The Desert Spear

to bear him sons,” Jardir said.
    Rojer chuckled, lifting his cup to them. “Agreed. I
should
have many brides.”
    Leesha snorted. “I’d like to see you handle one.” Everyone on both sides of the table had a laugh at Rojer’s expense. He weathered it silently; jokes at his expense were nothing new in the Hollow, but he felt his cheeks coloring all the same. He looked at Jardir, only to find that the Krasian leader was not among those laughing.
    “May I ask you a personal question, son of Jessum?” Jardir asked.
    Rojer touched the medallion at his father’s name, but he nodded.
    “How did you get that scar?” Jardir asked, pointing at the crippled hand Rojer had raised, missing two fingers and part of the palm besides. “It looks old, too old for you to have gotten it fighting
alagai
as a man, and it hinders you little, as if you’ve had it for many years.”
    Rojer felt his blood run cold. His eyes flicked to the fat merchant prince in his bright silks; treated with such derision by his fellows because he was crippled. He wondered if the Krasians thought him less a man for having only half a hand.
    Everyone else had stopped talking, waiting on Rojer’s answer. They had all been half listening anyway, but now everyone stared at them openly.
    Rojer scowled.
Are the Hollowers so different?
he wondered. None of them, not even Leesha, had ever so much as mentioned his crippled hand, trying to pretend it didn’t exist, and then staring when they thought he wasn’t watching.
    At least he’s honest about his curiosity,
Rojer thought, looking back to Jardir.
And I don’t give a coreling’s shit what he thinks of me.
    “Demons broke through our wards when I was a child of three,” he said. “My father stood with an iron fireplace poker to hold them off while my mother fled with me. A flame demon leapt upon her back, biting though my hand and into her shoulder.”
    “How did you survive this?” Jardir asked. “Did your father save you?”
    Rojer shook his head. “My father was dead by then. My mother killed the flame demon, and pushed me into a bolt-hole.”
    There were gasps around the table, and even Jardir’s eyes widened sharply.
    “Your
mother
killed a flame demon?” he asked.
    Rojer nodded. “Pulled it off me and drowned it in a water trough. The water boiled and left her arms blistered and red by the time its thrashing stopped.”
    “Oh, Rojer, how terrible!” Leesha moaned. “You never told me any of that!”
    Rojer shrugged. “You never asked. No one’s ever asked me about my hand before. Everyone, even you, avoids it with their eyes.”
    “I always thought you wanted privacy,” Leesha said. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by calling attention to your…”
    “Deformity?” Rojer supplied, irritated by the pity in her voice.
    Jardir stood sharply, his face enraged. Everyone on both sides of the table tensed, ready in an instant to fight or flee.
    “That is an
alagai
scar!” he shouted, reaching across the table and grabbing Rojer’s hand, holding it up for all to see. “Nie take any who look upon you in pity; this is a badge of honor!
    “Scars show our defiance of the
alagai
!” he shouted. “And of Nie Herself! They tell Her we have looked at the maw of Her abyss, and spit in it.
    “Hasik!” Jardir pointed to the largest of his warriors. At his command, the warrior stood and opened his armored robe, showing a semicircle of tooth marks that covered half his torso.
    “Clay demon,” he said, his accent thick. “Big,” he added, spreading his arms.
    Jardir turned to Gared and narrowed his eyes in challenge.
    “Not bad,” Gared grunted. “Reckon I got it beat, though.” He pulled the shirt from his muscled chest, turning to reveal a thick line of claw marks running from his right shoulder to his left hip. “Woodie got me good,” he said. “Smaller man mighta been cut in half.”
    Rojer watched in wonder as it went around the room like a little ripple, people on both sides of the table standing up to show scars and shouting their stories, arguing over whose were bigger. After the last year in the Hollow, there was hardly a person in town who didn’t have at least one.
    But there was no air of regret in the room. People were roaring with laughter as near misses were recalled and sometimes pantomimed, even the Krasians slapping their knees in delight. Rojer looked to Wonda, the girl’s face horribly scarred, and saw her smiling for the first time he