Sadira pulled a lump of sulfur and a pinch of bat guano from her pocket. She rolled the two components together into a viscid mass and held it in the palm of her hand. When she spoke her incantation, the wad slowly expanded, emitting a stream of gray, foul-smelling smoke.
As the gummy ball enlarged, the defiled area of the knoll surged upward, forming a huge dome that continued to swell. When the hillside looked ready to explode, Sadira whispered a mystic syllable. The viscid mass she was holding vanished in a billow of smoke.
On the hillside, the swollen dome abruptly collapsed in on itself. The slope trembled, and a murmur of concern rustled through the Raamin ranks. The boughs of the saedra trees began to quiver. From deep inside the knoll sounded an angry rumble, and tongues of flame shot from beneath the defiled ground. Then a mighty explosion shook the entire oasis, hurling a huge section of the knoll into the sky.
A cloud of ash and dust spread over the salt flat, casting a gray pall over the white plain. Splintered trees and Raamin bodies rained down with sharp cracks and soft thumps, most landing within twenty or thirty paces of the hill. Rikus waved his sword, and, with a great cheer, his warriors broke into a full sprint. The cry even seemed to rouse Neeva from her shock, for she picked up her battle-axe and rushed to join the charge.
Rikus and his followers began to leap over the bodies and saedra trees littering the approach to the hill. Crackling thunderbolts and sputtering fireballs rained down from the slope above. Tyrian warriors fell all along the line. The black streamers of smoke that rose from their bodies were a grisly contrast to the white salt upon which they lay.
Catching up to Rikus’s charge, Caelum and Magnus answered the Raamins with their own spells. The dwarf sprayed the slope with a crimson beam that set fire to anything it touched. The windsinger summoned a ferocious southern gale. The squall scoured the hillside with an airborne wall of salt, shredding clothing and flesh alike.
A strand of sparkling green fiber appeared on the ground between Rikus’s charging legion and the base of the hill. The right flank reached the green strand first. As the warriors leaped across the line, a loud crack reverberated beneath their feet. The filament became a gaping chasm with a bright emerald glow shining up from its depths. The Tyrians screamed, and a lime-colored tongue of vapor shot up to engulf each one of them. The entire flank simply dissolved, their bodies eaten away even before they fell out of sight.
Magnus stopped at the edge and tried to peer down into the fissure. A green tendril shot up and lapped at his thick hide. He stumbled away, clutching at his throat and coughing.
At the other end of the Tyrian line, where the hill curved away slightly, the warriors had not been so close to the chasm when it opened. Most had managed to stop at the brink and were dragging themselves away on their hands and knees, coughing and choking while tendrils of green vapor lapped at their feet.
From her vantage point across the salt flat, Sadira did not see Rikus among the survivors. She ran her gaze over the tide of crawling refugees and located Neeva and Caelum, but there was no sign of the mul. The sorceress felt a cold lump form in her stomach. Rikus had been leading the charge at his end of the line. Had he fallen into the chasm?
Determined to prevent Raam’s sorcerer-queen from casting any more such spells, Sadira pulled a pinch of powdered glass from her pocket. After a moment of searching, she spotted another circle of Raamin bodies near the summit of the hill. It was directly above the chasm’s right end, and Sadira felt certain that it marked the place Abalach had been standing when she had drawn the energy for her last spell.
Sadira tossed the powdered glass into the air and spoke her incantation. As it dropped to the ground, the silvery dust scintillated in the light of the crimson sun. On the hillside, sparkles of red light flashed over the withered saedras. The glimmers quickly coalesced near the heart of the despoiled ground, outlining the distant shape of a mature woman dressed in flowing robes.
The figure turned toward Sadira. “You’ve found what you’re looking for,” said Abalach’s voice. “What do you think you’ll do with me?”
Sadira reached for a spell ingredient.
Abalach barked a sharp command in the language of her city. The Raamin warriors rushed down the slope, their spears ready to throw across the chasm at the retreating Tyrians. For a moment, the sorcerer-queen watched her army charge.
Then, as Sadira pulled a small glass rod from her pocket, Abalach tossed something into the air. A cloud of red smoke billowed into existence and swallowed her figure.
Recognizing the basic nature of the spell, Sadira realized instantly that her foe was using magic to change positions. Still holding the glass rod, she ran her eyes over the knoll, searching for Abalach’s new location.
Sadira saw that the Raamins had reached the bottom of the hill. As she watched, they ran up to the edge of the chasm and hurled their spears across the green abyss. Most of the shafts clattered harmlessly to the ground, but enough found their marks to fill the plain with death cries.
A similar squall of screams erupted from the enemy ranks. Green tongues of vapor began to rise from the chasm again, this time licking at Raamin warriors as a whirl of flashing blades and kicking feet knocked them into the abyss.
With a start, Sadira realized that the attacker was Rikus. The mul had landed on the other side of the gap.
Given the width of the chasm, the sorceress could not imagine that he had been able to leap across. It seemed more likely that in his typical brash fashion, Rikus had been charging too far ahead of the legion and had gotten separated when Abalach’s spell had created the abyss. For now, that was proving a misfortune for the Raamins, but Sadira did not know how long her husband could continue to fight so savagely.
Already, it seemed to the sorceress that he was tiring. He had stopped advancing and now allowed the Raamins to come to him. Sadira could see at least twenty of them moving toward her husband, whirling spiked flails above their heads. The sorceress pointed the glass rod in their direction and spoke the words to her spell. A bolt of energy arced over the chasm and came down in the center of the advancing Raamins. There was a tremendous bang, and bodies flew in all directions. To Sadira’s amazement, Rikus rushed his shocked enemies, sending them to their deaths twice as fast as before.
“Don’t be crazy, Rikus!” Sadira cried, knowing even the champion gladiator could not survive such odds. “Wait for help!”
“There won’t be any, stupid girl.” The voice belonged to Abalach, and this time it came from behind Sadira.
The sorceress felt a strange tingle deep within her belly. The entire Bronze Company gave a deep groan and dropped to the ground in a tremendous clanging of armor. The sensation in her stomach grew more severe, as if a cold hand had reached deep inside her to squeeze her entrails. She did not panic, for she had felt such pain before and knew what it meant: The life force was being drawn from her body.
Abalach had probably been waiting the entire battle for this moment. With all eyes turned toward the trouble at the front lines, it was the perfect opportunity for the sorcerer-queen to surprise the reserves with an attack from the rear.
Sadira spun around. She found a tangled mass of dwarves clutching at their stomachs as their life forces were pulled from them. Some had managed to remain on their feet, though they had to brace themselves on their axes and seemed in imminent danger of falling. Others had fallen unconscious and already appeared close to death, with gray faces and sunken eyes. Most simply writhed on the ground, their panicked voices cursing the magic that would rob them of the chance to die with their steel buried in their enemies. Sadira saw no sign of the magical pall she had cast over the dwarves earlier, and she realized that Abalach-Re had been near the company long enough to dispel the magical shield.