The Desert Spear

by Peter V. Brett

  He was quick to pivot out of the way. Remembering the last time she had struck him, he blocked and dodged with minimal contact as Inevera pressed her attack. Her long legs, clad only in thin, diaphanous silk, kicked high and fast as her fingers stabbed at him, seeking the weak points where a man’s muscles and nerves joined. If she managed to connect, his limbs would cease to obey him.

  It was the first real display of dama’ting sharusahk Jardir had ever seen, and he studied the precise, deadly moves with fascination, knowing Inevera could likely kill a Damaji before he knew she had even struck.

  But Jardir was Shar’Dama Ka. He was the greatest living sharusahk master, and his body was stronger and faster than it had ever been thanks to the magic of the Spear of Kaji. Now that he respected her ability as a warrior and kept his guard, even Inevera was no match for him. Eventually he caught her wrist and flipped her onto the pile of pillows.

  “Attack me again,” he said, “and dama’ting or no, I will kill you.”

  “The heathen harlot has bewitched your mind,” Inevera spat.

  Jardir laughed. “Perhaps. Or perhaps she has begun to set it free.”

  Damaji Ichach sneered at them as he left the Palace of Mirrors with his wives and children.

  “If eyes could core you, his would,” Rojer said.

  “You’d think he hadn’t stolen that manse from some Rizonan royal,” Leesha replied.

  “Who knows with these people?” Rojer asked. “He might have taken it as an honor if we had done him the courtesy of killing him and his family first.”

  “That isn’t funny, Rojer,” Leesha said.

  “I don’t know that I was joking,” Rojer said.

  Abban came out of the manse soon after, bowing deeply. “Your palace awaits, mistress. My wives will be preparing the lower floors for your entourage, but your private chambers, the entire top floor, are ready to receive you.”

  Leesha looked up at the giant manse. There were dozens of windows on the top floor alone. That whole floor was for her personal use? It was easily ten times the size of the entire cottage she shared with Wonda.

  “She gets the whole floor?” Rojer asked, gawking along with her.

  “Of course your chambers shall be richly appointed as well, son of Jessum,” Abban said, bowing, “but tradition dictates a virgin bride be kept alone on the top floor with her chaperones below, to ensure that she don her wedding veil with her honor intact.”

  “I have not agreed to Ahmann’s proposal,” Leesha pointed out.

  Abban bowed. “That is so, but neither have you refused, and so you remain my master’s intended until you make your decision. The rules of tradition are unbending here, I am afraid.”

  He leaned in close, shielding his lips by pretending to stroke his beard. “And I strongly advise, mistress, that unless your answer is yes, you make no final decision while in Everam’s Bounty.” Leesha nodded, having already come to the same conclusion.

  They entered the manse, seeing black-clad women everywhere as they polished and straightened. The main entry hall was lined on either side with mirrors, reflecting the walls into infinity. The carpet running along the center of the polished stone floor was rich and thick, with bright dyes in the weave, and the banister of the wide stairwell leading up was painted in gold and ivory. Portraits, presumably of the previous owners, lined the wall, watching them ruefully as they ascended the steps. Leesha wondered what had become of them when the Krasians came.

  “If you would be so kind as to wait up here with your entourage, mistress,” Abban said, “I will return shortly to escort them each to their own chambers.”

  Leesha nodded, and Abban bowed and left them in a massive sitting room whose windows overlooked all of Rizon proper.

  “Step outside and guard the door, Gared,” Leesha said as Abban left. When the portal was closed, Leesha whirled on her mother.

  “You told them I was a virgin?” she demanded.

  Elona shrugged. “They assumed it. I just let them keep the assumption.”

  “And if I do marry him and he learns I am not?” Leesha asked.

  Elona snorted. “You wouldn’t be the first bride to go to her marriage bed a woman. Ent no man going to turn away a woman he covets over that.” She glanced at Erny, who was studying his own shoes as if they were covered in writing.

  Leesha scowled, but she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be just another bride in a harem. The nerve of him, bringing me here without telling me!”

