Rajaat's demise wouldn't end the Cleansing Wars against the elves, the dwarves, or the giants any more than Myron of Yoram's death had spared the trolls. They'd saved humanity, that was all. The children of their own ancestors need never fear a champion-led army. And aside from Borys, who gave a barely perceptible nod when the Lion of Urik stared straight at him, none of the champions suspected how grave humanity's danger had been.

Wyan and Sacha got reprieves. If they were wise, they'd hie themselves as far from the human heartland as the sun and moons allowed. As the champions parted company without fare-thee-wells or other false promises, Hamanu wondered if he, too, wouldn't be wiser himself to leave Urik. There was a lot of world beyond the heartland. He'd seen a bit of it chasing trolls. Surely a man—an immortal champion starving for the savor of human death in his heart-could find better neighbors.

Hamanu never had the chance to look. The champions turned on each other before the white tower's netherworld glow had vanished behind them. Wild sorcery raised whirl-winds in the Gray. Hamanu didn't know if the assault spells were aimed at him or were echoes of other quarrels. The way the netherworld was spinning, it didn't matter. He took his chances with unfamiliar, but real, terrain, tumbling from the morning sky onto an empty plain. He took his bearing from the sun and started walking.

Four long but uneventful days later, the Lion of Urik walked through the gates of his palace. He was astonished to find Gallard waiting for him by the well in one of the inner courtyards.

"Peace. Truce. Whatever," Gallard said quickly, shedding his servant's illusion and holding his hands palms-up, to indicate that he had no spells quickening on his fingertips. "We thought we'd lost you."

While Hamanu cooled himself and slaked his thirst, the Gnome-Bane told him what had happened in the Gray: who'd attacked whom and with what success. Gallard would have told him more, but Hamanu cut his litany short.

"Your feuds mean nothing to me. Why should I care?"

The Gnome-Bane had a quick, disturbing answer: "Because between them, Sacha Arala and Wyan have cracked the cyst."

Hamanu finished pouring a bucket of water over his head then heaved the clay-coated straw bucket across the courtyard. It hit the wall with a satisfying thud and collapsed in a shapeless, useless mass on the ground.

"Is he free?" Gallard writhed. "Not yet. We need you, Hamanu. We need everyone."

"It's too late for that. We've got to hurry."

Hamanu's peers still hadn't found a way to kill each other, but they were getting closer. Sacha Arala and Wyan were unrecognizable, indistinguishable, as they sagged against what appeared to be ordinary ropes binding them to columns on either side of the white tower's gate. Uyness kept watch over them with Dregoth's stone-headed maul braced across her arms. They'd have been wiser to run—if they'd gotten the chance.

Of far greater concern to Hamanu than the fates of two lesser champions was Gallard's egg-shaped cyst around which the remaining seven champions had gathered. Thick layers of shimmering green warding couldn't hide the damage. While Hamanu watched, finger-length worms of intensely bright sorcery oozed from dark cracks. They wriggled like slugs until the warding destroyed them. With the Dark Lens nearby, the champions could renew the warding continuously. With no more than a thought and a twitch of his thumb, Hamanu added his own spell to the mix. But warding wouldn't hold forever, not against humanity's first sorcerer.

"What abou

t the Hollow beneath the Black?" Hamanu asked.

Borys glowered at Gallard, who shook his head. "Too dangerous to get close enough to look. But it holds... it must! If the Hollow were cracked, nothing could hold here."

"So, do we wait until he breaks free, or what?"

"Another rock," Albeorn advised. "A bigger rock, around this one."

Hamanu arched a highly skeptical eyebrow.

"You've got a better idea?" Borys demanded, cocking his fist for emphasis.

The Lion of Urik was no master of sorcery, at least not then, and having nothing better to offer, he could only go along, providing the strength, both physical and sorcerous, that his elders requested. Working together, the cooperating champions did construct a second cyst around the original one. It seemed that the new prison would hold, but there were dark lines on the mottled surface by sundown and flashes of dark blue light by moonrise.

"He exploits the weaknesses between us," Sielba said wearily.

Hamanu had come to the same conclusion, but the red-haired champion spoke first.

"We need to make our own Rajaat before we can make Rajaat's prison," Borys suggested softly.

Hamanu thought the Borys who stood before them, tall, thick-necked, and armored like a troll, was the Butcher of Dwarves in his true, metamorph's shape, but that was illusion, too. As golden light cascaded around him, Borys reformed himself. His head became a fang-filled wedge. His eyes glowed with the sun's bloody color. His limbs lengthened and changed proportion. Though he remained upright on two legs, it was clear as his torso grew more massive that he'd be more comfortable and more powerful if he balanced his burgeoning weight on his arms as well.

"I offer myself." Borys shaped his words with sorcery and left them hanging above the insufficient prison. "Help me finish the metamorphosis, and I will keep Rajaat in the Hollow."

Dregoth roared, but he wasn't nearly the dragon Borys already was. His outrage was moot and impotent.

"Think of the risks," Hamanu said, thinking of himself and the metamorphosis that lay before him. He was unaware that he'd spoken aloud.

I have, Borys said in Hamanu's mind alone. My risks are not so great as yours would be. I will finish the dwarves—the elves and the giants, too—but humanity has nothing to fear. Athas will be our world, a world of humans and champions where Rajaat has no power, no influence.

* * *

Tags: Lynn Abbey Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net