The Desert Spear

The flame demon was smaller, the size of a small boy, with wicked talons and terrifying speed. Its tiny, diamond-hard iridescent scales overlapped seamlessly. Its eyes and mouth glowed with orange light, and Jardir recalled his lessons about the creature’s deadly firespit. Across the ambush point was a pool in which the warriors would attempt to drown it.

Once again, the sight of the alagai filled Jardir with utter loathing. The creatures were a plague upon the Ala, Nie’s taint come to infect the surface. And tonight, he would help send them screaming back into the abyss.

“Hold,” Hasik warned, feeling him tense. Jardir nodded, forcing himself to relax. The couzi continued to work its way through him, warming him from the night’s chill.

The alagai passed them by, intent on the Baiters. Two of them ran right out onto the tarp covering the demon pit, falling in with a shriek. The other sand demons pulled up short, but the flame dodged around, leaping onto the back of the slower Baiter. It dug its claws into the man’s back and bit hard into his shoulder. The warrior was knocked down, but he did not scream.

“Now!” the kai’Sharum cried, and led the charge from the ambush pocket.

Jardir let the warrior’s roar explode from his chest, thrumming in unison with his brothers in the night and carrying him forward with the others. They smashed into the two sand demons from behind, knocking them into the pit.

The kai’Sharum pivoted, launching his spear and knocking the flame demon from the Baiter’s back. The other Baiter dragged him to the safety of the wards, doing his best to stem the flow of blood.

There was a cry, and Jardir turned to see that the first sand demon to fall into the pit had caught its edge, the concealing tarp protecting its talons from the wards. It swung up out of the pit easily, biting off the nearest warrior’s leg at the knee. The warrior screamed as he was knocked into his fellows, opening a gap in the shield wall. The demon shrieked and dove into the opening, talons raking.

“Shield up!” Hasik called, and Jardir complied just in time to catch the full weight of the demon. He was knocked down, but not before the wards flared, throwing the alagai back. The demon landed in a coil and sprang at him again, but Jardir thrust his spear from his prone position, catching the demon between its breastplates. He braced the butt of the spear against the ground to create a fulcrum, and used the demon’s own momentum to hurl it away.

Still in midair, bolas from half a dozen warriors struck the demon, and it hit the ground bound tight. It began tearing at the ropes with its teeth, and Jardir could hear the bindings snap under pressure from its corded muscles. It would be free in moments.

The kai’Sharum signaled, and a pair of warriors broke off to harry the flame demon while the rest encircled the sand demon with a wall of interlocked shields. Whenever the demon struck at a warrior, those behind it stabbed with their spears. The weapons could not pierce its armor, but they stung nonetheless. When it turned to face its attackers, their shields snapped into place and those behind struck.

The Pit Warder had cleared the tarp from the wards, preventing the other alagai from escaping the pit, as the warriors began to force the demon toward it by advancing the shield wall. Eventually, the creature backed up to the pit’s edge, and the warriors there melted away.

Jardir was among those who thrust their spears to drive the demon past the one-way wards. “Everam’s light burn you!” he screamed as he stabbed. The demon backpedaled, and then fell into the pit.

It was the greatest moment of his life.

Jardir looked around the ambush point. Two dal’Sharum had the flame demon pinned underwater with their spears in a shallow drowning pool. The water steamed and boiled as the demon thrashed, but the warriors held it steady until the last twitch.

The wounded Baiter seemed well enough, but Moshkama, the warrior with the severed leg, lay in a pool of blood, gasping and pale. He caught Jardir’s eye and beckoned to him and Hasik, who went to him.

“Finish it,” he breathed. “I have no wish to live as a cripple.”

Jardir glanced at Hasik.

“Do it,” Hasik ordered. “It is not right to let him suffer.”

Jardir’s thoughts flashed to Abban. How much suffering had he condemned his friend to by not granting him a warrior’s death?

A dal’Sharum’s duty is to support his brothers in death, as well as life, Qeran had said.

“My spirit is ready,” Moshkama croaked. With weak, shaking fingers, he pulled open his robe, moving aside the fired-clay armor plates sewn into the cloth and baring his chest. Jardir looked in his eyes and saw honor and courage. Things Abban had been severely lacking.

He thrust his spear with pride.

“You did well, rat,” Hasik said when the horns had blown, signaling that there were no alagai left alive and untrapped in the Maze. “I expected you to soak your bido, but you stood like a man.” He took another pull from the couzi flask and handed it to Jardir.

“Thank you,” Jardir said, drinking deeply, and pretending the harsh liquid did not burn his throat. Hasik still intimidated him, but it was true what the drillmasters said: Shedding blood together in the Maze had changed things. They were brothers now.

Hasik paced back and forth. “My blood is always on fire after alagai’sharak,” he said. “Nie damn the Damaji who decreed the great harem be sealed till dawn.” Several warriors grunted assent.

Jardir thought of the warrior carrying a jiwah’Sharum through the curtains that morning, and his face flushed.

Hasik caught the look. “That excites you, rat?” he laughed. “The son of piss is eager to take his first woman?”

Jardir said nothing.

“Bido or no, I think this one will still be a boy tomorrow!” another warrior, Manik, laughed. “He’s too young to know what the pillow dancers are truly for!”

Jardir opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. They were provoking him on purpose. Whatever had happened in the Maze, he was still nie’Sharum until the dama’ting foresaw his death. Any of the warriors could still kill him for the slightest insolence.

Surprisingly, Hasik came to his defense.

“Leave the rat alone,” he said. “He’s my ajin’pal. You mock him, you mock me.”

Manik puffed up at the challenge, but Hasik was young and strong. They eyed each other for a moment before Manik spat in the dust.

“Bah,” he said. “It’s not worth the trouble of gutting you just to mock a boy.” He turned and strode off.

“Thank you,” Jardir said.

“It’s nothing,” Hasik replied, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It is the duty of ajin’pal to look out for each other, and you would not be the first boy to fear the pillow dancers more than the alagai. The dama’ting teach sexcraft to the jiwah’Sharum, but the drillmasters give no such lessons in the sharaji.”

Jardir felt his face flush, wondering what lay in store for him in the pillows behind the curtains when the veils were lifted.

“Do not fear,” Hasik said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I will teach you how to make a woman howl.”

They finished off the flask, and a wicked smile crossed Hasik’s face. “Come on, rat. I know of some fun we can find in the meantime.”

“Where are we going?” Jardir asked, stumbling as Hasik led him through the Maze. The couzi made his head spin, and his limbs watery. The walls seemed to move of their own accord.