The Desert Prince

by Brett, Peter V.

  * * *

  —

  The stars are brighter in Desert Spear than they are in Hollow. “Light pollution” Mother called it. The glow of the greatward and abundance of lectric lights in the capital canceling out the light from above.

  There is no light pollution here. Constellations I’ve only read about are visible to the naked eye, and as my sight adjusts, I find they are enough for me to see where the sky ends and the sand dunes begin. My stomach clenches as I trace their shapes with my eyes, searching for sign of the enemy.

  It comes slowly, and not as the individual cries and dark, loping shapes I remember from the borough tour. It is a droning buzz, like a swarm of flies, rising in pitch until it is a whine that grates on my nerves like nails on slate. It is a cloud of dust, rolling over the dunes like a wind-borne fog.

  The Watchers set great wardlights shining out into the sands, and we watch in silent tension as, slowly but inexorably, the sands begin to churn with demons. Most are no larger than dogs, but they are all sharp edges. Thousands of hard scales like jagged glass, matching the color of the desert sands. If not for their movements and the spotlights, they would be all but invisible.

  “There must be hundreds of them.” Gorvan is no coward, but he looks ready to flee, and I can’t blame him.

  “Quiet,” Chikga snaps. “This is only the first wave. We must deal with them swiftly, before their fellows arrive.”

  Iraven is not far from us, standing on the battlements above the gate. I cannot deny he looks dashing in his white turban and Sharum blacks, an inspiration to all who see him. The spear and shield slung across his back are infused with hora, their wards glowing even now, pregnant with power.

  Iraven signals one of his lieutenants, who puts a horn to his lips and blows a series of notes. Immediately, the great gears of the portcullis begin to screech and turn as the gate is raised. The sand demons waste no time, racing through the opening into the Maze.

  A handful of warriors stand ready to greet them, vastly outnumbered. As the corelings come howling toward them I clench my fists in fear. “What are they doing?”

  “Baiting them,” Chadan says. “Baiters lure the alagai into ambushes and traps to thin their numbers and separate them from their brethren. It is the most dangerous task in the Maze. Their glory is boundless.”

  Indeed, the Baiters shout and clash their spears against their shields, raising a cacophony to draw the demons’ attention, waiting long moments before they turn and race deeper into the Maze as the sand demons give chase.

  When enough corelings have entered, Iraven signals the horn player again. The chains are freed and gravity pulls the heavy portcullis down with tremendous speed and power. The wards on its spiked bottom flash as they strike the demons still pressuring to get inside, cutting more than a few of them in half. These scrabble forward on their front claws, shrieking and slavering, seemingly unaware they are dying.

  The sand demons racing after the Baiters are faster on open ground, but the twists, turns, and obstacles of the Maze slow them. From atop the walls I can see how the Maze was built on ancient ruins, territory ceded to the night when the corelings first returned. Many of the old walls and buildings still stand, used along with new construction to hinder pursuit and funnel the enemy into ambush points.

  “Oot!” a Baiter cries as he races full tilt around a corner into a dead end, a pack of sand demons on his heels. He moves with practiced ease into a warded alcove as the demons roar in after him. They scrabble ineffectually as the wards around the alcove spark and flare, turning their claws. Warriors charge from ambush pockets to either side, skewering them on warded spears.

  I clench a fist at the sight as if the victory is my own. In a way it is. There is no tribe here, no blood debts. Veiled, we are only men, standing against the alagai. A win for them is a win for us all.

  Other traps are similarly sprung. One Baiter quicksteps over a narrow path and the sand demons charging after him collapse dusty tarps covering demon pits to either side. The corelings shriek as they fall, some impaled on the warded stakes at the bottom, and others stymied by the circle of power that let them enter, but won’t let them leave. They will be trapped until the sun rises to burn them away.

  Two of the demons make it across the same pathway the Baiter used. One is quickly dropped by the short bow of a Watcher atop the walls. The other is netted by an ambush team and speared.

