Demon Cycle 04 - The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  “Everam’s balls, boy,” Abban chuckled. “I trust that promise least of all!”

  He hugged the boy, as close to a son as any of his own spawn, and kissed his cheeks.

  “Enough filling tear bottles like wives at dusk,” Qeran snapped. “Your new walls are strong, Abban, but they will be put to the test if the Sharum Ka must come and collect you.”

  The drillmaster sat atop one of the giant greenland horses. There was no sign of the drunken cripple Abban had found in a pool of his own piss mere months ago. Qeran’s right stirrup was specially designed to fit his metal leg, and he handled the animal expertly, unhindered.

  “Every. Day,” he whispered in Jamere’s ear one last time.

  Jamere laughed. “Go, Uncle.” He gave Abban a gentle shove toward his camel, steadying the ropes of the cursed stepladder with his own weight as Abban struggled to climb.

  “Shall I have them fetch a winch?” Jamere asked.

  Abban put the foot of his crutch down on the young cleric’s fingers, putting weight on them as he ascended another step. Jamere gasped and pulled his hand away as the weight lifted, but he was still smirking as he shook the pain from it.

  Abban reached the top of the beast’s back at last, strapping himself in. Unlike Qeran, Abban could not ride a horse for any length of time without pain beyond his ability to endure. Easier to lounge in the canopied seat atop his favorite camel. The animal was stubborn, as apt to bite or spit as obey, but it was as fast as a Krasian charger when whipped, and speed would be of the essence in an overland march.

  He kept his eyes ahead until the procession was through the gates, then paused, turning back to give one last longing look at the thick walls of his compound. It was the first place he’d felt secure since Ahmann led his people from the Desert Spear. The crete was hardly dry on the walls, his guards only just accustomed to their routines, and already he had to leave the place behind.

  “Not as pretty as a Damaji’s palace,” Qeran said at his side, “but as strong a fortress as the Desert Spear.”

  “Return me to it alive, Drillmaster,” Abban said, “and I shall make you richer than a Damaji.”

  “What need have I for wealth?” Qeran asked. “I have my honor, my spear, and Sharak. A warrior needs no more.”

  The Drillmaster laughed at Abban’s worried look. “Fear not, khaffit! I have sworn to you now, for better or worse. Honor demands I return you safely, or die in the attempt.”

  Abban smiled. “The former, if you please, Drillmaster. Or both, if need be.”

  Qeran nodded, kicking his horse and starting the procession. Behind them followed Abban’s Hundred, kha’Sharum handpicked and trained by Qeran. The Deliverer’s decree granted him one hundred warriors and one hundred only, but Abban had taken one hundred twenty in case some failed or were crippled in training.

  Thus far all had excelled, but the training had only just begun. Abban would return them when the Skull Throne demanded it and not a moment before. He wished he could take them all to Lakton, and his five hundred chi’Sharum as well, but Jamere and Abban’s women needed men to guard his holdings, and it would not do to show his full strength to Jayan’s court. At least a few of them could count past a hundred.

  The Sharum Ka was giving last-minute instructions to his younger brother Hoshkamin when they found him in the training grounds. Jayan had dropped jaws in the Andrah’s court when he announced that Hoshkamin, just raised to the black, would sit the Spear Throne in his absence.

  It was a bold move, and one that showed Jayan was not blind to the danger of leaving his seat of power. Hoshkamin was too inexperienced to truly lead, but like Jamere, the Deliverer’s third son and his eleven half brothers were intimidating stewards.

  Jayan may yet take the Skull Throne, Abban thought. I had best ingratiate myself while I still can.

  “Horses, I said, khaffit,” Jayan snapped, looking down his nose at Abban’s camel. “The chin will hear that beast braying a mile off!”

  The other warriors laughed, all save Hasik, who glared at Abban with open hatred. Rumor had it the man had become even more sadistic since Abban had cut his balls off. Denied the brutal but simple release of rape, he had become … creative. A trait Jayan was said to encourage.

