Rikus looked back to Neeva. “Can you fight?”
“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” she said, though she had still not risen to her feet.
People in the stands cried Rikus’s name, urging him to abandon his partner and attack the pyramid. The mul picked up his spear and looked toward the King’s Balcony. Kalak remained at the rail. He leaned over the edge, staring down at the mul and his partner, his lips curling into a sadistic grin.
Neeva grabbed her trikal and tried to stand. Her knees buckled before she was halfway up. “I’m too weak, Rikus,” she said. “You’ll have to try without me.”
“No,” the mul said. “We’re in this together.”
He lifted the spear as if ready to throw it, pointing the tip toward Gaanon. The half-giant took a step backward. A thunderous roar exploded from the stands, with thousands of voices urging the mul to kill his rival.
Rikus let the uproar continue to build, then glanced down at his fighting partner, who lay gasping on the sand. “For you and Sadira,” he whispered.
Neeva shook her head. “For freedom and Athas.”
With that, Rikus whirled around to face the King’s Balcony. Kalak’s eyes widened.
At that moment, a deafening explosion shook the stadium. A great silver and gold flash shot out of the lower tiers as Sadira made her attack. The bright flare filled the air with a peculiar stench that reminded Rikus of melting copper. The bolt hit an invisible barrier at the balcony’s edge, exploding there into a brilliant cascade of red and blue sparks. The mul glimpsed a magical wall of shimmering force, but it faded away amidst a cacophony of loud sizzles and sharp pops.
Rikus stepped forward. Kalak looked away from the mul, his eyes drawn suddenly to Agis of Asticles in the High Templars’ Gallery. Rikus hurled the spear with all his might. As the enchanted weapon sailed toward its target, an image born of Kalak’s twisted mind, augmented by his mastery of the Way, appeared over the entire stadium: a dragon, fierce and terrible, rose to the height of the great ziggurat.
The image of the dragon reared back, ready to strike. It was in that instant that the Heartwood Spear struck Kalak, sorcerer-king of Tyr, squarely in the chest and passed clear through his body. The king’s screams filled the stadium, then the entire city. The unearthly cries did not fade as the half-giants grabbed their leader and dragged him into his golden palace.
SEVENTEEN
THE DRAGON
The stadium remained tense, but calm. Most commoners stayed in their seats, too frightened or too stunned to move, filling the air with the steady drone of their astonished voices. Knots of angry nobles yelled at stony-faced templars, trying in vain to make them open the sealed gates. Glowering half-giants stalked the terrace aisles, their massive clubs resting over their shoulders and their red-rimmed eyes scanning the crowd.
It was not the reaction Agis had anticipated. He had envisioned a thunderous uproar, the stands breaking into a riot, the frenzied crowd pouring onto the fighting field. There was none of that. The spectators were too shocked to do as the noble expected, and Larkyn’s half-giants were too efficient to let them.
The crowd’s reaction was not the only thing that had failed to go as Agis had pictured. The timing of the companions’ attack had been perfect, but that was where their success had ended. As powerful and well-placed as Rikus’s throw had been, it had not killed the king. From the High Templars’ Gallery, the noble had seen Kalak gesturing angrily as his half-giants helped him off the King’s Balcony and into the Golden Tower.
Agis turned his attention to the fighting field, where a swarm of templars and half-giants surrounded Rikus and Neeva. The two gladiators were allowing themselves to be escorted toward Tithian’s gallery. Agis suspected their complacence was due to their faith in his influence over the high templar, for he knew that Rikus and Neeva would have died fighting rather than suffer the indignity of execution.
When the swarm of guards stopped below the gallery, Tithian stepped to the edge of the porch and regarded the pair with a spiteful glare in his eyes. Rikus and Neeva glared back, their faces betraying distrust and hatred of the high templar. Agis moved forward, so he would no longer be hidden in the shadows below the canopy. Neeva’s clenched jaw relaxed, but Rikus’s expression merely changed from hatred to defiance.
“Bring your prisoners to the gallery,” Tithian said, speaking to the man who had assumed command of the mob.
The templar looked uneasy. “We’re assigned directly to the High Templar of the King’s Safety,” he said. “Larkyn has instructed us to accept orders only from him.”
Tithian glanced at the chair where Larkyn’s body sat slumped. Though the man’s eyes were closed and he was not moving, that was the only visible of evidence of his death. If anyone in the stands could see into the shadows engulfing the gallery, Agis hoped it would appear to them that the high templar was merely sleeping in the chair.
“I’m afraid the attack on our king has left Larkyn indisposed,” Tithian said, looking back to the fighting field. “Bring the prisoners to him, and he’ll attend to them from his chair.”
The templar looked uncomfortable, but nodded his assent. He prodded the two prisoners toward the edge of the arena.
Tithian retreated into the shadows of the canopy. “Now what?” the high templar asked, staring at the king’s balcony. “Kalak is a thousand years old. I doubt that he’ll do us the favor of dying from his wound.”
Agis could only shrug. He was beginning to think Rikus had been right in hesitating to attack without a better plan.
A messenger poked his head into the gallery. “High One, a noblewoman insists upon seeing you.”
“What does she want?” Tithian demanded. He looked past the guard and frowned at the partition that screened the gallery from the balcony grandstands behind it. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Sadira of Asticles,” he answered. “She-”
“Send her up,” Tithian interrupted. He faced Agis and snickered. “Sadira of Asticles?”
Agis felt the heart rise to his cheeks. “Not … formally, my friend,” he said, wondering at the implications of the sorceress’s choice of title.
A moment later, Sadira stepped onto the porch, her chest heaving. Her silk cape was tattered and ripped, and the silver circlet was missing from her head. Agis went to her side and took her arm. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“The mob is getting ugly,” she answered breathlessly. She stopped just beneath the canopy and braced herself on Ktandeo’s cane.
Agis glanced out the front of the gallery. Across the fighting field, the crowd swarmed toward the gates. Fighting had broken out in dozens of places, most of the brawls involving spectators trying to force their way into the locked exit tunnels. Outside the High Templars’ Gallery hundreds of voices were demanding that the gates be opened and that Rikus and Neeva be freed.
Ignoring the tumult erupting in the stands, Tithian stepped to Agis’s side. With a sarcastic smile, he took Sadira’s hand and said, “Lady Asticles, I can’t tell you how it pleases me to see you again.”
He started to kiss her hand, but Sadira jerked it away.
“I assume you’re with us,” she snapped. “Agis would have killed you by now if you supported Kalak.”
Tithian cast an exaggerated look of hurt in Agis’s direction, but did not seem surprised or angry. He faced Sadira again and said, “At this point, girl, I’m not against you.”
“Open the exits,” Sadira demanded. She pointed toward the grandstands across the arena, where Larkyn’s half-giants were trying to clear the gateways by smashing spectators with their heavy bone clubs.
“The gates can’t be raised,” Tithian answered. “Kalak had the chains cut.”
Before Sadira could respond, Rikus and Neeva came up the stairs. They were followed by two of Larkyn’s templars. Both held short swords pressed against the gladiators’ backs. Though Neeva’s steps were slow and measured, she seemed to have recovered much of the strength lost in her battle with the gaj.