The Skull Throne

Jayan growled, his feet set in the stance Briar’s father had taught him long ago. His skittering steps forward were fast and economical, spear resting on his shield arm. His arm was a blur as he pumped the weapon much as the count had on horseback, searching the wooden armor for weaknesses to exploit.

Thamos took most of the barrage on his shield and breastplate, thrusting his own spear low at the gap between the armor plates on Jayan’s thigh.

But Jayan twisted the limb out of the weapon’s path. With his shield hand he grasped the harness straps on Thamos’ back and hauled, driving a knee into his stomach as Thamos was flipped onto his back, momentarily stunned.

But again Jayan let the advantage go, circling while the count shook himself and rose to his feet, growling. He hunched low, tamping feet like a cat.

“I may not see the dawn, but neither will you,” Thamos promised.

Jayan barked a laugh. “You have great balls, chin. When I have killed you, I will cut them off and shove them down your throat.”

Thamos came in fast—faster than Briar would have thought possible. The wards on his armor were glowing now as his fencing spear whipped through the air in thrusts and parries.

Jayan picked them off confidently now, his skittering steps never losing balance. He circled away from one thrust, spinning around to strike Thamos hard in the face with the rim of his shield. The count stumbled back, and Jayan pressed in, delivering hard jabs into his armor that battered and stung, even if they could not penetrate. Thamos was herded like an animal into the center of the ring.

The count struck back with a shield attack of his own, but Jayan was ready for it. He dropped his own shield and reached in to take the biceps of Thamos’ shield arm. He pivoted clockwise, straightening the arm, then thrust hard into the gap beneath Thamos’ helmet.

The count stood shaking a moment, then dropped limply to the ground.

At last Qeran gave the signal, and the slinger teams let loose another volley, casks of heated tar that shattered against the hulls of the enemy ships making their final press for the port.

Marring the wards.

The effect was immediate. Abban saw the glow of water demons as they came streaming toward the vulnerable ships, and caught a rare glimpse of the creatures as they broke the surface here and there to break hulls with tentacle and snapping claw. A few braved the open air long enough to slither onto the ships, sweeping the decks as easily as a wedge of Sharum.

The surface of the lake turned to a churning froth, men and women screaming as they were pulled under.

Then, as they looked on in horror, a huge demon came close to the surface. The water heaved in great spumes as tentacles the size of Sharik Hora’s minarets rose around one of the largest vessels, wrapping about the hull and squeezing. The deck splintered in the crush, hapless sailors flailing as they were sucked down. In moments, the entire ship vanished beneath countless tons of water.

Khevat turned his dark glare on Abban. “Is this your doing, khaffit?”

Abban swallowed, but after what he had just witnessed, there was little the cleric could do to frighten him.

He straightened, steeling himself. “It was, dama. Do not blame Drillmaster Qeran. He argued most vehemently against the plan, and Jayan was never told.”

Khevat only stared. It was a negotiation tactic Abban knew well, giving one’s adversary the rope for his own hanging, but Khevat was a sharusahk master, and the ranking cleric in Everam’s Reservoir. If he decided to kill Abban here and now, there was nothing Abban could do to stop him.

Best to convince him otherwise.

“Look,” Abban said, pointing to the chaos on the water. As instructed, Qeran and his captured ships retreated with all speed when the demons began their feeding frenzy. “Most of our captured ships are safely away, and the enemy fleet is destroyed. Already the few that remain are fleeing back to their floating home. Even the Sharum’s Lament runs from us, and I daresay Captain Dehlia is not showing her breasts this time.”

“You gave our enemies to the alagai,” Asavi said, her voice low, dangerous. “Gave them to Nie.”

“I did,” Abban said. “There was no other choice, if we were to defeat the attack and escape with enough ships to end the stalemate. Should I have left our men to die?”

“They are Sharum,” Khevat said. “Their souls are prepared, and they know the price of war.”

“As do I,” Abban said. “I know the price, and I paid what I must for victory. These men attacked in the night, on Waning. They are no brothers of ours, no enemies of Nie. Indeed, they do her bidding, and so I gave them to her.”

He pointed a finger at Khevat, a simple action that was nevertheless reason enough for a dama to kill a khaffit by Evejan law. “I paid the price for our men, and I paid it for you.”

“For me?” Khevat asked.

“And the Sharum Ka, and even Qeran, who would have refused the order had he not sworn an oath to obey me. All of you may go to the Creator with no weight on your souls. The soulless khaffit has spared you responsibility. Let Everam judge me, when I finally limp to the end of the lonely path.”

Khevat stared at him a long time, and Abban wondered just how soon he would be standing before the Creator. But then the dama turned to Asavi, a question in his eyes.

The dama’ting searched him with her eyes, and it was all Abban could do not to squirm under her gaze.

At last she nodded. “The khaffit speaks the truth. He is already doomed to sit outside the gates of Heaven until Everam takes pity and grants him another life. It is inevera.”

Khevat grunted, moving to the window and laying a hand on the glass as he watched the ships burn.

“These men were no brothers of ours,” he agreed at last. “We did not make them attack in the night. Inevera.”

Abban blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

CHAPTER 27

DAMA IN THE DARK

334 AR WINTER

“They said I was cursed by Everam, to bear three daughters after Ahmann,” Kajivah told the crowd, waving a hand at Imisandre, Hoshvah, and Hanya. The Holy Mother was clad in plain black wool. She wore the white veil of kai’ting, but unlike the other women of Ahmann’s blood, Kajivah had taken to wearing a white headwrap, as well.

Inevera, watching from the royal tier as the Holy Mother gave the blessing over the Waning feast, wished she could be anywhere else. She had heard the idiot woman give this speech a thousand times.

“But I always said Everam blessed me with a son so great, he needed no brothers!” The crowd erupted in a roar of approval at the words, warriors stomping feet and clattering spears on shields as their wives clapped and children cheered.

“We thank Everam for the food we are about to partake of, richer fare than many of us knew before Ahmann led us from the Desert Spear into the green lands,” Kajivah went on. “But I wish to thank the women who worked so hard preparing the feast as well.”

More applause. “We honor the Sharum’ting who stand tall in the night, but there are other ways to give honor to the Creator. The wives and daughters who keep the bellies of our men full, their houses clean, their cribs full of children. We honor today the men who protect us from the alagai, but also the women who brought them forth and suckled them, who taught them honor and duty and love of family. Women who are modest and humble before Everam, providing the foundation our fighting men depend upon.”