The Crimson Legion

NINE THE THIRTEENTH CHAMPION

Rikus lay in a stone box that reeked of decay. Though it was barely large enough to hold his body, the mul’s captor had thoughtfully placed a jug of water on one side of the gladiator’s head and a loaf of moldy bread on the other. The Belt of Rank still girded his waist, and he had even been allowed to keep the Scourge of Rkard. The long sword lay atop his burning chest, his hands neatly folded over the hilt.

Rikus had no idea where he was or how he had come to be there, but he knew he wanted to leave. The damp chill pierced him to the bone, and his joints felt as though they were lined with frost. His shoulder throbbed with a deep, cold ache, and his sore leg felt like a slab of ice.

As miserable as he was, he did not think Umbra had taken him to the Black. The prison did not seem quite horrible enough to be the shadow giant’s home. The cold should have been biting, the kind that turned the skin white and froze toes and fingers solid. The darkness didn’t seem right, either. While it would have been difficult for the blackness to be more absolute, the mul’s dwarven vision allowed him to see the cold blue tones of his stone box, the yellow-hued bread, and his own reddish skin with perfect clarity. Whatever Umbra’s “Black” was like, the mul did not think he would be able to see in it with any form of vision.

“It makes no sense,” Rikus grumbled, more to hear the sound of his own voice than because he thought it necessary to proclaim the fact.

Speaking the words make him conscious of his dry tongue and throat. He had no idea how long he had been trapped inside the box, but it had been long enough to make him thirsty.

The lid of the mul’s prison was only a few inches above his face, so there was no hope of sitting upright to drink from the water jug. He reached up and turned the vessel so that its small spout pointed toward his mouth, then tipped it slightly.

The fluid surged from the jug in a yellow-hued glob, filling the mul’s mouth with the sour taste of vinegar. Rikus reflexively sat up to spit out the gummy fluid, banging his forehead into cold stone. The lid budged open enough for him to glimpse a pale flicker of yellow light, then the foul liquid in his mouth slipped down the mul’s throat. He dropped back into the box and smashed his head against the bottom of the stone prison. The lid returned to its place with a sharp bang.

Where he had banged it into the stone, the mul’s skull ached terribly, and the foul water he had swallowed was already making him nauseous. Nevertheless, Rikus had to restrain himself from crying out in joy. He placed a hand on the lid and shoved with all his might. The stone slab slipped off the box and crashed to the floor with a loud boom that echoed off walls not too far distant.

Returning his good hand to the hilt of his sword, the mul sat up. He found himself in a small chamber with a low ceiling. It was dimly lit in a dozen different colors, each cast by a magnificent glowing gem set into the lid of a stone sarcophagus. Carved into the top of the twelve coffins was the bas-relief figure of a sleeping warrior. On the box next to Rikus’s, a huge citrine cast an eerie glow over the figure of a broaded-shouldered woman with close-cropped hair.

“A tomb!” Rikus gasped, a cold knot of fear forming in his chest. He did not voice the question that consumed all his thoughts: who had brought him here, and why?

The mul struggled out of his sarcophagus, his injured shoulder and leg aching terribly as he stepped over the coffin’s cracked cover. The carving on it represented a bald human with features so rugged and blocky that he might have been a dwarf, if not for his round ears and long bushy beard. His eyes were sunken and wild, with a heavy brow covered by a thick line of hair. Though the dark orbs were made of stone, they seemed almost live with ire and hatred.

In his hands, the man held a long bastard sword identical to the Scourge of Rkard. His body was covered by a full suit of plate armor, save that the visored helmet hung a little above the warrior’s shaven head. In the forehead of this basinet was set an orange opal. Unlike the gems of the other sarcophagi, this one remained dark.

Though the opal was clearly worth a hundred silver coins, Rikus did not even consider prying it from its setting. With Neeva and the rest of the thirsty legion waiting outside, he had no time for grave-robbing. Besides, the tomb filled his heart with such gloom and apprehension that he had no wish to tarry in it a moment longer than necessary.

When he scanned the murky room for an exit, he found none. The walls were lined with panels of bas-relief sculpture, but there was no visible opening in any of them. The mul stepped over to the closest and inspected it more carefully, hoping to find the seam of a concealed door.

