Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 2 - The Crimson Legion (8 page)

“I've come to
surrender my
legion to Maetan of Urik,” Rikus answered. He did his best to look both remorseful and
angry.

“Maetan has no use for your legionÑexcept as slaves,” the officer returned, his dark eyes
narrowed auspiciously.

“Better slaves than corpses,” Rikus answered. Though he did not mean them, the words stuck
in his throat anyway. “We've been out of water for days.”

“There's plenty in here,” the officer answered. He grinned wickedly and studied the mul
for a moment, then motioned for the gate to be opened.

Rikus stepped through, allowing himself to be seized by the officer and several soldiers.
They bound his hands and slipped a choking-loop around his neck, then led him toward the
windmill and cistern at the center of the village. They passed a dozen rows of the round
huts. As he peered
down into them, Rikus could not help noticing that they were all arranged in a similar
manner. To one side of the doorway was a round table surrounded by a trio of curved
benches. On the other side of the door stood a simple cabinet holding a variety of tools
and weapons. The beds,
stone platforms
covered with several layers of assorted hides, were located opposite the door. The only
variations between individual buildings came in the number of beds and how neatly the
residents kept their homes.

When they reached the plaza, Rikus's escorts pushed him roughly through the ring of
guards, then used the tips of their spears to prod him toward Maetan. As Rikus passed, the
dwarven prisoners stepped aside and studied him with dark eyes that betrayed both respect
and puzzlement. A few commented to each other in their own guttural language, but were
quickly silenced by sharp blows from the mul's escorts.

In the center of the plaza, Maetan of Urik waited beside the stone cistern, still holding
the dipper in his hand. His cloak was so covered with dirt and grime that it was more
brown than green, and even the Serpent of Lubar had faded from red to pastel orange. The
mindbender's thin lips were chapped and cracked, and his delicate complexion seemed more
pallid and sallow than Rikus remembered from the battle.

As the soldiers pushed Rikus to their commander's side, the Urikite's four bodyguards
stepped forward to surround the prisoner. The brawny humans all wore leather corselets and
carried steel swords. Rikus raised an eyebrow at the sight of so many gleaming blades, for
each was worth the price of a dozen champion gladiators. On Athas, metal was more precious
than water and as scarce as rain.

After staring into the eyes of Rikus's escort for a few moments, Maetan waved the officer
away. “How do you know my name, boy?” the mindbender demanded, addressing Rikus in the
fashion of a master to a slave.

Rikus was surprised by the question, for his escort had not made a verbal report to their
commander. Realizing Maetan must have questioned the officer using the Way, Rikus reminded
himself to guard his own thoughts carefully, then answered the question. “We've met
before, many years ago.”

“Is that so?” asked Maetan, his cold gray eyes fixed on Rikus's face.

“You were ten. Your father
brought you to see his gladiatorial pits,” the mul said, remembering the meeting as
clearly as if it had been the day before.

Until he had seen Maetan for the first time, Rikus thought that all boys learned to be
gladiators, working up through the ranks until they became trainers and perhaps even lords
themselves. When Lord Lubar had brought his sickly son to the pits, however, Rikus had
taken one look at the boy's silken robes and finally understood the difference between
slaves and masters.

Maetan studied the mul for a time, then said, “Ah, Rikus. It has been a long time. Father
had high hopes for you, but, as I recall, you barely survived your first three matches.”

“I did better in Tyr,” the mul answered bitterly.

“And now you wish to return to Family Lubar,” Maetan observed. “As a slave?”

“That's right,” the mul said, swallowing his anger. “Unless we get water, my warriors will
die by sunset tomorrow.”

Maetan's gaze swept along the line of gladiators ringing the village. “Why not come and
take it?” he asked. “I've been asking myself for hours why you haven't attacked. We
couldn't stop you.”

“You know why,” Rikus answered, glancing at the dwarves.

The Urikite turned his white lips up in the semblance of a smile. “Of course, the
hostages,” he smirked.

“Giving up won't save Kled, Tyrian,” cackled the voice of an old dwarf, using the language
of Tyr.

Maetan's head snapped in the direction of the speaker, an aged dwarf with jowls so loose
they sagged from his chin like a beard. “Did I give that man permission to speak?”

