“The gate seems to be holding, at least,” Shanjat said.
Jardir grunted. “But will it last until dawn? Dare we take that chance?”
“What else can we do?” Shanjat asked. “Even the scorpions can’t pierce its hide, and it’s too big to trick into a demon pit. Its head would be above the rim!”
“Bah, it’s just a big demon!” Hasik said. “With enough warriors we can bring it down and bind its arms.”
“Arm,” Shanjat corrected. “We would lose many warriors that way, and there’s no guarantee it will work. I’ve never seen an alagai so strong. I fear it is Alagai Ka himself, come with the Waning.”
“Nonsense,” Jardir said, watching the demon as his lieutenants argued. By Everam, I will find a way to kill you, he swore silently.
He was about to order a charge, hoping that sheer numbers could bring the creature low, when one of his Pit Warders came running up to him.
“Your pardon, First Warrior, the chin has a plan,” the man said. Jardir turned to see the greenlander again in animated conversation with his Warders, miming his intentions frantically.
“What is it?” Jardir asked.
“Surely you cannot still mean to trust him,” Hasik said.
“Do you have a plan that doesn’t involve throwing lives away charging that abyss-spawned abomination?” Jardir asked. When Hasik did not reply, he turned back to the Warder. “What is his plan?”
“The chin knows something of warding,” the Warder said.
“He would,” Hasik muttered. “Hiding behind wards is all the chin know how to do.”
“Be silent,” Jardir snapped.
The Warder ignored the exchange. “The greenlander has wardstones that should trap the creature, if we can lure him to a dead end and then uncover them. The ward for rock demons is similar to the one for sand. The walls of the Maze should serve as a pit until the dawn.”
Jardir took the wardstones and examined them. Indeed, they contained wards similar to those for sand, but larger and angled differently, with a break in one of the lines. He traced them with a finger.
“There is a dead end two turns into the tenth,” he said.
“I know it, First Warrior,” the Warder said, bowing.
Jardir turned to Hasik and Shanjat. “Keep watch on the demon. Do nothing unless there is a sign that the wards on the gate are weakening. If that should happen, I want every man in the Maze on that monster.”
The two warriors punched their chests and bowed. Jardir selected his three best Warders, and they escorted the greenlander to the alcove. When all five of them agreed the wards on the walls and at the entrance would hold, they staked the wardstones in place and covered them with a sand-colored tarp that could be quickly removed.
Again Jardir found himself impressed with the Northerner. Warding was an elite skill in Krasia, reserved only for dama and a few warriors they handselected.
“Who are you?” he asked, but the greenlander only shrugged, not understanding.
They returned to the front of the lines, where the demon continued to systematically attack every inch of the gate, searching for a weakness.
Jardir looked at the gigantic alagai and felt a stab of fear, but he was the First Warrior. He would ask no other to lure the beast.
Either I am the Deliverer, or I am not, he told himself, struggling to believe. But he knew Inevera lied freely about other things, so why not this?
He steeled himself, drawing a ward in the air, and took a step forward.
“No, Sharum Ka!” Hasik shouted. “I am your bodyguard! Let me lure the demon!”
Jardir shook his head. “Your courage does you great honor, but this task is for me alone.”
The greenlander said something, making a chopping motion with his arm, but the time for deciphering his cryptic messages was past. Jardir embraced his fears and strode out to the demon, shouting and clattering his spear against his shield.
The demon ignored him, continuing its assault on the gate.
Jardir charged, stabbing hard at the joint in the demon’s armor at the back of its knee, but the creature only flicked its massive tail at him, as a horse would a fly.
Jardir danced out of the way, ducking as the spiked appendage whooshed over his head. He looked at his spear and found that the tip had broken off.
“Camel’s piss,” he muttered, going back to the lines to take a fresh spear from Hasik.
“First Warrior, look!” his bodyguard cried, pointing. Jardir turned to see the greenlander striding out to the demon.
