The Desert Spear

The dama’ting regarded him a moment, then shrugged, a smile in her eyes.

Jardir strode with pride into the Kaji training grounds, followed by Dama Khevat and the dama’ting. The dal’Sharum paused in their training at the sight, and there were murmurs of recognition as they saw Jardir’s face. One of them barked a laugh.

“Look! The rat returns!” Hasik cried, his s’s still whistling after all these years. The big warrior planted his spear with a thump. “It only took him five years to change out of his bido!” Several other warriors laughed at that.

Jardir smiled. It was natural for Sharum to test the mettle of a new kai, and it was inevera that it should be Hasik. The powerful warrior was still larger than Jardir, but he felt no fear as he strode forward.

Hasik stared him down coldly, unafraid. “You may have a white veil loose about your throat, but you are still the son of piss,” he sneered, too low for the others to hear.

“Ah, Hasik, my ajin’pal!” Jardir called loudly. “Do they still call you Whistler? I would be happy to remove a few more teeth and cure your affliction, if you wish.”

All around, Sharum laughed. Jardir looked among them and saw many who had served under him when he was Nie Ka.

Hasik growled and lunged, but Jardir sidestepped, spinning into a kick that knocked the big warrior onto his backside in the dust. He stood patiently as Hasik scowled and scrambled back to his feet unharmed.

“I will kill you for that,” Hasik promised.

Jardir smiled, reading Hasik’s every movement like writing in the sand. Hasik charged in, thrusting hard with his spear, but Jardir pivoted, slapping the point to one side, and Hasik stumbled past, overbalanced. He turned and swung the spear like a staff, but Jardir bent backward like a palm tree in the wind, avoiding the blow without moving his feet an inch. Before Hasik could recover, he whipped upright and grabbed the weapon with both hands, kicking up between his hands and breaking through the thick shaft of wood. He followed through on the kick, taking Hasik in the face.

There was a satisfying crack as Hasik’s jaw shattered, but Jardir did not stop there. He dropped the speartip but held on to the butt, advancing as Hasik struggled back to his feet.

Hasik punched at him, and Jardir marveled that he had once found those punches too fast to follow. After years among the dama, the fist seemed to move at a crawl. He caught Hasik’s wrist and twisted hard, feeling his shoulder pop from its socket. Hasik screamed as Jardir swung the spear butt, shattering the warrior’s knee. Hasik collapsed, and Jardir kicked him over onto his stomach. He was well within his rights to kill Hasik, and those gathered likely expected him to, but Jardir had not forgotten what Hasik had done to him in the Maze.

“Now, Hasik,” he said, as all the dal’Sharum of the Kaji tribe looked on, “I will teach you to be a woman.” He held up the spear butt. “And this will be the man.”

“Watch to ensure he does not fall on his spear in shame,” Jardir told Shanjat as Hasik was hauled off to the dama’ting pavilion, howling in pain and humiliation. “I would not see any permanent harm befall my ajin’pal.”

“As my kai’Sharum wills,” Shanjat said, “though they will have to remove the spear before he can fall on it.” He smirked as he bowed to Jardir and hurried after the injured warrior. Jardir followed Shanjat with his eyes, marveling at how quickly they fell back into old patterns, despite Shanjat having earned the black years ago, and him just this day.

Jardir had planned his revenge on Hasik for years, while he danced sharusahk in his tiny cell in Sharik Hora. It wasn’t enough for the man to suffer defeat; Jardir’s revenge had to be an abject lesson to any who would ever seek to challenge him again. If Hasik had not challenged him, he would have sought the man out and initiated the challenge himself.

By Everam’s infinite justice, every step played out exactly as he had imagined it, but now that his triumph was complete, he found no more satisfaction in it than when he fought Shanjat for his place in the nie’Sharum food line.

“You seem to have things well in hand,” Dama Khevat said, slapping Jardir on the back. “Go to the Kaji pavilion and take a woman before tonight’s battle.” He laughed. “Take two! The jiwah’Sharum will be eager to bed the youngest kai’Sharum in a thousand years.”