  The wards along the warriors’ weapons flare as they puncture the demon’s armor, and I see a bit of the power pulse up their arms, giving them added strength and vitality. I remember the rush of it from the night of the borough tour. Part of me has craved that feeling ever since.

  All around are similar ambushes. One Baiter, chased by a lone demon, turns and sets his feet, bashing the creature with his shield. The wards flare, driving the demon into the Maze wall where wards cut into the stone shock through its body like lightning. It drops, stunned, and the warrior drives his spear through its skull.

  “You see?” Drillmaster Amaj says. “Fight when you must, but let the terrain fight for you when you can.”

  The sand demons are nimble, their claws finding easy purchase on the sandstone walls. Some of them climb, attempting to get above their prey, but wardings run along the walls at regular intervals, and they find themselves suddenly thrown to the ground, vulnerable.

  More Baiters lead large packs still deeper into the Maze, where ambush teams lie in wait, and dead ends are shaped into wards so powerful any demon touching them might as well step into sunlight.

  With the first wave under control, Iraven signals his hornblower again, and the portcullis is raised. Demons pour through the gates, but as I look back to the dunes beyond the city walls, the sight makes me fear I will foul my bido. The cloud of dust on the horizon has only grown. If it was hundreds before, it is thousands now.

  Iraven sees it, too. “A short raising only,” he tells Chikga. “We’ll thin their numbers as much as we can, but I want the portcullis down and the gates sealed before the storm arrives in full. It will be missile fire after that.”

  “Your will, Sharum Ka.” Chikga punches a fist to his chest and turns to Chadan. “Nie Ka, assist the scorpion and sling teams in loading.”

  Chadan punches a fist to his chest and begins shouting orders, breaking the nie’Sharum into small teams to assist individual machines. The scorpions are gigantic crank bows, powered by heavy springs. They throw spears the size of small trees. It normally takes two boys to haul one of the giant stingers, but I easily heft one over my shoulder, leaving Thivan empty-handed. He runs instead to carry the baskets of small warded stones, dumping them into sling buckets big enough to bathe in. The sling teams will be able to launch deadly swarms of stones into the coming storm.

  A shriek from above turns our eyes skyward as a flight of wind demons swoops down on the city. In their hind talons each carries a large chunk of masonry, and I feel I might sick up at the sight.

  “They’re attacking with the broken walls of the csars.” Iraven draws a ward in the air, and the rest of us quickly follow suit. Individually, wind demons cannot carry enough mass to damage the walls, but there are hundreds of them, and should the corelings fly just above the wardnet, they could rain them down on the warriors in the Maze.

  Iraven turns to the hornblower. “Tell the men to take cover.”

  The order is quickly relayed, and the warriors in the Maze scramble into shelters as the scorpion teams turn their massive bows skyward, waiting for the demons to come into range. The catapult teams race to make adjustments, but the great machines, aimed at the mass of demons before the gates, are slow to reposition.

  The demons, however, do not fly out over the Maze. Instead they pull up short, releasing their projectiles into the mass of corelings crowding the open gate. The scorpions fire into the mass, dropping some of the demons from the sky, but it makes litt
le difference as their stones fall like rain in the open ground before the gates.

  It seems mad, but then the sands explode as snub-nosed clay demons burst from the ground. They swarm the stones like ants, using their armored faceplates to push them into the breach.

  “What are they doing?” I ask aloud.

  “I don’t…” Chikga gasps. “Everam’s beard! They’re going to hold open the gate!”

  “Close the portcullis!” Iraven cries. “Now!”

  The hornblower raises his instrument to his lips, but before he can sound the notes, one of the flying demons lets loose a thunderous cry, and a bolt of lightning flies from its beak, blasting the hornblower off the wall. He lands on the Maze floor, scorched and smoking.

  “Nie’s black heart!” Drillmaster Amaj is moving for the stair even as the rest of us dive for cover. He leaps over the wall, dropping to the first landing and racing into the gatehouse.