A bodyguard pushed through the crowd toward the dwarf. As the Urikite grabbed him, the old
dwarf made no effort to resist or escape. Instead, he said, “See? Nothing good comesÑ”

The Urikite's pommel fell across the back of the speaker's skull. The old dwarf collapsed
to the ground, striking his head on the hard flagstones with a sickening thud. Indignant
cries of astonishment and anger rustled through the crowd. One defiant dwarf stepped
toward the guard, his fists tightly clenched and his rust-red eyes fixed on the
bodyguard's face. Aside from the color of his eyes, the dwarf was unusual in that he stood
nearly five feet tall and had a crimson sun tattooed on his forehead. His build did not
make him resemble a boulder quite so much as his fellows.

“Be quiet, or I'll have his head removed completely,” Maetan snapped, using the
smooth-flowing syllables of the trade tongue.

The dwarf stopped his advance, though the anger and hatred did not drain from his eyes. At
the same time, a resentful murmur rustled through the throng as the dwarfs who understood
the Urikite's words translated the threat for their fellows. The plaza slowly fell silent.

After pausing to sneer at the red-eyed dwarf, Maetan returned his attention to Rikus. “So,
Tyr's legion will surrender on behalf of the dwarves of Kled?”

“Yes,” Rikus said. “This isn't their fight. We have no wish to see them harmed.”

“You'll understand if I'm reluctant to believe you,” Maetan said.

“It should surprise no one that the freed men of Tyr place a higher value on justice than
a nobleman of Urik,” Rikus countered. One of the bodyguards tightened the choking loop
around the mul's neck; Maetan himself showed no reaction
to
the insult. Rikus continued, “If we intended to attack, we would have done it by now.” He
was forced to gasp by the rope constricting his throat.

“I'm sure you intend to tell me what I stand to gain by accepting your surrender. Why
shouldn't I just stay here and let your legion die of thirst?” The mindbender motioned for
the guard to ease the
tension on the mul's throat.

“Two things,” Rikus said, swallowing hard. “First, you'd do well to return home with two
thousand slaves. That's all you're going to bring back from Tyr.”

Maetan's thin lips twitched in anger, but he gave no other indication of his feelings.
“And the second?”

Rikus pointed his chin toward his warriors surrounding the village. “Even a Tyrian's
concern for justice goes only so far.”

Maetan shocked Rikus with a quick answer. “I accept,” The mindbender pointed at the tall
dwarf with the rust-colored eyes and motioned for him to come forward. As the
defiant-looking man obeyed, Maetan said, “Caelum speaks Tyrian. He'll relay your words to
the gladiators.”

The dwarf's mouth fell open. “How did youÑ”

“That's not for you to know,” a bodyguard snapped, pushing the dwarf toward Rikus.

“The courage of you and your men is admirable, but not very wise,” Caelum said, looking
into the mul's eyes. His jawbone, chin, and cheeks were well-defined and pronounced, but
not as massive as those of most dwarves. There was even a certain symmetry and grace of
proportion between his nose and the rest of his face, with uncharacteristic laugh lines
around the corners of his mouth and eyes. “If you do this, there's nothing to stop the
Urikites from killing us all.”

“The choice is ours,” Rikus said, deliberately avoiding the dwarf's red eyes. If Maetan
was capable of reading Caelum's mind, the mul did not want to plant any suggestion of what
he had planned. Instead, he pointed to the sandstone arch on the hillside above. “Just
deliver the message to the people up there.”

Once the dwarf was out of sight, Maetan sneered at Rikus. “Your men will be sold into
slavery as you asked,” he said. “You, however, shall die a slow and bitter death for the
pleasure of King Hamanu.”

Confident that he would have his revenge later, Rikus remained silent while Caelum climbed
up to the arch. The mul found Maetan's quick acceptance of their surrender unsettling. He
had expected the Urikite to react more suspiciously, pondering the proposal for a few
moments. His immediate agreement suggested that the mindbender was already well aware of
the dangers of accepting the Tyrian surrender. Still, Rikus did not consider calling off
his plan. Whether Maetan had anticipated it or not, it was still the only way to save both
his legion and the dwarven village.