The stone carvings depicted the same bearded warrior shown on the lid of the mul’s sarcophagus. The man was leading the assault on a warren of bearded dwarves resembling those pictured in the murals of the Tower of Buryn. The visor of the warrior’s helm was raised to reveal a broad, demented grin, and behind him lay the mutilated bodies of dozens of dwarves. Ahead of the armored figure fled many more, all looking over their shoulders at the gore-dripping sword that would soon cut them down.

Other sections of the panel depicted acts even more horrid. In one, the warrior had skewered the bodies of three dwarven children on his sword. In another he was drawing the blade across the abdomens of six women, leaving a trail of entrails and blood spilling from the wounds he had opened. Always, the warrior’s victims were dwarves and, always, they were depicted as frightened and dying.

Sickened by the scene and unsuccessful in finding any cracks or seams that could have been a door, Rikus moved along to inspect the rest of the panels. Like the first, the others portrayed hateful warriors leading attacks on defenseless dwarves. In one, the broad-shouldered woman depicted on the coffin with the citrine was filling a large cavern with dwarven bodies. Another showed a tall, gaunt warrior attacking a group of sleeping dwarven women.

When he came to the last panel, still without finding an exit, the mul closed his eyes for a moment. He took several deep breaths, trying to fight back the despair welling in his breast. In his mind flashed images of his dry and desiccated corpse sitting in the corner of the gloomy chamber, the jug of foul liquid from his sarcophagus sitting half full at his side.

“I won’t die like that,” Rikus said. “If someone carried me in here, there must be a way out.”

His spirits somewhat restored by the sound of his own voice, the mul opened his eyes and inspected the last panel. It portrayed a fully armored warrior leading a legion tbrough a forest. They were slaughtering a tribe of dwarves fleeing with all their possessions on their backs.

No matter how closely he looked, Rikus found no seams anywhere in the carving.

“Let me out!” the mul yelled.

He whirled around and pushed the closest sarcophagus to the floor. The glowing amethyst embedded in its lid went skittering across the cold stones, and the coffin itself shattered into a dozen shards. A withered corpse, held intact only by the suit of steel armor it wore, tumbled out of the shattered box.

The mul stared down at the body, awed by the sight of its corroding weapons and armor. He had never before seen a suit of man-sized steel plate, not even in the armories of King Kalak.

As the mul studied the armor, a gray shadow left the glowing amethyst and slipped across the floor to the corpse. It slithered into the armor, then the dead man’s head turned to look up at Rikus. A thin layer of gray, papery skin still covered the man’s face. The corpse’s leathery lips pulled back in a nasty sneer, and in the empty eye sockets twinkled eerie purple lights.

Rikus cried out in fear, then stepped back and drew his sword. Although he held the Scourge of Rkard in his hand, the tomb remained silent to his ears. The mul heard nothing but his own blood rushing through his body, his breath stirring the still crypt air, and the rapid pounding of his terrified heart.

When the corpse did not rise, Rikus dared to hope that it would leave him alone. He slowly backed away, moving as carefully and quietly as he could.

A woman’s throaty voice demanded, “What are you doing?” Put it back!”

Rikus stopped moving, barely finding the courage to look toward the voice. When he did, he saw the gray silhouette of a broad-shouldered woman. Although the rest of her body appeared as no more than a shadow, the woman’s face remained well-defined in the form of a translucent, wavering a mask with citrine yellow eyes. If the spirit was anything to judge by, the woman had been strikingly beautiful, though there was no longer anything in her features that gave an impression of tenderness-if there every had been.

“Put what back?” Rikus asked, trying to control his mounting fear. “The coffin?”

“That is for you to decide,” the wraith answered, floating across the room to Rikus’s side.

She grasped the mul’s injured arm and raised it into the air. Rikus’s jaw fell open, for her clammy grip seemed as substantial and solid as that of any living being who had ever touched him.

“This is what you must return.”

The wraith opened her grip and Rikus’s sore arm dropped like a stone. A bolt of anguish shot through his shoulder.

“My arm?” Rikus gasped, groaning in pain.

The wraith pointed at the sarcophagus from which the mul had escaped earlier. “Your body. Put it back,” she insisted, pushing him toward the coffin. “The sooner your spirit departs your body, the sooner Rajaat will come.”

The mul allowed himself to be herded through the dimly lit room, unsure of whether he should swing his sword at the wraith or not. So far, she had done him no harm, and the prospect of starting a fight with anything undead frightened even him.

When they reached his empty sarcophagus, with wraith patted the cold interior. “Return to the coffin.”

