CHAPTER 39

WHISTLER’S MIND

334 AR

The sound of Dawn’s scream jolted Abban awake on the hard bench of his cell.

It was like this every morning, now. Hasik had seen the value in keeping Abban in good health. He needed the khaffit for his tallies, but never let him forget the unpayable blood debt between them. Abban had not escaped his punishment. As they agreed, he was leasing it to another, one day at a time.

Soon after, Dawn entered his cell, bearing the breakfast tray. Her face was a scarred ruin, with a gaping hole where her nose had been, jaw swollen from the teeth Hasik had pulled. A ragged bit of cloth covered her missing eye. The littlest fingers of both hands were gone, and she shuffled, favoring one foot.

The woman kept her eyes down, and Abban was thankful for that. She had been nothing but kind to him, and he repaid her with treachery. Hasik knew how it cut at him, which was why he had her bring Abban’s breakfast each morning. So Abban could look upon the woman and be forced to accept that he would rather she suffer instead of him.

“Feeling hungry, khaffit?” Hasik asked, appearing at the door to the small office that was Abban’s work space and cell combined. There was a writing desk, a sleeping pallet, and a small privy—little more than a curtained alcove containing a board with a hole in it that opened to a pit that went Everam only knew where.

Abban was not allowed to leave save in Hasik’s company, and the guards outside the door had proven impossible to influence once Hasik cut the ear from a Sharum who dared bend to listen to a whispered word from the khaffit.

Hasik ate meals with him, ensuring he was the only personal interaction Abban was allowed.

Which, of course, was the greatest torture of all.

Dawn set the trays and quickly shuffled from the room.

“If I cut much more off that one, she won’t be much use as a servant,” Hasik said.

“You are master here,” Abban said. “You could always show mercy.”

“Bah!” Hasik said. “Easier to kill her and start fresh with one of her daughters.”

Abban shuddered, and Hasik laughed, shoving the tray at him. “Eat up, khaffit! You’re barely fat anymore!”

The food was not much to look at. A cup of sour, watered wine, a crust of hard, gritty bread. A cut of meat left overlong in the coldhouse, a green apple picked too early from the tree. And yet Abban ate better than many in the monastery, if the tallies were true.

Hasik ate like a greenland prince, his plate piled high with boiled shellfish in melted butter. The smell of it was maddening as the brutal warrior gorged himself.

“Nie’s tits, it never ceases to amaze me, how well the khaffit eat,” Hasik said. “The dama told us you were a cursed people, but for centuries now you have feasted on swine and bottom feeders, drinking couzi and laughing at your betters.”

“The dama want control,” Abban said. “What better way to get it than denying pleasure to their followers, save that which they claim Everam allows?”

Hasik burped, tossing another empty shell into the pile. They only had one boat left—the rest destroyed by the Laktonians and demons—but rather than use it to scout or expand his power, Hasik had the crew casting nets and laying traps for bottom feeders.

“Have your scouts had any success finding the tunnel to the chin’s secret cove?” Abban asked. Hasik’s warriors killed the chin attacking the basement, but never found how they got in, reporting a maze of natural caverns beneath the monastery.

“I do not trust them with the search,” Hasik said. “Whoever controls that tunnel controls my fortress. I will find it myself.”

Abban looked up, his food forgotten. “You search the tunnels below the keep alone?”

“I find…peace in the solitude,” Hasik said.

Abban blinked. “Peace is good, when it can be found, but the tunnels may be rife with alagai.”

“If so, they have not been fool enough to challenge me,” Hasik said.

“Alagai are not known for their wisdom,” Abban said.

“What do you care, khaffit?” Hasik asked. “If the demons have me, you will be free at last.”

Abban sniffed. “You’ll forgive me if I do not trust in the mercy of your kai.”

Hasik laughed. “Nor should you! At best, they will keep you here, chained to the tallies, but some of the men have new appetites to replace the loss of their manhood. I have heard them speculating on what a man grown fat on rich khaffit food would taste like.”

Abban tried to suppress his shudder, but Hasik caught it, his grin widening. He sucked the last bit of meat from the shells, then stomped around the room while Abban ate, shuffling papers with greasy fingers as if he had any idea what the symbols upon them meant.

Abban pretended not to notice, eating quickly. Hasik delighted in knocking food to the ground just to torment the crippled khaffit. When the meal was finished, Hasik rang the bell and Dawn limped back in to take the trays. A guard appeared in the doorway with Abban’s wheeled chair.

Hasik took the chair and brought it to Abban’s side. “Come, khaffit, bring the tallies. We have a meeting.”

Abban knew better than to question it, thankful simply for a brief release from the cell. He slung a small satchel with his writing kit over a shoulder, took his crutches and pushed himself upright, limping into the chair Hasik deliberately kept out of easy reach.

The cruel warrior was known to pull the chair away suddenly as Abban tried to sit, but had no patience for the game today. Abban eased himself down and before he was even settled, Hasik was pushing him swiftly out of the room.

It was a bright summer day, almost pleasant, save for the ever-present stink of the fortress’ dirty inhabitants. Foremost was the smell of piss. Fifteen hundred men continually wetting themselves within the walls raised an abysmal stench. Hasik promised Abban would grow used to the smell, but it struck him anew whenever he was allowed a brief excursion from his cell.

But the reek of the Eunuch Monastery was more than just urine. The warriors trained hard, kept their weapons sharp, but discipline was not a hallmark of Hasik’s men. Freed as they were from the need for pleasures of the flesh, few of the men bothered to bathe, trim hair and nails, or clean their clothes. Sharum and slave alike were uniformly filthy, eyes sunken as supplies waned.

Hasik had taken the Shepherd’s chambers from Dama Khevat when they claimed the monastery, locking Abban in one of the smaller offices. Khevat had been relegated to the back room of a smaller chapel on the far side of the compound.

As they made their way into in Khevat’s sphere of power, Abban saw something closer to discipline. Gelded men still stared blankly into the distance when there was no task before them, but Khevat had forced the warriors to keep their uniforms in some semblance of order, grimy though they were.

Guards hopped to open the doors, bowing to Hasik as he wheeled Abban into Khevat’s office, where the dama waited with the Deliverer’s son Icha.

Careful that Hasik should not see, Abban touched a hidden fold in his pantaloons, where a tiny paper lay concealed. He would need to be quick, if he dared deliver it. He had tried to find the courage many times in recent months. As yet, it remained beyond him.

Of late, Hasik had kept his torments and indignities to small things, inflicting the worst of it on Dawn. Abban had his uses, especially to a leader who could not read, write, or count past his fingers and toes. But if Khevat betrayed him…

Abban broke into a sweat, wondering what the brutal warrior would cut off next.

Khevat glanced at Abban. The dama had always terrified him, looking down his nose at Abban like a beetle crawling on shit. An insect he could crush at will, should the whim take him.

But the prideful disdain had left Khevat’s gaze since Hasik cut his manhood away.

It was the great equalizer among them, that every male in the monastery, from dama to slave, elder to child, suffered that ultimate indignity—a permanent reminder of Hasik’s power. Pride was a distant memory for most of them. Only the most savage Sharum adapted—just the sort of animals Hasik wanted in his band.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Eunuch Ka.” Khevat gave a polite bow.

Hasik grunted in amusement. Khevat had lorded over him as a child as well, and he never tired of the man’s submission. “Of course, Dama. How may we help you?”

“You have heard the scouts sent to Docktown,” Khevat said. “The alagai press them hard.”