“Fool!” he cried. “What are you doing?” But the greenlander gave no indication that he had even heard, much less understood. He stopped just outside the creature’s reach and gave a shout.
The demon ceased its assault at the sound, tilting its head and sniffing at the air. It turned to regard the greenlander, and there was a flare of recognition in its alien eyes.
“Nie’s blood,” Hasik breathed. “It knows him.”
The beast gave a great roar and charged, swiping with the claws of its good arm, but the greenlander was quick to leap aside, turning to run for the trapped alcove.
“Clear the way!” Jardir shouted, and his warriors moved as one to flow out of their path. As the demon passed, Jardir darted after them, followed by all the gathered warriors.
The Maze shook with the pounding of the demon’s feet, and it kicked up great clouds of dust in its wake that made it difficult to see the greenlander. But the demon kept howling and running, so Jardir could only assume the chin maintained his lead.
They made two sharp turns, and in the dim light of the oil lamps Jardir saw the greenlander turn into the alcove. The demon followed, and the Pit Warders sprang from concealment to reveal the wards.
The rock demon roared in triumph seeing its prey trapped, and lunged at the greenlander, who turned and darted right at the beast.
Magic flared, and the great demon’s claws skittered off the greenlander’s shield. He was knocked over by the blow, but he rolled back to his feet like a cat, springing past the demon before it could draw back to attack him again.
The wards were revealed, but Jardir saw immediately that the rock demon had stepped on one of the central wardstones as it stomped past. The ward was shattered beyond repair.
The greenlander saw it, too. Jardir expected him to bolt from the alcove before the demon could turn, but again the Northerner surprised him. He pointed with his spear at the broken ward, shouted something in his guttural tongue, and turned back to face the alagai.
“Repair that ward!” Jardir shouted, but he needn’t have bothered. The Pit Warders were already at work painting a fresh symbol on slate. They would be done in less than a minute.
Again the demon struck, and again the greenlander dodged aside, catching only a glancing blow on his shield. But this time, the demon was ready, swinging the stump of its other arm like a giant club. The greenlander managed to throw himself to the ground and avoid the attack, but the demon raised a foot to crush him while he was prone, and Jardir knew he would never rise in time.
The Warders were almost done. The greenlander would die a hero’s death, and Krasia would be safe. All Jardir had to do was let go the mystery of the brave Northerner, and turn his back.
Instead he gave a shout, and leapt into the alcove.
CHAPTER 8
PAR’CHIN
326–328 AR
THE ROCK DEMON ROARED, smashing its taloned foot down. Jardir skidded on his knees underneath the blow, bracing his warded shield with his shoulder as he lifted it over them.
The blow rattled his teeth and jolted his spine. He felt his shoulder pop free of its socket, and his shield arm went limp.
But the magic flared and the great alagai was knocked backward, losing its balance. It struck one of the walls and the wards there flared, throwing the demon into the opposite wall, which flared as well. It shrieked in fury, knocked about like a child’s ball.
The greenlander was quick to rise, gr
abbing Jardir’s uninjured shoulder and hauling him to his feet. The Pit Warders had completed their work by then, and while the demon thrashed, they stumbled from the alcove.
A moment later the rock demon found its footing and threw itself at them, but the greenlander’s wards lit the night, and it was thrown back. The Northerner shouted something at the beast and made a gesture that Jardir assumed was as obscene in the North as it was in Krasia. He laughed again.
“What news from the Watchers?” Jardir asked Shanjat.
“Half the Maze is overrun,” Shanjat replied. “A few warriors succor behind the wards in ambush pockets, but most have gone to Everam’s embrace. The Majah are holding at the sixth; the alagai have not been able to penetrate the wards there.”
“How many warriors did we lose?” Jardir asked, dreading the answer.
Shanjat shrugged. “No way to know until dawn, when the men in hiding emerge and the kai’Sharum can make a full count.”
“Guess,” Jardir said.
Shanjat frowned. “No less than a third. Perhaps half.”
Jardir scowled. There had not been such losses in a single night since the Return. The Andrah would have his head on a block.
