The Desert Prince

by Brett, Peter V.

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  Most of the time, kai command from the rear of their units. It is a prudent tactic, ensuring a view of the battlespace and a stable chain of command, while keeping the strongest fighters in reserve until they are needed.

  But it is not the way to win glory and inspire warriors. My father was said to command from the front, showing the men he did not put his life above theirs, and inspiring a loyalty that ran deep in his Sharum’s hearts.

  My brother is the same, and it is clear Iraven expects no less from us. Chadan and I stand on either side of the Sharum Ka, shields locked, as we advance down the narrow, twisting tunnels that lead into the demon greatward.

  Our maps of the chin quarter’s undercity are useless. The demons have been hard at work in the months since it was sealed off, digging new tunnels and using the stone and soil to build walls and embankments to shape the others.

  In wardsight I can see ambient magic like heat haze in the air. The symbol is pulling at that power, creating a current as it shapes and circulates magic like a beating heart.

  “Where do we go?” Chadan asks.

  Iraven starts to answer, but I realize it is simple. “The mind demon will be at the center of the ward. We need only follow the flow of magic to get there.”

  Iraven gives me a withering look for interrupting him, but he does not argue.

  I learn quickly that the very thing that guides us is the first line of defense. As the flowing magic passes the men, it pulls at their auras like a cloud of insects sucking blood. The greatward doesn’t form a forbidding that prevents us from entering. Instead, it weakens us like a spider’s poison as we attempt to traverse the web.

  Our brothers move as if wading through water, hackles raised as they jump at every sound. Many are breathing hard, as if we climb a steep hill instead of the gentle downward slope of the tunnel. They will be slow when they must be quick. Tired when they must be fresh. Anxious when they need to remain calm.

  In their powerfully warded alagai-scale armor, Iraven and Chadan are shielded from the effect. The olive has been replaced with the spear of Majah on Chadan’s breastplate.

  My own armor is simple Sharum fare, thick robes with pockets for fired clay plates that will shatter on impact, dispersing force. Proof against one blow, but not two in the same place.

  Still, I am no more hindered than the other princes. I’ve shattered the plaster over Belina’s armlet—no point hiding when her son fights at my side—but its wards cannot account for this. It is the sharik hora trimming my shield. The heroes’ bones softly radiate the same golden glow that protects the Holy City. The demon magic cannot touch it, flowing around me like water.

  In the row behind us, Faseek and Gorvan have come to the same conclusion, putting Arick with his bone shield ahead of them like a windbreaker. I can see my cousin’s pride, and his Sharum heart.

  The men farther back have neither magic armor nor heroes’ bones. We have to slow our pace to just keep them from exhausting themselves, and as they grow increasingly hindered by the insidious demon magic, I worry about their martial efficacy.

  The heroes’ bones protect me from the demon ward’s drain, but they do nothing to alleviate my growing sense of unease. Alagai flee sunlight, and are not known to shelter in surface caves or even a dark cellar, but they are creatures of the underground. We are in their domain now, and surely they know it.

  The tunnel widens at one point, and I signal the men to widen their line as Chadan, Iraven, and I fall back into the shield wall.

  But attack doesn’t come from the front. Stone walls on either side of the tunnel shimmer and blur like one of Mother’s Cloaks of Unsight, and sand demons appear, leaping to attack our flanks.

  “Shields!” Iraven barks, but as I feared, the men are slow to respond. A few fumble, failing to get their shields up in time to prevent being savaged. Even those who manage to turn their shields in time don’t have a chance to lock with their neighbors. The demons burst through, running through the ranks in a frenzy of talon and jaw. Warriors scream as they are pulled down. Some of their auras snuff like candles, while others dim rapidly as untended wounds pump blood onto the tunnel floor.

  A demon races at me, but I am not slow like the other warriors. I snap my shield into position, and the alagai shrieks as it slams into the hero bones. The air fills with a nauseating smoke, and as I throw the creature back, I see its scales are blackened and burned.