“What of it?” Hasik scoffed. “They are days of hard ride to the south. We are safe here.”

“I would not be so sure of that,” Khevat said, “but in any event, they need assistance.”

“They have it,” Hasik said. “The Damajah herself has come to Everam’s Reservoir, and with Ahmann gone, she has invited the fish men into her pillow chamber.”

Khevat’s jaw tightened, a vein in his neck throbbing. The words were blasphemy, but Hasik was provoking him purposely, and the old dama knew not to take the bait.

“Where was Docktown when these walls were under assault from the chin?” Hasik demanded. “Where was the infinite mercy of the Damajah when the khaffit shamed me before the Deliverer’s court? We owe them nothing.”

“If not from loyalty to the throne, we might still consider a more…mercenary arrangement.” Khevat’s voice was tight. “They are well supplied, Eunuch Ka, and we could use the stores before the cold comes.”

Not long ago, the dama would have shouted the words, calling Hasik a fool and punctuating it with a touch of threat.

After the cutting, no one was stupid enough to shout at Hasik.

“Bah!” Hasik spat on the floor. “The cold is months away! It cannot be so bad. Tell him, khaffit.”

Khevat’s knuckles whitened at his counsel being summarily dismissed for the word of a khaffit. Abban knew he must tread carefully. He made a show of spreading his writing kit on Khevat’s desk, giving the tension time to diffuse. He set the inkwell and licked the end of his pen before dipping and opening the ledger.

Even then, he made a show of scanning the tallies, though he knew them all by rote. Slowly, the tempers in the room began to cool.

“The honored dama has a point, Hasik. Your men have raided these lands too well. The few chin hamlets that remain barely produce enough to fill their own bellies, let alone ours.”

“I’ll speak to the men,” Hasik growled. “The chin do not eat before us.”

Irritation flashed across Khevat’s eyes, but he kept his voice calm. “If the slaves starve, there will be nothing for any of us to eat, Hasik.”

Hasik’s eyes narrowed, perhaps considering if he should take umbrage at the use of his name. “I will not spend Eunuch lives on the Damajah, nor will I crawl before her Pillow Throne and beg for the scraps off her table.”

Abban cleared his throat. “Perhaps there are answers closer to home.”

Hasik put the back of his hand to his forehead. “Have I sunk so low that the only voice on my side is that of a khaffit? Come, Abban, tell us your brilliant plan. Perhaps you think we should sack Angiers, again?”

Abban took a deep breath. Of the many failures of his life, the attack on Angiers had been by far the costliest, for him, and for the Krasian empire. “Nothing so bold, Eunuch Ka. I have simply found that healthy slaves with security to work produce greater tithes than those who get gruel and the whip.”

“There is no security in this world, khaffit,” Hasik said. “Not for men and certainly not slaves.”

“I believe Abban means the alagai.” It was strange to hear Khevat use his name and not his caste.

“Eh?” Hasik asked.

“It is summer,” Abban said. “The chin should have crops ripening in their fields, but your Eunuchs took them all, and burned the farmhouses for good measure.”

“They can plant more,” Hasik said.

“Indeed,” Abban agreed. “But without proper succor, the chin are too preoccupied with surviving the night to focus on the fields.”

“How is that my concern?” Hasik asked.

“They are your thralls,” Khevat said. “It is written in the Evejah that we must defend our thralls from the alagai as we do ourselves.”

“The Evejah?!” Hasik laughed. “Where has the Evejah gotten us? Ahmann brandished the Evejah as he led us on his fool demon-killing quest. Now he’s thrown from a cliff, his son shot dead in chin land, and the rest of us cockless and filthy, fretting over cold months that would freeze our balls off, if we had any. I am done with alagai’sharak.”

“You are correct, of course,” Abban said. “There is no profit in following the sacred text simply for Everam’s sake. But there is some wisdom in the proverbs. It would not be difficult to send out bands of Eunuchs to scour the chin fields of alagai, with full bellies our reward.”

“Your belly remains full enough,” Hasik growled.

Abban bowed his submission. “A suggestion, only.”

“Refused,” Hasik said. “The alagai have not attacked us since we stopped attacking them.”

“But they have grown thick in these lands,” Khevat said. “They prey upon the hamlets and Docktown now, but who can say what will happen if their numbers continue to increase? You saw what they did to the fish men.”

“What of it?” Hasik laughed. “Should I lament the destruction of my enemies?”

“Yes,” Khevat said, “if it comes as victory for Nie.”

“Nie!” Hasik barked. “Everam! You clerics know two words, and work them into everything! There is no Nie! There is no Everam! No light and void in eternal combat. The alagai are animals. If anything, they deserve their heads scratched for setting the fish men and their ships aflame.”

The words seemed madness. Abban did not understand how Hasik could have seen the cold, efficient way the demons dispatched the Laktonians and not fear them.

Khevat, too, seemed flabbergasted. He threw up his hands. “Very well then, Eunuch Ka. How shall we handle the supply shortage?”

“I’ll call for more raids,” Hasik said. “And tell Jesan, Orman, and the other kai that the one with the smallest haul will lose his left hand.”

“Brilliant.” Abban felt nauseous.

“Wise.” Khevat grit his teeth.

Hasik smiled. “And we’ll send fresh scouts to the south. If the Damajah’s hold on Docktown grows weak enough, perhaps we can take it from her.”

“Everam’s beard,” Icha whispered.

“Do not be so shocked, boy,” Hasik said. “Did not your brother attempt the same when he sent Melan and Asavi to kill that shameless heasah? If you ask me, it’s time the Damajah learned some humility. Perhaps I’ll sew her cunt shut and keep her as a slave.”

Khevat and Icha paled at the words, and Hasik got to his feet, his patience worn thin.

Abban reached to collect his writing kit and pretended to slip, knocking over the ink bottle. The black liquid ran across the table, staining the dama’s faded white sleeve.

“Watch out, fool!” Khevat growled, snatching his arm away.

“Apologies, Dama.” Abban produced a kerchief that was passably clean, blotting Khevat’s sleeve. As he did, he slipped the tiny paper into the old cleric’s hand.

Khevat stiffened slightly, but he did not betray the confidence. He palmed the paper and made his hand disappear into the robe as he made a show of examining the stained cuff. “Just go, khaffit. I will tend to it.”

Hasik snorted, pulling Abban’s chair away from the desk. “A pleasure as always, Dama.”

Abban caught the dama’s eye as the chair swiveled away, and they shared a knowing look.

“I am surprised,” Abban ventured carefully as they walked back across the compound.

“By what, khaffit?” Hasik asked.

“That you trust your men to lead the raids instead of going yourself,” Abban said.

Hasik laughed. “Eager to be rid of me, Abban? Do not think I would leave you here to scheme. You would join the raids slung over the back of my horse, just as we started.”

“I miss those times,” Abban lied, and Hasik chuckled. “But I am pleased to have a roof over my head. It is only that you always seemed to take such…satisfaction in the conquest.”

“I take my satisfaction in pig now,” Hasik said. “In bottom feeders, and in the pain of those who displease me. Remember that, khaffit.”

Abban nodded. “Always, Eunuch Ka.”

A well-nursed Kaji napped on Ashia’s back as she and Briar watched the warriors ride from the monastery.

“They’re sending out raiding parties,” Ashia noted. “Their supplies are low.”

“Gonna come up empty,” Briar said. “Nothin’ left to raid.”

Ashia began unwrapping the silks that bound Kaji’s pack to her. Briar looked confused as she pressed it into his hands. “Kaji will sleep for hours yet. Take him back to the briarpatch.”

