Demon Cycle 04 - The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  “Food is scarce enough after the alagai burned the fields on Waning,” Ashan said. “We cannot burn more fields—or butcher those who tend them—if we wish to see the spring.”

  “What is to stop the chin from burning fields next?” Semmel of the Anjha asked. “Even the great tribes do not have men to protect the land from its very inhabitants.”

  “You cannot let this go unpunished, Andrah,” Aleverak said. “The chin attacked us in the night, when all men are brothers, killing dama and burning sacred ground. We must respond, and quickly, lest we embolden the enemy.”

  “And we shall,” Ashan said. “You are correct this cannot be tolerated. We must find those responsible and execute them publicly, but we will only feed the rebel ranks if we hold all the chin responsible for the actions of a few.”

  Inevera hid her smile. Ashan had said the words exactly as she had instructed him, though his first reaction to the attacks had not been far from that of Enkaji.

  “Your pardon, Andrah, but all the chin are responsible,” said Damaji Rejji of the Bajin. “They are hiding the rebels and the children. What difference if they set a fire or offer their cellar as a hiding place?”

  “We must show them their defiance comes at a price,” Jayan said, thumping his spear. “A high price, paid by all, so that the next rebels are turned over by their own people in fear of our wrath.” Many of the Damaji nodded eagerly at the words, turning back to Ashan with skeptical eyes.

  “My brother is correct,” Asome said loudly on cue, drawing their gazes. “But the trail is still warm, and we would be fools to muddy it. We can decide how to punish the collaborators once we have executed the rebels and recovered the missing children.”

  Jayan looked at him with open mistrust, but he took the bait. “That is why I will take the Spears of the Deliverer and kick in every door, dig out every cellar, and put every relative of the boys taken under question. We will find them.”

  The Damaji were nodding again, but Asome tsked loudly and shook his head. “My brother would cut a tree down to harvest its fruit.”

  Jayan glared at him. “And what does my wise dama brother propose instead?”

  “We send the Watchers,” Asome said, nodding to the veiled Damaji of the Krevakh and Nanji tribes. They never spoke in council, each beholden to a greater tribe. The Krevakh served the Kaji, and the Nanji the Majah.

  The Watcher tribes trained in special weapons and combat, and controlled the Krasian spy network. Many of their interrogators spoke the chin tongue, and had contacts throughout Everam’s Bounty. Even their lesser Sharum could move without being seen, and pass barriers as easily as alagai drift up from the abyss.

  “Find the children, and we will find the rebels and their sympathizers,” Asome said.

  “And then?” Jayan asked.

  “Then we execute all three,” Ashan said. “Rebels, sympathizers, and even the chin children, to remind the greenlanders of the futility of resistance, and its consequence. We will make the other chin nie’Sharum watch, and the next time, the boys themselves will fight their rescuers.”

  Inevera kept her center, even as Ashan deviated from her script. Killing a handful of children was still a mercy compared to the wholesale slaughter Jayan favored, but she did not know if she could allow it when the time came.

  “Very well,” Jayan said. “As you command, I will send the Watchers.”

  I. It was a dangerous word. Jayan was assuming control of the search regardless. As Sharum Ka, it was his duty and right, but Inevera had intended the Watchers to report to the throne—her—to avoid unintended brutality.

  She breathed, keeping her center. Sacrifices must be made. She had spies enough in the Sharum Ka’s court, and her Krevakh and Nanji sister-wives could put their dama’ting on alert to pass on anything they heard.

  Ashan gave her seven breaths to speak, and then struck his staff of office. “It is settled. Send your Watchers, Sharum Ka. We expect regular reports on your progress.”

  Jayan threw a smug glance at Asome and turned on his heel, striding for the door where Hasik, his new bodyguard, waited.

  Three days passed, with no sign of the rebels or the stolen nie’Sharum, and Abban could sense a black mood on the streets. In the bazaar, it was worse.