  “Oh, for night’s sake!” Rojer snapped. “You’ve got no excuse for not knowing. Every Krasian tale ever told starts with a lord with dozens of bored wives locked in a harem. What difference does it make, anyway? You already said you had no intention of marrying him.”

  “No one asked you,” Elona snapped. Leesha looked at her in surprise.

  “You already knew he was married, didn’t you?” Leesha accused. “You knew and you still tried to trade me off like a piece of livestock!”

  “I knew, yes,” Elona said. “I also know that he could burn the Hollow to ashes, or make my daughter a queen. Was my choice so bad?”

  “Who I marry isn’t your choice to make,” Leesha said.

  “Well, someone has to make it,” Elona snapped. “You sure as night weren’t going to.”

  Leesha glared at her. “Just what have you promised them, Mother? And what did they offer in return?”

  “Promised?” Elona laughed. “It’s a marriage. All the groom wants is a bed toy and baby maker. I promised you were fertile and would provide sons. That was all.”

  “You’re disgusting,” Leesha said. “Just how could you know that, anyway?”

  “I might have mentioned your six older brothers,” Elona admitted, “all tragically killed fighting demons.” She tsked wistfully.

  “Mother!” Leesha shouted.

  “Do you think six was too many?” Elona asked. “I was worried I overplayed, but Abban accepted it right away, and even seemed disappointed. I think I could have gone even higher.”

  “Even one is too many!” Leesha said. “Lying about dead children; have you no respect?”

  “Respect for what?” Elona asked. “The poor souls of children who don’t exist?”

  Leesha felt the muscles twinge behind her left eye, and knew a terrible headache was coming on. She massaged her temple. “It was a mistake coming here.”

  “It’s a little late to see that,” Rojer said. “Even if they let us go, it would be the same as spitting in their faces if we left now.”

  The pain behind Leesha’s eye flared sharply, bringing on a wave of nausea. “Wonda, fetch my herb pouch.” Her mother would be easier to deal with after she had taken a tincture for blood flow to ease the headache.

  Jardir arrived soon after the lower rooms were ready and her friends escorted down to them. Leesha wondered if he had purposely waited until she was alone before visiting.

  He stood in the doorway and bowed, but did not enter. “I do not wish to give dishonor. Would you prefer to have your mother present to chaperone?”

  Leesha snorted. “I’d as soon be chaperoned by a coreling. I think I can handle you if you put a hand where it doesn’t belong.”

  Jardir laughed and bowed again, entering. “Of that, I have no doubt. I must apologize for the meanness of your accommodations. I wish I had a palace worthy of your power and beauty, but alas, this poor hovel is the best Everam’s Bounty has to offer at the moment.”

  Leesha wanted to tell him she had never seen a place so beautiful short of Duke Rhinebeck’s keep, but she bit back the compliment, knowing the Krasians had stolen the place and deserved no praise for its splendor.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were already married?” she asked bluntly.

  Jardir started, and she saw honest surprise on his face. He bowed deeply. “Your pardon, mistress. I assumed you knew. Your mother suggested I not speak of it because your jealousy rivals your beauty, and thus must be terrible indeed.”

/>   Leesha felt her temple throb again at the mention of her mother, though she could not deny a flash of pleasure at the compliment, sugared though it might be.

  “I was flattered by your proposal,” Leesha said. “Creator, I even considered it! But I do not fancy being a part of a crowd, Ahmann. Such things are not done in the North. Marriage is a union of two, not two dozen.”

  “I cannot change what is,” Jardir said, “but I beg you still to not rush to decision. I would make you my First Wife in the Northland, with power of refusal to all who come after. If you wish me to take no other greenland brides, it shall be so. Think carefully on this. If you bear me sons, my people will have no choice but to accept the Hollow tribe.”

  Leesha frowned, but she knew better than to refuse him flatly. They were in his power and knew it. Again, she found herself regretting her rash decision to come.

  “Night will fall soon,” Jardir said, changing the subject when she did not reply. “I have come to invite you and your bodyguards to alagai’sharak.”

  Leesha looked at him for a long moment, considering.

  “Our war with the alagai is the common ground our people stand on,” Jardir said. “It will help my warriors to accept you, if they see we are…siblings in the night.”