“What are you doing?” Briar asked.

“The keep is as empty as we have ever seen it,” Ashia said. “There is no better time to scout within.”

Briar made no move to strap on the pack. “I can do that.”

“Your honor is boundless, Briar asu Relan,” Ashia said, “but I have contacts among my people that you do not. It must be me.”

Briar hesitated, and Ashia moved to help him sling on the pack before he could argue. “If they catch you…”

“They will not,” Ashia said. “I can scale the wall now amid the commotion, and will return before nightfall.”

“Be careful,” Briar said.

Ashia kissed his cheek. “You have my word, cousin.” She patted his bottom, and the boy took off running for the safety of his hidden cave on the cliff face. They had made improvements, so much that all three of them began to think of it as home, and had little eagerness for their mission.

But the Damajah was counting on her, and Sharak Ka was in the balance.

Ashia took a black scarf from her robe, twisting and wrapping it over her white headscarf in a proper man’s turban, a black veil loose around her neck.

Seek the khaffit through the father of your father.

It could only mean one thing. Dama Khevat, who had ruled this place before the coming of Hasik, was still alive within.

It was a simple matter to circle around and scale the keep wall on the western side with the lake at her back. The morning sun cast her in shade, and all eyes were fixed on the warriors departing the gate. Hora in her boots and fingerless gloves allowed her to climb the sheer outer wall as easily as a spider.

She kept to the shadows as she slipped over the wall, dialing the hora stones of her necklace to put a cushion of silence around her, blending her to her surroundings to appear little more than a diffuse blur.

It was a needless precaution. The guards on duty were lax, thinking their walls great and high. She slipped by them and down into the courtyard easily.

The place was filthy with refuse, stinking of urine and unwashed bodies, but the clutter provided ample places to hide as she scouted the keep. The few times she needed to cross a sunlit street, she seemed just another underfed dal’Sharum, her alagai’viran-stained clothes just as filthy as everyone else’s.

It didn’t take long to find her grandfather’s chapel and slip past the guards, but he was not alone when she found him. Her cousin Icha was with him. She settled in to listen and wait for her cousin to leave before making contact.

“He is a khaffit,” Icha was saying. “Do you trust him?”

“Of course not,” Khevat said. “Abban would not hesitate to lie if it served his ends.”

“Then you cannot know it is truth,” Icha said.

“But I believe it,” Khevat said. “Your brother, the Deliverer’s firstborn son, was not shot down in the Battle of Angiers. He was murdered by that…that…”

“What if he was? Would that finally be a crime great enough for us to resist?” Icha laughed bitterly. “Hasik was right about one thing. We left Everam’s sight long ago. What does it matter, who killed who?”

“What, indeed.” Khevat sighed.

It was painful, listening to the broken spirit in their voices. Her grandfather had always been a huge, terrifying figure in her life. The patriarch, the final arbiter in their family. His words were sacrosanct.

Now he was just a man, the front of his white robes stained yellow and smelling of urine. It seemed the rumors were true. Hasik had cut the manhood from every male in his fortress.

The shame to her family was enough to make her weep, but there was no honor in filling tear bottles for the living. Before this was done, she would find Hasik and collect in blood.

Icha left soon after, and she stalked her grandfather into his inner chamber. She was about to make contact when he sighed. “If you mean to kill me, Sharum, you may find it more difficult than you believe.”

Ashia blinked. He had sensed her? Impossible.

“Grandfather.” She unwrapped the black silk to reveal her white headscarf and veil.

“Ashia?!” Khevat whirled to gape at her. “Everam’s beard, girl, what are you doing here?”

“I was sent by the Damajah,” Ashia said. “Seek the khaffit through the father of your father, the dice said.”

What little life had returned to Khevat seemed to leave him then, his aura diffusing as his shoulder slumped. “I do not know what purpose Everam might have, sending you to this forsaken place.”

“They say the monastery had fallen to Nie,” Ashia said. “That is reason enough.”

“I do not deny it,” Khevat said. “Hasik has given up alagai’sharak. He does not fight for Nie, perhaps, but neither does he resist. He lets Her grow unchecked like a greenland coward.”

“What of the khaffit?” Ashia asked. “The dice foretell he yet has a part to play.”

“Alive,” Khevat said, “but you will not get to him easily. Hasik keeps him close, attending him personally. The khaffit is precious to him. He is seen with Hasik, or not at all.”

“I am here to rescue him, if I can,” Ashia said. “Will you help me?”

“The dice sent you here, to ask my help in rescuing the khaffit?” Khevat’s aura flared again. “A lifetime I have served Everam, but sniveling Abban is worth more to the Damajah than I?”

“Abban is a khaffit,” Ashia said. “Hannu Pash branded him a sniveling coward, and so he is. Tell me, Grandfather, what is your excuse?”

Khevat’s eyes widened. “How dare you, girl…?!”

“How dare I what?” Ashia said. “Hasik murdered my cousin. He cut your manhood away, and broke pact with Everam, abandoning alagai’sharak with Sharak Ka already begun. Yet you do nothing but cower and serve him.”

“To stand against Hasik is to die,” Khevat said.

“Was it not you who taught me that there was no path to Heaven, but to die in Everam’s name?” Ashia asked.

Khevat blew out a breath. “Even if I wished to help you, rescuing Abban will be nigh impossible. The khaffit is still fat, with one leg lame and the other foot mangled. Even if you could use hora to bear the weight, you would find the man…unwieldy, and Hasik would be close on your heels.”

“Then perhaps it is time to put an end to Hasik,” Ashia said.

“Hasik is powerful, child.” Khevat spread his hands sadly. “And I am…not what I once was.”

“What you were was the voice of right and wrong in our house,” Ashia said. “In our tribe. Now you will let the man who murdered the Deliverer’s son walk free because you fear death?”

“I hope you never understand that there are fates worse than death, granddaughter.”

Ashia spat on the ground. “I was trained by Enkido. My master’s spirit was undimmed by the loss of his cock, nor his sharusahk slowed. If you have not the heart to kill this rabid dog, then I will do it.”

Khevat’s aura crackled to life again. “Do not speak down to me about Enkido, girl. I knew your master long before you were born. I knew him when he was a skinny boy in a tan bido. I selected the drillmasters to train him in Hannu Pash, and when he lost his bido, I took him into Sharik Hora and trained him myself. I knew him when he ran the Maze with his spear brothers, howling at the moon and glorying at every kill. I gave him counsel when that glory faded, leaving him unfulfilled.”

He reached out with sudden swiftness, grabbing Ashia by the arm. She attempted to block, but her grandfather was more skilled than she credited him for, and he twisted her into a submission hold, smashing her face-first into the stone wall of the chapel. “So trust me when I tell you, beware the Eunuch Ka. If you underestimate him, even for an instant, you will die.”

Ashia put a foot against the wall and kicked off, striking a convergence point in her grandfather’s arm that weakened the hold enough for her to break free.

“Then help me,” she said.

Something of the man she had known crept back into her grandfather’s eyes. “The chin had a secret way into the fortress from below. Hasik has been seeking it in the maze of tunnels. If the Damajah’s dice can divine its location…”

Ashia shook her head. “The dice cannot help here, but I know someone who can.”

For a brief time, the briarpatch was a place of laughter. Briar and Kaji might only be distant cousins, but already they had taken to each other as brothers. Briar doted on the boy, chasing him around the cave, teaching him new words, delighting in his innocence.

