But it was not enough. Sooner or later, Inevera or one of the others would have him poisoned, or killed in his bed, unless he vastly increased his protections.
‘I fear for you while I am gone,’ Shamavah said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘You and the rest of our family, now that we must leave the Palace of Mirrors.’
‘Look to your own concerns in the coming months,’ Abban said. ‘I can see to my own protection, and that of our women, while you are gone.’
‘And our sons?’ Shamavah asked.
Abban let out a deep sigh as he straightened his turban in the mirror and reached for his camel crutch. ‘That will be more difficult,’ he admitted. ‘But one problem at a time. For now, you have a caravan to catch.’
When he had seen his wife and the greenlanders off, Abban limped back to Ahmann’s palace. Duke Edon’s manse was the most impressive and defensible structure in Everam’s Bounty, though it was dwarfed by the palaces of the Desert Spear. Abban himself had larger holdings in Krasia, though his were disguised as crumbling warehouses in poor districts. It was unwise for a khaffit to advertise his wealth to the local dama and Sharum.
The Damaji and most powerful dama had claimed all the grandest structures in Everam’s Bounty when the city was captured, and the Sharum had snatched up the best of what remained. Abban had been left with a humble abode in the poorest and most remote section of town, the building not even large enough to properly house all his wives, daughters, and servants. His pavilion in the new bazaar was grander.
In the short term, Abban had solved the problem by moving everyone into the Palace of Mirrors while he quietly bought all the land in his poor neighbourhood. Slaves worked day and night, secretly tunnelling the perimeter. He would fill the tunnels with poured stone to found his outer wall, the materials already stockpiled. By the time anyone knew what was happening, the wall would be up, and safe from prying eyes, though even those would see only a squat block of a building with nothing to note the splendour within.
But a wall was nothing without warriors to guard it. Abban was no warrior, but he knew their value. He had many muscular chin slaves, but they were no match for true Sharum. If he wasn’t prepared, the Damaji would take his new palace from him the moment the final brick was laid.
The halls of the Shar’Dama Ka’s palace were full of dama and dama’ting, with Sharum marching to and fro, guarding every archway and door. Black-clad dal’ting scurried about carrying trays and laundered linen. Abban kept his eyes down, exaggerating his limp as his crutch thumped a steady beat on the thick carpet.
Always appear weaker than you are, Chabin had taught, and Abban had taken the lessons well. Shattered decades ago, his leg pained him still, but not half so much as he let on, even to Ahmann. A simple cane would have sufficed, but the crutch made him seem that much more helpless. As intended, almost everyone avoided him with their eyes, that they not show their disgust.
Hasik stood outside the throne room, and glowered as Abban approached. Ahmann’s entire inner circle despised the khaffit, but Hasik had a capacity for hatred and sadism that surpassed any man Abban had ever met. Tall and muscular enough to wrestle the Northern giants in Deliverer’s Hollow, he had been given special training in sharusahk since becoming bodyguard to the Deliverer. Pain meant nothing to Hasik, and even kai’Sharum feared to face him. For Hasik did not simply defeat his enemies. He left them crippled and humiliated.
They knew each other from sharaj, when Abban and Ahmann had been friends, and Hasik Ahmann’s greatest rival. Now Hasik served Ahmann fanatically, but his hatred of Abban had only grown, especially since Abban took every chance he could to flaunt the fact that Hasik was only a bodyguard, while he had the Deliverer’s ear.
Unable to strike at Abban directly, Hasik vented his frustrations on Abban’s women, coming often to his pavilion and home on some errand for the Deliverer, always making time to break some item of great value or rape whichever of Abban’s wives or daughters was nearest to hand.
In the Palace of Mirrors, his women had been safe from Hasik, and denied this pleasure the brutal warrior’s loathing had multiplied. His nostrils flared like a bull as the khaffit approached, and Abban wondered if he would be able to control himself.
‘Don’t just stand there, open the door,’ Abban snapped. ‘Or shall I tell the Deliverer you delayed my answering his summons?’
Hasik gaped and looked like he was going to choke on his own tongue. Abban watched in amusement as he sputtered, but he did at last open the portal.