  I draw back and stab, the bone head of my spear punching through the demon’s armor like nail into soft wood. The flesh beneath sizzles, ichor bubbling a froth as the blessed weapon does its grim work.

  “Defensive square!” Iraven cries. “Fill the gaps!” Their training takes over, and men from the inner ranks rush to form a shield wall that surrounds us on all sides. A second rank raises their shields high, protecting against ambush from above.

  Iraven turns, meeting my eyes, though he speaks to all his lieutenants. “Hunt.”

  We nod, becoming predators as we scan the battlespace. There is still active fighting, demons that will collapse our defense from within if they are not contained.

  I throw my hora spear, no longer afraid the bone head might shatter. With one thrust, the priceless relic reverted to its true function—a weapon of war. My aim is true and I skewer a demon that had Parkot pinned. I draw my hanzhar and charge to finish the creature off before it can heal, but I needn’t have bothered. The demon shrieks and kicks as noxious fumes sizzle from its entry and exit wounds. By the time I cut its throat, the alagai is already dead.

  I know what to expect from the other hunters, but Arick surprises me. He attacks with wild abandon, matching the demons in ferocity. I would think him magic-drunk, but the bone weapons do not send feedback magic into us the way warded metal does. Arick’s fury comes from within.

  Sharaj would have drilled discipline into him, but here, he’s just what we need. Having never trained with us, he’s not missing from our formation, and Sharum respect a warrior who gives himself to battle so fully. Like a champion of old, Arick moves from fight to fight, stabbing, hacking, and trampling. He leaves a path of wounded and crippled demons behind him for Gorvan and Faseek to finish off.

  Not to be outdone, Iraven and Chadan are blurs of movement, enhanced by their powerful armor as the princes defend their own bodyguard.

  It doesn’t take long to clear the inner square, but it doesn’t feel like a victory. The bodies of my fallen brothers lay scattered on the tunnel floor. I hurry to those with a flicker of aura remaining, but I can do little more than offer a word of comfort before they slip away to walk the lonely path.

  “P-prince Olive.” The words are a croak. The speaker is Andew, one of my greenblood brothers, brought to Desert Spear as a child when the Majah returned.

  I lift the cloth he presses against his midsection, and steel my expression to hide my horror at the deep wound and the damaged organs it reveals. I doubt a skilled Gatherer with an operating theater and assistants could save him, and I dare not even try.

  Andew will not recover. He will not be able to walk or fight. But he will not die slow. I glance at Iraven, but he has not noticed us yet. My brother will not be merciful tonight.

  But what is mercy to a man dying on the path to the abyss? What can I do for him? I can’t even promise we’ll be able to bring his body back for his family to mourn before the clerics add his bones to the temple. It is more likely that those that fall in this abysmal place will be permanently lost.

  Andew reaches, shaking as he takes my hands. “Ajin’pal, my spirit is ready for the lonely path. I have lived an Evejan life, and shown thirteen alagai the sun. Everam will add their ashes to the scale when He weighs my soul at the gates of heaven.”

  Something splashes on Andew’s face, and I realize I am weeping. This was a Laktonian boy taken here against his will, much as I
was. But the certainty in his words and eyes takes me aback. He has fully taken the ways of his captors as his own. He is a fool, but I envy him. I, too, felt the call of glory in the Maze, but I cannot imagine ever having the same peace in my eyes. The surety that everything is the Creator’s plan.

  Andew squeezes the wrist below my hanzhar, turning the blade toward his heart. “Guide me, I beg.”

  Guide me. I realize with horror that he is asking me to kill him quickly, before the demons come for him.

  I shake my head, tears shimmering as they fly through the air. The idea goes against everything my mother ever taught, everything I’ve ever believed. It is an unforgivable violation of the Gatherer’s Oath. “I can’t.”

  “Please, ajin’pel.” His other hand joins the first around my wrist. He is not strong enough to budge me, but I feel him pulling the blade toward his chest. “I beg you. Do not leave me to be unmanned by the alagai.”

