The Desert Spear

ago,” he said. “And yet now you are large and powerful. I see no hungry on your streets. No beggars or wailers or cripples. Instead, you stand tall in the night, fighting demons by the hundred. Like steel, my coming has tempered your village and made it stronger.”
    “Wern’t you that tempered it,” Gared snapped. “Painted Man done that, back when you were still eating sand out in the desert.”
    Hasik tensed. Jardir doubted he understood fully what the greenlander had said, but the giant’s tone was clear. He whisked his fingers at Hasik, calming him.
    “I would know more of this Painted Man,” Jardir said. “I have heard much of him in Everam’s Bounty, but nothing from one who had actually seen the man.”
    “He’s the Deliverer, that’s all ya need t’know,” Gared growled. “Gave us back the magic we lost all them years ago.”
    “Combat wards to fight the
alagai,
” Jardir said. Gared nodded.
    “May I see a weapon he has warded?” Jardir asked.
    Gared hesitated, his eyes flicking over to Leesha. Jardir’s naturally followed, and again her blue eyes, like cool water, threatened to drown him in their hidden depths. She smiled, and a thrill went through him.
    “We will show you,” Leesha said, smiling coyly, “if you will show us something of yours. Your spear, perhaps.”
    Even Abban gasped at her audacity, but Jardir only smiled. He reached for his spear, but Ashan grabbed his hand.
    “Deliverer, no!” Ashan hissed. “The Spear of Kaji is unfit for the hands of
chin.
”
    “It is no longer the Spear of Kaji, Ashan,” Jardir said in Krasian. “It is the Spear of Ahmann, and I will do with it as I please. It will not be the first time it has been touched by
chin
hands, and its blessings remain.”
    “What if they try to steal it?” Hasik asked.
    Jardir looked at him, his eyes calm. “If they try, we will kill every man, woman, and child in this village and raze it to the ground.”
    The matter closed, he lifted the spear horizontally before him. In response, Gared reached to his belt, pulling free a long blade. Hasik and Shanjat tensed, ready to strike, but the giant flipped the weapon over, holding the blade to offer Jardir the hilt. As one, they switched.
    There was no pretense of decorum, then, as those skilled in warding on both sides rushed to examine the weapons.
    Jardir turned the long blade over to catch the light as it ran in glittering rivers along the intricate wards etched in its surface. He saw immediately that most of the wards were the same his people used to ward their own weapons, symbols taken from the Spear of Kaji, which held almost every combat ward in existence.
    But the warding went beyond cold functionality, like the harshly etched spears of the
dal’Sharum
. There was an artistry to it that rivaled anything Jardir had ever seen outside the Spear itself, hundreds of wards flowing in harmony to weave a net of incredible power that was both beautiful to look upon and terrible for an
alagai
to behold.
    “Exquisite,” Jardir murmured.
    “Priceless,” Abban said.
    “Could this Painted Man have stolen the symbols from Anoch Sun?” Ashan wondered.
    “Ridiculous,” Jardir said. “No one has been there in a thousand years, except…”
    He looked at his men, and all eyes had lit with the same thought.
    “No,” Jardir said at last. “No, he is dead.”
    “Of course, it must be so,” Ashan echoed after a slight pause, and the others all nodded.
    They looked up to see Leesha and her father, now wearing spectacles, examining the Spear of Kaji a little too closely. They had held it long enough to appreciate the grandeur, but he saw no reason to give away all its secrets yet.
    “These wards are strong,” he said, holding the blade back out to Gared, handle-first. He looked pointedly at the spear, and the greenlanders grudgingly returned it. The look of longing in Leesha’s eyes as the spear was returned was gratifying. She was hungry for its secrets.
    “Where is this Painted Man?” Jardir asked Gared when the spear was again tucked safely over his shoulder. “I would very much like to meet him.”
    “He comes and goes,” Leesha cut in before the giant could answer.
    Jardir nodded at her. “Was it he that gave you your wondrous cloak? Truly, it is like the Robe of Kaji, himself, to let you walk past
alagai
unseen.”
    Leesha’s cheeks colored, and Jardir realized he had just complimented her in some way.
    “The Cloaks of Unsight are my own