“If the inner Maze is clear, begin taking the injured into the dama’ting pavilion,” he said.
“You should be among them, First Warrior,” Shanjat said. “Your shoulder…”
Jardir glanced down at his arm, hanging limp at his side. He had embraced the pain and forgotten it. With this reminder, it screamed at him until he suppressed it again.
He shook his head. “The arm can wait. Have the Watchers bring their reports to me here. The sun will be rising soon, and I wish to see this alagai burn.”
Shanjat nodded and left, shouting orders. Jardir turned to regard the rock demon, clawing at the wards and roaring its fury as it tried to get to the greenlander. The greenlander stood calmly before it, and the two—human and alagai— had the same hatred in their eyes as they stared at each other.
“What happened between you?” Jardir asked, knowing the greenlander could not understand.
But surprisingly, the man turned to him, guessing at his tone perhaps, and made the same chopping motion with his hand that he had before. He held out his right arm, and chopped at it with the other hand, striking just below the elbow.
Jardir’s eyes widened as he caught the greenlander’s meaning.
“You cut its arm off?!” Others looked up at the words. When the greenlander nodded, Jardir heard the buzz of rumor that would spread like blowing sand throughout the city.
“I underestimated you, my friend,” he said. “I am honored to be your ajin’pal.”
The greenlander shrugged and smiled, not understanding his words.
Soon after, there was the deepening of color in the night sky that signaled the coming dawn. The rock demon sensed it, too, and straightened, as if concentrating. Jardir had seen this play out a thousand times, and never tired of it. In a moment the demon would discover that the cut stone beneath the sand of the Maze floor prevented it from finding a path to Nie’s abyss at the center of Ala. It would shriek and thrash and claw the wards, and then the sun’s rays would catch it, and Everam’s light would burn it to ashes.
The alagai did shriek, but then it did something Jardir had never seen before. It tore at the dirt and sand of the Maze floor, finding the great stone blocks that had been laid centuries before. With its one clawed hand, the demon smashed through the stone, tearing huge pieces free.
“No!” Jardir cried. The greenlander shouted in protest as well, but it made no difference. Long before the sun rose high enough to threaten it, the creature slipped back into the abyss.
Inevera was waiting when they limped back to the training grounds. Seeing his arm hanging lifelessly, she turned to Hasik.
“Bring him to the palace,” she said. “Drag him, if he resists.”
Hasik bowed his head. “As the dama’ting commands.”
Jardir turned to Shanjat as Hasik pulled at him. “Locate Abban and have him brought here. When he arrives, escort him and the greenlander to my audience hall.”
Shanjat nodded and sent a runner. Jardir and Hasik headed for the palace, but they had not reached the steps before the training ground was swarming with dama’ting tending to the wounded, and women wailing for husbands and sons who could not be found.
These were followed by dama, who quickly broke their tribesmen away from the mass of Sharum returning from the Maze. In moments the force that had stood unified in the night splintered as it did each day.
Jardir had not ascended half the steps to his palace when the palanquins arrived. All twelve Damaji and the Andrah himself, riding the backs of nie’dama and flanked by their most loyal clerics.
Jardir stopped where he was, knowing no injury could take precedence over his giving a full report of this cursed night. But what to say? He had lost at least a third of Krasia’s warriors, and what did he have to show for it?
“What happened?” the Andrah demanded, storming up to him. Inevera was at Jardir’s side in an instant, but in the light of day, with the Damaji at his back and such failure at Jardir’s feet, the Andrah was uncowed even by her.
Even after years, the sight of the fat man filled Jardir with hatred and disgust. But the day Inevera had foretold, when he could feed the man his spear and cut his manhood off, seemed impossible now. Jardir would be lucky if he did not end this day as khaffit.
“The outer gate was breached last night,” Jardir said, “letting the enemy into the Maze.”
“You lost the gate?” the Andrah demanded.
Jardir nodded.
“Losses?” the Andrah asked.