  Dal’ting, khaffit, and chin had begun to find a level of comfort with one another in the marketplace, but all that changed with the attacks on the sharaji and kidnappings. Krasians gave the chin a wide berth now, eyeing them with mistrust. They kept their purses closed as well, starving the chin of trade.

  Dama patrols in the marketplace had increased markedly, with the dama not even bothering to hang the alagai tails from their belts or lean on their whip staves. The weapons were always in motion, if only to clear the path around them of chin, or to get the attention of one they sought to question.

  And those questionings, the thing everyone in the bazaar from the lowest chin to Abban himself dreaded, were coming more and more frequently. The Sharum had been forbidden to kick in doors and search everywhere, but the dama were taking any excuse to conduct searches, and their jurisdiction was wide.

  Abban watched from the flaps of his pavilion as a pair of Kaji dama tore the back of a chin woman’s dress open in the middle of a market street, whipping her with their staves for not being properly veiled.

  It had been around her neck, simply slipped during the bustle of the day and not hurriedly replaced.

  Abban closed the flap to muffle her screams.

  “I pray to Everam we find the rebels soon,” he said. “This is bad for business.”

  “If it can be done, the Krevakh will do it,” Qeran said. “It was my honor to serve with many of them in alagai’sharak. No better trackers exist on Ala.”

  The drillmaster still looked uncomfortable in the marketplace, but Abban could no longer afford the luxury of leaving him in his compound to train recruits. He depended on Qeran’s status and experience to keep him alive.

  They retired to Abban’s private office. The khaffit opened a hidden panel on his writing desk, removing a sheaf or parchment and handing it to Qeran. “I have some plans I need you to review before I present them to the throne.”

  Qeran raised an eyebrow. Unlike most Sharum, drillmasters were literate, needing to keep lists and tallies in the running of sharaji, and to understand the equations to calculate tensile strength and load in the building of fortifications. But compared to even the least of Abban’s wives and daughters, this put him slightly above a trained dog. Abban would not have trusted him with even the simplest clerical task, and they both knew it.

  The unexpected request aroused Qeran’s curiosity, and the man laid the papers on the desk and began to rummage through them. He spread out the map, squinted at the tallies, and his eyes widened.

  “Is this what I think it is?” he asked.

  “It is, and you will speak of it to no one,” Abban said.

  “Why do you have this, and not the Sharum Ka?” Qeran asked.

  “Because the Sharum Ka was a figurehead until a fortnight ago,” Abban said. “But fear not. Soon he will think all this was his own idea.”

  The next morning, Abban rode in his palanquin to the palace. His finest kha’Sharum surrounded the muscular chin slaves who carried the poles, guarding him from all sides. The curtains, heavy things with a layer of metal mesh that could stop a spear, were pulled tight, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

  The Damajah always made him nervous, even if he was wise enough not to show it. She had a way of putting him off guard, a sense she was looking right through him, seeing his dissembling as easily as she might a streak of dirt on his face.

  How would she see his plans without Ahmann to bless and implement them?

  BOOM!

  Even through the thick curtains the sound was horrific. Abban was thrown into the lacquered ceiling as the palanquin fell. He could hear the shouts of his men, and as the palanquin came to an abrupt and jarring stop, he found himself face-to-face with o
ne of his bearers, thrust through the curtain as the whole vehicle fell on him. He groaned, eyes glazed.

  Ignoring the man, Abban reached for his cane, struggling against his lame leg to put his feet under him.

  “Master!” one of his guards called. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine, fine!” Abban snapped, sticking his head out the curtain atop the carriage. “Help me out of …”

  He stopped short, gaping.

  Sharik Hora was burning.

  Everyone had been thrown from their feet, even this far from the blast. Closer to where the fires raged, passersby lay bloodied in the street, struck by debris that had once been the great walls and stained-glass windows of the largest temple to Everam in the green lands.

  Qeran was the first back to combat readiness, berating the others to their feet as he moved to Abban’s side. Tempered in the heat of battle, the drillmaster was able to put his feelings aside and maintain the chain of command, but even he had a look of horror as his eyes touched the burning temple.

  “What could have done such a thing?” he asked. “A dozen flame demons could not spew such a blaze.”