Jardir forced himself to laugh and nod, though he felt a clench in his stomach. He had never known a woman. Except for a few glimpses of the jiwah’Sharum that one night in the Kaji pavilion, he had never even seen one without her robes. Kai’Sharum or no, he had one last test of manhood in front of him, and unlike the crushing of Hasik or the killing of alagai, this was one none of his training had prepared him for.

Khevat left him, and Jardir took a deep breath, looking toward the Kaji pavilion.

They are only women, he told himself, taking a tentative step forward. They are there to please you, not the other way around. His second step came with more confidence.

“A word,” the dama’ting whispered, grabbing his attention. Relief and fear clutched him at once. How had he forgotten her?

“In private,” she said, and Jardir nodded, walking to the edge of the training grounds with her, out of earshot from the dal’Sharum in the yard.

He was much taller than her now, but she still intimidated him. He remembered the blast of fire from her flame demon skull, and tried to convince himself that her alagai magics would not work in the day, with Everam’s light shining down upon them.

“I cast the alagai hora before bringing you the blacks,” she said. “If you sleep among the jiwah’Sharum, one of them will kill you.”

Jardir’s eyes widened. Such a thing was unheard of. “Why?” he asked.

“The bones give us no ‘why,’ son of Hoshkamin,” the dama’ting said. “They tell what is, and what may be. Perhaps a lover of Hasik will seek revenge, or some woman with a blood feud with your family.” She shrugged. “But sleep among the jiwah’Sharum at your peril.”

“So I am never to know a woman?” Jardir asked. “What kind of life is that for a man?”

“Don’t exaggerate,” the dama’ting said. “You may still take wives. I will cast the bones to find ones suitable for you.”

“Why would you do this?” Jardir asked.

“My reasons are my own,” the dama’ting said.

“And the price?” Jardir asked. The tales in the Evejah always spoke of a hidden price for those who would use hora magic for more than sharak.

“Ah,” the dama’ting said. “No longer so innocent as you seem. That is good. The price is that you take me to wife.”

Jardir froze. His face went cold. Take her as his wife? Unthinkable. She terrified him.

“I did not know dama’ting could marry,” he said, fumbling for time as his mind reeled.

“We can, when we wish it,” she said. “The first dama’ting were the Deliverer’s wives.”

Jardir looked at her again, the thick white robes hiding every contour and curve of her body. Her headwrap covered every hair, and the opaque veil was drawn high over her nose, muffling even her voice. Only her eyes could be seen, bright and full of zeal. There was something familiar about them, but he could not even guess at her age, much less her beauty. Was she a virgin? Of good family? There was no way to know. Dama’ting were taken from their mothers early and raised in secret.

“It is a man’s right to see a woman’s face before he agrees to marry her,” he said.

“Not this time,” the dama’ting said. “It matters not if my beauty moves you, or if my womb is fertile. Your future swirls with hidden knives. I will be your Jiwah Ka, or you will spend your days looking for them without my foretellings to aid you.”

Jiwah Ka. She didn’t just want to marry him, she wanted to be first among his wives. A Jiwah Ka had the right to vet and refuse any Jiwah Sen, subsequent wives, all of whom would be subservient to her. She would have absolute control of his household and children, second only to him, and Jardir was not fool enough to think she didn’t intend to control him as well.

But could he afford to refuse? He feared no challenger face-to-face, but war was deception, as Khevat had taught him, and not all men fought their enemies with spear and fist. A poisoned drink, or blade in the back, and he could still go to Everam with little glory to buy his way into Heaven, and none to spare his mother and sisters.

And Sharak Ka was coming.

“You ask that I give everything to you,” he said thickly, his mouth gone dry.

The dama’ting shook her head. “I leave you sharak,” she said. “That is all a Sharum need concern himself with.”

Jardir stared at her for a long time. Finally, he nodded his assent.

The dama’ting wasted no time once the agreement was made. Before a week was through, Jardir found himself before Dama Khevat, watching as she made her vows.

Jardir looked into the dama’ting’s eyes. Who was she? Was she older than his mother? Young enough to give him sons? What would he find when they retired to the marriage bed?

“I offer you myself in marriage in accordance with the instructions of the Evejah,” she said, “as set down by Kaji, Spear of Everam, who sits at the foot of Everam’s table until he is reborn in the time of Sharak Ka. I pledge, with honesty and in sincerity, to be for you an obedient and faithful wife.”

