“The commander’s wardroom,” answered Sadira.
Rikus jumped the rest of the way to the floor. “Did you kill him?” the mul asked eagerly.
“The general wasn’t there,” Neeva said, tossing the cloth to the mul. “We found this hanging over his bed.”
Rikus unfurled the pennant. It was emblazoned with the red emblem of a two-headed snake, the mouths at each end of its body gaping open to reveal a mouthful of curved fangs.
“The Serpent of Lubar,” Rikus hissed, his mood changing from victorious to murderous.
TWO
THE BLACK WALL
The scalding wind had died away, leaving the fumes from the burning argosy to rise skyward in arrow-straight trails. Rikus stood in the shade of the fortress-wagon, drinking from one of the water casks his warriors had thrown from its cargo hold. Also gathered around the keg were Neeva, Sadira, Agis, and the commanders of the legion’s three different contingents: the templar Styan, the noblewoman Jaseela, and a freed half-giant gladiator named Gaanon. The thri-kreen K’kriq waited patiently at the mul’s back, showing no interest in the water or the company.
The rest of the legion stood nearby, clustered in a hundred small assemblies of fifteen to twenty warriors. At the center of each group rested a keg of Urikite water, upon which the Tyrians were gorging themselves. Soon Rikus would give the order to drain the casks into the barren Athasian sands, and it was only natural for them to use as much of the precious liquid as they could.
“Are you mad, Rikus?” Agis snapped, throwing his wooden dipper back into the open water barrel. He waved an arm at the dead half-giants, crippled driks, and disassembled siege engines littering the valley’s red sands. “It’s one thing to burn an argosy or kill a few driks, and quite another to assault a trained legion of Urikite regulars.”
Rikus looked westward, toward the sandy hill over which the enemy’s army had disappeared a short time earlier. So far, none of the observers he had sent after the Urikites had returned, and he took their absence to mean the column was continuing toward Tyr. The mul was as distressed as he was surprised that his enemy had not stopped to fight. To him, their willingness to abandon their siege engines and the argosy suggested that they were confident they could sack Tyr without these things.
“Our attack comes from the rear,” Rikus said, his eyes narrowed in determination. “That gives us an advantage.”
“Being outnumbered five-to-one is no advantage!” Agis exclaimed. The three company commanders lowered their gazes to the packed sand of the road, wanting no part of an argument between Agis and Rikus.
Lowering his voice, Agis continued, “This has less to do with protecting Tyr than taking your petty vengeance on Family Lubar.”
“A slave’s vengeance is never petty,” said Neeva. “You’d know that if your back had ever felt the lash.”
Before the argument could continue, K’kriq pointed two chitinous arms at the sky. “Who that?” he demanded.
Rikus looked upward and gasped. There, hanging far up in the blistering pink sky, was the cloudlike head of King Tithian. It looked to be made of misty green light, though its vaporous nature did not prevent the king’s sharp features and hawkish nose from appearing anything less than distinct.
As Rikus’s companions turned to see what he was looking at, Tyrian warriors began to cry out in delighted astonishment. As they watched, the head dropped like a meteor, until it hung less than a hundred feet overhead and blocked out so much of the sky that the day faded to the purple hues of dusk. The entire legion broke into a rousing cheer that the mul knew would not soon end. Like the rest of Tyr, most gladiators credited the crafty king with freeing them. They had no knowledge of Agis’s role in forcing Tithian to issue his famous First Edict.
“Tithian! What’s he doing here?” demanded Neeva, yelling to make herself heard above the tumult.
“How did he get here?” asked Rikus. “I thought he didn’t know magic!”
“He doesn’t,” Sadira answered. She gestured at the apparition and uttered an incantation. A moment later, she added, “And that doesn’t feel like normal sorcery to me.”
“It isn’t the Way, either,” said Agis, rubbing his temples. “I can sense the presence of Tithian’s thoughts, but their power is boosted far beyond anything he’s capable of.”
Agis and Sadira studied each other with troubled expressions, while Rikus and Neeva nervously awaited their conclusion. Finally, Agis dared to speak the possibility that troubled the four. “It could be dragon magic.”
“Dragon magic? What’s that?” asked Jaseela. The silky-haired woman’s words were slurred, for, in a battle preceding Kalak’s overthrow, a half-giant had hit her in the head. Now, one hazel eye drooped low over a smashed cheekbone, her nose curled down her face like a snake’s tail, and her full lips were twisted into a lopsided frown that dipped so low it touched the broken line of her jaw.
“Dragon magic is sorcery and the Way used together,” Sadira explained.
“Tithian can’t do that-can he?” gasped Neeva.
The king spoke, preventing an answer. “Soldiers of Tyr, I have been watching,” said Tithian. His voice echoed over the battlefield like a peal of thunder, instantly silencing the warriors. “Well have you executed my plan!”
“His plan!” Rikus snorted. His remark was lost in the cheer that rose again from his legion’s ranks.
“You have struck a great blow for Tyr,” Tithian continued. “When you return you shall find your reward.”
This time, even the king’s voice could not be heard over the din of the screaming warriors.
A few moments later, the king’s thin lips began to move again, and the legion fell quickly silent. “Our enemies are foolish to return,” Tithian boomed, his beady eyes turning toward the hill. “You shall drive the Urikites before you like elves before the Dragon.”
An alarmed murmur rustled through the legion’s ranks as the warriors looked west. To Rikus’s astonishment, he saw that a high wall of absolute darkness now ran across the crest of the small hill. He had no way of telling what lay behind it, but he immediately guessed that the Urikites had returned to salvage what they could of their siege engines and the argosy.
Before the mul could give the order to drain the water casks, Tithian continued his speech. “Kill the Urikites, and remember what awaits you in Tyr!” the king cried, his radiant form dissipating into translucent wisps of yellow steam. “With the strategy I have given to Rikus, Tyr cannot lose!”
All eyes turned toward the mul.
“He didn’t tell me anything,” the mul said, speaking quietly, so only those standing next to him could hear.
“Of course not,” Agis said, his brown eyes glimmering with anger. “He’s trying to get us killed.”
“The king would not do such a thing!” objected Styan. The templar was a weary-looking man with sunken eyes and unbound gray hair that hung down to his shoulders. Like the rest of his company, he wore a black cassock that identified him as a member of the king’s bureaucracy. “To suggest he would is treason!”
As Styan spoke, Rikus noticed him slip a small crystal of green olivine into the pocket of his black cassock. Instantly, the mul knew how the king had learned of their initial triumph so quickly. He had once seen another of Tithian’s spies use such a magical crystal to communicate with his master.
“Styan, did the king tell you his strategy?” Rikus asked.
“No. How would he do that?” Like most templars, Styan was a practiced fraud. The only sign he gave that he was hiding the truth was to remove his hand from his pocket.
“If that’s true, Agis must be right about our king’s intentions,” Rikus said. He glanced to the west and saw the wall of darkness descending the hill at the pace of a slow march.
“I also think Agis is right,” agreed Jaseela, one of the few citizens of Tyr who instinctively sensed the truth about the king. “Without Agis and you three to counter his influence, Tithian will find it easy to force his self-serving edicts through the Council of Advisors.”