The Desert Spear

looked among them and saw many who had served under him when he was
Nie Ka.
    Hasik growled and lunged, but Jardir sidestepped, spinning into a kick that knocked the big warrior onto his backside in the dust. He stood patiently as Hasik scowled and scrambled back to his feet unharmed.
    “I will kill you for that,” Hasik promised.
    Jardir smiled, reading Hasik’s every movement like writing in the sand. Hasik charged in, thrusting hard with his spear, but Jardir pivoted, slapping the point to one side, and Hasik stumbled past, overbalanced. He turned and swung the spear like a staff, but Jardir bent backward like a palm tree in the wind, avoiding the blow without moving his feet an inch. Before Hasik could recover, he whipped upright and grabbed the weapon with both hands, kicking up between his hands and breaking through the thick shaft of wood. He followed through on the kick, taking Hasik in the face.
    There was a satisfying crack as Hasik’s jaw shattered, but Jardir did not stop there. He dropped the speartip but held on to the butt, advancing as Hasik struggled back to his feet.
    Hasik punched at him, and Jardir marveled that he had once found those punches too fast to follow. After years among the
dama,
the fist seemed to move at a crawl. He caught Hasik’s wrist and twisted hard, feeling his shoulder pop from its socket. Hasik screamed as Jardir swung the spear butt, shattering the warrior’s knee. Hasik collapsed, and Jardir kicked him over onto his stomach. He was well within his rights to kill Hasik, and those gathered likely expected him to, but Jardir had not forgotten what Hasik had done to him in the Maze.
    “Now, Hasik,” he said, as all the
dal’Sharum
of the Kaji tribe looked on, “I will teach
you
to be a woman.” He held up the spear butt. “And this will be the man.”

    “Watch to ensure he does not fall on his spear in shame,” Jardir told Shanjat as Hasik was hauled off to the
dama’ting
pavilion, howling in pain and humiliation. “I would not see any permanent harm befall my
ajin’pal.
”
    “As my
kai’Sharum
wills,” Shanjat said, “though they will have to remove the spear before he can fall on it.” He smirked as he bowed to Jardir and hurried after the injured warrior. Jardir followed Shanjat with his eyes, marveling at how quickly they fell back into old patterns, despite Shanjat having earned the black years ago, and him just this day.
    Jardir had planned his revenge on Hasik for years, while he danced
sharusahk
in his tiny cell in Sharik Hora. It wasn’t enough for the man to suffer defeat; Jardir’s revenge had to be an abject lesson to any who would ever seek to challenge him again. If Hasik had not challenged him, he would have sought the man out and initiated the challenge himself.
    By Everam’s infinite justice, every step played out exactly as he had imagined it, but now that his triumph was complete, he found no more satisfaction in it than when he fought Shanjat for his place in the
nie’Sharum
food line.
    “You seem to have things well in hand,” Dama Khevat said, slapping Jardir on the back. “Go to the Kaji pavilion and take a woman before tonight’s battle.” He laughed. “Take two! The
jiwah’Sharum
will be eager to bed the youngest
kai’Sharum
in a thousand years.”
    Jardir forced himself to laugh and nod, though he felt a clench in his stomach. He had never known a woman. Except for a few glimpses of the
jiwah’Sharum
that one night in the Kaji pavilion, he had never even seen one without her robes.
Kai’Sharum
or no, he had one last test of manhood in front of him, and unlike the crushing of Hasik or the killing of
alagai,
this was one none of his training had prepared him for.
    Khevat left him, and Jardir took a deep breath, looking toward the Kaji pavilion.
    They are only women,
he told himself, taking a tentative step forward.
They are there to please you, not the other way around.
His second step came with more confidence.
    “A word,” the
dama’ting
whispered, grabbing his attention. Relief and fear clutched him at once. How had he forgotten her?
    “In private,” she said, and Jardir nodded, walking to the edge of the training grounds with her, out of earshot from the
dal’Sharum
in the yard.
    He was much taller than her now, but she still intimidated him. He remembered the blast of fire from her flame demon skull, and tried to convince himself that her
alagai
magics would not work in the day, with Everam’s light shining