A few minutes after Caelum's departure, the first Tyrians marched into the village. Unlike
Rikus, they remained unbound, for tying them would have taken more rope than could be
found in all of Kled. As the plaza began to grow more crowded, Maetan moved himself and
Rikus to the far side, then ordered the dwarves to return to their homes and stay inside
under penalty of death.

Soon the square was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with unarmed Tyrians, all clamoring for
water and struggling to reach the cistern at its centerÑas the mul's generals had
instructed them to do. The Urikites previously standing guard at
Kled's wall now ringed the square, their shields and spears pointed toward Rikus's
warriors.

As the last Tyrians were escorted into the plaza, Jaseela and Neeva were brought to
Rikus's side, along with Caelum. Only the templars and K'kriq, gathered in a small group
beneath the arch, remained outside the village.

Ignoring their absence for the moment, Maetan peered at Neeva
from
between two burly bodyguards. “An excellent girl,” he said, catching Rikus's gaze with his
pearly gray eyes. “Did she also come from my father's pens? Or doesn't your mul-brain
allow you to remember that much?”

As the mindbender asked the question, a hated memory flashed into Rikus's mind. In a dark
corner of the Lubar pits, a young mul, his body already knotted with muscles and covered
with scars, stood alone before a man-sized block of white pumice carved into the semblance
of a gladiator.

“Hit it,” growled a familiar voice.

The boy, Rikus at ten years, looked over his shoulder. Neeva stood at his back, a
six-stranded whip in her hand. He started to ask her what she was doing in his memory, at
a time where she did not belong, but, before his eyes, she changed from an attractive
woman to a fat, sweating swine of a trainer.

Rikus shook his head, trying to free himself of the memory. Once before, a mindbender had
slipped into his head by hiding behind a memory. Thanks to Neeva's inappropriate
appearance, the mul had no doubt that Maetan was using a similar attack against him now.

The trainer cuffed the side of young Rikus's head, snarling, “Do as you're told, boy.”

Rikus tried to ignore the trainer and focus his thoughts on the present, but the memory
had a life of its own. The gladiator found himself, as a young mul, facing the punching
dummy and tapping it with his fist. The rough surface grated the soft skin of his hand,
opening a line of tiny
cuts across his knuckles.

The six-strands of the trainer's whip snapped across Rikus's bare back, opening a line of
cuts that burned like viper bites. The boy clenched his teeth and did not cry out. He had
already learned that to show pain was to invite more of it.

“Harder!” the trainer spat
.
“I swear I'll strip the hide off your scrawny little bones.”

Rikus punched the statue again, this time with as much force as he could. The blow tore
the skin off his knuckles and sent a sharp pain shooting from his hand clear to his elbow.

“Again!” the trainer sneered. His whip cracked and ripped another strip of flesh off the
boy's back.

The young mul hit the dummy again, this time imagining it was the trainer that he was
attacking. He struck again and again, throwing his weight behind each blow. Soon he had
reduced his hands to unfeeling masses of raw meat and painted the pumice statue red with
his blood.

Rikus's awareness of the present returned, and Maetan looked away. Unfortunately, the
mindbender's probing remained strong enough that the mul could not shut out the painful
images inside his mind.

Maetan looked to Neeva and Jaseela, then motioned to the arch where Styan and his
black-robed men waited. “Aren't your templars thirsty?”

“They refuse to come down until they see how you treat us,” Jaseela offered.

“Everyone else is here,” Neeva added, glancing at Rikus.

The mul knew what his fighting partner was hinting at: the Tyrians were ready to attack.
Rikus opened his mouth to give the order, but Maetan's head snapped around and the
mindbender fixed his gray eyes on those of the mul.

Inside Rikus's mind, the fat trainer clamped a pudgy, begrimed hand over the young mul's
mouth. Rikus grasped at the arm and tried to pull it away, but he was still young and far
from a match for the older man's bearish strength. The trainer opened his lips to speak,
revealing a mouthful of rotten and broken teeth.

“Forget about the plan,” the trainer said. “We're really surrendering.”

To Rikus's surprise, he heard himself repeating the words.

Neeva scowled in anger, and Jaseela's jaw dropped open.

“What?” they demanded.

Caelum looked from the mul to the two women, rubbing a hand over the bony crest of
thickened skull atop his head.