Killing the Warder had offended the greenlander beyond reason.
“I am about letting men die with honor, son of Jeph,” Jardir said. “He did not want your help. He did not need it. He had done his duty, and now he is in Heaven.”
“There is no Heaven,” the Par’chin growled. “All you did was murder a man.”
Jardir flexed, breaking the Par’chin’s hold easily. The man had learned sharusahk quickly over the last two years, but he was not yet a match for most dal’Sharum, much less one trained in Sharik Hora. He punched the Par’chin in the jaw, easily ducking his return swing. He twisted the man’s arm behind him and slammed him to the ground.
“Just this once,” he whispered in the Par’chin’s ear, “I will pretend I did not hear you say that. Speak your Northern blasphemies again in Krasia, and your life will be forfeit.”
Keep him close, Inevera had said, but he had failed.
Jardir stood alone atop the wall, watching as the alagai fled the coming sun. The great rock demon, which his men had taken to calling Alagai Ka, paced before the restored gates, but the wards were strong. Soon he, too, would sink back down to Nie’s abyss for another day.
Jardir kept remembering the desperation in the Par’chin’s eyes, the need to save the Warder’s life. Jardir knew he had been right to end it and ensure the man glory over a life as a cripple, but he knew, too, that he had deliberately antagonized the Par’chin in the process.
Among his people, such abject lessons were common, and no man would try to assault his betters for the life of a cripple. But as Jardir had learned again and again, the greenlanders were not like his people, not even the Par’chin. They did not embrace death as part of life. They fought it as hard as any dal’Sharum fought alagai.
There was honor in that, of a sort. The dama were wrong to call the greenlanders savages. Inevera’s command notwithstanding, Jardir liked the Par’chin. The rift between them gnawed at him, and he wondered at how to repair it.
“Thought I’d find you here,” a voice behind him said. Jardir chuckled. The greenlander had a way of appearing when Jardir’s thoughts were turned his way.
The Par’chin stood atop the wall, looking down. He hawked loudly and spit, his phlegm striking the head of the rock demon, twenty feet below. The demon roared at him, and they laughed together as it sank beneath the dunes.
“One day he will lie dead at your feet,” Jardir said, “and Everam’s light will burn his body away.”
“One day,” the Par’chin agreed.
The two men stood quietly for a time, lost in their own thoughts. The greenlander had grown a beard as Jardir had suggested, but the yellow hair on his pale face only made him seem more of an outsider than his bare cheeks had.
“Came to apologize,” the Par’chin said at last. “It’s not my right to judge your ways.”
Jardir nodded. “Nor I yours. You acted in loyalty, and I was wrong to spit upon that. I know you have grown quite close to the Warders since you learned our tongue. They have learned much from you.”
“And I from them,” the Par’chin said. “I meant no insult.”
“It seems our cultures are a natural insult to each other, Par’chin,” Jardir said. “We must resist the urge to take offense, if we are to continue to learn from each other.”
“Thank you,” the Par’chin said. “That means a great deal to me.”
Jardir gave a dismissive wave. “We will speak on it no more, my friend.”
The greenlander nodded and turned to go.
“Do all men in the North believe as you do?” Jardir asked. “That Heaven is not truth?”
The Par’chin shook his head. “The Tenders in the North tell of a Creator who lives in Heaven and gathers the spirits of his faithful there, much as your dama do. Most people believe their words.”
“But you do not,” Jardir said.
“The Tenders also say the corelings are a Plague,” the Par’chin said. “That the sins of man were so great that the Creator sent the demons to punish us.” He shook his head. “I will never believe that. And if the Tenders are wrong about that, what faith should I put in the rest of their words?”
“Then why do you fight, if not for the glory of the Creator?” Jardir asked.
“I don’t need Holy Men to tell me corelings are an evil to be destroyed,” the Par’chin said. “They killed my mother and broke my father. They’ve murdered my friends and neighbors and family. And somewhere out there,” he swept a hand over the horizon, “is a way to destroy them. I will seek until I find it.”
“You are right to doubt these Tenders of yours,” Jardir said. “The alagai are no plague, they are a test.”
“A test?”
“Yes. A test of our loyalty to Everam. A test of our courage and will to fight Nie’s darkness. But you are mistaken, too. The way to their destruction is not out there,” he waved his hand at the horizon dismissively, “it is in here.” He touched a finger to the Par’chin’s heart. “And on the day all men find their hearts and stand united, Nie will not be able to stand against us.”
The Par’chin was silent a long time. “I dream of that day,” he said at last.
“As do I, my friend,” Jardir said. “As do I.”
More than two years after his first visit, Par’chin returned once again. Jardir looked up from chalked slates of battle plans, seeing the man cross the training ground, and felt as if his own brother had returned from a long journey.
“Par’chin!” he called, spreading his arms to embrace him. “Welcome back to the Desert Spear!” He spoke the greenlander’s language fluidly now, though the words still felt ugly on his tongue. “I did not know you had returned. The alagai will quail in fear tonight!”
It was then Jardir noticed the Par’chin came with Abban in tow, though neither he nor Jardir needed the fat khaffit to communicate any longer.
Jardir looked at Abban in disgust. He had grown even fatter since Jardir saw him last, and still draped himself in silk like a Damaji’s favored wife. It was said he dominated trade in the bazaar, due in no small part to his extensive contacts in the North. He was a leech, putting profit above Everam, above honor, and above Krasia.
“What are you doing here among men, khaffit?” he demanded. “I have not summoned you.”
“He’s with me,” the Par’chin said.
“He was with you,” Jardir said pointedly. Abban bowed and scurried off.
“I don’t know why you waste your time with that khaffit, Par’chin,” Jardir spat.
“Where I come from, a man’s worth does not end with lifting the spear,” the Par’chin said.
Jardir laughed. “Where you come from, Par’chin, they do not lift the spear at all!”
“Your Thesan is much improved,” the Par’chin noted.
Jardir grunted. “Your chin tongue is not easy, and twice as hard for needing a khaffit to practice it while you are away.” He scowled at Abban’s back. “Look at that one. He dresses like a woman.”
“I’ve never seen a woman dressed like that,” the Par’chin said.
“Only because you won’t let me find you a wife whose veils you can lift,” Jardir said. He had tried many times to find a bride for the Par’chin, to tie him to Krasia and keep him close, as Inevera commanded.
One day, you will have to kill him, Inevera’s voice echoed in his head, but he did not wish to believe it. If Jardir could find him a wife, the greenlander would cease to be a chin and be reborn as dal’Sharum. Perhaps that “death” would fulfill the prophecy.
“I doubt the dama would allow one of your women to marry a tribeless chin,” the Par’chin said.
Jardir waved his hand. “Nonsense,” he said. “We have shed blood together in the Maze, my brother. If I take you into my tribe, not even the Andrah himself would dare protest!”
“I don’t think I’m ready for a wife just yet,” the Par’chin said.
Jardir scowled. As close as they were, the greenlander continued to baffle him. Among his people, a warrior’s lusts were as great off the battlefield as on. He had seen no evidence that the Par’chin preferred the company of men, but he seemed more interested in battle than the spoils that rightly came to those who lived to see the dawn.
“Well don’t wait too long, or men will think you push’ting,” he said, using the word for “false woman.” It was not a sin before Everam to lie with another man, but push’ting shunned women entirely, denying their tribe future generations—something his people could ill afford.
“How long have you been in the city, my friend?” Jardir asked.
