Qeran looked at him, and Abban remembered how brutally the man had treated him in sharaj. He waited patiently, and savoured the slight nod Qeran gave him. ‘Abban’s hundred.’
Abban nodded, turning his gaze back to look out from the walls one last time before leaving the drillmaster to command as he limped back to the safety of the underpalace growing beneath the squat building in the centre of his compound.
Inevera found Asome and Asukaji in their private chambers in Ahmann’s underpalace. The two were playing with Asome’s infant son, Kaji.
‘What is it now, Mother?’ Asome glared at her as she entered, Ashia at her back. ‘Has not humiliation enough been heaped upon me?’
Inevera looked sadly at her son.
— The only thing that exceeds his potential is his ambition — the dice had said when she cast them eighteen years ago, bathed in his birthing blood. It told her he would be powerful, but spoke a warning as well.
‘Your wife and I will walk the walls during the battle, my son,’ she said. ‘I invite you to come with us.’
Asome looked at her as if sensing a trap. ‘Hasn’t Father ordered his wives and the dama’ting into the underpalace as well?’
Inevera shrugged. ‘Perhaps, but who will dare stop us?’
‘I might,’ Asome said.
Inevera nodded. ‘Or you might follow me … for my own safety. Surely your father would forgive you that.’
Asome turned to Asukaji. ‘Just you, my son,’ Inevera said.
The two men looked back at her, mistrust in their eyes once more.
‘Ahmann has not dissolved your marriage, Asome. At least, not yet. I would walk with my son and daughter-in-law at my side as Alagai Ka walks the night.’ She looked to Asukaji and infant Kaji. ‘Surely while we are gone, my nephew will protect my grandson as if he were his own.’
Asome darkened a bit at that, but Asukaji laid a hand on his arm. ‘It is all right, cousin. Go.’ His voice dropped to a whisper, but Inevera, her senses sharpened by magic, heard him. ‘I will keep our son until your return.’ He kissed Asome with such tenderness that Inevera’s heart ached for them both, but Ashia’s shifting behind her was a reminder that there was a third side in the triangle.
She looked to her grandson. And poor Kaji in the middle.
They walked in silence to the wall of the inner city. Inevera wore opaque robes of white silk, looking much like her dama’ting robes of old, but she wore her hood back, and her veil was gossamer. The warded gold coins were warm at her forehead, and she wore considerable jewellery, not all of it decorative. Her robes shimmered with wards of unsight stitched in electrum thread. The wards were Mistress Leesha’s, stolen from Ahmann’s Cloak of Unsight, but even knowing the Skull Throne would hold the alagai from the wall, she could not deny the comfort they gave her in the naked night.
Take her power and make it your own, Manvah had said, and Inevera silently thanked her mother once more for the lesson. She would have been a fool to turn away such magics simply because she despised the source.
But even without the protections of her robes and the Skull Throne, Inevera felt safe so long as Ashia was at her side. Enkido had told Inevera he could not be prouder of the girl’s fighting skill if she had been his own daughter.
Born to sharusahk, his nimble hands had said.
Ashia had a short, stabbing spear over her right shoulder, along with a small quiver of arrows. In her left hand, the same arm where she strapped her round shield, she gripped a short bow. The weapons were banded with warded gold and strips of hora. The armour beneath her black robes was indestructible warded glass, moulded to accent her feminine figure rather than mask it. Asome’s expression was unreadable as he regarded his wife.
The Mehnding Sharum guarding the gatehouse began buzzing among themselves as the trio approached. A moment later a kai’Sharum appeared, blocking their path with a deep bow. ‘Apologies, Damajah, but …’
Asome was moving before the man could straighten, taking his chin firmly in hand as he threw. There was an audible snap, and the man hit the ground, dead. ‘Does anyone else wish to hinder the Damajah?’
The remaining Sharum fell to their knees, pressing foreheads to the cobbled street. After a moment, a red-veiled drillmaster rose with a bow and escorted them up to the wall.
The Mehnding tribe was third largest of the twelve tribes of Krasia, due in no small part to the mastery of war engines and ranged weapons that kept them from the close combat other Sharum engaged in. They were more engineers and marksmen than warriors, but they manned the walls of the inner and outer city with the steel-eyed vigilance of trained killers.
Everam’s Bounty was built on a hill, with the inner city at its peak. Ahmann’s palace was its highest point, but even the low wall of the inner city offered an impressive vantage of the countryside. Wardlight dotted the terrain as the sun set, and mirrored bonfires sprang up to help the Sharum see the enemy.
And as feared, the enemy came in force. The Skull Throne protected a large section of ground past the walls, but in the unwarded patches of the outer city, massive rock demons — larger than anything Inevera had ever seen — rose to tower over the warriors assembled to contain them. At their heels clustered field and flame demons, filling the open patches in seething scales and gouts of bright flame.
The Mehnding kai’Sharum signalled the attack. Keen-eyed spotters with distance lenses mounted on tripods called calculations to the stinger and sling teams, who adjusted their tensions accordingly and began to fire. Giant stinger spears arced into the air, their powerful warding blasting through even rock demon armour. The sling teams, careful to give no ammunition to the rocks, fired payloads of small warded stones that scattered demons with hundreds of tiny explosions of magic.
They did heavy damage, as did the teams of Mehnding bowmen bolstering the infantry. The alagai screamed, and for a moment, men had the advantage.
But then the rocks began to dig, heedless of the smaller demons they brushed aside. Several of them had large stingers jutting from their armour, but none had been brought down. They were quickly underground, safe from missile fire, even as the stinger and sling teams hurried to reload.
The teams had time to fire again, killing dozens of the smaller demons, but then the first rock reappeared holding a sizable boulder. Arrows fell on it like rain, but seemed to hinder it no more than insect bites as it cocked its arm and threw, blasting the stone through the nearest wardpillar, breaking a portion of the net. Immediately the field demons charged the breach, moving with terrifying speed. The Sharum locked their shields, but were not fully in position to hold the breach. The demons fell on them, tearing and biting as others circled around, some harrying their flanks and yet more escaping unhindered into the night to stalk the unwary. Firespit scattered off shields, starting blazes that quickly grew on their own.
The rock bent, digging again, as several more of its fellows rose with boulders of their own.
Inevera had never seen fighting on such a scale. The Sharum acquitted themselves well, but even she could see the alagai acted with unusual cunning, striking in unexpected places and steadily weakening the wardnet of the outer city, slowly working their way up the hill towards the inner walls. They would not enter, but the demons could easily smash the walls and rain destruction on the city. Fires and collapsing buildings could kill as easily as alagai talons.
Out in the city, the Sharum were fighting for their lives. Rock demons occasionally lobbed stones into clusters of warriors, breaking them apart long enough for the field and flame demons to swarm the openings. Most of the men were armoured, but that meant little against boulders and firespit. Wind demons began to circle in the sky above the wardnet, dropping stones carried in their hind talons. Their aim was less precise than the rocks, but the havoc they created did more damage than the stones themselves.