“Par’chin! Par’chin!”

The cries echoed throughout the Maze. Jardir watched from the walltop as the greenlander led the dal’Sharum to victory after victory. No alagai could resist the Spear of Kaji.

He is the brave outsider tonight, Jardir thought. Shar’Dama Ka tomorrow.

But perhaps this was Everam’s will? When He formed the world from Nie’s void, had He not created the greenlanders, as well? Must He not have a plan for them?

“But the Par’chin does not believe in Everam,” he said aloud.

“How can a man who does not bow to the Creator be the Deliverer?” Hasik asked.

Jardir drew a deep breath. “He cannot. Gather Shanjat and our most loyal men. For the sake of all the world, it must be someone else.”

Jardir found the Par’chin at the head of a host of Sharum chanting his name as they thundered through the Maze. He was covered in black demon ichor, but his eyes were alive with fierce joy. He thrust his spear high in salute, and Jardir’s heart wrenched for what he must do to his ajin’pal— worse by far than Hasik had done to him.

“Sharum Ka!” the Par’chin cried. “No demon will escape your Maze alive tonight!”

War is deception, Jardir reminded himself, and forced himself to laugh and raise his spear to return the Par’chin’s salute. He came and embraced the man for the last time.

“I underestimated you, Par’chin,” he said. “I won’t do so again.”

The Par’chin smiled. “You say that every time.” He was surrounded by warriors, glorying in their victory. Already they could not be trusted to do what must be done.

“Dal’Sharum!” he called to the warriors, gesturing to the slaughtered alagai on the streets of the Maze. “Gather up these filthy things and haul them atop the outer wall! Our sling teams need target practice! Let the alagai beyond the walls see the folly of attacking the Desert Spear!”

A cheer rose from the men, and they hastened to his bidding. As they did, Jardir turned to Arlen. “The Watchers report there is still battle in one of the eastern ambush points. Have you any fight left in you, Par’chin?”

The Par’chin showed Jardir his teeth. “Lead the way.”

Leaving the Sharum behind, they sprinted through the Maze, down a route already cleared of witnesses. Like a Baiter, Jardir led the Par’chin to his doom. At last, they came to the ambush point. “Oot!” Jardir called, and with that, Hasik stuck out a leg, tripping the Par’chin.

The greenlander rolled with the impact as he hit the ground, coming right back to his feet, but by then Jardir’s most trusted men had cut off his escape.

“What is this?” the Par’chin demanded.

Jardir’s heart ached at the look of betrayal on his friend’s face. He deserved no better, but now that the trap was sprung, he was committed to its course. “The Spear of Kaji belongs in the hands of the Shar’Dama Ka,” he said. “You are not he.”

“I don’t want to fight you,” the Par’chin said.

“Then don’t, my friend,” Jardir begged. “Give me the weapon, take your horse, and go with the dawn, never to return.” Inevera would call him a fool for the offer. Even his lieutenants murmured in surprise, but he did not care. He prayed his friend would accept, though he knew in his heart that he would not. The son of Jeph was no coward. Behind him in the demon pit, there was a growl. A warrior’s death awaited him.

He fought hard as the dal’Sharum fell upon him, breaking bones but refusing, even now, to kill men. Jardir stayed out of the fray, consumed by his shame.

Finally, it was done, the Par’chin held tight by Hasik and Shanjat as Jardir bent to pick up the spear. Immediately he felt its power and a sense of belonging as his fingers tightened about the haft. Indeed, it was the weapon of Kaji, whose seventh son had been the first Jardir.

“I am truly sorry, my friend,” he said. “I wish there could be another way.”

The Par’chin spat in his face. “Everam is watching your betrayal!”

Jardir felt a flash of anger. The Par’chin did not believe in Heaven, but he was willing to use the Creator’s name when it suited his purpose. He had no wives or children, no ties to family or tribe, but he thought he knew what was best for all. His arrogance knew no bounds.

“Do not speak of Everam, chin,” Jardir said. “I am his Sharum Ka, not you. Without me, Krasia falls.”

They rode out of the city secretly in the predawn light. Most of the alagai had already returned to the abyss, but a sand demon must have heard their approach and waited, because it leapt out at them from the shadow of a dune mere minutes before dawn.

Jardir was ready, and the defensive wards on the shaft of the spear flared as he parried the attack. The alagai was thrown to the ground and glanced at the brightening sky, but before it could dematerialize, Jardir leapt from the back of his horse and skewered it.

There was a pulse of light as the warded spearhead punched through the gritty armor of the demon, and Jardir felt the spear come to life in his hand. A shock ran through him like Inevera’s lightning stone, but where that was agony, this was ecstasy. Immediately he felt stronger, faster. Old aches from injuries long forgotten, pains he had become so accustomed to he no longer noticed them, suddenly vanished, revealing themselves by their absence. He felt immortal. Invincible. He swung his arms effortlessly, hurling the demon’s corpse thirty feet to await the rising sun.

The sense of power faded quickly after the kill, but the healing remained. Jardir was over thirty, but he suddenly remembered what it had felt like when his body was twenty, and wondered how he had ever forgotten.

All this from a single sand demon, he mused. What must the Par’chin have felt when he used it on dozens of alagai in the Maze?

But he would never know the answer, for they left the unconscious Par’chin facedown on the dunes moments before sunrise, miles from the city and more than a day’s walk from the nearest village.

Jardir looked down at him, and the greenlander’s words flashed in his mind. Everam is watching your betrayal! he had shouted.

“Why could you not have left when I begged it of you, my friend?” Jardir asked—one more question the Par’chin could never answer for him.

Jardir regarded his friend sadly as Hasik and Shanjat climbed back into their saddles. He took the skin of cool water from his saddle horn, throwing it to land with a thump in the sand beside the greenlander’s prone form.

“What are you doing?” Ashan asked. “We should kill him now, not help him.”

“I will not stab an unconscious warrior,” Jardir said. “The skin will not fly him across the sands to succor, but he will wake, and drink, and when the alagai come, he will die on his feet like a man, and find his way to paradise.”

“What if he returns to the city?” Shanjat asked.

“Post Mehnding on the walls through the day to shoot him if he tries,” Jardir said.

He looked back. But you won’t, will you, Par’chin? he thought. You have a Sharum’s spirit, and will die fighting alagai with your bare hands.

“He is a chin,” Ashan said. “An unbeliever. What makes you think Everam will welcome him in Heaven?”

Jardir raised the spear, catching the light from the rising sun. “Because I am Shar’Dama Ka, and I say it is so.”

The others goggled, but no one disputed the claim.

Inevera’s words from just hours ago came to him again.

At dawn, you will declare yourself Shar’Dama Ka.

He looked back to the body of the Par’chin.

Die well, he prayed, and when we meet in Heaven, if I have not fulfilled both our dreams, we shall have a reckoning.

He turned his horse, riding back to the city.

His city.