The Desert Spear

flush with victory and ready to fight on, but only a few warriors still fought, and they had their
alagai
well in hand.
    The rest of the men simply stared at him, eyes wide.

    Jardir and the Sharach
kai’Sharum
stood watch over the pit for the rest of the night. Their men stood clustered about them, and there was a great cheer when the sunlight reached the pit. The demons shrieked and smoked before finally bursting into flame, and the men were proud to bear witness as Everam’s light burned them back into the nothingness from which they came.
    Jardir and the other
Sharum
lowered their veils, as was proper in the sun. By day, the Sharach, beholden to the Majah, were blood enemies of the Kaji. Jardir eyed the
kai’Sharum
warily. It would dishonor them both to turn on each other in the neutral ground of the Maze, but such things were not unheard of.
    Instead, the Sharach captain bowed. “My people owe you a blood debt.”
    Jardir shook his head. “We did nothing that Everam did not command. No
dal’Sharum
would ever abandon a brother, and all men are brothers in the night.”
    “I was there when the Sharum Ka sent you to the tenth, where we should have been,” the Sharach said. “You came far and dared much for us.”
    Other warriors, their own pits burning, came across them as they left the Maze. Two blood enemies, standing together. A crowd began to form, and Jardir heard the buzz of their conversation. Again and again, he heard his men and the Sharach tell of how he had fought the
alagai
unarmed. The tale grew with each telling, and before long men were saying he had killed five demons with his bare hands. Jardir had seen warriors exaggerating deeds before. By nightfall, it would be a dozen he sent into the pit, and a month from now, fifty.
    A Majah
kai’Sharum
approached them. “On behalf of the Majah,” he said, “I thank you for protecting the Sharach. The Sharum Ka was…unwise to put them in such danger.”
    The man’s words were near treason, but Jardir only nodded. “The Sharach stood tall,” he said. “It was
inevera
that they live to fight again.”
    “Inevera,”
the Majah agreed, bowing lower than one
kai’Sharum
need bow to another. “Did you truly wrestle six demons into the pit yourself?”
    Jardir shook his head and opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by a shout as the elite guard of the Sharum Ka stormed into view, clearing the way for the First Warrior.
    “You disobeyed orders and left your post!” the Sharum Ka shouted, pointing at Jardir.
    “The Sharach called for aid and we were unengaged,” Jardir said. “The Evejah tells us to protect our brothers in the night above all things.”
    “Do not quote the sacred text to me,” the Sharum Ka snapped. “I was teaching it to my sons when your father was in his bido, and I know its truths far better than you! There is nothing that tells you to have your men scale the Maze walls and leave your layer unguarded while you protect one half the Maze away.”
    “Unguarded!” Jardir goggled. “There were no demons in the eighth, much less the tenth!”
    “It is not your place to disregard orders and seek glory that is not yours,
kai’Sharum
!” the Sharum Ka shouted.
    Jardir’s temper flared. “Perhaps my orders would have been less foolish if the one giving them did not hide in his palace until dawn,” he said, knowing even as he did that he might as well have pulled his spear. Such an insult to the First Warrior could not be allowed to pass. If he were any kind of man, he would grab a spear and attack Jardir now, killing him before all the assembled men.
    But the Sharum Ka was old, and men whispered of how Jardir had killed half a dozen demons with
sharusahk
alone. Jardir could not attack the First Warrior himself, but if the Sharum Ka attacked
him,
Jardir would be free to kill him and open a succession that might well put him in the Sharum Ka’s palace. He wondered if this was the fate Inevera’s bones had foretold so many years before.
    They locked stares, and Jardir knew the Sharum Ka was thinking the same things he was, and did not have the courage to attack. He sneered.
    “Arrest him!” the Sharum Ka commanded. Immediately his guards moved to comply.
    Jardir’s hands were bound, a grave dishonor, but though he bared his teeth at the guards, he did not resist. There was a rumble of discontent from the assembled warriors, even the Majah. They gripped spears and lifted shields, greatly outnumbering the First