But he knew Ashia was in terrible danger every moment she scouted the monastery. When Kaji finally fell into a second nap, Briar paced the cave like a nightwolf, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Was this what Dehlia felt when he went off scouting? The worry Ragen and Elissa spoke of? It was painful. Intolerable. He didn’t understand how they bore it. He glanced at sleeping Kaji. Could he leave the boy? Just for a short time while he made sure…

“Made sure what?” he growled to himself. Ashia was like him. She was fast, and quiet, and knew how to pass unseen. She was as strong as he was, and a better fighter. Either she was safe, or she was in trouble enough that Briar was more likely to get captured himself—leaving Kaji alone and defenseless—than he was to effect a rescue.

So he paced.

It was growing dark when a rustle of the hogroot vines alerted him. He was at the cave mouth in an instant, watching Ashia rappel down.

“Briar. All is well?”

Briar nodded. “What did you find?”

“My grandfather lives,” Ashia said. “And my cousin Icha. They will help us, but we must act soon, for Waning is upon us. The khaffit is confined to a wheeled chair, held in one of the Shepherd’s acolyte cells. Do you know them?”

Briar nodded. “Have to cross the yard to get to the wall. Won’t be easy with a wheeled chair. Can your grandfather open the small gate?”

“Not without drawing attention we would be better to avoid,” Ashia said. “He spoke of a hidden tunnel into the keep.”

“Ay,” Briar said. “Know it. Few parts ent friendly to a chair. Might manage, but not if we’ve got spears after us.”

“Grandfather says they have failed to find the path,” Ashia said. “If we can get to the tunnels unseen and cover our tracks, they’ll never catch us.”

Briar frowned. “Don’t make sense. Tunnels’re a little confusing, but if the Sharum know it’s there, they should have found it. Only thing really protecting it was that no one knew it was there.”

“It seems Hasik wants the knowledge to die again,” Ashia said. “He won’t let his warriors explore the tunnels.”

“Or he’s found it, and your grandfather’s leading you into a trap.”

Ashia opened her mouth as if to argue for her family’s honor, then closed it again, unsure. She crossed her arms. “Waning comes tomorrow night, Briar. If we don’t rescue the khaffit tomorrow while the sun shines, we may not have another chance.”

Briar shrugged. “So what? Wouldn’t have this mess if not for him. Why’s his life worth risking the three of ours?”

“My mission—” Ashia began.

“Core with your mission!” Briar barked. “We can—”

“We can what?!” Ashia cut him off. “Flee to the Hollow? To Miln in the mountains where they make weapons of fire to slaughter our people? There is nowhere to flee Sharak Ka, Briar. It will find us if we flee to the ends of Ala. You saw what the demons did to the fish men and their boats. They will come for us all, in our turn. You can hide in your briarpatch and wait as they burn the world around you, but that is not my way. The Damajah says rescuing the khaffit will deal a blow to the alagai and that is worth risking my life. Kaji’s life.”

Kaji stirred at the sound of his name. “Mama?”

Ashia went to him, loosening her robe to free a breast, but her eyes did not leave Briar. “It is up to you to decide if it is worth risking yours.”

Dawn twilight had chased the alagai away as Ashia and Briar picked their way down the cliffs. Kaji was in his pack on Ashia’s back, and she kept her breathing steady and even as she glanced down at the dizzying drop. Alone, she would not have given thought to the height, but with her son on her back, she was thankful the cliff face remained in shadow and she could use the hora in her boots and gloves to cling to the surface.

There was a tiny scrap of beach at the bottom, and, hidden behind scrub and some thick vines of alagai’viran, a small cave.

“Is this it?” she asked. “So close, all this time?”

Briar shook his head. He’d been even quieter than usual since their words the night before. He pulled away the vines, revealing a small boat hidden in the shallow cave. He dragged it onto the beach, checked it over, and slid it into the water.

“Climb in.” He held the boat steady as Ashia nimbly hopped in, her feet in perfect balance as the small craft rocked from her weight.

Briar shoved off and jumped in, no less nimble even without Ashia’s training. She’d been teaching him sharusahk and he took to it quickly, but it was astounding how much the night had taught the boy.

He took the oars and began to pull, falling into an easy rhythm that sent them gliding smoothly through the water. Ashia knew there were no demons swimming beneath the morning sun, but still she cast a wary eye over the side, praising Everam that Briar kept the shoreline in sight.

“Is it far?” she asked. Above them, the monastery loomed atop the cliff, but they were far enough off and close enough to shore that the small craft would be difficult to spot.

Briar shook his head. “Almost there. Gonna get our feet wet the rest of the way.”

Ashia looked at him curiously but did not let her face betray the fear in her heart as Briar dropped an anchor in deep water.

“This way.” Briar leapt from the boat into the water, and Ashia’s breath caught. Did he expect them to swim all the way to shore?

But Briar did not sink as he struck the water. It splashed around his ankles, but he remained standing.

“What magic is this?” Ashia asked.

“Ent magic,” Briar said. “Nowhere to dock in close to the cave. Tenders built crannogs to get to deep water. Know where to step, you can walk from here to shore. If not…” He took his spear and thrust it into the water just a few inches from where he stood, sinking the shaft—taller than he was—all the way into the water. “Step only where I step.”

Ashia nodded, keeping her breathing steady and letting fear pass over her as she pulled off her boots and followed after Briar. The water was cold, but there was firm footing beneath, a stone pathway hidden under the dark liquid. Briar moved quickly along and she kept pace, watching closely to mirror his steps precisely. A single misstep could send her plunging into the water with Kaji on her back.

It was a twisting route meant to send pursuers into the water, but Briar did not hesitate in his steps, and the cliff approached rapidly. There was no shore to speak of, just sheer rock, jagged with patches of dirt and scrub. Briar leapt, catching a snag with his fingertips and hauling himself up into a shadowed crevasse.

Ashia followed and saw that the crevasse was deeper than it appeared from the water. Inside they made a steep climb into darkness. It might have been a natural formation but for the soft glow of protective wards cut into the tunnel walls.

She caught up to Briar at the rear of the tunnel, blocked by a heavy, warded stone. Briar put his back to it and heaved. Even with his considerable strength it was slow to move. Ashia lent her arms to the task, shifting the stone away. It opened into a larger cave, raw and natural, with no wards on the rock face.

They moved the heavy stone back into place, and Ashia had to admit it fit the cave wall so perfectly she might never have known it was not a natural formation.

It was daytime, but the dark tunnel made her wary. She slipped the glass shafts of her short spears from Kaji’s pack, extending the blades with flicks of her wrists. She began to sing the Song of Waning, searching in Everam’s light for alagai as Briar led the way upward.

“Breakfast, khaffit!” Hasik cried, opening the door with a slam.

Abban jolted, slamming his face on the hard bench as Hasik strode into the room, tray in hand.

“Where is Dawn?” Abban shook sleep from his head, pushing to sit up.

Hasik threw something that struck Abban’s chest with a wet smack. He caught it instinctively, looking down to see a bloodied scalp, the locks of gray-streaked hair unmistakable.

Dawn’s.

Abban cast the thing to the ground in horror, and Hasik threw back his head, roaring with laughter.

“Your chin friend did not cling to life as desperately as you, khaffit,” Hasik said. “I found her hanging from the ceiling beam in her cell.”

Abban looked sadly at the scalp. Everam, giver of life and light, I have never been your most faithful servant, but neither am I an alagai like this one. Give me the power of life and death over him, even for an instant, and I will never again be such a fool as to let him live.