  It feels as if the blade is piercing my heart instead. I grit my teeth and squeeze the tears from my eyes before my gaze meets his. This is a violation of the Gatherer’s Oath, but I am not a Gatherer. I am Sharum, and Andew deserves a death with honor. “Look to the lonely path, brother. Everam will welcome you, for your glory is boundless.”

  I give a strangled cry as I thrust, watching the light leave my brother’s eyes. Then I throw my head back and wail, letting Everam’s seraphs know a warrior comes.

  A hand lays across my shoulder. For a moment I think it must be Chadan, but I turn to see it is Iraven. “You did the right thing, brother, but it is never easy.”

  The words sicken me. How many times must Iraven have done this horrid deed, to speak of it with such experience?

  We start moving again, having lost more than a dozen warriors. The men keep shields locked on all sides as warriors probe the walls with their spears, searching for more hidden ambush pockets cloaked in demon magic. They find nothing, because the next ambush comes from the front.

  Sticky filaments, invisible in the dark, strike the shields of warriors maintaining the wall. Even the rocks belowground have a soft glow of magic, but the webs of cave demons are magic-dead—dark and lifeless. The wards on our shields don’t affect their powerful adhesive, and the moment contact is made, alagai begin reeling warriors in.

  Some of the men sacrifice their shields to keep their feet, but others, be they stubborn or slow, are hauled shrieking up to the crevices in the stone where the demons hide.

  Then more of the cave demons drop into our midst. They have the look of spiders, their armored exoskeletons black like polished obsidian, a bulbous body at the center of segmented legs, longer than spears and each ending in a sharp, venomous tip. They snap like whips, and when they find openings, warriors convulse and drop weapons from nerveless fingers. Only those quick enough to throw their spears through a gap in the chitinous legs manage to survive, but they hang, vulnerable as they try to cut themselves free of the webs without their spears.

  The air fills with arrows as our archers turn every demon to show itself into a pincushion. Their writhing and kicking bodies land inside our lines, and my brothers quickly move to destroy them.

  No sooner have we turned our attention to the new threat than a thundering of taloned feet heralds a stream of demons pouring into the tunnel from either end.

  Everything becomes chaos and melee. There’s no time to think. No luxury of fear. It’s kill or be killed, and I lose track of who I am fighting beside, of who saves my life and whose I save. I move from fight to fight, operating on instinct and muscle memory more than conscious thought. Picking fights where my brothers are in danger of being overwhelmed, I hack off a taloned arm here, a horned tail there.

  Still I’m too late to keep Thivan’s head from leaving his body. I take a long look, embracing the sight, and then I let it go. There will be time to mourn and blame myself if I survive. I stalk the cave demon that killed him, and as if sensing my fury, it draws back at first. Then it startles, and its eyes turn cold with that familiar recognition. The demon leaps at me, a whirl of stabbing, spearlike limbs.

  I sever the points off two on the first pass. The second brings me in close enough to get at the nexus point, and I amputate all four legs on one side in a single blow.

  The demon shrieks and collapses, and as it struggles to rise, I smash the center of its thorax with the skeletal fist at the base of my hora spear. The black carapace shatters, piercing the cave demon’s organs with shards of its own armor.

  Even now, the crippled demon might heal the most grievous wounds, surviving to sting some unwary warrior. I whirl the spear again, severing its head.

  The demons are fast, smart, and have all the advantages. Feedback magic has given some of the men new strength, but our losses continue to mount.

  “To me!” Iraven cries, raising his spear. “Warriors rally to me!”

  The men who are able comply quickly, forming a new defensive ring. I remain in the fighting, helping others break free long enough to join the tighter ring of shields.

  My dead brothers lay everywhere. Some have been dragged off and are being fed upon by alagai safe from the fighting. Others are strewn about the active battlefield, making the ground slick with blood and ichor.

  A cave demon spits web in Levan’s face while he struggles with bare hands to keep it from tearing out his throat. I impale the demon, leaping into a tumble that uses my spear as a lever to throw it into the path of Gorvan and Faseek. Gorvan puts his spear through the cave demon’s abdomen, pinning it to the ground while Faseek severs its thorax with a surgical swipe of his spear.