  “A khaffit in our company is an ill omen, Sharum Ka,” Khevat said. “And this one, in particular.” Dama Khevat sat straight-backed and stone-faced on his white charger. The man hated Abban nearly as much as Hasik, but the cleric was too experienced to reveal his feelings. Not yet sixty and still vital, Khevat had trained both Ahmann and Abban in sharaj. He was now the ranking dama in all Krasia, father to the Andrah and grandfather to the Damaji of the Kaji. Perhaps the only man powerful enough to keep Jayan in line.

  Perhaps.

  Next to Khevat, on a smaller, if equally pristine white charger, was Dama’ting Asavi. Other dama’ting would ride in a carriage with the supply train, but it seemed Inevera was taking no chances on this mission. No doubt the sight of a woman, even a dama’ting, riding a horse like a man set the rest of the Sharum Ka’s court on edge, but she was a Bride of Everam, and none would hinder her.

  Asavi’s gaze was even harder to read than Khevat’s. Her eyes gave no indication they had ever met. Abban was pleased Inevera had another agent close at hand, but he was not fool enough to think he could depend on her to protect him should he anger his host.

  “I cannot sit a horse, Sharum Ka,” Abban said. “And I will, of course, remain behind while you conquer the city. My noisy camel and I will only approach Docktown when you have claimed victory and need to begin tallying the spoils.”

  “He will slow our progress through the chin lands, Sharum Ka,” Hasik said. He smiled, revealing a gold tooth that replaced the one Qeran had knocked out in sharaj a quarter century ago, earning him the nickname Whistler. “This is not the first time Abban has been dead weight to a march. Let me kill him now and have done.”

  Qeran nudged his horse forward. The drillmaster had trained the Deliverer himself—even Jayan was respectful to him. “You will need to get through me first, Hasik.” He smiled. “And none know your failings as a warrior better than I who instructed you.”

  Hasik’s eyes widened, but his look of surprise was quick to turn into a snarl. “I am not your student anymore, old man, and I still have all my limbs.”

  Qeran snorted. “Not all, I hear! Come at me, Whistler, and this time I will take more than your tooth.”

  “Whistler!” Jayan laughed, breaking the tension. “I’ll need to remember that! Stand down, Hasik.”

  The eunuch closed his eyes, and for a moment Abban thought it was a ruse precluding attack. Qeran was relaxed as he watched, but Abban knew he could react in an instant if Hasik made a move.

  But Hasik was not fool enough to disobey the Sharum Ka. He had fallen far since Abban had castrated him for raping his daughter, and only Jayan had offered him a chance to restore his honor.

  “Our reckoning will come, pig-eater,” he growled, easing his heavy mustang back.

  Jayan turned to Abban. “He is right, though. You will slow us, khaffit.”

  Abban bowed as low as he could from his saddle. “There is no need for me to slow the swift march of your warriors, Sharum Ka. I will travel a day behind with my Hundred and the supply trains. We will meet you at the camp a day before the attack, and join you in Docktown by noontime on first snow.”

  Jayan shook his head. “Too soon. There may still be fighting throughout the day. Best you come the following dawn.”

  You and your men need a day to properly loot the town, you mean, Abban thought.

  He bowed again. “Apologies, Sharum Ka, but for the mission to be successful, there cannot. There must not. As you told the council, you must seize the town and secure the tithe before they know you are upon them. Strike hard and fast, lest they escape on their ships, or fire the harvest simply to deny it to us.”

  He lowered his voice for Jayan alone to hear as the young Sharum Ka’s face darkened at th
e tone. “Of course my first duty in the tallies will be to see to it the Sharum Ka has his share of the spoils before they are shipped to Everam’s Bounty. The Skull Throne has empowered me to give you ten percent, but there is some, ah, flexibility in these matters. I could arrange fifteen …”

  Jayan’s eyes flashed with greed. “Twenty, or I will gut you like the pig you are.”

  Ah, Sharum, Abban thought, suppressing his smile. All the same. Not a haggler among you.

  He blew out a breath, molding his face into a look of worry—though of course the number was meaningless. He could weave such a web of lists and tallies Jayan would never penetrate it, or realize whole warehouses and thousands of acres had disappeared from the ledgers. Abban would make the Sharum Ka think he had taken fifty percent, and give him less than five.

  At last he bowed. “As the Sharum Ka commands.”

