The great man-lion waved off the half-giants that were looming over Rikus, then fixed his golden eyes on the mul himself. “There is a difference between daring and insolence,” he growled. “Now I shall exact the price one pays for confusing the two.”
SEVENTEEN
HAMANU’S WRATH
Hamanu stepped toward Rikus. The mul rose, swinging the Scourge in desperation. The blade struck the great man-lion in the leg, bouncing off the thick hide with a muted thud. Screaming in frustration, the gladiator lifted his sword again.
Before Rikus could strike, the sorcerer-king kneeled on top of the gladiator, forcing him to the ground and pinning him in place.
Hamanu peered down at the mul’s face, yellow beads of hot acid dripping from his fangs. He touched the talon of one finger, as long and as sharp as any dagger, to Rikus’s throat. “Did you think I would be as easy to kill as that doddering fool who ruled Tyr?”
For the first time in his memory, Rikus felt utterly helpless. His life was completely in Hamanu’s hands. Pinned as he was, the mul could not even fight back and die honorably.
“I will teach you what happens to the those who resist my will,” Hamanu continued.
The beast closed his hand around Rikus’s throat and picked him up, at the same time jamming the mul’s sword arm to his side. The king muttered an incantation, then a yellow web wrapped around Rikus so tightly that he could hardly breathe.
This time, the spell drained no life from the gladiator’s body. Without the obsidian orb that Rikus had smashed earlier, the sorcerer-king could not use dragon magic to draw his energy from animals. Instead, the mul knew, Hamanu had to draw it from plants, as normal sorcerers did. Still, Rikus doubted that the lack of dragon magic would seriously hamper the ruler of Urik. The fields surrounding the city were well tended and full of crops that Hamanu could tap for his spells.
Once Rikus was completely swaddled in the sticky web, the sorcerer-king carried him to the fortress wall. There, he tied the cocoon to a merlon, leaving the mul to hang several yards above the cobblestones.
In the street below, the battle between the Imperial Guard and the gladiators Gaanon had boosted over the wall still raged. As the mul watched, Gaanon used his hammer to crack the skull of a Urikite half-giant, while K’kriq sank his poisonous mandibles into another foe.
Rikus looked farther down the street. At the side gate leading into the slave pits, the scene was not as encouraging. Hamanu’s soldiers had driven the Tyrians back to the threshold and were once again threatening to break through into the pens. Luckily, Jaseela had been given plenty of time to move the slave companies out of the pits and into the templar quarter. Rikus couldn’t see if any plumes of smoke were yet rising from distant parts of the city, but he was encouraged by the fact that no Urikites seemed to be moving to attack the noblewoman’s companies. The mul dared to hope that, even if he could not kill Hamanu, he had at least stalled the sorcerer-king long enough for the slave revolt to take hold.
“It is my wish that you know the fate of those who followed you,” Hamanu said, glancing over his shoulder toward the battle. “Those that you do not see me kill will be left as a special gift for the Dragon.”
“Gift?” As Rikus asked the question, the cocoon cinched down on his ribs and did not expand again.
Hamanu looked back at the mul. “Yes, in the Dragon’s Nest, where you camped.”
“The Crater of Bones,” Rikus gasped. “You must leave many gifts for the Dragon.”
“Only our proper levy,” Hamanu said, a cruel smile crossing his lips.
“Levy?” the mul exclaimed. In his shock, he forgot about the cocoon-until it compressed again, and he had difficulty drawing his next breath.
The sorcerer-king trilled a laugh, his long red tongue wagging from between his fingers. “The Dragon demands a slave levy from each city, or he will extract a terrible vengeance-as the pretender Tithian will discover when he fails to pay Tyr’s allotment.”
From the sorcerer-king’s amused expression, Rikus could tell that Hamanu enjoyed tormenting him with this news. The mul endured the abuse willingly, for the longer he detained Hamanu, the better the revolt’s chances of success. “The Dragon will demand slaves from Tyr?”
Hamanu narrowed his eyes and turned to leave, saying, “You have kept me long enough.”
Before the mul could ask anything more, the sorcerer-king strode toward the battle. Immediately, Rikus tried to pull his sword arm free, but the web held him so firmly that he could not move so much as his little finger. The only result of his efforts was to constrict the web around him more tightly.
In the street below, Hamanu waded into the company of gladiators that had followed Rikus over the wall. Several of the Tyrians attacked with bone-tipped spears and obsidian battle-axes. The spears broke against his hide, the axe-heads shattered, and the beast showed no sign that he even felt the blows. The sorcerer-king counterattacked savagely, his long claws disemboweling warriors through their armor.
A stream of scarlet fire shot from the gate leading into the slave pens. Dozens of half-giants and war-templars turned to ash in a mere instant. Once the flames were gone, Neeva and Caelum charged out into the street.
“No! Go back!” Rikus cried, his heart pounding in fear. The cocoon constricted again, filling his torso with painful cramps. “You can’t stop him,” he finished weakly.
With the din of clanging weapons and screaming warriors, they did not hear him. The pair turned toward the man-lion, followed closely by a handful of dwarves and a large company of weary gladiators. Rikus watched in horror as Neeva dodged past a half-giant’s lance and knocked a few scales off his leg armor. As he reached for her, she found a seam between the guard’s massive thigh and his lower abdomen. She plunged her sword deep into the crevice, drawing an immediate spray of blood.
A stooped half-elf stepped to Neeva’s side, intercepting another half-giant who had come forward to lance her. The gladiator beat down the Urikite’s shaft, then thrust his barbed lance under the shield to rip his opponent’s knee to shreds. The half-giant had not even finished collapsing to the ground before Neeva ran a blade across his throat.
Rikus continued his efforts to work his arm free, but to little avail. He succeeded in moving the blade of his sword a fraction of inch and opened a small tear in the web. The yellow strands only cinched down and pinned the mul’s elbow more tightly against his belly.
Rikus cursed, then silently complained, What am I suppose to do?
Watch your legion die, Tamar replied. What else?
Can’t you help me? the mul pleaded. Summon the other champions, like you did in the Crater of Bones.
I could, but what good will that do? You would only attack Hamanu again-and destroy us both.
Near the entrance to the slave pens, the Tyrians formed a wedge with Neeva at the front. They started forward, leaving a wake of corpses, gladiator and half-giant alike, behind them.
In the midst of his revelry of death, Hamanu paused to look toward the sortie.
How touching, Tamar observed wryly. The fools will die trying to save you.
Not if I can help it, Rikus said. He shook his head, the only part of his body free to move from side-to-side. “Go back!” he cried, causing himself another wave of agony as the cocoon tightened.