But if Everam were listening, He gave no sign. “Come, khaffit,” Hasik beckoned. “Your breakfast will get cold.”

“I am surprised you brought the scalp yourself.” Abban tried to sound nonchalant as his stomach churned. “The Hasik I know would have sent her daughter in with it.”

“I think I will leave her daughter be, for now,” Hasik said.

Abban raised an eyebrow. “Growing soft?”

Hasik chuckled, pulling his small hammer from his belt. “Of course not. I simply think you should return to bearing your own punishment for a time.”

Abban felt his face go cold. “Eunuch Ka. If you spare me I will…”

“Now you beg and bargain again!” Hasik laughed. “Oh, khaffit, how I have missed this! Whatever flicker of emotion you had for the chin woman, it was not worth offering bribes for!”

Abban swallowed. The words bit hard, but he could not deny the truth of them. He fancied himself better than Hasik, but was he truly?

Hasik lifted the hammer. “So, khaffit. What can you offer me, in exchange for your thumb?”

“I…” Abban hesitated. What indeed? He had nothing, trapped in this tiny cell. His fortune was with Jamere in Krasia, with Shamavah in the Hollow. And even if he could access it, what in Ala might appease this man, who only truly felt alive while Abban screamed.

“Come, khaffit, you must play the game.” Hasik grabbed Abban’s wrist, pinning it to the table with an iron grip as the little hammer twirled in his fingers.

“Please!” Abban squealed. His feet, his legs, he could endure. But what was he without his hands? “If…you spare my hands, I will tell you the location of the Deliverer’s electrum mine.”

Hasik looked up. “You lie.”

Abban shook his head. “I was the one who first brought knowledge of the sacred metal to Ahmann, Hasik. The mine is remote, with limited guards. Your Eunuchs could take the place easily, and hold its canyon indefinitely with a small number of warriors.”

Hasik sat up, putting the hammer back on the table. Abban felt a burst of hope. Electrum weapons could make the Eunuchs a dominant force in the wetlands. “How far?”

“Perhaps a fortnight of riding.” Abban shrugged as if the journey were inconsequential.

Hasik spat. “Too far to easily trust the truth of your words. Too far to send warriors on the promises of a khaffit desperate to keep his fingers.”

“Kill me, if I am lying.”

Hasik eased again. “That is new.”

“This is not some honeyed dissembling, Hasik,” Abban said. “If I cannot buy my way from torture with chin slaves, then I will do it in precious metal.”

Hasik studied Abban, tapping the hammer lightly against his jaw. He tilted his head as if listening to an invisible advisor. At last he stood, his breakfast of steamed shellfish forgotten. “Bring the khaffit’s chair!”

“I can draw a map—” Abban was cut off as Hasik hauled him up and shoved him into the wheeled chair. Something in the warrior’s eyes frightened him even more than the hammer.

“Where are we—” This time his words were cut off as Hasik cuffed him on the back of the head.

“Silence,” the warrior growled. “There is another way to test the truth of your words.”

Abban wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake, but knew better than to continue his protests. He was wheeled out of the cell and through the halls to a guarded door. There, they abandoned the chair, Hasik throwing Abban over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The door opened into a stair that looked like a pit to the abyss, descending deep into the catacombs beneath the monastery.

At last they reached the bottom, where a heavy door was guarded by a number of Eunuchs. They stood sharply to attention as Hasik and Abban entered the chamber, and readied spears as they pulled open the door as if expecting all the abyss to spew forth.

The guards looked at Abban warily, but they said nothing as Hasik carried him through. On the far side, dim light from the guard chamber showed man-made supports and flooring giving way to natural tunnel formations. There had been wards on the supports and floor, but they were broken and scuffed. Then the guards closed the door behind them, and they were left in darkness.

“Hasik,” Abban began.

“I’ve heard enough of your words these past months, khaffit.” The gem on Hasik’s turban glowed softly, granting him sight in the dark, but Abban was swallowed by the black, able to see no more than his captor’s dimly lit face. “Now it is time for you to listen.”

“I’m listening,” he said, when the silence went on too long for him to bear.

“Not to me.” Hasik dropped Abban heavily to the hard stone floor. “To the true master here.”

“And that is?” Abban asked.

In response, a light ward flared to life on the chamber ceiling. Abban squinted in the glare, seeing there was another figure standing right in front of them.

He was even more afraid when he realized it was himself. “Everam preserve us!”

Not a true reflection—this Abban was fit, pacing the room on two feet. It was what Abban might have been, if he hadn’t fallen from the Maze walls.

Not-Abban circled, looking at him like a cat eyeing a mouse. Abban began to shake, feeling himself break into sweat. He lifted a hand to draw a ward in the air.

Hasik slapped the hand down. “Do that again, khaffit, and I will cut off your arm. The master has no need of your body. Only your mind.”

“Master?” Abban looked up, seeing another demon blur into sight, silhouetted in the shadowy chamber.

“Alagai Ka.” Hasik dropped to his knees, putting his forehead to the floor as the demon stepped into the light.

The demon was small, shorter even than Abban, with spindly arms and legs and a torso that looked like coal-black leather pulled tight over a skeleton. Its huge, conical head was ringed above its giant black eyes by a crown of vestigial horns.

The knobbed flesh of the demon’s cranium pulsed.

Not-Abban shifted, melting away like a water reflection after a stone was cast in the pool. It re-formed a moment later as Hasik—or as Hasik imagined himself before the cutting. The not-Hasik was naked, manhood swinging between his legs like a child’s arm.

“I don’t think you have it quite right,” Abban noted. “Hasik’s limp spear was far less impressive when my wives and daughters held him down and cut it from him.”

Hasik glared at him, but as Abban expected, he did not dare rise unbidden.

“You speak boldly, khaffit,” not-Hasik said, mimicking the real Hasik’s voice and mannerisms with eerie perfection.

“What does it matter?” Abban laughed, surprised to find his fear and panic fading. This was not a battle that required his body, only his wits. He looked at not-Hasik, speaking as if to the genuine article. “If I am here, Hasik, it is because your master has need of me, and my fate is no longer in your hands.”

“Do not be so sure, khaffit,” not-Hasik growled. “You may be returned to my care when the master is done with you.”

“May,” Abban noted.

“If he does not consume your mind in the flesh after he has stolen your thoughts,” not-Hasik agreed with a smile.

Abban shrugged. “It does not matter anymore, Hasik. You may dream of being master, but we both know you have never been more than a dog. I saw it in sharaj with the drillmasters and Khevat. Nightfather Jesan. Ahmann. When there’s a larger cock in the room, you’ve no ambition past sating your own lusts.”

“You lie, khaffit!” Not-Hasik thrust his chin at him, but Abban did not flinch. “I am loyal to Alagai Ka, and will be rewarded.”

Abban met his gaze. “Rewarded with what? Bottom feeders and pig? Me to torture? A new spear between your legs? You have always lacked imagination, Hasik.”

The real article would have struck him for such words, but the mimic rippled again, turning back into not-Abban. “What would Mother say, to hear you antagonizing the customer before the bargaining begins?”

“You obviously know very little about my mother,” Abban said.

The mimic demon rippled again, taking the form of Abban’s aged mother, Omara. Unlike not-Hasik and not-Abban, this illusion was perfect, down to the wrinkles about her eyes and the perfume she favored.

“Be proud, my son. You are worth more than any Sharum dog.” When she spoke, it was with Omara’s voice, her gestures. Her inflection.