Does she mean those words, Jardir wondered, or is this just a new way to control my life, now that I wear the black?

Khevat turned to him. Jardir started, fumbling for his vow. “I swear before Everam,” he said, forcing the words out, “Creator of all that is, and before Kaji, the Shar’Dama Ka, to take you into my home, and to be a fair and tolerant husband.”

“Do you accept this dama’ting as your Jiwah Ka?” Khevat asked, and something in his tone reminded Jardir of the dama’s words when Jardir first asked him to perform the ceremony.

Are you sure you wish to do this? Khevat had asked. A dama’ting is no ordinary wife you can order about, or beat when she is disobedient.

Jardir swallowed. Was he sure?

“I do,” he said thickly, and the assembled dal’Sharum gave a great shout, clattering their spears against their shields. His mother, Kajivah, clutched at his young sisters, all of them weeping in pride.

Jardir could feel his heart pounding, and part of him wished he was in the Maze, dancing alagai’sharak, rather than the dimly lit, pillowed chamber they retired to.

“Do not fear, alagai’sharak shall still be there tomorrow!” Shanjat had laughed. “You fight a different kind of battle tonight!”

“You seem ill at ease,” the dama’ting said as she drew the heavy curtains behind them.

“Should I be another way?” Jardir asked bitterly. “You are my Jiwah Ka, and I do not even know your name.”

The dama’ting laughed, the first time he had ever heard her do such. It was a beautiful, tinkling sound. “Do you not?” she asked, slipping off her veil and headwrap. His eyes widened, but it was not at the youth and beauty he saw.

He did indeed know her.

“Inevera,” he breathed, remembering the nie’dama’ting who had spoken to him in the pavilion so many years ago.

She nodded, smiling at him, more beautiful than he had ever dared to dream.

“The night we met,” Inevera said, “I finished carving my first alagai hora. It was fate; Everam’s will, like my name. The demon bones are carved in utter darkness, by feel alone. It can take weeks to carve a single die; years to complete a set. And only then, when the set is complete, can they be tested. If they fail, they are exposed to light, and the carving must begin anew. If they succeed, then nie’dama’ting becomes dama’ting, and we don our veil.

“On that night, I finished my set and needed a question to ask. A test to see if the dice held the power of fate. But what question? Then I remembered the boy I had met that day, with the bold eyes and brash manner, and as I shook the demon dice, I asked, ‘Will I ever see Ahmann Jardir again?’

“And from that night on,” she said, “I knew I would find you in the Maze after your first alagai’sharak, and more, that I would marry you and bear you many children.”

With that, she shrugged her shoulders, and her white robes fell away. Jardir had feared this moment, but as the flickering light caught her naked form, his body began to respond, and he knew that he would pass this last test of manhood as he had all the others before it.

“Jardir, you will take your men to the tenth layer,” the Sharum Ka said.

It was a fool’s decision. Three years after he had donned the white veil, every kai’Sharum assembled knew that Jardir’s unit was the fiercest and best trained in all of Krasia. Jardir pressed his men hard, but the dal’Sharum gloried in it, their kill counts exceeding any three other units combined. They were wasted in the tenth layer. It was unheard of for the alagai to penetrate the Maze so deeply.

The Sharum Ka sneered at Jardir, daring dissent, but Jardir embraced the dishonor and let it pass through him. “As the Sharum Ka commands,” he said, bowing low from his pillow to touch his forehead to the thick carpet of the First Warrior’s audience room. As he sat back up, his face was serene despite his disgust at the man before him. The Sharum Ka was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the city. This man was anything but. His hair was streaked with gray, his face deeply wrinkled like a Damaji’s. It had been long years since he had stood in the Maze, and it showed in a belly gone to fat. The First Warrior was supposed to lead the charge in alagai’sharak and inspire the men to glory, not conduct the war from behind his palace walls.

But for all that, so long as he wore the white turban, his will in the night was inviolate.

Dama Ashan, his unit’s cleric, and his lieutenants, Hasik and Shanjat, were waiting outside the Sharum Ka’s palace to escort Jardir back to the Kaji pavilion. He was only a kai’Sharum, but there had already been attempts on his life from jealous rivals, even within his own tribe. The Sharum Ka would not live forever, and with the Andrah having come from the Kaji tribe, it was all but certain one of the Kaji kai’Sharum would be appointed to take his place. Jardir stood in the way of many older kai’Sharum’s hopes of ascension.

