The Desert Spear

  Jardir nodded. “I want to march in three summers.” He put his arm around Abban, drawing him close like a friend and putting his lips within inches of Abban’s ear.

  “And if you ever try to cheat me like some mark in the bazaar,” he added in a low voice, “I will tan your skin and use it as a dung sack. That is a promise you should remember.”

  Abban paled and nodded quickly. “I will never forget it.”

  CHAPTER 10

  KHA’SHARUM

  331 AR

  JARDIR HISSED, EMBRACING THE CUT.

  “Am I hurting you?” Inevera asked.

  “I’ve taken far worse in the Maze,” Jardir scoffed. “But if you should slip at a tendon…”

  Inevera snorted. “I know the course of a man’s flesh far better than you, husband. This is no different than carving alagai hora.”

  Jardir looked at the silver tray that held the thin strips of flesh she had sliced from the palm of his hand. He let the sting pass through him as Inevera packed herbs into the wounds. “I fail to see the need for this.”

  “According to the Canon we took from one of the Northern Messengers in the dungeon, the greenlanders believe the Deliverer will have marked flesh that corelings cannot abide,” Inevera said. She let go of his hand, allowing him to raise it before his eyes, marveling at the precision of the ward she had cut into the skin.

  “Will they work?” he asked, flexing his hand experimentally.

  Inevera nodded. “When I am through, your touch will bring more harm to the alagai than a thrust from the Spear of Kaji itself.”

  Jardir felt a thrill run through him. The thought of wrestling a demon on its own terms and killing it with his bare hands was intoxicating.

  Inevera had just finished binding the hand when Damaji Ashan entered the throne room, followed by his son Asukaji and Jardir’s second son, Asome. Both young to be wearing the white robes of dama, but they were Blood of the Deliverer, and none dared question it.

  “Deliverer,” Ashan greeted him, bowing. “The khaffit,” he spat the word as if it had a foul taste, “is here with the tallies.” Jardir nodded, and Abban limped into the room on his ivory camel crutch while Inevera draped herself at Jardir’s feet. Damaji Aleverak followed Abban in, the empty right sleeve of his robe pinned back. Jardir’s son Maji, in his nie’dama bido, shadowed his steps. They joined Ashan, Asukaji, and Asome to the right of the Skull Throne.

  Abban bowed and pulled a small vial from his belt. He threw it to Jardir. “Dama Qavan of the Mehnding asked me to give you that,” he said.

  Jardir caught the vial and looked at it curiously. “He asked you to give this?”

  “The contents, anyway,” Abban said. “Mixed in your food or drink.”

  Inevera snatched the vial from Jardir and pulled the stopper, sniffing the contents. She put a drop on the tip of her finger, tasting it.

  “Tunnel asp venom,” she said, spitting. “Enough to kill ten men.”

  Jardir tilted his head at Abban “What did he pay you?”

  Abban smiled, lifting a jingling sack of coins. “A Damaji’s ransom.”

  Jardir nodded. Damaji Enkaji of the Mehnding had proven a vocal supporter of him in public, but this was not the first assassination attempt to come from one of his minions.

  “I’ll have Dama Qavan arrested and put to the question,” Ashan said.

  “It’s a waste of time,” Abban said. “He won’t betray his Damaji to your torturers. He is better left alone.”

  “No one asked your opinion, khaffit!” Damaji Aleverak growled, making Abban jump. “We can’t let the man live to further plot against the Shar’Dama Ka.”

  “Perhaps the khaffit has a point, husband,” Inevera interrupted, drawing the outraged glare Aleverak always gave when the woman dared speak her mind before the Skull Throne. “Abban can tell Qavan you ate the poison without so much as a cramp, and seed the tale in the bazaar to spread it everywhere. Project such invincibility, and even the bravest assassin may reconsider his course.”

  “The Damajah is wise,” Abban said with a bow. They were two of a kind, he and Inevera, always twisting others to their wishes. Jardir saw the khaffit’s eyes flick to her, just for an instant, drinking of his wife’s wantonly displayed beauty. He swallowed a flare of anger. Inevera said it should make him feel powerful to flaunt something other men coveted, but even after two years the opposite still held true.