Ahmann had made enough examples of those who would hinder Abban that even Hasik dare not do so. His eyes promised vengeance as Abban passed, but the khaffit only smiled in return.
There was a knot of Damaji and various hangers-on around Ahmann as Abban limped into the throne room, but Ahmann dismissed them with a wave. ‘Leave us.’
The men all shot glares at Abban, but none dared disobey. Ahmann led the way into a smaller side chamber. There was a great oval table of dark polished wood surrounded by twenty chairs, a throne at its head. Behind the throne was a great map covering an entire wall, and the table was laden with fresh food and drink.
‘She has left?’ Ahmann asked when they were alone.
Abban nodded. ‘Mistress Leesha has agreed to allow me to set up a trading post for the Hollow tribe. It will help facilitate their integration, and give us valuable contacts in the North.’
Ahmann nodded. ‘Well done.’
‘I will need men to guard the shipments, and the stores at the post,’ Abban said. ‘Before, I had servants for such heavy duty. Khaffit, perhaps, but fit men.’
‘Such men are all kha’Sharum now,’ Ahmann said.
Abban bowed. ‘You see my difficulty. No dal’Sharum will take orders from khaffit in any event, but if you would allow me to select a few kha’Sharum to serve me in this regard, it would be most satisfactory.’
Ahmann’s eyes narrowed. He was guileless, but no fool. ‘How many?’
Abban shrugged. ‘I could make do with a hundred. A pittance.’
‘No warrior, even a kha’Sharum, is a pittance, Abban,’ Ahmann said.
Abban bowed. ‘I will pay their family stipends from my own coffers, of course.’
Ahmann considered a moment longer, then shrugged. ‘Pick your hundred.’
Abban bowed as deeply as his crutch allowed. ‘I will need a drillmaster to continue their training.’
Ahmann shook his head. ‘That, my friend, I cannot spare.’
Abban smiled. ‘I was thinking perhaps Master Qeran.’ Qeran had been one of Abban and Ahmann’s own drillmasters when they were in sharaj. He was harsh, bigoted, and hated khaffit with a passion. He had also had his leg bitten so badly by a field demon that the dama’ting had been forced to amputate it. The drillmaster had healed, but his pride had not.
Ahmann looked at him in surprise. ‘Qeran? Who struck me for not dropping you to your death?’
Abban bowed. ‘The same. If the Deliverer himself decided to spare me, and has come to see my uses, perhaps the drillmaster will, too. He has been having a difficult time of late it seems. He still teaches in sharaj, but the nie’Sharum do not respect him as they once did.’
Ahmann grunted. ‘Nie’Sharum are ever fools until blooded, but there will be blood for all soon enough. If you wish Qeran to work for you, you may ask him, but I will not command it.’
Abban bowed again. ‘Will your promises to the mistress of the Hollow tribe alter your plans?’
Ahmann shook his head. ‘My promises affect nothing. It is still my duty to unite the people of the Northland for Sharak Ka. We will march on Lakton in the spring.’
Abban pursed his lips at that, but nodded.
‘You think it a mistake,’ Ahmann said. ‘You would have me wait.’
Abban bowed. ‘Not at all. I am told you have already begun recalling your forces.’
Ahmann nodded. ‘We have angered Alagai Ka by killing the demon princeling. The next Waning will bring the opening s
alvos of Sharak Ka. I can feel it in my heart. We must be ready.’
‘Of course,’ Abban agreed. ‘The chin are pacified and will offer little resistance even as you remove most of your warriors from their lands. Their women properly scarved, their sons taken for Hannu Pash, and their men enslaved. It will be years, though, before the boys are old enough to test as dal’Sharum, and their fathers, the chi’Sharum, are not progressing well in their training, I hear.’
Ahmann raised a brow at him. ‘You hear much from the Sharum pavilions, khaffit.’
Abban only smiled. ‘My leg may be crippled, my friend, but my ears are sharp.’
‘The boys taken for Hannu Pash have been separated from their families, and are young enough to forget the old ways,’ Ahmann said. ‘Many of them will be fine dal’Sharum, and a few of them valuable dama we can use to proselytize in the green lands. Their fathers, however, remember too much and learn too little. Most will never open their hearts to the honour we offer them by training them to fight in Sharak Ka.’