  A few moments later, the portcullis drops, but the damage has been done. The clay demons have piled enough stones in place that the gate cannot close fully, and corelings continue to pour through the gap. On the horizon, two massive shapes appear.

  Rock demons.

  For a moment, Iraven stands frozen.

  “Sharum Ka?” Chikga prods.

  Iraven shakes himself, then rolls his shield down onto his arm even as he reaches over his shoulder for his spear. He raises the weapon, pointing. “Scorpions! Target the rock demons! Do not let them get close enough to raise the portcullis further! Sling teams! Scatter the demons making for the gates!”

  He turns, eyes falling on Chadan. “Nie Ka. Send your nie’Sharum to inform the warriors in the Maze to break position and muster in the fourth layer. Call out clear paths to avoid the alagai until we can regroup. They are not to engage. Drillmasters, you’re with me.”

  “What is the plan?” Amaj asks.

  A chill runs through me as I follow Iraven’s gaze down to the corelings flooding into the Maze. “We’re going to retake the gate and seal it.”

  * * *

  —

  Chadan breaks the nie’Sharum into pairs, sending them scattered in every direction, racing along the walltops to call Iraven’s orders down to the warriors. As I wait to be assigned, I watch my brother ready his personal guard to march to what is most likely their doom.

  Iraven kidnapped me. Sold me for the white turban in some Majah power struggle I barely understand. I thought him a coward. I thought he didn’t value life as I do. But there is no hesitation, no cowardice, as he throws down his life for his people.

  “Men of Majah!” Prince Iraven clashes his spear against his shield. “The Father of Demons comes for your mothers! He comes for your sisters and wives and children! What path must he take?”

  The Sharum clatter their spears and shout in reply. “The path of spears!”

  “Everam is watching!” Iraven barks. “Make Him proud!” He charges for the gatehouse stair. His men give a shout and follow, all of them ready to die for Desert Spear and its people.

  Perhaps that is what being a man means to them. And if so, I was wrong to sneer. It is a trait worth emulating. Mother commands the Hollow Soldiers, but she does not lead from the front. She protects Hollow with plots and magic, not blood and bone.

  “Olive.” I look back to see Chadan waiting. The rest of the nie’Sharum are gone. “You’re with me.”

  I shake off my surprise. “Wouldn’t it make sense—?”

  “To pair you with a weaker boy?” Chadan finishes. “No. The weakest go to inner layers, where the Maze is still clear. The Sharum stationed there will begin immediate retreat, and use their hornblowers to amplify the command. We are princes, and the strongest among them. It is our duty to go where the fighting is thickest.”

  The attack on the borough tour flashes before my eyes again. The screams. The blood. The seemingly endless hours after, spent tending the wounded.

  “I’m afraid,” I admit.

  Chadan lays a hand on my shoulder. “So am I. But we are still going.”

  I nod, and we run.

  As we feared, the outermost layers are sorely pressed. The fighting is everywhere, tight formations broken into chaotic bubbles of individual combat. There is no retreat for these men. They are scattered with the enemy all around them, but still they fight. If Iraven can close the gate, some of them might survive. If he cannot…

  “The alagai have wedged the gate!” Chadan calls to a team of eight warriors lying in wait in an ambush pocket. “The outer layers are overrun! Fall back to the fourth layer and join the formations waiting on the Sharum Ka’s signal!”

  The men start to leave cover to comply, but then their Baiter runs around the corner crying “Oot! Oot!”

  With quick precision, the warriors retreat to their warded ambush pocket, invisible to the dozen or more corelings that come howling after the fleeing warrior.

  The Baiter, oblivious to the battle raging in his wake, keeps his focus, running swiftly across the seven-inch path between two large demon pits, camouflaged with heavy, sand-covered tarps.

  We’ve practiced the Push Guard drill countless times in sharaj. Coming out of the narrow tunnel into the wider ambush pit, the demons will spread out in an attempt to surround the warrior. Unable to distinguish the pits, they will collapse the tarps, falling onto a bed of warded spears.