  But like it or not, both Abban and Inevera had skills Jardir needed, skills that the dama and Sharum sorely lacked. Abban’s tallies and Inevera’s dice gave only brutal truth, while every other man in Krasia fell over himself to say only what they thought Jardir wished to hear, even if the words held no truth at all.

  Jardir had grown to depend on them, and both knew it, continuing to dress outlandishly, adorned with golden trinkets, as if daring Jardir to punish them.

  “Damaji Enkaji is powerful, Deliverer,” Abban reminded him, “and his tribe’s engineering skills are essential to your preparations for war. You already slight him by denying him a place in your inner council. Perhaps now is not the time to follow a trail that may lead to him and force you to act publicly.”

  “Savas is not yet old enough to become Damaji of the Mehnding,” Inevera added, speaking of Jardir’s Mehnding son. “They will not follow a boy still in his bido.”

  They were right. If Jardir killed Enkaji before Savas earned the white robe, the black turban would simply pass on to one of Enjaki’s sons, who would bear Jardir the same animosity their father did, if not more.

  “Very well,” he said at last, though it sickened him to play Inevera and Abban’s games. “Spin your web over Qavan. Now on to the tallies.”

  “As of this morning, there are 217 dama, 322 dama’ting, 5,012 Sharum, 17,256 women, 15,623 children, including those in Hannu Pash, and 21,733 khaffit living in the Desert Spear,” Abban said.

  “That isn’t enough warriors if we are to march in another summer,” Jardir said. “Only a few hundred come out of Hannu Pash each year.”

  “Perhaps you should delay your plans,” Abban suggested. “In a decade, you could double your forces.”

  Jardir felt Inevera’s hand squeeze his leg, her long nails digging into flesh, and shook his head. “We delay too long as it is.”

  Abban shrugged. “Then you will have to march with the warriors you have next year. Not six thousand.”

  “I need more,” Jardir insisted.

  Abban shrugged. “What can I do? It’s not as if dal’Sharum are stores of grain hidden in the bazaar, with merchants waiting for the price to go up before bringing them out.”

  Jardir looked at him so sharply that Abban flinched.

  “Something I said?” he asked.

  “The bazaar,” Jardir said. “I haven’t been there since the day Kaval and Qeran took us from our homes.” He stood up, drawing a white outer robe over the Sharum blacks he still wore. “Show it to me now.”

  “Me?” Abban asked. “You wish to walk the street next to a khaffit?”

  “Is there anyone better suited?” Jardir asked. Everyone else in the room turned to stare at Jardir in horror.

  “Deliverer,” Ashan protested, “the bazaar is a place for women and khaffit…”

  Aleverak nodded. “That ground is not worthy of the Shar’Dama Ka’s feet.”

  “I will decide that,” Jardir said. “Perhaps there is yet some worthiness to be found there.”

  Ashan frowned, but he bowed. “Of course, Deliverer. I will prepare your bodyguard. A hundred loyal Sharum—”

  “No bodyguard is necessary,” Jardir cut in. “I can protect myself from women and khaffit.”

  Inevera stood, helping Jardir arrange his robes. “At least let me throw the dice first,” she whispered. “You will draw assassins like a dung cart draws flies.”

  Jardir shook his head. “Not this time, jiwah. I feel Everam’s hand today without that crutch.”

  Inevera did not seem convinced, but she stepped aside.
r />   A weight lifted off Jardir as he strode from the palace. He could not remember the last time he had left its walls in daylight. He had loved the feel of the sun, once. His back straightened as he walked, and something in Jardir…hummed. He felt a rightness to his actions, as if Everam Himself guided them.

  Time seemed to stop as Jardir and Abban walked through the Great Bazaar, merchants and customers alike freezing in place as they passed. Some stared in wonder at the Deliverer, and others stared in greater shock at the khaffit by his side. Whispers grew in their wake, and many began to drift after them.

  The bazaar ran along the lee side of the city’s inner wall for miles to either side of the great gate. Seemingly endless tents and carts, great pavilions and tiny kiosks were arrayed, not to mention countless roving food and trinket vendors, porters to carry purchases, and great crowds of shoppers, haggling for bargains.

