Before the battle, Rikus had made a point of reminding Neeva to leave the one-eyed giant alive, so they could interrogate him about Agis and what would happen if the Dark Lens was not returned to them. Now, the mul was beginning to worry that it would be the titans who left no one alive.
“Caelum, I want to stop the giants as much as anyone,” Rikus said. “But your dwarves can’t do it.”
“Kled’s warriors are as brave as any in Tyr,” the dwarf replied sharply. “Wait until you see their axe-charge.”
“Neeva wouldn’t waste good warriors like that!” Rikus considered his objection for a moment then started forward. “Maybe I’d better go talk some sense into her.”
Before the mul had taken his second step, Magnus’s huge fingers dug into his shoulder and brought him to an abrupt halt.
“If you go out there now, Rkard will have another sleeping Tyrian to look after.” The windsinger looked across the valley to the top of the bluff, where the young mul was hiding with Sadira’s unconscious form. “Wait until you’re stronger.”
“I’m ready now.” Rikus tried to pull free, but the windsinger’s powerful fingers held firm.
“Save your strength,” advised Magnus. “If this doesn’t work-”
A tremendous rattle sounded from the battlefield as the ground around Patch’s hips loosened. Bellowing with delight, the titan leader stretched forward and slapped his palm down with a thunderous clap. Three dwarves died instantly, lacking the time even to scream.
Rikus saw Neeva barking a command, though it was impossible to hear her over the din of the battle. He reached for the Scourge’s hilt, but Magnus had already tilted his eloquent ears forward to catch her words.
“She’s come to the same conclusion as Rikus,” the windsinger reported. “Signal the retreat.”
The dwarf raised his hand. A pillar of crimson light shot from his palm and arced westward, casting a luminous glow over the battlefield. The Kledan militia disengaged instantly. They rushed toward the signal, assembling themselves into loose squares as they moved.
“At least their discipline’s good,” Rikus commented.
Caelum shrugged. “Yes, but what now?” he asked. “We’ve lost our best chance to stop the giants. They’ll raze every farm in the valley.”
“Not if we keep them busy with us,” Rikus said.
Patch grabbed another handful of rubble and hurled it at the fleeing dwarves. A hail of stones rained down on the trailing company, denting more than a dozen helmets and leaving dazed warriors scattered over the field. Magnus began one of his ballads. A powerful wind howled down out of the mountains. It swept just a few feet above the dwarves’ heads, with enough force to drive any more such barrages back the way they came.
Rikus continued speaking to Caelum. “I have an idea, but it’ll mean leaving Rkard alone until Sadira wakes.”
“Rkard will be fine. He has a sun-spell he can use to summon us if he has trouble,” the dwarf said. “What’s your plan?”
“There’s a dead-end gorge on the other side of Pauper’s Hope where I hid once, after escaping from Tithian,” the mul said. “It’s full of ancient mines. If we can make it into the canyon and harass the giants enough to keep their attention focused on us, we might keep them busy until morning.”
“And by then, Sadira should be well enough to help us.” Caelum nodded. “Let’s give it a try.”
They waited a few moments for Neeva and her dwarven militia to arrive. Without the dwarves harassing them, Patch and the other giants concentrated on digging their legs free. Soon, they were each ringed by mountainous heaps of dirt, and Rikus knew that reaching the gorge would be an uncertain proposition.
When the first company of militia arrived, Rikus saw by their clenched jaws and narrowed eyes that retreating grated on the dwarves’ pride. He waved his arm at them, yelling, “The battle’s not over yet. Follow me! I have a plan.”
Neeva winced, no doubt remembering his disastrous plan to invade Hamanu’s city during the war with Urik. Nevertheless, she took a long breath and ordered her dwarves to obey. The mul started toward Pauper’s Hope at a sprint, padding over the ground in near silence. Neeva joined him and ran just as quietly at his side, but Caelum’s feet slapped the ground loudly with every step, and Magnus’s heavy footfalls actually shook the ground. The four companies of militia spaced themselves out across the field and followed at a short distance, armor clanking and booted feet stomping.
By the time they reached the edge of the field, Ral and Guthay had risen. Both moons were in a crescent phase. The flaxen light they cast over the broken ground was so pale, Rikus found it difficult to distinguish between shadows and stones. Nevertheless, he continued to run at his best pace, finding his way as much by feel as by sight. The queasiness in his stomach was fading with the exercise, but the bouts of dizziness came more often. Several times, Neeva had to reach out to steady him, not because he had stumbled, but because he had lost his balance and was listing to one side or the other.
As Rikus entered the faro field near Rasda’s Wall, Patch dug himself completely free. Instead of chasing after the fleeing warriors, the titan went over to his companions and began pulling them out of the ground like a crop of tubers.
Keeping a wary eye fixed on the giants, Rikus turned to Neeva, “Have your warriors drop their shields and whatever else they can discard on the run-aside from their weapons. Right now, speed’s more important than armor.”
Neeva shook her head. “They’re well disciplined, but they are dwarves,” she replied. “That equipment came from Kemalok’s armory. They’ll die on the spot before they cast any of it aside.”
“I was afraid of that,” Rikus grumbled, starting down one of the paths between the faro rows.
Behind them, Patch’s voice cried out in an angry howl that seemed to shake the sky. Rikus looked back to see him kneeling over Yab’s body and remembered that Tay had said something about the young titan being the leader’s brother. The rest of the giants were racing after Rikus and the militia, their heavy steps reverberating through the valley like thunder.
The ground between the faro rows was packed hard. Rikus and his followers crossed the orchard at an all-out sprint, quickly passing around the shoulder of Rasda’s Wall. If Rikus had possessed any regrets about the fate of Yab or any other giant, they quickly faded when he saw what had happened in the farm buildings of Pauper’s Hope.
The night air was thick with the stench of corpses that had lain rotting in the sun all day long, and it was apparent that Patch’s brutes had taken great delight in killing the inhabitants. The bodies of men and women lay heaped at the bottom of Rasda’s Wall, while dark smears of blood, barely visible in the pale moonlight, speckled the cliffs above. As if mere slaughter were not enough, Patch and his warriors had also stomped every building flat, usually with the inhabitants inside. They had even destroyed the irrigation dam, leaving a shallow depression of cracked mud cakes where once the pond had been.
A short distance beyond the farm lay a moonlit wall of foothills. Covered with little except jagged stone and flakes of clay-rich soil, they rose steadily upward to form the lower slopes of the Ringing Mountains. A narrow gorge twisted its way into the hills, the blackness of its depths creating the impression of a snake crawling up the steep scarps.
As the militia neared the far side of the compound and started toward the dark canyon, the giants reached the other end of Rasda’s Wall. The titans stopped long enough to lift several boulders off the outcropping and hurl the huge stones at the fleeing dwarves. Two of the rocks landed just ahead of Rikus and shattered harmlessly into a hundred pieces, but the others were better aimed and came down in the midst of the trailing company. Several of Neeva’s warriors died amidst the crinkle of steel armor.
“Loose formation!” Neeva called. “Spread out!”
As the dwarves scattered, Rikus saw the giants start forward again. They covered half the distance across the compound with a single stride then stopped to pluck more boulders off the cliff. The mul was tempted to fight them here, on the site where the brutes had slain so many helpless people, but he resolutely resisted the temptation. Nearly a decade earlier, during the war with Urik, he had learned the foolishness of allowing emotions to guide his tactics.