  I turn to Levan. His helmet and some of the skin on his face were torn away when I knocked the cave demon back, but the injury is superficial. He shakes his head violently, perhaps trying to restore clarity, but when he looks up his eyes are unfocused. Still, he seems ready to return to the fight. He’s lost his spear, but pulls a warded knife from his belt.

  But then Levan thrusts the knife at me, instead. The blade shatters one of my armor plates and I stumble back in surprise. Quick as a cat, Levan follows me in, stabbing again in the same precise spot. This time the sharp blade parts the thick robe and slides between shards of broken plate to pierce my side. It catches in my rib cage, and I feel bones crack like the ceramic plate. Levan pulls the knife back for a third and final thrust into my heart.

  I roll, batting the blade away with my shield, and react on instinct, thrusting my spear into his exposed armpit where there are no armor plates. The bone blade slides effortlessly through his chest, and he coughs a gout of blood that knocks off his night veil. I watch in horror as the clouds leave Levan’s eyes and my friend stares first at the spear still skewering his body, then up at me, his face a confused mask of betrayal. “P-Prince…Olive?”

  I reacted on instinct, but the sudden recognition brings me back to horrifying reality, and it is too much to embrace and let go. Levan’s shaking hand grips the shaft of the spear, and I realize it is all that holds him upright. The light leaves his eyes, and his aura fades away.

  “Olive, what did you do?” Chadan rushes to my side, and I realize how that exchange must have appeared. His eyes hold the same expression now frozen on Levan’s face—shock and betrayal.

  “He attacked me.” The words feel lame and inadequate even as I speak them. Did Levan really try to kill me? Could I have imagined it?

  There are shouts from within the re-formed defensive ring. We turn as one to see brother fighting brother. Half a dozen warriors have lost their helmets and turned on the men beside them, attempting to remove theirs as well.

  With every helmet lost, another set of unfocused eyes looks up, and then there are two warriors moving to steal the helmets of two more.

  “Everam’s Beard,” Chadan whispers.

  “We have to get out of here,” I croak. Hot blood seeps through my robes, but there is no way to tend the w
ound, and little to be done for the cracked ribs in any event.

  “Scatter and rally back to me!” Iraven cries. “Shields out! Any man missing his helmet is an enemy. Do not hesitate to kill them if they approach.”

  The words are so cold and ruthless I do not know if I could have given the order, but there is no choice and we all know it. Three hundred of my brothers entered the demon ward. Less than thirty are able to form around us, all of them bleeding and breathing hard.

  Our corrupted brothers mass before us, shields up and spears leading. Many are wounded, but they pay it no mind. More than one appears to be ignoring life-threatening injuries. Still they press in.

  Iraven looks at the advancing warriors and our weak defense. Chadan and I do the same. The tunnel is wide enough to surround us, and from there, the outcome will not be in doubt. The fear I’ve been pushing to the side finally seeps in as I realize this is likely the end.

  My brother reaches the same conclusion. “Run!”

  54

  MIND GAMES

  Demons cluster in one of the tunnels, staying out of the fray but blocking our path. We cannot go through our corrupt brothers without killing them, and so we do the only thing we can, racing deeper into the demon ward.

  We’ve been such fools. This was never a surprise attack on the mind demon. He invited us into his web. Now we’re being herded like livestock, and it’s my fault. I brought Alagai Ka here, and I was wood-brained enough to think I could fight him with my spear. I’m just glad the others aren’t here to pay the price for my arrogance.

  The tunnel narrows and opens above and to one side into an enormous cavern. A sense of hopelessness fills me as we continue to run across what becomes simply a ledge on the steep cavern wall. Countless stalactites hang from the cavern’s roof, some little more than texture, and others big enough to build a manse inside. I look down, but even in wardsight, the bottom is too deep to see, save for a few stalagmites jutting taller than Sharik Hora’s minarets.