The three men were never far from his side ever since Inevera had arranged marriages between them and Jardir’s sisters. Imisandre, Hoshvah, and Hanya had been in rags when Jardir left Sharik Hora three years ago, but now they were Jiwah Ka to his most trusted lieutenants, and had borne nephews and nieces to strengthen those loyalties.

“Our orders?” Shanjat asked.

“Tenth layer,” Jardir said.

Hasik spat in the dust. “The Sharum Ka insults you!”

“Calm yourself, Hasik,” Jardir said softly, and the big warrior immediately quieted. “Embrace the insult and it will pass through you, allowing you to see Everam’s path.”

Hasik nodded, falling in behind Jardir as he strode away from the palace. Hasik had returned from the dama’ting pavilion a changed man three years ago. He was still one of the Kaji’s fiercest warriors, but like a wolf brought to heel, he had given his loyalty fully to Jardir—the only way to preserve his honor after the humiliating defeat.

“The Sharum Ka fears you,” Ashan advised. “As he should. If you continue to gather all the glory, the Andrah may tire of having a weak old man commanding his forces and allow you to challenge him to single combat.”

“And seconds after he shouts ‘begin,’ we will have a new First Warrior,” Shanjat said.

“That isn’t going to happen,” Jardir said. “The Andrah and Sharum Ka are friends from of old. The Andrah will not betray his loyal servant even if the Damaji themselves demand it.”

“So what do we do?” Hasik asked.

“You go home to my sister and thank her for the meal she has no doubt prepared you,” Jardir said. “And when night falls, we go to the tenth layer and pray that Everam sends us alagai to show the sun.”

As always, Inevera was waiting for him when he reached his quarters in the Kaji palace. Her robe was lowered to uncover the breast where his daughter Anjha suckled. Jardir’s sons, Jayan and Asome, clung to her robes, young and strong.

Jardir knelt and spread his arms, and the boys fell into them, laughing as he lifted them high. He set them back down, and they ran back to their mother. The sight of his sons pricked at his serenity for a moment before he could embrace the feeling. It wasn’t just his reputation the Sharum Ka sullied. It was theirs, as well.

“Something troubles you, my husband?” Inevera asked.

“It is nothing,” Jardir said, but Inevera clicked her tongue at him.

“I am your Jiwah Ka,” she said. “You need not embrace your feelings with me.”

Jardir looked at her and let the tight lashes of his control ease.

“The Sharum Ka sends me to the tenth layer tonight,” he spat. “How many warriors will he lose while his best unit guards an empty layer?”

“It is a good sign, husband,” Inevera said. “It means the Sharum Ka fears you and your ambitions.”

“What good is that,” Jardir said, “if he robs me of every future glory?”

“He cannot be allowed to do that,” Inevera agreed. “You must find glory in the Maze now more than ever. The bones tell me the First Warrior is not long for this world. Your glory must outshine all others when he goes to Everam, if you are to take his place.”

“How am I to do that waving my spear at empty air?” Jardir growled.

Inevera shrugged. “Sharak is yours. You must find a way.”

Jardir grunted, nodding. She was right, of course. There were some things even a dama’ting could not advise upon.

“The sun will not set for hours,” Inevera advised. “A bout of lovemaking and a short sleep will clear your head.”

Jardir smiled and went to her. “I will call my mother to take the children.”

But Inevera shook her head, stepping away from his reaching arms. “Not me. The bones say Everalia is ripe. If you take her from behind with great force, she will bear you a strong son.”

Jardir scowled. Everalia was his third wife. Inevera hadn’t even bothered to show her to him before they were betrothed, saying the Jiwah Sen was selected for her breeder’s hips and the fortune the alagai hora cast, not her beauty.

“Always the bones!” Jardir snapped. “For once I would bed the wife I choose!”

Inevera shrugged. “Take Thalaja if you prefer,” she said, referring to his more beautiful second wife. “She is ripe as well. I simply thought you would prefer a son to another daughter.”