  “It’s bigger than I remember,” Jardir said in surprise. “So many twists and turns. The Maze seems less daunting.”

  “It is said no man may walk so far as to pass every vendor in a single day,” Abban said, “and more than one fool has been left trying to find their way clear of it when the dama sound the curfew from the minarets of Sharik Hora.”

  “So many khaffit,” Jardir said in wonder, looking out at a sea of shaved faces and tan vests. “Even though I hear them in the tallies every morning, the number never truly struck me. You outnumber everyone else in Krasia.”

  “There are benefits to being denied the Maze,” Abban said. “Long life is one of them.”

  Jardir nodded. Another thing he had never considered before. “Does your heart ever miss it? Beneath the cowardice, do you ever wish you had seen the inside of the Maze?”

  Abban limped quietly for a long time. “What does it matter?” he asked at last. “It was not meant to be.”

  They walked a bit farther, when Jardir stopped suddenly, staring. Across the street stood a giant khaffit, easily seven feet tall and rippling with muscle under his tan vest and cap. He had a huge barrel of water slung under each long arm, seeming no more strained than if he were holding a pair of sandals.

  “You there!” Jardir called, but the giant did not reply. Jardir strode across the street to him, grabbing him by the arm. The khaffit turned suddenly, startled, and nearly dropped the water barrels before he caught himself. “I called to you, khaffit,” Jardir growled.

  Abban put a hand on Jardir’s arm. “He did not hear you, Deliverer. The man was born without hearing.” Indeed, the giant was moaning and pointing frantically toward his ears. Abban made a few quick gestures with his hands that calmed him.

  “Deaf?” Jardir asked. “Did that cause him to fail at Hannu Pash?”

  Abban laughed. “Children with such faults are never called to Hannu Pash in the first place, Deliverer. This man was khaffit the moment he was born.”

  Another khaffit, a fit-looking man of some thirty-five years, came out of a booth, stopping short in shock at the sight of them.

  “Hold,” Jardir commanded as the man tried to escape. Immediately the khaffit fell to his knees, pressing his face into the dirt.

  “O great Shar’Dama Ka,” the man said, groveling. “I am unworthy of your notice.”

  “Have no fear, my brother,” Jardir said, laying a gentle hand on the terrified man’s shoulder. “I have no tribe. No caste. I stand for all Krasia, dama, Sharum, and khaffit alike.”

  The tension in the man seemed to ease at Jardir’s words. “Tell me, why do you wear the tan, brother?”

  “I am a coward, Deliverer,” the man said, his voice tightening with shame. “My will broke on my first night in the Maze. I cut my tether, and I…ran from my ajin’pal.” He began to weep, and Jardir let it run its course. Then he squeezed the man’s shoulder, making him look up.

  “You may walk behind me on my tour of the bazaar,” he said, and the man gasped in shock. “The earless one, as well,” Jardir told Abban, who made more signs to the giant. The two men fell obediently in behind Abban and Jardir, followed by all who had witnessed the event, man and woman. Even the vendors left their wares unattended to walk behind the Deliverer.

  Everywhere he looked, Jardir saw more and more fit men in the tan, each with his own reasons for being denied the black. None dared lie to him when pressed as to why.

  “I was sickly as a child,” one said.

  “I cannot see colors,” another said.

  “My father bribed the dama to overlook me,” a third dared admit.

  “I need lenses for my eyes,” many told him, and others had been thrown from the sharaj simply for being left-handed.

  Jardir squeezed the shoulder of each one, and gave them permission to follow him. Before long, a huge crowd trailed him, sweeping everyone it passed up in its wake. Finally, Jardir looked back at them all, a throng of thousands, and nodded. He leapt atop a vendor’s cart to stand above the crowd, looking over the women and khaffit.

  “I am Ahmann asu Hoshkamin am’Jardir asu Kaji!” he cried, holding up the Spear of Kaji. “I am Shar’Dama Ka!” The crowd roared in response, startling Jardir with a strength and power he had never dreamed existed.

  “Everam has charged me with destroying the alagai,” Jardir shouted, “but to do that I need Sharum!” He swept his hand out over the crowd. “I see among you fit men who were denied the spear as children, forcing you to live in shame and poverty as your brothers and cousins walked in Everam’s glory. Putting shame upon your parents and children, as well.”

