack into the stones, or even the sensation of falling as he covered the last few feet between him and the ground. In one instant, he was simply lying with his face pressed against the hot cobblestones, his vision a white blur, his body washed in agony.
Rikus rolled onto his good side and saw that he had landed between Hamanu and the nervous war-templar. More than a dozen startled half-giants stared over the two men’s shoulders with shocked expressions. Several of the guards raised their spears to attack, but the sorcerer-king stopped them with a wave of his hand.
Hamanu used his staff to gesture at the war-templar. “Niscet, the slave is yours to kill.”
With a pale face, the war-templar reached for the steel sword hanging from his belt.
“No, Niscet,” the king said. “With your hands.”
“Mighty King, the gladiator is armed. I can’t kill him without a weapon!”
“No?” Hamanu replied, his handsome features animated by the glow of brutal delight. “What a pity for you.”
Rikus rolled toward Niscet, slicing upward with his sword. The blade opened a long gash in the templar’s abdomen, slicing through the scale armor hidden beneath his yellow robe. The templar screamed in pain and, as the mul crashed into his legs, fell face-first on top of Rikus.
The mul scrambled from beneath the dying man, then struggled to his feet. As he whirled around, he glimpsed K’kriq and several gladiators leaping from the wall. Then Rikus found himself facing a pair of half-giants who had moved forward to protect Hamanu.
“Leave this pathetic would-be regicide to me,” said the sorcerer-king, stepping between the two guards. He fixed his yellow eyes on the mul, then asked, “Rikus, is it not?”
For a reply, Rikus jumped forward, swinging the Scourge at the sorcerer-king’s neck. A few inches shy of its target, the blade rang out as though it had struck stone. A shimmering blue aura flared around Hamanu’s body, and red and black sparks sputtered high into the air as the mul’s magical sword passed through the barrier. Rikus yelled in triumph, already relishing the sight of the sorcerer-king’s head flying off his neck.
The mul’s cry fell abruptly silent as the Scourge reached Hamanu’s flesh. The sorcerer-king glanced down at the blade, then calmly placed a finger under it and moved it aside. There was a thin line of blackish red blood where Rikus’s blow had gently touched Hamanu, but otherwise the king remained uninjured.
“Answer me!” Hamanu boomed.
The sorcerer-king’s voice roared over Rikus like thunder. The mul’s ears, made more sensitive by the Scourge’s magic, reverberated with agony. Rikus stumbled away, stunned, his head filled with terrible, sharp pain. He did not stop until he reached the center of the street, where he felt a pair of spear-points in his back. He glanced up and saw the snarling faces of two half-giants looming over him.
Hamanu followed the mul, his fangs bared and his angry golden eyes fixed on Rikus’s cringing form. “You are Rikus, are you not?” he demanded.
The mul nodded.
Behind the sorcerer-king, Rikus’s gladiators continued to pour over the wall, screaming ferocious war cries and leaping into battle with the Imperial Guard. Already the Tyrians had beaten the half-giants away from the wall and were slowly pressing the fight toward Hamanu.
For a moment, the sorcerer-king regarded Rikus with a look of bemusement. Finally, he shook his head. “You are a daring fool, Tyrian. There was a time when I would have been amused by such audacity-but no longer.”
That said, Hamanu muttered an incantation. Rikus felt a surge of energy being pulled from his inner being, the same as when Sadira used her cane to cast a spell. A queasy feeling of horror came over the gladiator, for he knew what the sensation meant: in preparation for using his dragon magic, the sorcerer-king was drawing power from Rikus’s body. The mul’s knees began to tremble, and his breath came in labored gasps. Deep within the obsidian ball that capped Hamanu’s steel staff, a ghostly red light flickered to life.
A surge of anger washed over Rikus as he realized how completely in Hamanu’s power he was. Determined not to stand idly by while his life drained away, the mul sprang away from the spears at his back. At the same time, he swung the Scourge at the sorcerer-king’s staff, severing it before the half-giants or Hamanu realized what had happened. The obsidian globe dropped to the ground, shattering into a dozen pieces. There was a brilliant flash of red, then a glowing wisp of scarlet smoke rose from the shards and writhed about, sizzling and hissing like a mad serpent.
The two half-giants cried out in astonishment, but were not too stunned to jab their lances at the mul. Rikus parried with the Scourge of Rkard and shattered the shafts before they reached him. Hoping that a thrust would find more purchase in Hamanu’s flesh than had his first slash, the mul whipped his sword around and drove the tip at his foe’s heart. The sorcerer-king merely lifted his gaze from the fragmented obsidian globe and glared at the attacking Tyrian.
As the blade neared Hamanu’s body, the sorcerer-king’s aura again flashed blue. The Scourge drove through the magical barrier in a spray of hot sparks-then give a loud twang as it reached its target and stopped cold. The blade flexed like an archer’s supple bow.
Rikus did not even see the sorcerer-king’s counterstrike. He merely felt something hit his jaw with the force of a half-giant’s hammer. Everything went black, and the mul’s knees came perilously close to buckling. Hamanu struck again, and this time Rikus felt each separate knuckle in the sorcerer-king’s hand. The blow knocked him off his feet and sent him sailing through the air, crashing into the half-giants whose spears he had severed. Rikus dropped to the ground at their feet, as angry as he was frightened, certain that he would soon feel their huge swords hacking him into pieces.
The blows did not come. Instead, as Rikus’s vision began to clear, he heard a mighty groan rumbling over the avenue. Near the wall, the battle raging between his gladiators and the half-giants came to a halt. Terrified shrieks and astonished gasps filled the air.
Rikus looked in Hamanu’s direction and cried out in shock. In the sorcerer-king’s place was a monstrous cross between Hamanu and a giant lion. Standing twice the height of a half-giant, the creature had a powerful body covered in golden fir, a long tail ending in a huge tuft, and the powerful rear legs of a great cat. The beast’s arms resembled those of a man, though the muscles were sinuous and the hands clawed. Around his neck hung a long golden mane, and atop it sat Hamanu’s head, his fang-filled mouth pushed out to form a small muzzle.