The sorceress pulled the Scourge from Rikus’s scabbard and, in one swift motion, cleaved Wyan in two. The head clattered to the stony ground, putrid brown slime seeping from the two halves of the skull.
Rikus stomped on the yellowed bones, grinding them into powder. “He should never have used Agis’s ring to trick us,” the mul growled. “And when we catch Tithian, we’ll do the same to him as he did to Agis.”
Sadira did not answer, for she was staring at the Scourge’s jagged blade with a slack jaw. For a moment, Neeva did not understand the sorceress’s surprise, then she recalled that her friend had still been unconscious when the mul tested its magic earlier.
Finally, Sadira gave Rikus an accusatory glance. “It’s broken!” she snapped. “What did you do?”
“It’s my fault,” Neeva said. “When the wraiths attacked you, I tried to use it against them and tainted its magic. The blade snapped later, when Rikus had to deflect a boulder.”
“But there’s still plenty of magic in it,” Rikus added quickly. “Caelum healed the blade before all the black slime oozed out.”
“Black slime?” Sadira asked.
“Yes, it poured from the broken blade,” Caelum said, holding his hand out to the sorceress. “This is what happened when I touched the stuff. We were hoping you’d know something about it.”
The dwarf opened his fingers, so that she could see the strange scales around the edge of his hand, and the fanged maw in the center of his palm. The red lips began to work immediately, twisting themselves into various shapes as the forked tongue wagged in the thing’s ebony throat.
“Release me,” the mouth hissed, wisps of black shadow slipping from between its white teeth. “Come and free me.”
Still holding Rikus’s broken sword, the sorceress leaned over and inspected the scales around the edge of Caelum’s hand. “This reminds me of what happens when someone suffers a wound near the Pristine Tower.”
“Which means?” Neeva was growing more nervous about the fate of her husband’s hand.
The sorceress fixed her emberlike eyes on the warrior. “That the magic is Rajaat’s.”
With a sinking feeling, Neeva asked, “So you can’t heal his hand?”
“It’s not really a matter of healing,” Sadira said. “But it will be simple enough to return the hand to normal.”
Neeva breathed a sigh of relief, though her husband seemed interested in things other than getting rid of the mouth. “Why does it keep asking us to free it?” Caelum asked.
“If I’d been trapped inside a sword blade for a thousand years, I’d want out,” Rikus said.
Sadira shook her head. “The magic is not a spirit,” she said. “It is not intelligent.”
“Then who keeps asking us to release him?” asked Magnus.
“I don’t know,” Sadira replied. “It might be Rajaat.”
Neeva felt a knot of fear form in her stomach. “But his champions killed him a thousand years ago!”
The sorceress shrugged. “We don’t know that,” she said. “The Book of the Kemalok Kings says they rebelled. We assumed he was destroyed because the champions survived to become sorcerer-kings. We could easily be mistaken.”
“Then it’s too bad you destroyed Wyan,” said Caelum. “I suspect he would have known Rajaat’s fate.”
“All you would’ve heard from him are lies and half-truths,” said Neeva.
“Besides, I don’t see how Rajaat’s fate matters to us. If he’s still alive, the sorcerer-kings have him locked away someplace,” said Rikus. As he spoke, the mul kneeled down and used a handful of dirt to scrub away the brown gore that had been Wyan’s brain. “Our worry now is Borys. It’s clear enough from the wraith attack that he knows we’re coming for him.”
“And our destination,” Sadira said. “The wraiths knew enough about our plans to say that they had summoned his spirit from Samarah. I’m afraid Borys may already have killed Tithian and recovered the Dark Lens.”
“The Dragon may know where we’re going, but he doesn’t have the Dark Lens,” said Rikus. “If he did, he wouldn’t bother sending assassins after us. He’d just attack us himself and get it over with.”
“But if he knows our destination, how could he not have the Lens?” asked Caelum.
“Our message said to meet in Samarah, but it didn’t say that the Lens was there now,” said Neeva. “Maybe Tithian is waiting someplace else.”
“He’s certainly cunning enough,” said Rikus. “We don’t have any choice except to go and see. If we wait here, the Dragon will only try to stop us again.”
Neeva nodded. “The battle has started. If we’re to win, we need the Dark Lens-even if Tithian is the one who sent for us.” The warrior faced her militia and pointed toward the razed farm behind Rasda’s Wall. “Go fill your waterskins,” she ordered. “We’ve a long march to Samarah.”
NINE
ABALACH-RE
The cargo kank scratched at the white-crusted ground with all six claws, protesting Sadira’s command to halt. She did not begrudge the beast its impatience. The poor creature had not had water in more than five days, since the legion had started across the glaring salt flats of the Ivory Plain. Now, with the pollen of blade blossom, yellow fan, and other oasis flowers loading its bristly antennae, the insect could probably taste the water it had been denied for so long. The sorceress counted herself lucky that it obeyed at all.
Sadira had stopped two hundred paces from a ring-shaped knoll covered with slender saedra trees. The long-needled conifers grew with upraised boughs that resembled the arms of a sun-worshiping dwarf. Purple-flowered vines with long, yellow thorns grew twined around the boles, and beards of moss dangled from the branches.
On the hilltop ahead, two ranks of enemy warriors had formed a battle line among the trees. Most wore green tabards over yellow hemp kilts. In their hands they held square wooden shields and long throwing spears. Obsidian-spiked flails hung at their belts. Unarmed officers wearing light blue turbans stood along the line, interspersed at regular intervals.
“There must be two thousand of them,” Rikus observed, coming up behind her. Like Sadira, he led a cargo kank, and he carried young Rkard on his shoulders. “This worries me.”
Sadira nodded, and the mul walked to within two paces of her before stopping. This was as close as they had come during the last ten days, for the sorceress could not quite bring herself to forgive Rikus. When she had told him about Agis’s death, the mul’s first response had not been sorrow or even sympathy. He had wanted to know how they would manage without the noble. Sadira could not even bring herself to imagine life without Agis, and she had let her husband die without the thing he most desired, an heir to carry on the Asticles name. How could Rikus expect her to think about their future at a time like that?
Caelum stepped forward, placing himself between Rikus and Sadira. “That’s no raiding tribe,” the dwarf said. He reached up and took his son off Rikus’s shoulders. “It looks more like a legion.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” said Magnus. “A Raamin legion. When I was with the Sun Runners, we had to flee the city’s soldiers many times.”
“But we’re a good fifteen-day march south of Raam, with Gulg and Nibenay in between,” protested Sult Ltak. After the fight against the giants, Neeva had distributed the survivors of the Granite Company among the rest of Kled’s militia and had asked Sult to stay near her for special assignments. “What are Raamins doing here?”
“Borys sent them,” Rikus concluded. “I’ll bet he’s made the sorcerer-kings spread their armies all over the desert looking for us.”
“Whoever sent them, they’re between us and water,” said Neeva, also joining the group. “We’ll have to hope our warriors are strong enough to drive them out.”
Sadira looked back to inspect the legion. The three Kledan companies led the column, standing five abreast in thirty disciplined rows. The dwarves had removed their heavy armor and had strapped it across their backs to keep from being baked alive in the midday sun. Even this concession to the scorching heat had not saved them entirely, for they had flushed faces and glazed eyes.