Jardir gritted his teeth. She was the one he wanted, but as Khevat had warned, wife or no, Inevera was dama’ting, and he could not simply take her the way he would another woman. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

Did she really cast the bones for everything? Sometimes it seemed Inevera just used claims of their foretellings to get him to act as she wished, but she had not been wrong yet, and it was true he needed more sons if he was to restore the line of Jardir to its former glory. Did it really matter which wife he took? Everalia was comely enough from behind.

He headed for the bedchamber, pulling off his robes.

They waited.

As cries of battle rang through the outer layers, and wind demons shrieked in the sky, they waited.

As other men went to Everam in glory, they waited.

“No alagai sighted,” Shanjat relayed, signaling back to the nie’Sharum on the wall.

“None will be sighted!” Hasik growled, and there was a rumble of assent from Jardir’s men. Fifty of the best warriors of the Kaji crouched with them in the ambush pocket. Wasted.

“There is still time to find glory, if we join other units,” Jurim said.

Jardir knew he must kill the idea before it could take root in the minds of the others. He thrust his spear butt between Jurim’s eyes, knocking him to the ground.

“I will personally spear anyone who leaves their post without my orders,” he said loudly. The others nodded as Jurim struggled to his feet, clutching his bloodied face.

Jardir looked upon the men, the finest dal’Sharum the Desert Spear had to offer, and felt profound shame. The Sharum Ka’s jealousy was directed at him, but it was the men who suffered. Men bred and born to kill alagai, denied their destiny by an old man afraid of losing power. Not for the first time, Jardir envisioned killing the First Warrior, fair challenge or no, but such a crime would be without honor, and would likely cost his life as well as his legacy.

Just then a horn sounded, and Jardir snapped back to attention. The pattern told him it was a cry for assistance.

“Watchers!” he called, and the two Watchers from his unit, Amkaji and Coliv, sprang forward. They attached the ends of their twelve-foot, iron-shod ladders in an instant, running to the wall. No sooner had Amkaji set the ladder than Coliv was running up it, taking the rungs three at a time, his weight never seeming to fully come down on a foot before he was lifting it again. He reached the walltop in an instant, scanning the terrain. A moment later he signaled that it was safe for Jardir’s ascent.

Jardir had been wary of the Watchers when he first took command of his unit, for they were of another tribe, the Krevakh. But he had come to know their hearts, and Amkaji and Coliv were as loyal to him and as devoted to alagai’sharak as any of his own tribesmen. The Krevakh were wholly devoted to serving the Kaji, as their nemesis tribe, the Nanji, served the Majah.

By law, the two Watchers were embedded with Jardir’s unit day and night, for the Watchers had specialized training in exotic weapons and fighting styles, and had skills essential to any kai’Sharum. Acrobatics. Information gathering. Hit-and-run combat.

Assassination.

As Amkaji held the ladder, Jardir and Shanjat ran up the wall. Coliv held his far-seeing glass out to Jardir.

“Sharach tribe, fourth layer,” he supplied, pointing.

“Learn more,” Jardir ordered, taking the glass, and Coliv ran off, his balance perfect across the narrow wall. Watchers carried neither spear nor shield to weigh them, and Coliv was fast gone from sight.

“The Sharach are a small tribe,” Shanjat said. “They bring barely two dozen warriors to alagai’sharak. Only a fool would put such a small unit in the fourth layer.”

“A fool like the Sharum Ka,” Jardir replied.

Coliv returned a moment later. “A cluster of alagai reached them, and avoided the pit. They have many warriors down, and no reinforcements close enough who are not engaged themselves. They will be overrun in minutes.”

Jardir gritted his teeth. “No, they will not. Ready the men.”

Shanjat laid a hand on his arm. “The Sharum Ka ordered us to guard the tenth,” he reminded him, but when Jardir nodded and did not say more, he broke into a wide smile.

“We will never get to the fourth layer in time, kai’Sharum,” Coliv said, scanning the Maze with his sharp eyes. “Many battles rage in between. The way is not clear.”

“Then lower ropes,” Jardir ordered. “I want every man on the wall now.”

They ran the walltops like nie’Sharum; fifty adult warriors in full battle dress. Treacherous enough for barefoot and agile boys in nothing but their bidos, it was far more so for men in sandals and heavy armored robes, carrying spear and shield.