But Omara was a thousand miles away, and Abban had made sure Hasik had never been near the woman. How could the demon mimic her so perfectly?

And then he felt it, the demon’s will, tingling through his mind. He wasn’t here to be questioned with words. The interrogation had already begun.

But now that he sensed the demon’s will, the outside world fell away as he focused inward. He followed the demon into his memories, visions from his past that were so vivid he felt he was living them all over again. Being pulled from Omara’s arms and thrust into sharaj. The beating Hasik had given him that day, and in the days that followed. The humiliation. The pain.

These the demon seemed to drink like couzi, giving off the mental equivalent of a contented sigh.

It was an unspeakable violation, and Abban shoved at the alagai’s will, trying to drive it from his mind.

Alagai Ka barely noticed, slapping his clumsy resistance aside as easily as Hasik did his return blows when they were children.

Again the demon plunged him into memory, this time of the fall from the wall that left him with legs shattered on the floor of the Maze. The humiliations that followed, as his body failed him, and he failed his only friend time and again, forcing Ahmann to choose between friendship and duty until he could do it no longer.

What could have been, if Abban had not fallen? Might Ahmann be at his side even now? If he had never returned to the bazaar, never given the Par’chin the map…

Suddenly the swirling will seemed to stiffen in his mind, beginning to coalesce as the demon focused sharply on these memories, pulling so hard at Abban’s recollections that he felt dizzied. His body twitched spasmodically as the alagai drew forth every scent and sound, every texture from his memories of the Par’chin.

Abban knew then this meeting was about more than just the electrum mine. It was about something infinitely more dangerous—for him, and all Ala.

The demon wanted to know about Ahmann. It wanted to know about the Par’chin. And somewhere in his soul—if there was such a thing—Abban knew that he must not allow it, even if it meant his own life.

The thought freed him as he gathered his will. Abban loved his wives and children, loved his wealth and comforts, but none of it more than his own life. If he was willing to sacrifice that on the bargaining table, then there was no reason to fight with less than everything he had.

In that moment, he understood Ahmann and the Par’chin in a way he never had before.

Oh, my friends, how I have wronged you. You were right all along.

And with that last thought, Abban threw his will against the alien presence in his mind.

The demon was not prepared for his renewed assault. It thought him weak, cowed. Abban burst through its defenses, jarring it from his memories. Then, slowly, he began to force the demon’s will from his body.

The creature looked at him in surprise. Not the mimic, still wearing Omara’s form, but the alagai prince itself. It tilted its head and regarded him with those huge eyes, puzzled as if an ant should presume to step upon him.

Abban saw himself reflected in those giant black eyes, body shaking, drool running from his mouth, but none of that mattered. Only the demon, and its will.

What do you want? his mind demanded, and suddenly he was following the creature as it withdrew into itself.

In its alien mind he saw her, Alagai’ting Ka, the Mother of Demons. He heard her lowing, smelled the hormones in the moist, hot air. Eggs were spilling from her, and soon, queens. Queens that would feed in a frenzy after hatching, growing rapidly in size and power.

They needed humans, close at hand, in numbers, to sate their needs.

Like thousands of fools trapped in a monastery.

All of the walled cities. They were not safeholds. They were larders.

The demon struck back, and Abban realized he had become distracted by the new knowledge. He was ejected from its mind, but the battle was not over. There, in the space between them, their wills wrestled for advantage.

Abban understood his adversary now. Like a mark in the bazaar, he read the demon’s desires. And when you knew what the customer wanted—needed—it was a simple thing to reel them in and make the sale.

The demon struggled, no simple mark. It knew his weaknesses as well, and its will was enormous.

But Abban relished a tough sale.

The struggle wore on, and Abban found himself losing ground. The demon’s will matched him move for move. Abban had nothing to lose, but the demon had everything to gain. More, it had skill at mental combat, the rules of which Abban was only just beginning to grasp. Slowly, inexorably, the demon dominated the space between them, forcing Abban’s will back into his body.

It did not even need to defeat him. If Abban allowed it the slightest opening, the demon would signal Hasik or the mimic to choke Abban unconscious, and then work its will on his insensate mind.

But then Abban heard a familiar song, and he realized that neither did he need to defeat the demon, only hold the creature in place a few moments more.

Ashia kept her voice steady, cloaking them in the Song of Waning as she, Briar, and Kaji crept up on Alagai Ka.

Enkido had taught detachment in battle, the emotional distance that allowed warriors to keep their minds outside a battle to study it from all angles. Ashia could approach a quake of rock demons with cool confidence.

But this was Alagai Ka, father of demons, who had stood against Kaji himself. What was her pitiful singing, her short spears, against a foe such as that?

Nonetheless she continued to creep slowly forward, spears at the ready, while the demon had its attention focused on Abban. Hasik remained on his hands and knees. The old woman—whoever she was—stood limply, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Briar was only a step behind as they crept from the cover of one of several tunnels that converged at this cavern. Still the demon did not notice them.

Swiftly now, Ashia’s fingers said to Briar. Then she broke into a sprint, weapons leading.

Hasik sniffed, glancing up. “Master!”

The demon caught sight of her just as Ashia struck with a double thrust of her spears. The creature twisted, and her speartips struck only air. It drew a ward in the air, flinging her away like backhanding a child. She nearly stumbled into Briar, but the boy was fast, quickstepping around, raising his waterskin.

The demon, expecting another physical attack, was unprepared when Briar squirted hogroot tea at it. The creature shrieked and fell back, skin and eyes sizzling with chemical burn.

The demon landed on its back, glaring at them, but then its eyes turned with surprise back toward Abban. Whatever connection they shared remained unbroken, and the khaffit was pressing the attack.

Ashia leapt in the moment of distraction, but she was tackled before she could reach the demon by the old woman, faster than a Sharum’ting, stronger than a rock demon. They hit the ground in a roll, and the woman flung Ashia like a doll against the cavern wall.

Briar got the woman’s attention with another spray from his waterskin. Her wrinkled flesh rippled, and the woman became a field demon, a sleek fast form well suited to the small underground chamber. The creature puffed, growing the armor plating of a rock demon, spiked and sharp. Its eyes and mouth glowed with flame.

The mimic swiped at Briar, who dove aside just in time, rolling to avoid the spatter as the demon hawked a glob of burning firespit at him.

The mimic’s face melted, becoming the long beak of a lightning demon that shrieked a bolt of electricity at Briar.

Briar had his shield up in time, deflecting the worst of it, but Ashia saw pain jolt through his aura. He screamed, and Ashia snarled, charging the creature.

She struck first with her voice, a vibrating shriek she could maintain indefinitely, amplified by the hora stones of her necklace. The sound cut through the chamber, and the mimic stumbled, crying out in pain. Even the mind demon put its thin, skeletal hands over its earholes.

She snapped the ends of her short spears together, now six feet of spinning, razor-sharp warded glass. She battered and sliced at the mimic’s limbs, severing as much as she could before the creature regained its wits.

But the stumps didn’t bleed, the mimic melting into a larger, even more menacing form.

Ashia paid the form little mind, focusing on the magic in the creature’s aura. Healing and shape-shifting Drew heavily on that power. Their only chance was to wear it down quickly.

The demon lashed out at her, a tentacle growing from nothing as quickly as a cracking whip. It would have had her, but Briar hit the creature from the side in a shield-rush, stunning it with the mimic wards etched into the steel.

Ashia used the distraction to stab the creature in the heart, jolting it and causing another drain on its power to grow a new one.