  Leesha nodded. “All right, though my parents will stay behind.”

  “Of course,” Jardir said. “I swear by Everam’s beard that they will be safe here.”

  “Is there a reason to worry to the contrary?” Leesha asked, remembering the glare of Damaji Ichach.

  Jardir bowed. “Of course not. I was simply stating the obvious. Forgive me.”

  Leesha was impressed with the tight units the Krasian warriors formed for inspection as Jardir led Leesha and the others to alagai’sharak. Abban limped at her side, and Leesha was grateful as ever for his presence. Her understanding of the Krasian language was progressing rapidly, but there were hundreds of cultural rules she and the others did not understand. Much like Rojer, Abban could speak without moving his lips, and his whispered hints of when to bow and when to nod, when to placate and when to stand fast, had kept them all from conflict so far.

  But more than that, Leesha found she liked Abban. Despite an injury that put him in the lowest echelon of his society, the khaffit had managed to keep his spirits and his humor, and had risen to new power, of a sort.

  “That can’t be all of ’em,” Rojer murmured, looking at the assembled Sharum, over a thousand in number. “No way that many men took a whole duchy. We can field that many fighters in the Hollow.”

  “No, Rojer,” Leesha whispered, shaking her head. “We can field carpenters and bakers. Laundresses and seamstresses who will pick up a weapon at need to defend in the night. These men are professional soldiers.”

  Rojer grunted and looked out at the assembled men again. “Still ent enough.”

  “You are correct, of course,” Abban said, obviously having heard every word of their whispered conference. “You see but a tiny fraction of the warriors at my master’s command.” He gestured to the twelve units of men in the courtyard by the great gate. “These are the most elite fighters of each of the twelve tribes of Krasia, chosen as honor guards to their Damaji in the city proper. Before you is the most invincible fighting force the world has ever seen, but even they are nothing compared with the million spears the Shar’Dama Ka can muster. The rest of the tribes have dispersed throughout the hundreds of villages in Everam’s Bounty.”

  A million spears. If Jardir could field even a quarter of that, the Free Cities would be best off to surrender quickly, and she should get used to the idea of being Jardir’s bed toy. Arlen had seemed convinced the Krasian army was much smaller than that. Leesha looked at Abban, wondering if he was being honest. Dozens of questions popped into her mind, but she wisely kept them to herself, lest they reveal even more of her inner counsel.

  Never let anyone know what you’re thinking till they’ve a need to, Bruna had taught her, a philosophy Duchess Araine seemed to agree with.

  “And the people living in those villages?” Leesha asked. “What became of them?”

  “They live there still,” Abban said, sounding genuinely hurt. “You must think us monsters, to fear we are slaying the innocent.”

  “There are such rumors in the North, I’m afraid,” Leesha said.

  “Well they are untrue,” Abban said. “The conquered people are taxed, yes, and the boys and men trained in alagai’sharak, but their lives are otherwise unchanged. And in return, they have pride in the night.”

  Again Leesha studied Abban’s face for a hint of where exaggeration might become lie, but she found nothing. Levying boys and men to war was a horror, but at least she could tell the distraught refugees back in the Hollow that their captured husbands, brothers, and sons were likely still alive.

  There was a buzz through the ranks of warriors at the sight of Leesha and the others, but their white-veiled leaders barked, and the Sharum fell silent and stood for inspection. At their forefront stood two men, one in a white turban above warrior black, the other clad in dama white.

  “My master’s first son, Jayan,” Abban said, indicating the warrior, “and his second, Asome.” He pointed to the cleric.

  Jardir strode out before the men, and the power he radiated was palpable. The warriors looked at him in awe, and even his sons had a fanatical gleam in their eyes. Leesha was surprised to find that after only two weeks of instruction, she understood most of what he said.

  “Sharum of the Desert Spear!” Jardir called. “Tonight we are honored to be joined in alagai’sharak by Sharum of the Hollow tribe to the north, our brothers in the night.” He gestured to Leesha’s group, and a shocked murmur went through the warriors.

  “They are to fight?” Jayan demanded.