Rikus shook his head and stepped away, ready to raise his sword if she attacked. “Let me out of this tomb.”

“The time for bodies is past, Borys,” she insisted, paying his demand no attention.

“Who’s Borys?” the mul asked.

A distressed frown appeared on the wraith’s translucent face. “The Thirteenth Champion of Rajaat, Borys of Ebe,” she said, touching an ethereal palm to his chest. “Butcher of Dwarves. You.”

“Me?” Rikus exclaimed. He shook his head violently. “No.”

She brushed his cheek with her cool hand. In a living woman, the gesture might have been a warm one, but coming from a wraith it seemed imperious and threatening. “Have you forgotten your knights? Is that why you have been gone so long?”

“You’ve made a mistake,” the mul insisted, stepping away from the woman’s tenebrous shape. “I’m Rikus, freed man of Tyr.”

“Don’t say such things, Borys. There is nothing to fear,” she said. “Die and join your followers, as you should have done a thousand years ago.”

“How do you know Borys isn’t dead?’ Rikus demanded, stopping just beyond the wraith’s reach. “He could have died someplace else.”

“You know that cannot be,” she answered confidently.

“Why not?”

The wraith pointed at the dark opal in the broken lid of Rikus’s sarcophagus. “If you were dead, your spirit would have returned to light your gem.”

Rikus stared at the opal, uncertain of what he should do. By convincing the wraith that he was not Borys, he might cause her to attack. On the other hand, he had nothing to gain by misleading her, since she had already made it clear that she wanted Borys dead.

After a moment’s hesitation, the mul pointed to the gem. “Borys may still be alive, but I’m not him. I wouldn’t know how to light that opal if I wanted to.” He stepped over to the bas-relief depicting Borys slaying the dwarves. “I don’t even look like your champion.”

The wraith drifted after the mul and, before he could retreat, skimmed the sides of his head with her murky fingers. “It is not unusual that your appearance would change over so many years, especially if you shave your beard and crop your ears. I still know who you are.”

“How can you be so sure?” the mul asked, slipping away from the wraith.

She gestured at his sword. “Is that not the Scourge of Rkard in your hand?”

Rikus’s jaw fell. “That doesn’t make me Borys of Ebe.”

“Who else could have taken the dwarven belt?” she asked, dropping her glance to the Belt of Rank. “Only Borys.”

“This was a given-”

“Return the body to the coffin,” the wraith snapped, suddenly growing angry. “We are anxious to summon Rajaat.”

She moved toward him, reaching for his shoulders.

Rikus raised his sword. “I’m not who you think.”

The wraith’s translucent face contorted into an expression of anger and regret. “After all we shared, you would lift your weapon against me?”

“Yes-because I’m not Borys!” the mul yelled, exasperation overcoming the fear he felt in the wraith’s presence.

“You are!” she insisted, gliding toward the mul with an outstretched hand.

Rikus slashed at her arm with his sword, but she pulled away before the blade could strike.

“Let me touch you,” she commanded. “I will undo the magic that blinds you.”

“And if there is no magic?” Rikus asked, hoping that he he had, at last, found a way to convince her of his identity “Will you let me leave?”

“Only Borys can light the opal,” she answered. “There is no reason to keep anyone else here.”

Rikus lowered his weapon, but did not sheathe it. He was far from confident that her word could be trusted, but he was even less confident that he would win a battle with a wraith.

The wraith laid her hand on the burn in the center of the mul’s chest. Though he felt the pressure of her hand, he did not experience the pain he would have expected from being touched on the wound. She closed her translucent eyes, then said, “Borys, it had been so long.”

“I’m not-”

The mul stopped speaking in midsentence, for her hand suddenly turned noncorporeal. An eerie tingle spread through his body. As he looked in horror, the hand began sinking through his bone and flesh. Rikus heard himself breathing in shallow, terrified gasps, then a distraught shudder ran down his spine as her hand crept deeper into his chest.

A ghastly pain spread through his body, then he felt a morbid prickle as her fingers closed over his heart. Rikus tried to raise his sword, but found that he was too terrified to do anything but tremble.

The wraith locked gazes with him. Her eyes were glowing red. “What is this?” she demanded in a disgusted voice. “A human-dwarf half-breed, and a knight of Kemalok’s filthy kings!”

