The mul peered around the giant’s gullet and caught a glimpse of Neeva. Somehow, she had braced her feet against the back of the hand and had wrapped both her arms around the titan’s little finger. She was pulling it back against the joint, though Rikus suspected she had little chance of snapping it.
A series of deep, racking coughs shook the giant’s torso. He tried to jerk Rikus and Neeva away from his throat. They were still connected to the rope, and he succeeded only in drawing it tighter. Patch began to sway, then dropped to his knees.
Cheering madly, more than a dozen dwarves began hacking at the giant’s thighs.
A long convulsion ran through Patch’s body, then his hands opened, and he pitched forward. His face slammed into the gorge wall, leaving his killers dangling from the rope around his neck.
Rikus and Neeva pulled themselves up the rope to Patch’s collarbone, where they freed themselves from their harnesses. They tied the ends of the cord together so the garotte would not loosen before it had done its work completely, then they slid down the unconscious giant’s back. Their feet had barely touched the ground before Neeva was yelling for Sult to report.
“Here, Commander.” A grizzled dwarf stepped forward, wading through a river of blood that was pouring from a wound in Patch’s thigh. He had a weather-lined face and a thin, crooked nose that looked as though it had been broken a dozen times. “Fifteen survivors for the Granite Company.”
“Never mind that,” Neeva replied. “How many giants did you kill in this canyon?”
“One, aside from this one,” the dwarf replied. “The fourth one stayed at the farm to fight the windsinger.”
With a curse, Neeva turned and started down the dark gorge at a sprint.
From his hiding place on the butte, Rkard saw Magnus run out of the faro orchard below Rasda’s Wall. The windsinger looked utterly exhausted, stumbling over rocks and flailing his massive arms as he tried to retain his balance. He veered away from the four giants who had died during the day and raced for the far end of the valley.
A series of thudding footsteps echoed behind him. A single giant appeared from behind Rasda’s Wall, carrying a stone he had torn from the ridge. The titan looked as exhausted as Magnus. He had two jagged cuts on his brow, and his body was covered with huge bruises so dark Rkard could see them even in the pale light of the moons.
The marks were evidence of the terrific brawl to which the young mul had been listening until just a few seconds ago. After the four surviving giants had followed Kled’s militia toward Pauper’s Hope, a terrible storm of whirling winds and rumbling thunder had erupted behind Rasda’s Wall. The din had been answered by the clatter of breaking stones and angry bellows. A moment later, most of the titans’ voices had begun to grow more distant and muffled, and Rkard had guessed they were chasing the militia into the mountains. One brute had stayed behind, however, and the sounds of battle had continued to rage for a long time.
Now, it was finally clear who had won. As Rkard watched, the giant braced himself and hurled his stone. The rock glanced off the windsinger’s shoulder and tumbled away. Magnus dropped in midstride, tumbling head over heels for the length of a dozen strides. He finally came to a rest flat on his back, with his head toward his attacker.
Rkard almost forgot himself and cried out, but at the last moment managed to choke his scream into a strangled croak, “Magnus!”
The windsinger lay motionless for a moment, and Rkard worried that the stone had killed him. Then Magnus raised his head and, with a great deal of effort, pushed himself into a sitting position. The arm that had been hit by the boulder hung limply at his side, and he hardly seemed conscious of the giant’s heavy footsteps behind him.
“Get up, Magnus,” Rkard whispered. He knew Magnus could sometimes hear messages carried on the wind. Since a gentle breeze was blowing down the butte, the boy hoped his words would reach the windsinger’s funny-looking ears. “The giant’s coming.”
Magnus continued to sit motionless, and the titan stopped behind him. Rkard touched his fingers to the crimson sun on his forehead and felt a warm, tingly sensation running through his arm. Most people assumed the red disk to be a tattoo, but it was actually the sun-mark, a birthmark that served as his mystical connection to the sun during times of darkness.
The windsinger suddenly pricked up his big ears and glanced toward the butte. He shook his head and rolled over onto his hands and knees. Rkard breathed a sigh of relief, thankful the windsinger had spared him the necessity of deciding whether or not to cast his spell. After Jo’orsh and Sa’ram had appeared to him, his father had told him that he must never risk his life, not even if it meant saving the entire militia-or his own parents. His father had said more than a few lives depended on his destiny, and that if he got himself killed, everyone on Athas would die with him.
Rkard didn’t like what his father had said. And he thought his mother probably didn’t either, though she had not told him as much. After that nasty head-Wyan-had arrived with the Asticles signet, and everyone had decided that it was time to kill the Dragon, she had told him to think about his decisions very carefully. She had said he should never do anything dangerous unless he had a good chance of succeeding, and even then he had to think of a way to escape first.
In the valley below, the giant kicked his foot into Magnus’s ribs. The windsinger arced out over the valley, crashing into a jumble of sharp stones thirty paces away. The impact would have killed a human, and probably even a mul, but not Magnus. He just rolled across the rocky ground and tried to pick himself up again.
This time, he did not succeed.
The giant grabbed a pointed stone as large as a kank. Rkard could not decide what to do. Neither of his parents would want him to cast his spell now. The worst thing he could do to the titan was blind him for a few moments, and then the brute would probably come to hunt him and Sadira down. But the thought of standing by while the giant smashed Magnus gave the boy a sick feeling in his stomach.
The titan stepped toward Magnus.
Rkard slipped behind his boulder and looked down at Sadira. The sorceress lay motionless on the ground, her amber hair glowing softly in the moonlight, and her almond-shaped eyes closed tight. Her chest heaved as though she were sobbing, and the way her fingers fluttered reminded the boy of how they moved when she cast a spell.
Rkard kneeled at her side and shook her shoulder. “The giant’s going to kill Magnus,” he said. “Wake up!”
The sorceress’s chest continued to heave, and she showed no sign of stirring.
“What should I do?” he asked.
Sadira’s head rolled to one side, but she did not answer.
“Okay, I’ll decide myself,” the boy answered. “What would Rikus do?”
Rkard knew instantly that his hero would not stand by while a giant killed a friend. Rikus would do whatever he could, even if it meant he might die himself. That was why everybody liked him so much.
The young mul stepped past Sadira and clambered to the top of the boulder. The giant was standing over Magnus, just raising the stone to slay the unconscious windsinger.
“Hey, ugly!” he yelled.
The breeze carried Rkard’s voice across the valley as though the boy were a giant himself, bouncing it off the rocky scarps on the other side. The titan pulled the heavy stone back to his chest and looked toward the echo first.
“Who’s that?” he called, searching the barren slopes at the base of the Ringing Mountains.