‘First you ask them to fight Sharak Sun against their greenland brothers,’ Abban noted. ‘That is a difficult thing for any man.’
‘The Daylight War has been foretold,’ Ahmann said. ‘It cannot be denied if we are to win against the alagai and rid the world of their taint forever.’
‘Prophecies are vague things, Ahmann, oft misunderstood until it is too late. All the stories in the Evejah tell us so.’ Abban held up his ledger, a heavy book with huge pages, all filled with neat, tiny lines of indecipherable code. ‘Profit margins speak clearer truth.’
‘So we will make of them a blunt instrument,’ Ahmann said. ‘Fodder for the slings and arrows of the enemy. They will be the shield of my army, even as the true Sharum are its spear.’
‘Your spears will have fine mounts, at least,’ Abban said. ‘We pride ourselves on our breeding in Krasia, but the herds of wild horses roaming the grasslands of Everam’s Bounty put them to shame. Mustang, the chin call them. Enormous, powerful beasts.’
Ahmann grunted. ‘They would have to be, to survive the night.’
‘The dal’Sharum have proven exceptional at hunting and breaking them,’ Abban said. ‘Your armies will be quick, and little will stand in the way of their charge.’
Ahmann nodded in satisfaction. ‘Spring cannot come soon enough. Every day we wait, our enemies have time to gather their forces.’
‘I agree,’ Abban said. ‘Which is why you should not wait. Attack Lakton on first snow.’
Ahmann looked at him in surprise, but Abban kept his face blank. It pleased him to so shock his friend.
‘Since when does Abban the coward ever suggest attack?’ Ahmann asked.
Abban held up his ledger. ‘When it is profitable.’
Ahmann looked at him a long time, then went and poured himself a goblet of nectar, sitting on his throne. He gestured at Abban to sit. ‘Very well. Tell me your prophecy of profit. How am I to know when the first snow will come? Are you now dama’ting, to see the future?’
Abban smiled and took a goblet of his own, sitting at the table and opening his ledger. ‘First snow is not an event, but a specific date in the Thesan calendar. Thirty days after autumn equinox. In Lakton, it is significant because it is when the harvest tithe from the hamlets is due to the Laktonian duke.’
‘And you want us to steal it,’ Ahmann surmised.
‘Spears are useless when carried by men with empty stomachs, Ahmann,’ Abban said. ‘Your army almost starved this past winter, especially after that fool dama set fire to the grain silos. We cannot afford another such blunder.’
‘Agreed,’ Ahmann said, ‘but now we control the largest swathe of farmland in the North. What need have we for more?’
‘We do,’ Abban agreed, ‘but so, too, has your army grown. There are now chi’Sharum in the thousands, and you have a growing nation to hold and feed. More than that, you must deprive Lakton of their winter stores. The city is built on a body of water so great, they say that from its centre one cannot see the shore in any direction.’
‘It seems impossible,’ Ahmann gestured to the great map on the wall, ‘but the greenlanders would appear to agree.’
‘No scorpion bolts or arrows will reach the city from the shore,’ Abban said. ‘If they can take their ships to the city full of provision, it may be a year or more before you can dislodge them.’
Ahmann steepled his fingers. ‘What do you propose?’
Abban rose heavily, leaning on his camel crutch as he limped over to the great map on the wall. Ahmann turned to regard the khaffit with interest.
‘Like Everam’s Bounty, Lakton has an eponymous city proper.’ He pointed with the tip of his crutch to the great lake and the city close to its western shore. ‘And dozens of hamlets throughout the duchy.’ He moved the head of his crutch in a circular motion around a much larger swathe of land. ‘These hamlets have land as fertile as Everam’s Bounty, with harvests nearly as prodigious, and they are all but unguarded.’
‘Then why not simply annex the hamlets and have done?’ Ahmann said.
Abban shook his head, waving his crutch over the area again. ‘The land is too vast to simply take. You do not have enough men, and would then need to harvest them yourself, if the inhabitants did not burn the fields the moment they saw your army on the horizon. Many would slip through your fingers, reaching the city in time for the dockmasters to pull stores and weigh anchor, locking the city tight.