Her icy fingers squeezed the mul’s heart, and Rikus felt like someone had dropped a granite pillar on his chest. The mul backed away, but the wraith’s hand remained clenched around his heart. She drifted through the air after him, her body hovering above the floor like a banner waving in the wind. Rikus’s heart srtuggled to beat against her pitiless grip, each pulse coming more strenuously and after a longer interval. He began to grow dizzy, and soon even his breath came in painful wheezes.

“What of your word?” he gasped, forcing himself to look into the thing’s red eyes.

She squeezed so hard the mul thought his heart would burst. In his ears, he heard rushing wind, and the bitterness of oblivion filled his mouth.

Finding strength in the certainty of his impending death, Rikus lifted the Scourge of Rkard to swing it. The wraith clamped down on the mul’s heart viciously. Rikus released the sword and, as it clanged to the floor, cried out in despair, his entire body filled with such unthinkable agony that he could no longer control his own muscles.

“Fool! While I hold your heart, I can read what is in it,” hissed the wraith. “That is why I know you are telling the truth. You are not Borys.”

She relaxed her grip just enough to allow the mul’s heart to beat only feebly. He dropped to his knees, terrified that she would kill him.

“Before you die, tell my companions of Kemalok,” the wraith demanded.

Rikus looked up and saw more wraiths rising from the glowing gems in the coffins. Like the one gripping his heart, they were gray and formless, mere silhouettes of men and women who had died long ago. Their faces were bitter and loathsome, twisted into pellucid masks resembling the visages on the sarcophagi from which they rose.

“Kemalok stands,” the mul gasped, answering his captor’s question.

“There is more,” the wraith said. “Tell the others.”

“The city’s been buried for a thousand years, perhaps longer,” he added, struggling to bring each word to his lips. He desperately wanted to attack the wraith, to somehow fight for his life. Unfortunately, the Scourge of Rkard lay out of reach, and, even if his bare fists could harm a wraith, he did not see how he could hope to attack when she knew his thoughts. “From what I saw, Kemalok was never sacked.”

The wraiths hissed at each other in disconcerted tones. In a deep, raspy voice, one asked, “And what of Borys?”

“He killed Rkard, but the king’s dead body still guards his city,” Rikus answered. “I don’t know what happened to Borys.”

“You must,” objected another. Her voice was silky and smooth, but with sinister undertones that sent a chill down the mul’s spine. “You carried his sword.”

Rikus shook his head, for he was growing too weak to waste his strength on simple denials.

“There is no lie in his heart,” said the women who held him. “The sword was given to him.”

Then he is of no use to us,” said the raspy voice. “Kill him.”

“Wait,” Rikus coughed. Despite the urgency of his plea, his voice was weak and low. “The dwarves kept a history.”

“The Book of the Kemalok Kings,” said the silky-voiced wraith. “What of it?”

“It mentioned the Scourge of Rkard,” Rikus said. “It might say what happened to Borys.”

“Then give it to us, or we will make your death an angonizing one,” ordered a wraith.

Rikus shook his head, then had to wait for his abused heart’s next pulse before he had the strength to answer. “The book was stolen,” he said. “I’m trying to recover it.”

“And you expect us to believe you would bring it here?” hissed the woman who held his heart. She squeezed more tightly, and the mul’s heart stopped beating. His vision narrowed to a small tunnel of light.

The raspy-voiced man said, “Catrion, let him speak.”

Abruptly the woman relaxed her brutal grip, and Rikus’s heart began to pound with incredible fervor. “He’s alive, Nikolos.”

“Good.” The wraith who had been addressed as Nikolos drifted toward Rikus, saying, “Unless we find out what happened to Borys, Rajaat will never come.” He appeared before the mul, his eyes glowing amethyst purple. “You’re going to help us, or you’ll feel the wrath of Rajaat.”

Rikus nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“He’s lying, Nikolos,” Catrion reported.

Inwardly Rikus cursed. He had come to realize that tricking the wraiths was his only hope of surviving. Unfortunately, that would prove to be difficult as long as they knew what he was thinking.

“Now he’s trying to trick us,” Catrion said, again closing her fist about his heart. “I’ll kill him.”

“No,” said the soft voice of a female wraith. “We have waited for Borys long enough. It is time to find out what happened to him. We’ll just have to ensure that this half-dwarf keeps his word.”

“How will we do that, Tamar?” countered Catrion.

In answer, the soft-spoken wraith passed her gray hand over the huge ruby set into the lid of her sarcophagus. The stone rose from its setting and hovered beneath her hand as she drifted toward Rikus. “I’ll go with him,” Tamar said.

