The Desert Spear

“I do not see why we needed to bring the khaffit, Deliverer,” Ashan said.

“Because I want someone other than you and I who can count past his toes,” Jardir said. “Abban sees things that other men do not, and I need to see all in the green lands if I am to make best use of them in Sharak Ka.”

Abban continued to complain at every bump in the road or chill breeze, but Jardir found it easy to ignore the endless tirade as they rode on. He felt freer than he had in a decade, like an incredible weight had been taken from his shoulders. For however long this expedition took, weeks perhaps, he was responsible for nothing except Abban, Ashan, and the fifty hardened dal’Sharum at his back. Part of him wanted to keep on riding forever, away from the politics of chin, Damaji, and dama’ting.

They encountered some greenland refugees on the road, but these fled their path, and Jardir saw no gain in pursuing them. On foot and afraid to travel at night, there was little danger of them getting ahead and warning the Hollow, and none of them would dare attack the Spears of the Deliverer. Even the corelings at night shied from their path, for Jardir did not call halt when the sun set. Abban somehow managed to keep up in the night, though. He put his camel right in the center of the warriors, tolerating their jeers and spittle for the succor they offered.

It was on such a night that they came upon the Hollow. Shouts echoed down the road, along with sounds like thunder and great flashes of light.

They slowed their pace, and Jardir turned into the trees to follow the cacophony, his warriors following. Eventually, they came to the edge of a great swath of cleared land filled with the stumps of trees, where the chin fought their Northern alagai’sharak.

Great fires blazed in trenches, and coupled with the constant flare of wards throughout the battlefield, the clearing was lit as if it were daylight and littered with dead alagai. The fires and wards funneled demons into places where the Northerners stood ready to cut them to pieces.

“They’ve prepared their battlefield,” Jardir mused.

Abban looked around, finding a suitable space, and staked his camel, removing a portable warding circle from its saddlebags, which he began to set up around them both.

“Even among so many warriors, you must hide behind wards like a coward?” Jardir asked him.

Abban shrugged. “I am khaffit,” he said simply. Jardir snorted and turned back to watch the Northerners fight.

Unlike the chin from Everam’s Bounty, these Northerners were tall and heavily muscled. The largest of them fought not with spear and shield but with great warded axes and mattocks. The men were of a size with the wood demons, and chopped at them like trees.

The Northerners fought well, but there were hundreds of wood demons coming at them. It seemed the chin would be overwhelmed when they broke apart, clearing ground for a line of archers to scour the field.

Jardir gaped to see the archers were clad in the long dresses the Northern women favored, displaying their faces and half their breasts like harlots.

“Their women join in alagai’sharak?” Ashan asked in shock. Jardir looked closer at the battlefield and saw that even some of those fighting in close quarters were female.

And there was a great giant, even among these tall people, who led every charge with a bellow that resonated for miles. He swung a great two-headed axe in one hand like a hatchet, and in the other he swung a machete as if it were a pocketknife.

One of the Northerners went down on one knee at the blow of an eight-foot-tall wood demon, and the giant tackled it away before it could land a killing blow. He lost his weapons in the tumble, but it made no difference as the alagai leapt at him. With one hand, the giant stopped the demon short, grabbing it, and with the other he landed a blow that flared with magic and sent the alagai reeling. Jardir saw he wore heavy gloves banded with warded metal.

The giant gave the wood demon no time to recover, falling on it and pummeling it about the head until he was covered in ichor and the demon lay still. He roared into the night, and with his thick mane of yellow hair and beard, he looked like nothing if not a lion atop its kill.

Another demon approached, but a slender boy with bright red hair and pale skin, dressed like a khaffit in a patchwork of bright color, stood before it and put up an instrument of some sort. He made a jarring sound, and the alagai grasped its head and shrieked in agony. The noise continued, and the demon fled as if in terror, right into another chin’s waiting axe.

“Everam’s beard,” Abban breathed.

“What magic does that one carry?” Ashan asked.

“We must find out,” Jardir agreed.

“Allow me to kill the giant and bring the boy to you, Deliverer,” Hasik begged, his eyes taking on the mad light they always did before battle.

“Do nothing,” Jardir said. “We are here to learn, not fight.” He could tell his warriors did not like that answer, but he did not care, because two other figures had caught his eye. One was clearly a woman, carrying no weapon, only a small basket. The other was much larger, and dressed like a man, but carried a bow like the northern women. Her face was demon-scarred.

Both were clad in fine cloaks embroidered with hundreds of wards, and they wandered through the carnage unmolested by alagai and given a respectful berth by the other Northerners.

“They are unseen to the alagai as if they wear the Cloak of Kaji,” Ashan said.

A demon clawed through the chest of a man, and he cried out and went down, dropping his axe. The cloaked women hurried to the man, the taller one putting an arrow in the demon as the slender one knelt by the man’s side. She pulled back her hood, and Jardir saw her face.

She was even more beautiful than Inevera, her skin white like cream, a sharp contrast with her hair, black like the armor of a rock demon.

The woman tore the man’s shirt, tending his wound while her female bodyguard stood watch over her, shooting any alagai that dared draw close.

“Some sort of Northern dama’ting?” Jardir mused aloud.

“A heathen parody of one, perhaps,” Ashan said.

After a moment, the beautiful woman gave a command to her bodyguard, who slung her bow across her shoulders and lifted the wounded man in her arms. The way back out was blocked by a group of alagai, but the Northern dama’ting reached into her pouch and removed an object. Fire appeared in her hand, setting spark to it, and she drew back her arm and threw. An explosion blasted the alagai from her path, leaving them littering the ground, unmoving.

“Heathen, perhaps,” Jardir said, “but these Northerners are not without power.”

“The men must be cowards worse than khaffit, to depend on women for their rescue,” Shanjat said. “I would rather die on the field.”

“No,” Jardir said, “the cowards are us, hiding here in the shadows while chin fight alagai’sharak.”

“They are our enemies,” Ashan said.

Jardir looked at him and shook his head. “Perhaps by day, but all men are brothers in the night.” He put up his night veil and lifted his spear, giving a war cry as he charged into the fight.

There was a surprised hesitation in his men, and then they, too, roared and followed.

“Krasians!” Merrem the butcher’s wife screamed, and Rojer looked up in surprise, seeing that she was right. Dozens of black-clad Krasian warriors were charging into the clearing, brandishing spears and whooping. His blood went cold, and the bow slipped from his fiddle.