  “Chin flamework,” Abban said. Another mystery he had yet to unravel. “Get the men up. We must make double pace to the palace now. Send Watchers to find out what happened and report en route.”

  Inevera regarded the khaffit as he drank cool water and lay on the pillows in her receiving chamber. He was pale, covered in ash, and smelling of smoke. One of his eyes had filled with blood, and his clothes were torn and bloodied. Runners had already confirmed Sharik Hora was burning.

  “What happened?” she demanded, when the silence began to grate on her.

  “It appears the chin are bolder than we credit them for,” Abban said. “The sharaj burnings were a distraction, drawing our attention to distant villages while they struck at our heart.”

  “An odd coincidence that you should be there to witness the event,” Inevera said. “Especially after being the first to come to me with news of the rebellion.”

  Abban looked at her flatly. “I am flattered the Damajah thinks me capable of such a complex weave of deceit, but I am not such a martyr as to get in range of a blast just to add credence to some mysterious plot. Every inch of me aches, my ears still ring, and my thoughts are cloudy.”

  That last concerned Inevera. She needed Abban, now more than ever. His body was of little use to her, but his mind …

  She might have been a tunnel asp, the way the khaffit fell back as she moved to examine him. He squeaked like a woman.

  “Be still and comply,” she snapped. “I am Damajah, but am still dama’ting.”

  Though Inevera seldom treated any other than Ahmann, she had lost none of her skill at healing after decades in the dama’ting healing pavilion. The khaffit’s dilation, the slow way he tracked her fingers, the long pauses in his speaking, all were indicative of head trauma.

  She reached into her hora pouch for her healing bones, a collection of warded mind demon fingers, coated in a thin sheen of electrum to focus their power and shield them from the sun. She deftly manipulated the wards with her fingertips until the configuration was right, and then activated them.

  The blood drained from his eye, and minor scrapes on his face crusted and dried in an instant. Still Inevera kept the power flowing, making sure there was no swelling or damage to the brain.

  At last Abban gasped and pulled back. His eyes had regained their familiar twinkle.

  He laughed aloud. “It is no wonder the Sharum say the magic is stronger than couzi. I haven’t felt so sharp and strong in twenty years.”

  He looked at his leg curiously, then moved to stand, leaving his crutch on the pillows. For a moment he seemed steady, but when he bent his knees to give a delighted hop, the leg buckled. It was only thanks to a lifetime of practice that he managed to fall back onto the pillows and not the floor.

  Inevera smiled. “You refused my offer to heal your leg, khaffit. I may offer again some day, but never for free.”

  Abban nodded, grinning in return. “The Damajah would do well in the bazaar.”

  Indeed, Inevera had grown up in the bazaar, but it was more than she wanted Abban—or anyone—to know. Her family depended on their anonymity for their safety, and already there were too many who might know the secret.

  “Am I to take that as some kind of compliment, that you think me as worthy as some khaffit merchant’s daughter?” she snapped.

  Abban bowed. “It is the greatest compliment I am worthy to give, Damajah.”

  She grunted, pretending to be mollified. “Enough time wasted. Tell me everything you recall about the attack.”

  “Seventeen dead in the blast, a dama among them,” Abban said. “Another forty-three wounded, along with severe structural damage to the temple. Many of the heroes’ bones adorning its walls were destroyed.”

  “How is that even possible?” Inevera asked. “The blast was in broad daylight—it could not have been hora magic.”

  “I believe the chin used thundersticks to effect the blast,” Abban said.

  “Thundersticks?” Inevera asked.

  “Chin flamework,” Abban said. “Ours is mostly liquids and oil, but the chin have powders. Mostly just light and noise for celebration, but rolled with paper into sticks, they are useful in mining and construction. I have seen Leesha Paper use them to great effect against the alagai.”

  Inevera scowled, forgetting herself for a moment. She quickly put her mask back in place, but no doubt the khaffit had said the name intentionally, and watched for her reaction.