  The Push Guard lock shields and lower their spears. Before the trap is sprung, they are already moving from the ambush pocket, beginning a charge that will drive any demons that manage to pull up in time into the pit with the others.

  One lucky demon follows the Baiter closely enough to find the secure path, and I get my first close look at a sand demon. The size of a large hound, its yellow scales glitter like broken glass, with jagged spikes protecting the joints and a sharp ridge along its back. Its horns are low and curve backward, offering no resistance to its sleek four-legged lope. Its talons leave great grooves in the hard clay of the path.

  But even as that one races ahead, the others pull up well short of the pits, suddenly turning on the advancing Push Guard.

  “What?” Chadan breathes.

  “How could they know?” I ask.

  “They couldn’t,” he says, but somehow, they did. Suddenly, the guard is outnumbered two to one, with the trap unsprung. The small team is designed to ram stray demons into the pits, not fight directly against long odds.

  The sudden shouts of the men cause the Baiter to look back over his shoulder before he makes it to his warded escape pocket. He stumbles at the sight, and it’s all the sand demon needs to close the gap and leap, catching him in the leg with a hooked talon that severs an artery with almost surgical precision. Blood spurts from the wound and the warrior gives a cry as the leg collapses. He gets his shield up, knocking the demon away, and hurls his spear, taking the coreling in the side.

  The demon drops, but the damage is done. The warrior tries to rise, but he is losing blood too quickly, and his fellows cannot get to him. Already two of the Push Guard are being torn apart. Two more are bleeding freely, and the others are hard-pressed. The demons have cut them off from the safety of the ambush pocket.

  “Retreat!” the Baiter cries. “Find reinforcements! My soul is ready for the lonely path!”

  I watch, incredulous, as the remaining guard lock shields and throw back one last press, then turn and flee. “Your glory this night will not be forgotten, brother!” one of them cries.

  The demons follow, pouring from the ambush pocket, but the warriors know the terrain better, slipping into warded buildings to access tunnels beneath the walls.

  I look back to the Baiter, clutching at his wound in an attempt to stem the flow of blood pooling around him. The sand demon he dropped whines, scrabbling with its paws at the spear embedded in its side until the weapon is knocked free. I know from experience that th
e coreling is already healing. Given time, demons can recover from almost any wound that does not sever a body part or kill them outright.

  I turn to Chadan. “We have to help him!”

  “No!” the Nie Ka orders. “We’re unarmed, and it is forbidden for nie’Sharum to set foot in the Maze.”

  He’s right. We’re wearing only bidos and sandals, and without warded weapons, the strongest blows momentarily stun a coreling at best. If we go down there, we’ll be lucky to come out alive.

  The demon gets shakily to its feet. The warrior, focused on crawling toward the warded alcove he meant to shelter in, seems unaware of the threat. He’s lost so much blood it’s hard to believe he’s conscious at all, but still he struggles.

  Never stop fighting.

  “To the Core with what’s forbidden,” I growl, hoping the words will strike to the heart of him. “Are we men, or not?”

  Then I leap from the wall.

  29

  MEN

  The Maze walls are twenty feet tall. Too high for others to jump, perhaps, but I’m not like other people. The impact shocks up my legs as I hit the sandstone floor of the Maze, but I embrace the pain and absorb it, rolling away as much of the energy as I can.

  “Olive!” Chadan shouts as I come back to my feet, running to the fallen warrior.

  “Begone,” the Baiter croaks. “My soul is…”

  “Quiet.” I grab his night veil and pull it away, twisting the cloth as I tie it tightly around his leg to stem the blood flow. The wound is severe, but I know the surgeons at Gatherers’ University could save the leg. No doubt the dama’ting can as well, if the man lives long enough to see them.

  I keep an eye on the demon as I work. It breathes in a wet wheeze, but each stumbling step in our direction is steadier than the last. I reach for the warrior’s shield as a rope drops from above, and Chadan rappels down to land lightly beside us.

  “You’re going to get us killed,” he says, but he takes up the shield, positioning himself between us and the demon.