Read Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) for Free Online Page B

It was fairly short; it had a large head, the back of which was elongated. It had quite thick, stubby legs, and quite powerful arms. If forced into a wrestling match, it looked like an obvious winner. It had some sort of a staff in its hand, and, for some reason it was standing out in the open, waiting. Was it going to surrender? If it were, then Gaius had better rethink. The less that was seen of him, until it became clear what was going to happen, the better. There was a door just before the bay. He strode towards it as quietly as he could, then opened the door and stood half in the entrance.
    Gaius heard the hatch to the entrance open, so he leaned forward to peek around the corner. Three strange creatures entered. They were a little taller than the Ulsian, but still shorter than Gaius, and they were seemingly somewhat weaker for they seemed to be struggling to move freely. They had quite large eyes placed behind what seemed to be a cross between a beak and a short elephant-like trunk. They had thin, long arms, which held what appeared to be ridiculously short swords that had no edge, no real point, but they did have something trailing from the wrist to some sort of pack behind the back.
    It was then the previous captain appeared from somewhere, and began yabbering to the intruders, apparently letting them know he was the one who had sent the message, and he was on their side, and then, as if to prove it, he produced some sort of weapon and leaped towards the Ulsian.
    All the Ulsian seemed to have was a short staff-like object in his right "hand". Without seeming to think, he pointed this at the captain, and all Gaius could do was to gasp. The captain was held motionless in mid-air, then flung towards the Tin Man. An order was given, and this time the Tin Man held his captain and dragged him away. The three intruders circled.
    One raised the "sword", pointed at the Ulsian, and something seemed to happen, for a green light seemed to show up on the Ulsian, or more precisely, a few inches in front of him. If that were a weapon, the Ulsian seemed to have some form of invisible armour. Two of the intruders then advanced, and were held back by the Ulsian, again, lights flickering on the intruder's chests. Obviously the two sides had weapons that Gaius did not understand, but it was equally obvious that the Ulsian could only deal with one at a time. He seemed to be able to hold off two, but the third was circling towards Gaius. Assuming that that was a realistic weapon, the Ulsian must lose.
    Then suddenly Gaius felt strangely heavy, as if he was suddenly transformed into lead. The intruders were now suffering, and Gaius reasoned that the Tin Man must have turned up the force that held everyone to the floor. However, while the Ulsian was clearly better adapted to this increase in force, that was not going to win the day. Despite the obvious stress, the third intruder had gone well to the side, the other two had separated, and the Ulsian was clearly feeling desperate. He tried to close with one, but it stepped back and the other thrust forward. The light flashed brighter on the Ulsian, and it had to step back. If Gaius was going to do anything, it had to be now.
    He lunged forward, struggling against the increased gravity. The third intruder half saw him, and turned its weapon vaguely in his direction. It was about halfway around, when Gaius struck, his gladius entering about two-thirds the way down the body, and driven upwards. There was a howling scream, blood, and some strange sticky mucilage poured from the wound. The intruder fell to the ground as Gaius withdrew the sword, and when the strange weapon hit the floor, there was a huge flash, the wounded creature writhed, shed sparks, then lay still.
    The more distant intruder momentarily stared at the two of them, then turned his weapon in Gaius' direction, but the Ulsian had seen what was required. He leaped towards it and pointed his wand at the backpack. There was an enormous