The Desert Spear

1
    VICTORY WITHOUT HONOR

CHAPTER 1
FORT RIZON
    p.
333 AR WINTER

    FORT RIZON’S WALL WAS A JOKE .
    Barely ten feet high and only one thick, the entire city’s defenses were less than the meanest of a
Damaji’s
dozen palaces. The Watchers didn’t even need their steel-shod ladders; most simply leapt to catch the lip of the tiny wall and pulled themselves up and over.
    “People so weak and negligent deserve to be conquered,” Hasik said. Jardir grunted but said nothing.
    The advance guard of Jardir’s elite warriors had come under cover of darkness, thousands of sandaled feet crunching the fallow, snow-covered fields surrounding the city proper. As the greenlanders cowered behind their wards, the Krasians had braved the demon-infested night to advance. Even corelings gave berth to so many Holy Warriors on the move.
    They gathered before the city, but the veiled warriors did not attack immediately. Men did not attack other men in the night. When dawn’s light began to fill the sky, they lowered their veils, that their enemies might see their faces.
    There were a few brief grunts as the Watchers subdued the guards in the gatehouse, and then a creak as the city gates opened wide to admit Jardir’s host. With a roar, six thousand
dal’Sharum
warriors poured into the city.
    Before the Rizonans even knew what was happening, the Krasians were upon them, kicking in doors and dragging the men out of their beds, hurling them naked into the snow.
    With its seemingly endless arable land, Fort Rizon was more populous by far than Krasia, but Rizonan men were not warriors, and they fell before Jardir’s trained ranks like grass before the scythe. Those who struggled suffered torn muscle and broken bone. Those who fought, died.
    Jardir looked at all of these in sorrow. Every man crippled or killed was one who could not find glory in Sharak Ka, the Great War, but it was a necessary evil. He could not forge the men of the North into a weapon against demonkind without first tempering them as the smith’s hammer did the speartip.
    Women screamed as Jardir’s men tempered them in another fashion. Another necessary evil. Sharak Ka was nigh, and the coming generation of warriors had to spring from the seeds of men, not cowards.
    After some time, Jardir’s son Jayan dropped to one knee in the snow before him, his speartip red with blood. “The inner city is ours, Father,” Jayan said.
    Jardir nodded. “If we control the inner city, we control the plain.”
    Jayan had done well on his first command. Had this been a battle against demons, Jardir would have led the charge himself, but he would not stain the Spear of Kaji with human blood. Jayan was young to wear the white veil of captain, but he was Jardir’s firstborn, Blood of the Deliverer himself. He was strong, impervious to pain, and warrior and cleric alike stepped with reverence around him.
    “Many have fled,” Asome added, appearing at his brother’s back. “They will warn the hamlets, who will flee also, escaping the cleansing of Evejan law.”
    Jardir looked at him. Asome was a year younger than his brother, smaller and more slender. He was clad in a
dama’s
white robes without armor or weapon, but Jardir was not fooled. His second son was easily the more ambitious and dangerous of the two, and they more so than any of their dozens of younger brothers.
    “They escape for now,” Jardir said, “but they leave their food stores behind and flee into the soft ice that covers the green lands in winter. The weak will die, sparing us the trouble of killing them, and my yoke will find the strong in due time. You have done well, my sons. Jayan, assign men to find buildings suitable to hold the captives before they die from cold. Separate the boys for
Hannu Pash.
If we can beat the Northern weakness out of them, perhaps some can rise above their fathers. The strong men we will use as fodder in battle, and the weak will be slaves. Any women of fertile age may be bred.”
    Jayan struck a fist to his chest and nodded.
    “Asome, signal the other
dama
to begin,” Jardir said, and Asome bowed.
    Jardir watched his white-clad son as he strode off to obey. The clerics would spread the word of Everam to the
chin,
and those who did not accept it into their hearts would have it thrust down their throats.
    Necessary evil.

    That afternoon, Jardir paced the thick-carpeted floors of the manse he had taken as his Rizonan palace. It was a pitiful place compared with his palaces in