CHAPTER 9

SHAR’DAMA KA

“GO NO FARTHER, TRAITOR, ” Dama Everal said, moving to block the entrance to the Andrah’s throne room. He was the oldest of the Andrah’s sons, almost certain to become Damaji on the death of Amadeveram, and likely Andrah after that. At fifty, he was still robust and black-haired, a sharusahk master said to have no equal.

He was also the last of the Andrah’s sons Jardir would have to kill before he could gut the fat old man.

It was not yet a month since, covered in demon gore, Jardir had announced himself the Deliverer in the Maze. Three-quarters of the Sharum had declared for him on the spot. Half the dama as well, with more converting daily. The remainder rallied to their Damaji, who attempted to defend their own palaces at first, but finally, as Jardir’s power grew, fled through the Undercity and barricaded themselves behind the walls of the Andrah’s palace.

His conquest might have lasted days rather than the weeks it had taken, but each nightfall, Jardir blew the Horn of Sharak, calling his warriors to the Maze. The meanest soldier had a battle-warded spear now, and the alagai greeted the sun in droves.

Free to regroup at night, the Andrah and Damaji had thought this a great advantage, but they had not reckoned with the shame this caused their remaining Sharum, denied alagai’sharak by their leaders while Jardir’s men saw endless glory. Warriors deserted nightly, and were welcomed in the Maze without question. At last, there were not enough to hold even the Andrah’s walls. Jardir’s men had taken the gates shortly after dawn, and breached the palace doors soon after. Now there was only one man between Jardir and his vengeance.

“Your forgiveness, Dama,” Jardir said, bowing to Everal, “but I cannot offer you surrender as I have other men, for who could trust a man not willing to die for his own father? Better that you die with honor.”

“Pretender!” Everal spat. “You are no Deliverer, just a murderer with a stolen spear. You would be nothing without it!”

Jardir stopped short, holding up a hand to halt the warriors behind him.

“Think you truly so?” Jardir asked.

Everal spat at his feet. “Put the weapon down and face me without its tainted magic, if it is not so.”

“Acha!” Jardir said, and tossed the spear to Everal. The dama caught the weapon reflexively, his eyes widening as he realized what he now held.

Something changed in Everal then, a subtle shift in his stance and disposition. The others might not have noticed, but it was as clear to Jardir as if the dama had spoken. Before, he had thought himself a doomed man, determined only to inflict some damage before he died. Now Dama Everal had a glimmer of hope in his eyes, a belief that he might kill Jardir and end the rebellion that had pierced the heart of Krasia.

Jardir nodded. “Now your soul is prepared to meet Everam with honor,” he said, and launched himself at the dama.

Everal was a sharusahk master, but the Evejah forbade clerics the spear, and in all Jardir’s years in Sharik Hora he had never seen that law broken. He expected the dama’s spearwork to be poor and easily defeated.

Seek every advantage, Khevat taught.

But Everal surprised him, spinning the spear about like a whip staff. It moved invisibly fast as the dama came at him, and for a few moments it was all Jardir could do to keep from its path. Everal’s moves were fast and precise, one attack flowing smoothly into the next as one would expect from a man who had spent four decades in Sharik Hora. Everal brought the point into play at last, scoring a line on Jardir’s cheek, and another cut in his arm.

At last, Jardir saw the rhythm behind the dama’s attacks and came in quick to hook his arm around the spear’s shaft and pivot, throwing the dama across the hall where he struck a column and landed heavily.

Jardir waited for Everal to roll to his feet, then laid the spear on the floor. The dama’s eyes widened.

“You are a fool to give up your advantage,” Everal said, but Jardir only smiled, having taken the cleric’s measure. He came in with his arms spread, and Everal met him, more than willing to grapple.

To the untrained eyes of the Sharum, what followed must have appeared a simple struggle that strength would tell, but in truth the hundreds of subtle shifts and twists were sharukin, designed to turn an opponent’s own energy against him.

Little by little, Jardir worked his way toward a death hold. It was in evitable, and he could see in the dama’s eyes that Everal knew it, too.

“Impossible,” Everal gasped as Jardir’s hand came around his throat.

“There is a difference, dama,” Jardir said, “between strength gained fighting air, and strength gained fighting alagai.” He pulled hard, and Everal’s neck snapped with a sound that echoed in the hall.

The Damaji were clustered at the foot of the dais to the Andrah’s throne. They looked up as one when Jardir’s men smashed in the doors. The Andrah cowered and cringed on the Skull Throne, gripping the arms so tightly his knuckles showed white.

Jardir looked at the cluster of old men with a predatory eye. Evejan law gave each of them the right to challenge him to single combat on his way to the dais. Jardir did not fear the Damaji, but he had no wish to kill them.

“Kill them if you must,” Inevera had said, “but your conquest will be more complete if you break their will for the fight.” She had even told him what to offer.

“Damaji,” he said. “All of you are loyal servants of Everam, and I wish no quarrel with you. I ask only that you step aside.”

“And what will become of us, after you sit the Skull Throne?” Kevera of the Sharach asked. As Damaji to Krasia’s smallest tribe, it was his place to offer the first challenge.

Jardir smiled. “Nothing, my friend. You Damaji fear for your palaces? Keep them, and minister to your tribes as you always have. I ask only a symbolic gesture of support.”

Kevera’s eyes narrowed. “And that is?”

“My second son by Qasha is nie’dama,” Jardir noted.

Kevera nodded. “A promising one.”

Jardir smiled. “I would ask that you keep him ever at your side, that he may learn at your sandals.”

“And one day succeed me,” Kevera stated more than asked.

Jardir shrugged. “If that is inevera.”

Jardir eyed the other Damaji as they digested the offer, and again marveled at the completeness of Inevera’s planning. His dama’ting wives had been fertile, and the dice never failed to predict the right moments to conceive. Each bride had presented Jardir with two sons and a daughter by their fourth year of marriage, and their bellies had continued to swell afterward. He had a nie’dama son in every tribe now, to take the black turban when the current Damaji died, even as his own wives would do on the passing of their tribe’s Damaji’ting. Inevera had laid the groundwork for him to assume power more than a decade ago. It was…unsettling.

The Damaji continued to consider. Their titles were not hereditary, but to a man they had sons and grandsons among their tribes’ dama, and it was not uncommon for the black turban to be passed along bloodlines. Still, retaining their own power would take some of the sting from his ascension, and if it grated on the Damaji to give up aspiration for their sons, it remained preferable to seeing them put to the spear, as Kaji had done to the sons of his defeated enemies. Jardir could easily do that as well, and they knew it. There was no need for him to offer his own sons as hostages, save in a sincere gesture of unity.

For the lesser tribes, this was enough.

“Shar’Dama Ka,” Kevera of the Sharach said, bowing and stepping aside.

The others followed suit, parting before him like ala before the plow: The Bajin, Anjha, Jama, Khanjin, Halvas, and Shunjin all let him pass without challenge. Jardir tensed as he approached the Krevakh and Nanji Damaji. The Watcher tribes were intensely loyal, and practiced their own schools of sharusahk, said to be the deadliest in all the Desert Spear. Jardir felt Everam’s will thrumming in him, and did not fear any man, but he kept on guard, respecting their skills.