‘Better to wait for first snow, and attack here.’ He pointed to a large village on the lake’s western shore. ‘Docktown. It is here the chin will bring their tithe, to be tallied by the dockmasters, loaded onto ships, and sent to the city on the lake. The dockmasters’ entire fleet will be docked or at anchor, waiting to fill their holds.
‘Docktown is weakly fortified, and will not be expecting an attack without warning so late in the season. But your army will be quick atop their mustang. An elite group could capture the entire harvest, the majority of Lakton’s docks, and half its fleet. Send your blunt instrument in behind to crush the hamlets once the surprise is done. Focus first on those along the lakeshore, denying safe harbour, and the Laktonians will be trapped on their island all winter without proper provision. Come spring, they may surrender without a fight, and if not, you will have ships of your own to fill with Sharum to take the city.’
Ahmann stared at the map a long time, frowning. ‘I will think on this.’
You will consult Inevera’s dice, you mean, Abban thought, but he was wise enough to keep silent about it. It would be well enough to consult the hora before such a risky undertaking.
With Ahmann’s writ in hand, Abban limped into the training grounds, headed for the Kaji’sharaj.
He was spotted immediately by Jurim, who had trained with him when they were both boys. Jurim had laughed when Abban fell from the Maze wall – shattering his leg – and had himself been cast down by Drillmaster Qeran as punishment. But while Abban remained forever crippled, Jurim had recovered fully. And he had not forgotten.
The warrior was taking his ease with others by the Kaji pavilion, enjoying cups of couzi and playing Sharak. It was a game Abban had been surprised to learn the greenlanders played as well, though they called it Succour and had different rules. One Sharum clattered the dice in a cup and threw, roaring with victory to the scowls of the others.
‘What are you doing here among men, khaffit?’ Jurim cried. The other warriors looked up at that. Abban’s heart sank at the sight of two of them, Fahki and Shusten.
His own sons.
Jurim rose to his feet, showing no sign that his back had been whipped raw barely a week past. He had always been a quick healer, even before he began absorbing demon magic at night.
The warrior approached, looming. Abban was by no means short, but Jurim was taller still and blade-thin, while fat Abban was stooped by weight and forced to lean on his crutch.
Jurim did not dare touch Abban – even with Ahmann nowhere in sight –
but like Hasik, he missed no opportunity to hurt and humiliate his former classmate. While Hasik took his hatred out on Abban’s women, Jurim and Shanjat cut as deeply through his sons. The older men were Spears of the Deliverer after all, the most famed – and deadly – of the Shar’Dama Ka’s warriors, seasoned by battle and kept young and strong by the magic they absorbed on a nightly basis. Fahki and Shusten worshipped them.
The young men followed Jurim, but there was no greeting for Abban, not so much as the slightest acknowledgement in their eyes. Indeed, they looked at the ground, each other, off into the distance – anywhere save at their father. In a culture where the name of a man’s father was more important than one’s own, there could be no greater insult.
‘Your sons have made fine warriors,’ Jurim congratulated. ‘They were soft at first – as expected for blood of khaffit,’ Fahki spat in the dust at that, ‘but I have taken them under my shield, and found the steel in them.’ He smirked. ‘They must get it from their mother.’
All three warriors laughed at that, and Abban gripped the ivory haft of his crutch so tightly his hand ached. Its hidden blade was poisoned, and he could put it into Jurim’s foot before he ever saw the blow coming. But while it might earn him a moment’s respect in the eyes of his sons, it would be short-lived. Poison was a coward’s weapon after all, and it was death for a khaffit to strike a Sharum for any reason. Had he been anyone but the favourite advisor of the Deliverer, even speaking disrespectfully could earn him a spear in the chest.
Fahki and Shusten glared at him with barely hidden disgust. If he struck, they would turn him in to the nearest dama without hesitation, and his sentence would be carried out before Ahmann ever heard of it.
Abban kept his face blank and forced himself to bow, holding up the scroll with the Deliverer’s seal. Jurim, like many warriors, could not read, but he knew the crown and spear well. ‘I am here on the business of Shar’Dama Ka.’
Jurim scowled. ‘And what business is so important that you must sully the ground of warriors?’