  “You risk more using that name than you did approaching my pillow chamber unannounced,” she said. “Do not think me such a fool as to miss your hand in my husband’s indiscretions with the Northern whore.”

  Abban shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “Leesha Paper is the least of the Damajah’s worries now.”

  If only, Inevera thought. “I want detailed notes on the making of these flamework weapons.”

  Abban blew out a breath. “That will be a problem, Damajah. I have a few of the sticks themselves, confiscated from the mining operations we took over when the Deliverer claimed Everam’s Bounty, but their making remains a mystery. The chin custom is for their Herb Gatherers to pass the information orally to their apprentices rather than write it down.”

  “And none of your bribes and spies have been able to turn one of them into giving up the formula?” Inevera asked. “I’m disappointed.”

  Abban shrugged. “It is a rare skill, even amongst the Gatherers, and all deny the knowledge. They are not such fools as to think we won’t turn it against them.”

  “I will give you writs of arrest,” Inevera said. “If the women will not respond to bribes, then question them harder. And bring me samples of these thundersticks. This is too powerful a weapon for the chin to hold over us.”

  Abban nodded. “Treat them with utmost care, Damajah. Two of my men were killed in a blast when they tried to move a batch that had lain too long in storage.”

  “Do we have any suspects in the crime?” Inevera asked.

  Abban shook his head. “The flamework has a short fuse, but none were seen running from the building prior to the blast. There were chin amongst the dead. One of them must have lit the fuse and martyred himself.”

  “The chin have steel in them, after all,” Inevera said. “A pity they waste it in Daylight War and not alagai’sharak.”

  “The Damaji will not stand for this,” Abban said. “Everam’s Bounty will run with blood.”

  Inevera nodded. “More will flock to Jayan. There will be no stopping his Sharum from taking control of the city.”

  “For its own protection,” Abban said, sarcasm more in his aura than his words.

  “Just so,” Inevera agreed.

  “All the more reason to send him away,” Abban said.

  Inevera looked at him curiously. She would like nothing more, but what could … ? There. She saw it in his aura. Clever Abban
had a plan. Or at least, he thought he did.

  “Out with it, khaffit,” she snapped.

  Abban smiled. “Lakton.”

  This was his plan? Perhaps Inevera gave the khaffit too much credit. “You cannot possibly think Lakton is still a priority, with Ahmann gone and a rebellion just outside the palace walls.”

  “All the more reason,” Abban said. “The Laktonians make their harvest tithe to the duke in barely more than a fortnight. We need that harvest, Damajah. I cannot stress that enough. If the alagai continue to strike our food supply, it may be the only thing that keeps our armies intact through the winter. The preparations have all been made.”

  “And how am I supposed to convince the Sharum Ka and Damaji to send their warriors on a week’s hard march with Sharik Hora still aflame?” Inevera asked.

  “Pfagh.” Abban pointed to Inevera’s hora pouch. “Wave the dice around and tell them the dockmasters are behind the attacks. Demand that your eldest son go forth as Everam’s hammer to crush them and take the city.”

  Inevera raised an eyebrow. “You suggest I mislead the council of Damaji about what I see in the sacred dice?”

  Abban smiled. “Damajah, please. Do not insult us both.”

  Inevera had to laugh at that. She hated to admit it, but she was beginning to like the khaffit. The idea had merit.

  She reached into her pouch for the dice with her left hand, drawing her curved dagger with her right. “Hold out your arm.”

  The khaffit paled visibly, but he did not dare refuse. When the hora were wet with his blood, he watched in horrified fascination as she shook them and they began to glow.

  “Everam, Creator of Heaven and Ala, Giver of Light and Life, your children need guidance. Should we follow the khaffit’s plan and attack the city on the lake?”

  The dice flared as she threw, spinning out of their natural trajectory as the magic took them. It was a familiar sight to Inevera, but Abban gaped as she scanned the symbols for an answer.

  —Unless given something to fight, the Sharum will tear themselves apart.—

  A surprisingly clear answer, for the dice had been opaque of late, but vexing all the same. They stopped short of endorsing the move.