  The men Jardir had asked to follow him were nodding and agreeing with his words. “We have the magic to destroy the alagai now,” he said. “Our spears skewer them by the hundreds, but we have more spears than men to carry them. And so I offer you all this second chance! Any able-bodied khaffit who wishes to join in alagai’sharak may present himself to the training grounds tomorrow, where every tribe shall raise a khaffit’sharaj to train you. Those who complete the training shall be named kha’Sharum, and given warded weapons to buy your way back to glory and Heaven for yourselves and your families!”

  There was a shocked silence as his words sank in. Men who had spent their lives under the heel of the Sharum, bent and toiling under the weight of their caste, began to straighten their backs. Jardir could see into their minds, it seemed, as they imagined the glory that might await them, the chance for a better life.

  “Sharak Ka is coming!” Jardir shouted. “There is honor enough for all in the Great War. Who among you will swear to fight it alongside me?”

  The first man Jardir had asked to follow him, the one who had run from his ajin’pal in the Maze, pushed to the front of the crowd, kneeling.

  “Deliverer,” he said, “my heart has been heavy since my failure in the Maze. I beg you for a second chance.” Jardir reached down with the Spear of Kaji, touching his shoulder.

  “Rise, kha’Sharum,” Jardir said.

  The man did as he was bade, but before he had risen fully, a spear struck him in the back. Jardir caught him before he could fall, looking deep into his eyes as he coughed a gout of blood.

  “You are saved,” Jardir told him. “The gates of Heaven will be open to you, brother.”

  The man smiled as the light left his eyes, and Jardir set him down, looking at the spear jutting from his back. It was one of the short, close-quarter weapons favored by Nanji Watchers.

  Jardir looked up and saw three Nanji approaching, holding short spears in one hand and weighted lines in the other. Though it was day, their night veils were drawn, hiding their faces.

  “You go too far, Sharum Ka, offering spears to khaffit,” one of the warriors called.

  “We must end your life,” another agreed.

  They began to advance, but several khaffit broke from the crowd, moving to stand protectively in front of Jardir.

  The Nanji laughed. “It was foolish of you to leave your palace without a bodyguard,” one said. “These khaffit cannot protect you.”

  It wasn’t surprising that the w
arriors thought the women and khaffit no threat, but Jardir, having felt the crowd’s power just a moment before, wasn’t so sure. Even so, he would ask no one to die needlessly for his sake.

  Project invincibility, Inevera said, and even the bravest assassin may reconsider his course.

  “Clear their path!” Jardir shouted as he leapt down from the cart. The startled men stepped aside immediately.

  “You think three warriors can kill me?” Jardir laughed. “If a hundred Nanji skulk in the shadows, I would need no more bodyguard than now.” He rested the point of the Spear of Kaji down in the dirt and threw out his chest, inviting attack. “I am Shar’Dama Ka!” he cried, feeling the rightness of the words. “Strike at me if you dare!”

  The Nanji approached, but Jardir could see hesitation in them now. His very presence unnerved them. Their spears shook in their hands, and they glanced to one another uncertainly as if to decide which should lead the attack.

  “Strike or kneel!” Jardir roared. He brought up the Spear of Kaji, and the bright metal caught the sunlight and seemed to flare with power.

  One of the Nanji warriors dropped his spear and fell to his knees. “Traitor!” the one next to him cried, turning to stab at him, but the third was quicker, darting in and putting his spear through the aggressor’s chest.

  There was a creak behind Jardir. A whisper of sandal on canvas. Knowing Nanji tactics, he turned around, looking up at the true assassin, crouched hidden atop the pavilion behind him. This Watcher should have struck while Jardir was distracted by the others, ensuring a kill.

  Their eyes met, but Jardir said nothing, waiting. After a moment, the man threw down his spear and somersaulted down after it, kneeling at Jardir’s feet.

  Jardir went to the fallen man, pulling the spear free of his back and holding it up for all to see. “This is not khaffit blood!” he cried. “This is the blood of a warrior, the first kha’Sharum, and I will lacquer his skull and add it to my throne to remember him always.” He looked out at the khaffit. “Will any step forth to take his place?”