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 before 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!”
The Andrah sputtered, foundering for a response, but anything he could have said was drowned away as even the dama in the crowd took up the cry.
The Andrah scowled, but in the face of such overwhelming support for Jardir, there was nothing he could do. He turned on his heel, sitting heavily in his palanquin. The nie’Sharum groaned under his bulk as they hoisted the carrying bars to their shoulders.
“You play a dangerous game,” Amadeveram warned as they carried the Andrah out of earshot.
“Sharak is no game to me, Damaji,” Jardir said.
“That was well done,” Inevera said as she laid him on her operating table. “You sent that fat pig running with his curled tail between his legs!” She laughed as she began to cut the robes from him. His shoulder and much of his arm had gone black.
“I have rare moments of competence,” Jardir said.
Inevera grunted, taking his arm and popping it back into its socket with a sharp twist. Jardir was ready for the pain, and it washed over him like a warm breeze.
“Do you need a root for the pain?” she asked.
Jardir snorted.
“So strong,” she purred, running her hands over his body, searching for further injuries. Jardir was a mass of bruises and scrapes, but there was nothing that could not wait, it seemed, for Inevera’s robes fell to the floor, and she climbed onto the table, straddling him.
Nothing aroused her more than victory.
“My champion,” she breathed, kissing his hard chest. “My Shar’Dama Ka.”
Jardir sat on the Spear Throne, regarding his kai’Sharum as they gave their reports. His left arm was in a sling, and though the pain was only a faint buzz to his focused mind, the loss of use in the limb angered him. His wives would try to keep him from alagai’sharak in the coming night, but he would be damned first.
Before him stood Evakh, kai’Sharum of the Sharach tribe.
“With but four dal’Sharum remaining, I regret to inform the Sharum Ka that the Sharach no longer have enough warriors to form our own unit,” Evakh said, his head bowed in shame. “It will be many years before we
