The Desert Spear

ward scars. A kick from him would likely do as much to a coreling as one by the Painted Man.

    The meal Mistress Leesha had prepared was a meatless stew served with fresh bread and cheese. Jardir bowed his head as she invoked a blessing over the food, and then everyone began eating at once. He began to lift his bowl to drink when he noticed the greenlanders were leaving theirs on the table, using some sort of tool to bring the food to their lips.
    He glanced at his own setting, and saw a similar utensil there—a wooden strip with a depression at the end. He looked at Leesha and mirrored her actions as he tasted the stew. It was delicious, with heavy vegetables he had never tasted. He began to eat more vigorously, using the thick greenland bread to soak the last drops from his bowl as he saw Gared and Wonda do.
    “Exquisite,” he told the mistress, and felt a thrill run through him as he saw her pleasure at the compliment. “We do not have such food in Krasia.”
    Leesha smiled. “There is much we could learn from each other, if we can find a way to live in peace.”
    “Peace, mistress?” Jardir asked. “There is no such thing on Ala. Not while the
alagai
hold the night and men cower before them.”
    “So the tales are true?” Leesha asked. “You mean to conquer us and levy our people for Sharak Ka?”
    “Why should I wish to conquer you?” Jardir asked. “Your people are humble before the Creator, stand tall in the night, and shed blood in
alagai’sharak
alongside my warriors. That makes you Evejan, though you know it not.”
    “It don’t!” the giant growled. “We ent got nothin’ to do with your filthy—”
    “Gared Cutter!” Leesha’s voice snapped like a
dama’s
whip, silencing him. “You’ll keep a polite tongue at my table or I’ll give it such a dose of pepper you can’t talk for a month!”
    Gared recoiled, and again Jardir was amazed at the power of the woman. She made the
dama’ting
seem timid.
    Leesha turned to him. “I apologize, Ahmann.” She seemed taken aback when he smiled brightly at her. “What did I say?”
    “My name,” Jardir said simply.
    “I’m sorry,” Leesha said. “Was that improper of me?”
    “On the contrary,” Jardir said. “It sounds beautiful, coming from your lips.”
    With no veil to cover her cheeks, Jardir saw how her pale skin reddened at his words. He had never courted a woman before, but it seemed as if Everam himself guided his words.
    “More than three thousand years ago,” Jardir said, “my ancestor Kaji ruled this land from the Southern Sea to the frozen waste.”
    “So the histories say,” Leesha agreed, “though three thousand years is a long time, and accounts can become…blurred.”
    “Perhaps here in the North,” Jardir said, “but the temple of Sharik Hora in the Desert Spear has stood that long and more, and our records are sharp. Kaji did rule this land, sometimes by the spear, and sometimes by building alliance with its tribes and sealing it with blood.”
    He looked around the table. “Kaji’s blood is still strong here. Even your name, Deliverer’s Hollow, honors him. You are not
chin
to be conquered, but lost brethren to be welcomed into our fold. I name you Hollow tribe, and accord you all the rights therein.”
    “What rights?” Leesha asked.
    Jardir reached into his robe, producing his personal Evejah. Its cover was of supple leather embossed with wards, and its pages were gilded in gold. A red ribbon hung ready to mark a page. The pages were soft and thin from daily use.
    “These rights,” he said, giving her the volume.
    Leesha took the book as one who knew its value, and he recalled she was a bookbinder’s daughter as she turned it to examine the spine. She pushed her bowl aside and spread the cloth from her lap over the table before laying the book upon it and paging through.
    “It’s beautiful,” she said after a time. “But much as I would love to learn the language, I’m afraid I can’t understand a word.” She closed the book and held it out to him.
    Jardir held up a hand to forestall her. “Keep it. What better book to help you learn? You may find its truths more in line with your own beliefs than you imagine.”
    “Oh, I couldn’t!” Leesha said. “This is too precious!”
    Jardir laughed. “You give me a cloak that rivals Kaji’s own, and you balk at a book of his truths? I can pen another.”
    Leesha looked back down at the book, and then up at him. “You penned this