The Desert Spear

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.

Hasik turned, his smile wide. The gap in his teeth where Qeran had hit him on Jardir’s first night in the Kaji’sharaj was a black hole in the moonlight.

“Going?” Hasik asked. “We’re here.”

Jardir looked around in confusion, and in that moment, colored light exploded before his eyes as Hasik hit him hard in the face.

Before he could react, Hasik was upon him, pinning him facedown in the dust. “I promised to teach you to make a woman howl,” he said. “For this lesson, you will be the woman.”

“No!” Jardir cried, thrashing, but Hasik smashed his face into the ground, making his ears ring. Twisting one of Jardir’s arms behind his back, the heavy warrior held him down with one hand as he pulled down Jardir’s bido with the other.

“Looks like you get to lose the bido twice in one night, rat!” he laughed.

Jardir tasted blood and dirt in his mouth. He tried to open himself to the pain, but for once, the power was beyond him, and his cries echoed through the Maze.

He was still weeping when the dama’ting found him.

She glided like a ghost, her white robes softly stirring the dust with her passage. Jardir stopped his sobbing and stared. Then reality suddenly focused, and he scrambled to pull up his bido. Shame filled him, and he hid his face.

The dama’ting clicked her tongue. “On your feet, boy!” she snapped. “You stand your ground against alagai, but weep like a woman over this? Everam needs dal’Sharum, not khaffit!”

Jardir wished the walls of the Maze would fall and crush him, but one did not refuse the orders of a dama’ting. He got to his feet, palming away his tears and wiping his nose.

“That’s better,” the dama’ting said, “if late. I would hate to have come all the way out here to foretell the life of a coward.”

The words stung Jardir. He was no coward. “How did you find me?”

She psshed, waving a hand at him. “I knew to find you here years ago.”

Jardir stared at her, unbelieving, but it was clear from her stance that his belief mattered not at all to her. “Come here, boy, that I may have a better look at you,” she commanded.

Jardir did as he was told, and the dama’ting grabbed his face, turning it this way and that to catch the moonlight. “Young and strong,” she said. “But so are all who get this far. You’re younger than most, but that’s seldom a good thing.”

“Are you here to foretell my death?”

“Bold, too,” she muttered. “There may be hope for you yet. Kneel, boy.”

He did, and the dama’ting knelt with him, spreading a white cloth to protect her pristine robes from the dust of the Maze.