Catrion removed her arm from the mul’s chest, then Tamar closed her shadowy fingers over her glowing ruby. Rays of crimson light shot from between her fingers and danced before Rikus’s eyes in a mesmerizing pattern.

The mul lunged for his sword. By the time he grasped its hilt, Catrion and Nikolos stood over him, staring down at him with their eyes burning red.

“You could not destroy one of us, much less all twelve,” said Catrion.

“Do as we demand, and you will live at least until the book is recovered,” added Nikolos. He laid his hand on the back of the mul’s neck, and Rikus felt a harrowing prickle as the wraith’s fingers slipped over his spine. “Otherwise, you die here.”

Rikus took his hand away from the sword’s hilt and settled back onto his knees.

Tamar pressed her ghostly fist into the mul’s chest. At first, Rikus experienced only the same eerie tingle that he had felt when Catrion’s hand had gripped his heart. When the ruby passed into his flesh, however, it seemed that someone had planted a burning ember in his heart.

Screaming in anguish, he lashed out at the wraith with his good arm. His fist passed through her body harmlessly, then Nikolos’s hand squeezed his neck and pulled him back upright. Tamar’s gem continued to sink into his breast for what seemed an anguished eternity.

At last, the pain subsided. The wraith’s body flowed into the ruby in a wispy stream of shadow. Rikus looked down and saw that Tamar had lodged the stone in his left breast, with one facet exposed and peering out from beneath his skin like a blood-red eye.

I’ll be with you wherever you go, she said, her silky voice echoing to him on his own heartbeats. I’ll see what you see, I’ll hear what you hear, and I’ll know what you’re thinking. If you betray us, you’ll wish I had let Catrion kill you here.

To emphasize the threat, a searing streak of pain shot through the mul’s body. Rikus gasped, then nodded slowly.

Very good, she said. You may survive to serve our purpose.

Rikus retrieved his weapon, then stood. “Can I leave?”

Catrion’s eyes flashed brillant yellow, then she said, “Follow me.”

With that, she walked to the bas-relief depicting her slaughter of the caravan-dwelling dwarves. She stood before it for a moment, then the figures slowly came to life and backed away from the center of the panel. When they had vacated an area about as large as a man, a door-shaped area of stone darkened to jet black. Catrion stepped into the black area and disappeared.

Follow her, advised Tamar. The portal will not remain open for long.

Rikus reached out to touch the blackened wall and found that there was nothing there. He stepped into the portal and emerged instantly in the small foyer where he had fought Umbra. Next to him stood one of the statues from the exterior balconies of the citadal. It was the same tall, gaunt man that who had been attacking the dwarves in one of the bas-relief panels inside the tomb, and his arms were held out before him as if to carry something.

“That wasn’t here when I came down,” Rikus observed. Nikolos used it to carry you down here, Tamar explained. Outside our tomb, it is difficult for us to touch material things directly. Instead, we use our power to animate the statues.

Rikus nodded, then went to where he had thrown himself on Umbra’s flame. The shadow giant’s body was nowhere in sight, but the stones where he had fallen were stained black and they felt cold to the touch. The mul smiled.

“I killed him, didn’t I?” he asked.

“Who?” asked Catrion.

Rikus pointed at the stones. “Umbra. The beast I was fighting when I got hurt.”

“We saw no beast,” Catrion answered simply. She gestured at the stairs. “That way out.”

Shrugging, Rikus climbed the stairs. If Umbra had not actually died there, then he had certainly suffered a grievous wound. Right now, the mul was satisfied with that.

After ascending the stairway into the circular chamber into which he had fallen earlier, Rikus found the hallway that led to the first loge. By the damson light flooding the corridor, he could tell that the hour outside was approaching dusk.

“I’ve been here all afternoon!” the mul exclaimed, slipping between the high marble walls and walking briskly toward the outside. Never had he wanted to leave a place behind him as badly as this citadel.

When Rikus stepped on a windy loge, he could not help gasping. The battlefield beneath the citadel was bathed in the purple shadows of dusk, but there remained enough light for him to see that it was deserted-save for hundreds of Urikite skeletons and the flock of kes’trekels that had stripped them bare.

“Neeva!” Rikus yelled, gripping the hilt of his sword so that its magic could aid him in listening for a reply.

He heard nothing but kes’trekels using their powerful beaks to crack bones, and their sharp claws to scratch for marrow.