The Desert Spear

at the contact, jolting the creature so that it thrashed and shrieked madly. Jardir wasted no time in planting his spear deep in the stunned creature’s eye. It kicked and screamed, and Jardir pulled his weapon free and drove it into its other eye, twisting until the creature lay still.
    The greenlander looked up at him, his eyes alive with excitement, and said something in his Northern tongue.
    Jardir laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. “You surprise me, Arlen, son of Jeph!”
    Together, they ran the walltops to Jardir’s men.

    Everywhere, there were warriors fighting for their lives in the Maze, but Jardir could not pause to save them. If the breach was not sealed, the sun would rise to find every
Sharum
in the Maze torn to shreds.
    “Sell your lives dearly!” he shouted as his men thundered past. “Everam is watching!”
    A roar and accompanying screams echoed through the Maze, seeming to shake the very walls. Somewhere behind them, the giant rock demon was laying waste to his men.
    Leap the hurdles before you,
he told himself.
Nothing else matters if the breach cannot be sealed.
    They found the courtyard before the great gate in ruin.
Alagai
and
dal’Sharum
alike lay dead and dying, speared by scorpion bolts or torn from tooth and claw. The Mehnding had managed to pile some rubble before the broken door, but the nimble
alagai
scrambled over it effortlessly.
    “Fall off!” Jardir cried, and the few ragged
dal’Sharum
still fighting in the courtyard broke off and quickly got out of the way.
    Shields locked, Jardir’s warriors ran at full speed for the breach, ten wide and ten deep. Beside him in the first rank, the greenlander ran, matching their pace as if he had been drilling with the
dal’Sharum
all his life. A
chin
he might be, but the man was no stranger to spear and shield.
    The warriors on the edges picked up speed as they went, forming the ranks into a shallow V as they scooped up entering sand demons and drove them back toward the gate.
    There was a sharp impact as they hit the incoming tide of
alagai,
but the wards on their shields flared, and the
alagai
were thrown back. The warriors roared at the resistance, those behind adding force to the press, keeping a bright flare of magic between them and the demons. Slowly, Jardir’s hundred began to force their way to the gate.
    “Back ranks!” Jardir shouted, and the ranks farthest back spun about with a snap, locking shields and advancing, opening up a wide area between the forward and backward ranks where the Pit Warders could work. The elite
dal’Sharum
dropped their spears and slung their shields over their backs, producing lacquered ceramic plates from their battle bags. Two Warders laid the plates out in order across the yard before the breach. The other two took up their spears and used them as straightsticks, lining up the plates one by one.
    Jardir put his spear into a sand demon’s eye—one of the only vulnerable spots on the
alagai.
Next to him, the greenlander found the other, driving his spearhead down the throat of a roaring demon. Swiping claws came at them through gaps in the shields between flares of magic, and they all had to twist this way and that to avoid being gored.
    As they moved closer to the gate, Jardir’s eyes widened at the host gathered outside. It seemed the dunes were covered with sand demons, all pressing to enter the stronghold of their enemies. Stingers and boulders fell upon the
alagai,
but they were like pebbles dropped in a pool of water, quickly swallowed.
    Then the Warders gave the call, and Jardir and his men began to withdraw. “Another night,” Jardir promised the demons that came up short at the flare of magic from the ceramic wards. “Krasia will fight again tomorrow.”
    He turned to find the courtyard otherwise clear of battle. The remaining demons had escaped into the Maze.
    “Watcher!” Jardir called as he stepped away from his men, and in seconds Coliv dropped a ladder from the wall and ran down it to report.
    “Tidings are grim, First Warrior,” the Watcher said. “The Majah have gathered in the sixth to hold off the majority of sand demons, but there are scattered tribes fighting throughout the Maze, and few battles go well. The giant roams even deeper, cutting apart whole units as it claws its way toward the main gate. It was just spotted in the eighth.”
    “Surely it cannot navigate all the turns of the Maze,” Jardir said.
    “It seems to be following a trail of sorts,