“Still counting,” Jardir said. “Hundreds, at the least. Possibly thousands.”
The Damaji burst into whispered conversation. All through the training grounds, the scene was being watched closely by Sharum and dama alike.
“I will have your head on a pike above the new gate!” the Andrah promised.
Before Jardir could respond, Hasik stepped in front of him, prostrating himself before the Andrah and pressing his head to the steps.
“What are you doing, fool?” Jardir demanded, but Hasik ignored him.
“Your pardon, my Andrah,” he said, “but this is not the fault of the First Warrior. Without Ahmann Jardir, we would have all been lost in the night!”
There were murmurs of accord from the gathered warriors. “He pulled me from a demon pit!” one cried. “The First Warrior led the charge that saved my unit!” another called.
“That doesn’t explain how he lost the gate in the first place!” the Andrah barked.
“Alagai Ka attacked the wall last night,” Hasik said. “It caught a sling stone and hurled it back, breaking the outer gate. It was only by the First Warrior’s quick response that we were not completely overrun.”
“It is the Waning, but Alagai Ka has not been seen in Krasia in more than three thousand years,” Damaji Amadeveram said.
“It was not Alagai Ka,” Jardir said. “Just a rock demon from the mountains.”
“Even that is unheard of,” Amadeveram said. “What could have brought one so far from its mountain home?”
Hasik looked up, scanning the crowd. Jardir hissed, but again his lieutenant ignored him.
“Him,” he said, pointing to the greenlander.
All eyes turned to the greenlander, who took a step back, realizing he had become the focus of everyone’s attention.
“A chin?” the Andrah asked. “What is a chin doing among the Sharum of Krasia? He should be in the market slums with the other khaffit.”
A dama whispered in Amadeveram’s ear. “I am told he came to the First Warrior last night and begged to fight,” the Damaji said.
“And you gave him permission?” the Andrah asked Jardir, incredulous.
Inevera tensed, but Jardir stilled her with a hand. She might have power in small chambers, but if a woman, even a dama’ting, defended him bef
ore the assembled warriors and dama, she would only make matters worse.
“I did,” he said.
“So this ruin brought upon us is wholly your fault!” the Andrah cried. “Your chin’s head shall share the gate spike with you, and let buzzards eat your eyes!”
He turned to go, but Jardir was not done. He had sacrificed too much for the greenlander to let him be executed now. Inevera had said their fates were tied, so let it be so.
His arm screamed still, and he was tired and bruised from fighting the night through. His head spun with pain and exhaustion, but he embraced it all and pushed it aside. There would be time to rest in Everam’s embrace, and he was not there yet.
“So I should have turned him away?” he asked loudly, so all could hear. “He comes to us with alagai as his enemy, and we should show him our backs? Are we men or khaffit?”
The Andrah stopped short, and turned back to face Jardir. His face was a stormcloud.
“He brought a rock demon with him!” the Andrah cried.
“I don’t care if his enemy really was Alagai Ka!” Jardir shouted back. “Woe betide Krasia when we fear the alagai enough to turn on a man in the night—even a chin!”
He beckoned to the greenlander, who ascended the steps halfway, so all could see him. He held his spear tightly, as if expecting the crowd to turn on him in an instant. His hard eyes made it clear he would not fall easily.
He is fearless, Jardir thought. Could there be a better man to tie my fate to?
“This is no cowardly Northerner, tilling soil like a woman,” Jardir said. “This is a par’chin, a brave outsider who stands like a dal’Sharum! Let Alagai Ka come! If he wishes this greenlander’s blood, then that is reason enough for any man who would stand tall before Everam to deny him!”
Shanjat gave a shout of support, echoed quickly by Jardir’s hundred. In an instant every dal’Sharum had raised his spear to add his voice to the cacophony.
“We stood fast against Nie, this night, and denied her great servant,” Jardir said. “Even now, he crawls back to the abyss in failure and defeat, quailing in fear of the dal’Sharum of the Desert Spear!”