Briar stabbed next, piercing that new organ, and as one they let go of the weapons, leaving them to continue sending waves of killing magic through the creature.

Ashia fell into the sharukin she had studied all her life, driving stiffened fingers into the convergence points in the demon’s aura. Her nails, painted with wards and lacquered hard, struck its armor like a hammer to a nutshell. Each blow sent feedback jolting through her, filling her with strength and speed as the demon’s aura waned. Even Kaji took a portion of it, the boy laughing gleefully, unaware of the danger they faced.

Briar turned to bare hands as well, his pressure and impact wards strong as any spear and shield as he batted aside the demon’s blows, striking with short, fast, open-hand counters. An eyeblink could miss one, but Ashia could see the damage throb and build in the demon’s aura.

They hammered at the weakened and stunned creature again and again until Ashia saw her opening. She tore her spear from its body and spun it in an arc, striking the demon’s head from its body.

She completed the circuit with another spin, turning and hurling her spear at the mind demon. But before it could strike, a shield deflected the weapon, sending it clattering to the floor on the far end of the chamber. Hasik interposed himself.

“Everam has granted me another day,” Hasik said. “None will stand against me.”

“You have left Everam’s sight, Uncle.” Ashia took another of the supports from Kaji’s pack, warded glass laced with electrum by the Damajah herself. She snapped open the blade of a short scythe as she rolled her glass shield onto her arm. “There is nothing He would grant to one such as you.”

“We shall see, little girl.”

Hasik came in hard. Ashia caught his blows on her shield, or hooked them away with the scythe, but she was unprepared for his ferocity. For a moment, it was all she could do to block the rapid thrusts and spinning slashes of his spear. With Kaji on her back, she could not commit to moves that exposed the boy to a counter, so she gave ground, desperately seeking a weakness in the Eunuch’s defenses.

Briar saw her distress and charged at Hasik’s back. Ashia gave no sign, but Hasik dropped beneath the blow at the last instant, delivering a crushing kick that put Briar on his back.

Ashia pressed, but Hasik was not distracted, never lowering his defense even as he all but crippled Briar. They clinched, and he bashed her in the face with his forehead, laughing wildly as she stumbled back.

She dropped beneath his next blow, hurling her shield at him as she dove into a tumble, popping the weighted end off her scythe and drawing out the slender chain hidden in the shaft. She threw, catching Hasik’s ankle as he dodged the thrown shield.

Ashia pulled, but Hasik was wise to the move, using the leverage and strength of her pull to throw himself at her, kicking her hard in the face. A snap of his armored ankle yanked the scythe from her hand and sent it skittering away.

Ashia hurled throwing glass at him as he rolled to regain balance, but Hasik’s shield was in place, catching all but one. This last struck his robes with a plink! and dropped, stopped short by his glass breastplate.

With no time to ready another weapon, Ashia fell into a sharusahk pose to meet Hasik’s next charge.

The move made the Eunuch stop short. He glanced at Briar, but the boy was still on his back groaning. She could see in his aura that Hasik had broken Briar’s hip. He was holding it in place as his magic knit the bones, but he would not heal quickly enough for her to count on his aid.

“Put down the child,” Hasik offered. “Give me a real battle.”

“Never,” Ashia replied.

Hasik pulled the scarf away from his throat. “Put down the child and I will put down my spear and shield.”

“Why would you do that?” Ashia asked.

“Because I want to see what Enkido made of you,” Hasik said. “What he made of my daughter.”

“Your daughter was ashamed of you,” Ashia said. “Even before the khaffit cut you, Sikvah said you brought shame upon your house daily, outspending even the pay of a Spear of the Deliverer to cover your gambling and heasah. Striking everyone from slaves to your Jiwah Ka.”

Hasik threw down his spear. “Show me what Enkido made of you before I kill you with my bare hands.”

“And my son?” Ashia asked.

Hasik smiled. “If you fail, I will do the same to him and your foul-smelling friend.”

“Then I will not fail.” Ashia stepped slowly around to where her shield had rolled against the chamber wall. She flipped it over with her foot and slipped off Kaji’s pack, laying it in the protective circle. She was loath to take him from her, but there was no denying the advantage Hasik offered. She could not afford to refuse the opportunity.

“Do not thrash, my son,” she whispered. “Let my shield protect you until I return. I love you always.”

A tear slipped free to land on his cheek before Ashia realized she was weeping. She squinted and the drops fell like rain on the boy’s face.

Kaji only smiled. “Mommy fight.”

Ashia nodded, using the motion as she brushed away the tears to slip the last support from Kaji’s pack into her sleeve. “Yes, my love. Be brave.”

“Mommy brave,” Kaji agreed.

As she stepped away from her son, Hasik kicked his spear and shield aside, assuming a sharusahk stance. Behind him, Abban and the demon stared at each other, locked in some unholy battle. The aura between them was alive in a way Ashia had never seen before. There was no way to make sense of it, or to guess how much longer the khaffit could hold the creature at bay.

She assumed a stance of her own, skittering in to face him.

Hasik bared his gap tooth, blowing out a whistle. “Begin.”

Briar wanted to scream as he watched Ashia stalk in to face Hasik, but he knew what happened if you let a bone heal wrong. He had to keep still, putting pressure on his hip until it knit straight.

When the fighting began, it was almost too fast to follow. They looked like dancers with a practiced routine. Many of their moves were identical in form and execution—economical and precise.

Hasik had the advantage in height, weight, and reach. Ashia had greater speed, balance, and flexibility, but it was not enough to make a telling difference. She was holding her own, but Hasik was landing more blows than her. Most were just bashes against the armor plates in her robes, but such strikes still hurt, stunned, and bruised. In time, they would wear her down.

There was a growl, and Briar turned to see a sand demon stick its head from one of the tunnels leading into the caverns below. Letting go of his hip with one hand, he snatched his spear and threw it, taking it in its thinly armored belly. The demon yelped and fell, letting out a cry that was echoed farther down the tunnels.

He crawled on three limbs to keep the injured hip straight, untying the strings on small pouches of hogroot powder. These he flung into the tunnel entrances, putting up a cloud the demons would find noxious and difficult to pass. The effect would lessen over time, and from the sound of the howling in the tunnel, the sheer press from behind might force them through. “Ent got a lot of time, Ashia!”

Caught up in battle with Hasik, Ashia made no reply. By the time Briar dragged himself to his spear, he was feeling stronger. He gripped the shaft, point still embedded in the dying sand demon, and felt a jolt of power through the ward tattooed on his hand.

He lifted the spear, driving the point in deeper and out the demon’s other side, hastening its death as he used the spear as a cane to pull himself upright. He tested his weight on his broken hip and found it would hold.

He looked from Ashia’s battle to the khaffit and the mind demon, then pulled the spear free and drew back for a throw.

Something struck his arm as it came forward. When he tried to loose, Briar found the spear stuck to his hand with what looked like spider-silk. He glanced up just as the cave demon dropped on him from above.

Ashia caught a punch on her forearms, turning her thigh to block a kick without costing her balance. The move left her unable to guard against Hasik’s second punch, a powerful hook to the ribs.

The glass plates in Ashia’s robe took the brunt of the blow, but it knocked the breath out of her, bruising muscle and cracking bone. This was not the first time Hasik had struck that precise spot.

Still, she left another opening a moment later. When Hasik struck, she caught the blow, twisting under his wrist and keeping the hold as she ran up his thigh and scissored her legs around his throat.

