The Desert Spear

his words.
    Soon after, there was the deepening of color in the night sky that signaled the coming dawn. The rock demon sensed it, too, and straightened, as if concentrating. Jardir had seen this play out a thousand times, and never tired of it. In a moment the demon would discover that the cut stone beneath the sand of the Maze floor prevented it from finding a path to Nie’s abyss at the center of Ala. It would shriek and thrash and claw the wards, and then the sun’s rays would catch it, and Everam’s light would burn it to ashes.
    The
alagai
did shriek, but then it did something Jardir had never seen before. It tore at the dirt and sand of the Maze floor, finding the great stone blocks that had been laid centuries before. With its one clawed hand, the demon smashed through the stone, tearing huge pieces free.
    “No!” Jardir cried. The greenlander shouted in protest as well, but it made no difference. Long before the sun rose high enough to threaten it, the creature slipped back into the abyss.

    Inevera was waiting when they limped back to the training grounds. Seeing his arm hanging lifelessly, she turned to Hasik.
    “Bring him to the palace,” she said. “Drag him, if he resists.”
    Hasik bowed his head. “As the
dama’ting
commands.”
    Jardir turned to Shanjat as Hasik pulled at him. “Locate Abban and have him brought here. When he arrives, escort him and the greenlander to my audience hall.”
    Shanjat nodded and sent a runner. Jardir and Hasik headed for the palace, but they had not reached the steps before the training ground was swarming with
dama’ting
tending to the wounded, and women wailing for husbands and sons who could not be found.
    These were followed by
dama,
who quickly broke their tribesmen away from the mass of
Sharum
returning from the Maze. In moments the force that had stood unified in the night splintered as it did each day.
    Jardir had not ascended half the steps to his palace when the palanquins arrived. All twelve
Damaji
and the Andrah himself, riding the backs of
nie’dama
and flanked by their most loyal clerics.
    Jardir stopped where he was, knowing no injury could take precedence over his giving a full report of this cursed night. But what to say? He had lost at least a third of Krasia’s warriors, and what did he have to show for it?
    “What happened?” the Andrah demanded, storming up to him. Inevera was at Jardir’s side in an instant, but in the light of day, with the
Damaji
at his back and such failure at Jardir’s feet, the Andrah was uncowed even by her.
    Even after years, the sight of the fat man filled Jardir with hatred and disgust. But the day Inevera had foretold, when he could feed the man his spear and cut his manhood off, seemed impossible now. Jardir would be lucky if he did not end this day as
khaffit.
    “The outer gate was breached last night,” Jardir said, “letting the enemy into the Maze.”
    “You lost the gate?” the Andrah demanded.
    Jardir nodded.
    “Losses?” the Andrah asked.
    “Still counting,” Jardir said. “Hundreds, at the least. Possibly thousands.”
    The
Damaji
burst into whispered conversation. All through the training grounds, the scene was being watched closely by
Sharum
and
dama
alike.
    “I will have your head on a pike above the new gate!” the Andrah promised.
    Before Jardir could respond, Hasik stepped in front of him, prostrating himself before the Andrah and pressing his head to the steps.
    “What are you doing, fool?” Jardir demanded, but Hasik ignored him.
    “Your pardon, my Andrah,” he said, “but this is not the fault of the First Warrior. Without Ahmann Jardir, we would have all been lost in the night!”
    There were murmurs of accord from the gathered warriors. “He pulled me from a demon pit!” one cried. “The First Warrior led the charge that saved my unit!” another called.
    “That doesn’t explain how he lost the gate in the first place!” the Andrah barked.
    “Alagai Ka attacked the wall last night,” Hasik said. “It caught a sling stone and hurled it back, breaking the outer gate. It was only by the First Warrior’s quick response that we were not completely overrun.”
    “It is the Waning, but Alagai Ka has not been seen in Krasia in more than three thousand years,” Damaji Amadeveram said.
    “It was not Alagai Ka,” Jardir said. “Just a rock demon from the mountains.”
    “Even that is unheard of,” Amadeveram said. “What could have brought one so far from its