  “Father, the Evejah states clearly that women are barred from sharak,” Asome protested.

  “The Evejah was written by the Deliverer,” Jardir said. “I am the Deliverer now, and I will say how sharak is fought.”

  Jayan shook his head. “I will not fight alongside a woman.”

  Jardir struck like a lion, his hand a blur as he seized his son by the throat. Jayan gasped and pulled at his father’s arm, but the grip was like iron, and he could not break it. His feet left the ground, toes barely scraping the dirt, as Jardir flexed his arm to its full length.

  Leesha gasped and started forward, but Abban blocked her with his crutch, applying surprising strength.

  “Don’t be a fool,” he whispered harshly. Something in the urgency of his voice checked Leesha, and she eased back, watching helplessly as Jardir choked the life from his son. She drew a relieved breath as the boy was cast to the ground, gasping and thrashing but very much alive.

  “What kind of animal attacks his own son?” Leesha asked, aghast.

  Abban opened his mouth to speak, but Gared cut him off. “Din’t have no choice. Ent no one goin’ into the night followin’ a pa who can’t even keep his own boys in line.”

  “I don’t need advice from the town bully, Gared,” Leesha snipped.

  “No, he’s right,” Wonda piped in to Leesha’s shock. “I din’t understand what they said, but my pa would’ve smacked my nose off, I took that tone with him. Reckon it’ll do ’im good to eat a little dirt.”

  “It seems our ways are not as different as they first appear, mistress,” Abban noted.

  Alagai’sharak was a nightly sweep around the perimeter of the city. The Sharum exited the north gate and spread out, shoulder-to-shoulder and shield-to-shield, six tribes heading east and six west, killing any alagai in their path until they met at the south gate. To avoid further conflict, Jardir deliberately sent Jayan and Asome east while taking Leesha and the others west. Abban was left behind at the gate.

  None of the Hollow tribe carried shields, so Jardir put them behind the line, personally escorting Leesha with Hasik and a handful of the Spears of the Deliverer. Demons filtered in quickly after the dal’Sharum passed to feed on the c
orpses of corelings left for the sun, and they did not hesitate to attack the small group.

  At first the Krasians had sought to protect them, but as Jardir had hoped, Leesha and the others quickly disabused them of the need. Rojer’s fiddle tricked the demons into traps or set them against one another. Leesha hurled her fire magic at the alagai, scattering them like sand in the wind. Gared and Wonda strode into packs of demons with impunity, the giant Cutter hacking them to pieces with his axe and machete as Wonda’s bow hummed like the strings of Rojer’s fiddle, killing every demon she so much as glanced at from afar. She even took several out of the sky before they could swoop down on the shield wall.

  She was well away from the others when her arrows ran out. A flame demon hissed and charged at her, and one of the Spears of the Deliverer gave a cry, rushing to defend her.

  He needn’t have bothered. Wonda slung the bow from her shoulder and grabbed the demon by the horns, pivoting to avoid its firespit and turning it to the ground with a smooth sharusahk twist. A warded knife appeared in her hand, slashing the demon’s throat.

  She looked up, and the ichor lust in her eyes matched that of any Sharum Jardir had ever seen. She smiled to the dumbstruck dal’Sharum who had a moment before been rushing to save her, but then her eyes widened, and she pointed to the sky.

  “Look out!” she cried, too late, as a wind demon dropped from the sky, tearing through the warrior’s armor and laying him open with its deadly talons.

  Everyone reacted at once. A warded knife appeared in Rojer’s hand, flying to strike the demon at the same time as Wonda’s thrown blade and three spears, dropping it before it could take back to the sky. Leesha lifted her skirts and ran to the fallen warrior. The alagai was still thrashing, mere inches away, when she knelt at his side. Jardir hurried to join her as Gared and his Spears put an end to the demon and stood watch for others.

  The warrior, Restavi, had served Jardir loyally for years. His armor was soaked with blood. He struggled madly as Leesha tried to look at his wound.

  “Hold him down,” Leesha ordered, her tone no different than that of a dama’ting, one used to obedience. “I can’t work with him thrashing about.”