It was a perfectly executed takedown, but Hasik was heavy, and strong as a rock demon. He danced about, keeping his feet and hooking punches into her. Ashia landed a few blows to his head, but was forced to relinquish the hold when she could not get full control.

“I never met the legendary Enkido,” Hasik said. “At least not before he cut off his own cock and tongue. But even then his name was honored, and feared.” He spat blood on the chamber floor. “He would be ashamed of you.”

Ashia growled and came back at him, but she was beginning to fear he was right. She glanced about for Briar, and found him fighting for his life against an eight-legged demon shaped like a giant, armored spider.

She and Hasik traded blows again. Hasik’s breastplate was impenetrable glass, and did not absorb blows like her own armor plates. Punching it was like punching a wall while Hasik laughed on the other side.

But there were seams, and gaps in the joints, to allow freedom of movement. She struck at these, weakening his lines of power, but it was a slow attrition compared with the teeth-chattering, breath-stealing blows he dealt in return, looking—as she was—for opportunities to deliver a crippling move.

At last one came. Hasik snaked an arm around hers, locking her elbow and pulling tight as he pivoted into a throw. Ashia felt her shoulder snap from its socket and she struck the ground hard, stunned.

Hasik would have had her then, but there were sudden cries and sounds of battle on the far side of the door to the keep. Ashia heard her grandfather’s voice shouting above the din.

In that moment of distraction, Ashia flicked the scythe from the sleeve of her good arm. Snapping the blade open, she slashed it along the narrow seam at the waist of Hasik’s armor.

Hasik’s grip weakened as she opened his intestines, and Ashia twisted free, turning a full circuit into another slash, this one meant for his throat.

“Don’t!” a familiar voice commanded. Ashia looked to see Kaji standing just a few feet from her, holding her other scythe to his own throat.

Ashia gasped and stumbled back from Hasik without a killing blow. One arm hung limp, shoulder snapped like a twig, but she kept hold of her weapon.

“Drop it, Mommy,” Kaji said. “Or I drop.”

“Put the blade down, my love.” She choked out the words.

“No.” It was Kaji’s favorite word. The most powerful one in his vocabulary.

“Kaji asu Asome am’Jardir am’Kaji,” Ashia sharpened her tone. “Put that blade down this instant.”

The boy hesitated, and Ashia took a tentative step forward.

“No.” Kaji lifted the scythe higher, pressing the razor edge against his skin.

Ashia pulled up short, close enough to see her tears still streaking the boy’s face, but too far to stop him before he could cut his own throat. She lowered her own blade, even as Hasik, holding his intestines in with one arm, pushed himself to his feet.

“Please, my son,” she begged. “Be brave.”

She watched his aura, saw his pure glow and the darkness that had infected it. The demon had a hold on him that she could not break with words.

But then the lines on Kaji’s face began to glow, Ashia’s tears binding the ambient magic to her wish to keep him safe. The glow spread, driving away the demon’s shadow.

Even the palm weeps, when the storm washes over it, Enkido once told her. The tears of Everam’s spear sisters are all the more precious for how seldom they fall.

Kaji turned to look at the mind demon, scythe dropping from his tiny hand. “No.”

The word seemed to have a physical effect on the demon. It shook with effort, ichor running from its nostrils and ears, much as blood ran from Abban’s as they locked stares.

Hasik lunged, a long knife in his hand, but Ashia was ready, hooking his wrist aside with her scythe as she delivered a kick to his wounded midsection. Still he bore into her, taking her down to the ground where they both struggled for control.

Briar rolled this way and that, contorting himself to avoid the rapid strikes of the cave demon’s legs, covered with sharp spikes to grip and hold in sheer stone walls. It reared back, legs beating a drum rhythm on the floor as it struck.

Briar managed to get his shield on his arm. He caught the demon’s blows more easily now, but the corie had greater reach, and his return strikes at its bulbous abdomen fell short.

Across the chamber, he saw Kaji lift the blade to his throat. Briar froze, and the demon nearly had him. He barely managed to scramble away from its next series of blows. Sensing the advantage, the demon began snapping at him with the thick pincers around its maw, dripping venom that sizzled against the wards on his shield.

“No,” Kaji said, dropping the scythe as he turned to look at the mind demon. Briar followed his gaze for an instant, and saw the demon shaken.

With his shield hand, Briar pulled the waterskin from his belt, hurling it at the cave demon’s maw. The corie caught the skin in its pincers, popping it in a spray of hogroot tea. It fell back shrieking, and Briar rushed in, knocking the demon back with his shield’s forbidding.

Then he turned and hurled his spear as hard as he could at the mind demon’s head.

He didn’t wait to see if it struck, darting forward in the weapon’s wake. It blasted through the mind’s thick cranium, and Briar was there an instant later, slamming the impact ward on his palm against the demon’s throat. He pinned the corie with a knee as he fell atop it, taking hold of the spear on either side of the demon’s head. With a mighty flex, he turned it like a capstan and heard the demon’s neck snap.

The mind demon gave a last shriek, cranium throbbing as its body bucked and thrashed. The cave demon gave a shrill cry and collapsed on its back, legs curling.

Hasik, too, gave a shout, going limp long enough for Ashia to establish a controlling hold. Abban groaned, putting a hand to his face.

Moments later, Khevat and Icha burst through the doors, robes wet with blood.

Hasik shook his head to clear it, even as Khevat, Icha, and their men surrounded him. He was on his knees, propped on one hand while the other tried to hold in his intestines, but he was still dangerous and everyone knew it.

Ashia moved to collect her spears. Her arm was still numb, hanging limp at her side. Kaji stumbled to her, wrapping his arms around her leg, oblivious to the blood soaking the silk. “Mama.”

“You were very brave, my son,” Ashia said.

“Bave like Mama,” Kaji agreed.

Abban had collapsed on the floor. Briar went to him, dragging him to the wall and propping him against it. “You all right?”

Abban sniffed, wrinkling his nose. “The spy.”

“Saved your life,” Briar reminded him.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Hasik demanded. “Fetch the chin Gatherer. I need…”

Ashia put her spear to the nape of his neck. “You need nothing, servant of Nie.”

More men were pouring into the chamber. Not all were Khevat’s warriors, and many looked ready to continue the fighting and free their leader.

But then Briar took hold of the body of the demon prince and threw its ruin beside Hasik. The men looked on in horror at the creature, the symbol of everything they had been taught from cradle to sharaj to fear and hate.

“I am Ashia vah Ashan, Sharum’ting Ka of Krasia!” Ashia shouted. “You have been duped, warriors of Everam, but I have come with an offer of redemption. Even now, the alagai press the Damajah’s forces at Everam’s Reservoir. Many of you have friends there. Family. Ride with me there now, and your crimes will be forgiven. Remain behind, and when Sharak Ka is over the victorious armies of the Deliverer will hunt you down.”

“If they are victorious,” Hasik sneered. “The Deliverer is dead. His son…”

“Was murdered by you!” Khevat shouted.

Ashia nodded. “Hasik, shame of his family, for the murder of my brother-in-law Prince Jayan, and desertion from the Deliverer’s Army, I sentence you to death.”

Hasik had been gathering his strength. He whirled quickly, but he was not quick enough. Ashia thrust her spear, severing his spine at the neck. The eunuch’s body went limp, and he collapsed. Before anyone could move, she drew back and slashed her spear, severing his head.

“Bring it,” she commanded, “and the demon’s head as well. Let those above see who they were following as they make their choice.”