The Desert Spear

“Unguarded!” Jardir goggled. “There were no demons in the eighth, much less the tenth!”

“It is not your place to disregard orders and seek glory that is not yours, kai’Sharum!” the Sharum Ka shouted.

Jardir’s temper flared. “Perhaps my orders would have been less foolish if the one giving them did not hide in his palace until dawn,” he said, knowing even as he did that he might as well have pulled his spear. Such an insult to the First Warrior could not be allowed to pass. If he were any kind of man, he would grab a spear and attack Jardir now, killing him before all the assembled men.

But the Sharum Ka was old, and men whispered of how Jardir had killed half a dozen demons with sharusahk alone. Jardir could not attack the First Warrior himself, but if the Sharum Ka attacked him, Jardir would be free to kill him and open a succession that might well put him in the Sharum Ka’s palace. He wondered if this was the fate Inevera’s bones had foretold so many years before.

They locked stares, and Jardir knew the Sharum Ka was thinking the same things he was, and did not have the courage to attack. He sneered.

“Arrest him!” the Sharum Ka commanded. Immediately his guards moved to comply.

Jardir’s hands were bound, a grave dishonor, but though he bared his teeth at the guards, he did not resist. There was a rumble of discontent from the assembled warriors, even the Majah. They gripped spears and lifted shields, greatly outnumbering the First Warrior’s guards.

“What are you doing?” the Sharum Ka demanded of the crowd. “Stand down!”

But the rumbling only grew, and men moved to block the exits from the Maze. The Sharum Ka took a tentative step back. Jardir met his eyes, and smiled.

“Do nothing,” Jardir said loudly, without taking his eyes from the Sharum Ka. “The Sharum Ka has given a command, and all Sharum are bound to comply. Everam will decide my fate.”

The grumbling quieted immediately, men clearing the path, and the Sharum Ka’s rage seemed doubled at Jardir’s control of the men. Jardir sneered at him again, daring him to attack.

“Take him away!” the Sharum Ka cried. Jardir kept his back straight and walked proudly as the guards gripped his arms and escorted him from the Maze.

Inevera was waiting in the palace of the Andrah when Jardir arrived.

Did she know of this day years ago, as well? he wondered.

His guards tightened their grip on his arms as she approached, but it was not in fear of anything Jardir might do. It was Inevera that terrified them.

“Leave us,” Inevera ordered. “Tell your master that my husband will meet him in the Andrah’s audience hall one hour hence.”

The guards immediately dropped Jardir’s arms and bowed. “As the dama’ting commands,” one stuttered, and they scurried away. Inevera snorted, pulling her warded blade to cut his bonds.

“You did well this night,” she whispered as they walked. “Stand tall in the coming hours. When the audience with the Andrah comes, you must provoke the Sharum Ka with words while standing in submission. Enrage him, but give him no excuse to attack you.”

“I will do no such thing,” Jardir said.

“You did it in the Maze,” Inevera snapped. “It is trebly important now.”

“You see all,” Jardir acknowledged, “but you understand little, if you think I will lower my eyes to this man. I was daring him to attack me then.”

Inevera shrugged. “Do it that way if you wish, but keep your feet planted and your hands still. He will never dare attack you himself, but if you pose a threat, his men will cut you down.”

“Do you think me a fool?” Jardir asked.

Inevera snorted. “Just enrage him. The rest is inevera.”

“As the dama’ting commands,” Jardir sighed.

Inevera nodded. They reached a pillowed waiting room. “Wait here,” she commanded. “I go now to meet with the Andrah privately before your trial.”

“Trial?” Jardir asked, but she had already slipped from the room.

Jardir had never before been close enough to the Andrah to see the man’s face. It was old and lined, his beard a stark white. He was a round man, clearly given to rich foods. His corpulence was disgusting, and Jardir had to remind himself that this man was once the greatest sharusahk master of his day, having defeated the most skilled Damaji in single combat in order to achieve the Skull Throne. In his days beneath Sharik Hora, Jardir had seen the Kaji Damaji, Amadeveram, a man of some sixty years, leave half a dozen young and skilled dama on their backs in the sharusahk circle.

He looked closer, seeking a sign of that training in the Andrah’s movements, but it seemed his ever-present bodyguards and servants had made the man lax. Even here, he picked at a plate of sugar dates during the proceedings.

Jardir’s eyes flicked to the sides of the Andrah’s throne. At his right hand stood the twelve Damaji, leaders of all the tribes of Krasia. Dressed in white robes and black turbans, they muttered among themselves about being pulled from their business and dragged to the palace when the sun had barely topped the horizon. At the Andrah’s left, two steps back from the throne, stood the Damaji’ting. Like the Damaji, they wore headwraps and veils of black, falling in sharp contrast over their white robes. Unlike the Damaji, they were utterly silent, watching with eyes that seemed to penetrate everything.

Do they too know my fate? Jardir wondered, then glanced at his Jiwah Ka, standing beside him. Or do they only know what Inevera tells them?

“Son of Hoshkamin,” Damaji Amadeveram greeted Jardir, “please tell us your version of last night’s events.” He was Kaji and the Andrah’s First Minister, perhaps the most powerful cleric in all of Krasia save the Andrah himself. The Andrah was said to represent all tribes, but it was he who appointed the Sharum Ka and First Minister, and Jardir knew from his lessons that it had been centuries since an Andrah had filled either position with someone from another tribe. It was considered a sign of weakness.

The Sharum Ka scowled, clearly expecting to have been invited to relate his version first. He stormed over to the tea service laid for him and took a cup. Jardir could tell from the erratic way the steam rose that his old hands were shaking.

“At the kai’Sharum supper this evening, the Sharum Ka gave orders, as he always does,” Jardir began. “My men have found much success in the night and were eager to send more alagai back to Nie as ashes.”

The Damaji nodded. “Your successes have not gone without note,” he said. “And your teachers in Sharik Hora speak highly of you. Go on.”

“We were dismayed to learn we would be sent to the tenth layer,” Jardir said. “Not so long ago, we stood in the first, showing a hundred alagai the sun for every man we lost. Then, recently, we were moved to the second, followed soon after by the third. We took it with pride; there is glory enough for all in the lower levels. But instead of moving us to the fourth, as expected, the Sharum Ka sent the Sharach there, giving us their traditional place in the tenth.”

Jardir saw Damaji Kevera of the Sharach tense, but he was not sure if it was at the dishonor of having his tribe’s “traditional place” be one so lacking glory, or at the sudden change.

He glanced at the Damaji’ting, but they were faceless, and he did not know which of them was Sharach. It mattered little; none of them showed the slightest reaction to his words.