  Perhaps this would not be so bad after all.

  Abban lounged with his distance lens in the comfortable chair he’d had placed atop the small rise as the attack fell upon Docktown. Qeran, Earless, and Asavi preferred to stand, but he didn’t begrudge them that. The warrior and holy castes had ever been masochists.

  He had chosen the knoll for its fine view of the town and docks from a direction refugees were unlikely to flee when the fighting broke out. The day was clear enough that Abban could just make out the city on the lake with his naked eye, a blur coloring the edge of the horizon. It was clearer with his distance lens, though all he could make out were docks and ships. Accounting for the distance, it was much larger than he had anticipated.

  Shifting back to Docktown and adjusting his lens, Abban could clearly see individual workers on the docks. They moved easily, unaware what was about to befall them.

  Even from this distance, Abban could hear the thunder of the Krasian charge. The first Dockfolk they encountered looked up at the sound just in time to die, impaled on light spears thrown from moving horses. The dal’Sharum were brutal, uneducated animals, but at killing they were second to none.

  They spread out as they made the town, some riding into the streets to create havoc and subdue the Dockfolk as others flanked the town to either side and put on speed, racing to come at the docks from both directions, before the sailors even realized what was happening.

  Now the screams began, cries of victims cut quickly short, and the prolonged wails of those left in the wake. Abban took no pleasure in the sounds, but neither did he feel remorse. This was not senseless killing. There was more profit to be made in a quick submission than an extended siege. Let the Sharum have their fun, so long as they captured the docks, the ships, and the tithe.

  Fires began to crop up as the warriors sought to sow confusion and chaos while they made their way to their objective. As a rule, Abban hated fire as a tool of war. Indiscriminate and expensive, it inevitably destroyed things of value. Sharum lives were cheaper by far.

  Horns began to sound, followed by the great bell on the docks. Abban watched as the sailors dropped the cargo they were loading and raced for the ships.

  The air around the docks turned sharp as Mehnding archers loosed their arrows and Sharum hurled throwing spears, killing first the men on deck—frantically trying to cast lines and raise sail—and then the fleeing workers.

  Abban smiled, turning his lens out onto the water. A few approaching ships turned away, but one found a clear stretch of dock and swept in, throwing down planks for women and children fleeing the attack.

  The planks bowed under the weight of the rush, and more than one refugee fell into the water. Able men joined the press, pushing and shoving until it seemed more than not were falling into the water. No one bothered to help the fallen—all were focused on getting aboard.

  At last the ship reached capacity, dipping noticeably deeper in the water. The captain shouted something into his horn, but the fleeing townsfolk kept trying to get aboard. The sailors kicked out the planks before they sank the ship, and turned the sails to the wind, moving swiftly away from water churning with desperate, screaming refugees.

  Abban sighed. He might feel no remorse, but neither did he wish to watch people drown. He moved his lens back over the town, where the Sharum appeared to have taken firm control. He hoped they would douse the fires quickly, already there was too much smoke …

  Abban started, moving the lens quickly back to the docks.

  “Everam’s balls, not again,” he said. He turned to Qeran. “Ready the men. We’re going in.”

  “It is hours before noon,” Qeran said. “The Sharum Ka—”

  “Is going to lose this war if he doesn’t get his camel-fucking idiot warriors under control,” Abban snapped.

  “They are burning the ships.”

  “What difference does it make?” Jayan demanded. “Capture the tithe, you said. Do not let the ships escape, you said. We have done both, and still you dare come shouting before me?”

  Abban took a deep breath. His blood was up as high as Jayan’s, and that was a dangerous thing. He might speak to Ahmann as if he were a fool, but his son would not tolerate such words from a khaffit.

  He bowed. “With respect, Sharum Ka, how are we to get your warriors to the city on the lake to conquer it without boats?”

  “We will build our own. How hard can it …” Jayan trailed off, looking at the huge cargo vessels with their intricate rigging.

  “Put them out!” he cried. “Icha! Sharu! Get those fires under control. Move the remaining ships away from the flames!”

  But of course the Sharum had no idea how to move the ships, and the Everam-cursed things seemed to catch sparks as if oiled. Abban watched in horror as a fleet of almost forty large ships and hundreds of smaller ones—along with much of the docks—was reduced to ten scorched ships and a scattering of smaller vessels.

  Jayan glared, as if daring Abban to speak of the lost fleet, but Abban kept wisely silent. The ships were a concern for springtime, and winter had only just begun. They had the tithe, and if they had lost the ships, so, too, had Lakton lost its link to the mainland.

  “My congratulations on a fine victory, Sharum Ka,” Abban said, reading the stream of reports from his men as they catalogued the spoils of the attack. The grain would mostly be sent back to Everam’s Bounty, but there were countless barrels of strong drink Abban could make vanish, and turn to profit, as well as other precious items and real estate. “The Damajah will be most pleased with you.”

  “You will learn soon enough, khaffit,” Jayan said, “my mother is never pleased. Never proud.”

  Abban shrugged. “The treasure is vast. You can hire a thousand mothers to follow you and shower you with praise.”

  Jayan looked at him sidelong. “How vast?”

  “Enough to give lands, holdings, and ten thousand draki apiece to all your most trusted lieutenants,” Abban said. A year’s pay to most Sharum, the number seemed grand, but it was a pittance spread amongst a few dozen men.

  “Don’t be so quick to give away my fortune, khaffit,” Jayan growled.

  “Your fortune?” Abban asked, seeming hurt. “I would not be so presumptuous. These are anticipated costs of war covered in the budget I gave the Andrah before leaving. Your purse will be free to begin settling your outstanding debt to the Builders’ Guild. I can arrange payment directly, if you wish.”

  Like all men, Jayan had little tells as his blood began to rise. He cracked his knuckles, and Abban knew he had struck a nerve.

  Jayan’s weakness was his palace. He was determined it be greater than any other, as befit the Skull Throne’s true heir. Coupled with his complete inability to count past his fingers, the quest had left the firstborn prince with stale air in his coffers and more interest accumulating each day than he could hope to pay. More than once he had come before the Skull Throne begging money for the “war effort” simply to keep his creditors at bay. Construction on the palace of the Sharum Ka had stopped midway, an embarrassment that followed Jayan everywhere.

  It had to be dealt wi
th, if the boy were to ever become pliable.

  “Why should I pay those dogs?” Jayan demanded. “They have suckled at my teat too long! And for what? My palace dome looks like a cracked egg! No, now that I have this victory, they will resume work or I will have them killed.”

  Abban nodded. “That is your right, of course, Sharum Ka. But then you would be short of skilled artisans, and those remaining would have no materials to work with. Or will you kill the quarrymen as well? The drainage pipe makers? Will threats keep the pack animals alive without money for feed?”

  Jayan was silent a long time, and Abban allowed him a moment to simmer.

  “Frankly, Sharum Ka,” Abban said, “if you were to kill anyone, it should be the moneylenders for the ridiculous interest rate they are charging you.”

  Jayan clenched his fists. It was well known that he had exhausted a line of credit with every moneylender in Krasia. He opened his mouth to begin a tirade that would likely end in him commanding something quite bloody and stupid.

  Abban cleared his throat just in time. “If you will allow me to negotiate on your behalf, Sharum Ka, I believe I can eliminate much of your debt, and begin payments that will see work on your palace resume without emptying your purse.”

  He dropped his voice lower, his words for Jayan alone. “Your power and influence will only increase with a reputation as a man who pays his debts, Sharum Ka. As your father was.”

  “Do not trust the khaffit, Sharum Ka,” Hasik warned. “He will whisper poison in your ear.”

  “Do,” Abban said, pointing his chin at Hasik, “and you’ll be able to give your dog a golden cock to match his tooth.”

  Jayan barked a laugh, and the rest of his entourage was quick to follow. Hasik’s face reddened and he reached for his spear.

  Jayan put two fingers to his lips and gave a shrill whistle. “Whistler! Heel me!”

  Hasik turned to him incredulously, but the cold look the young Sharum Ka gave him made clear how he would deal with insolence. Hasik’s head drooped as he moved to stand behind Jayan.

  “You have done well, khaffit,” Jayan said. “Perhaps I won’t need to kill you after all.”