Inevera and her brother Soli sat in the sunlight. Each held the frame of a basket between their bare feet, nimbly turning it as their fingers worked the weave. This late in the day, there was only a tiny sliver of shade in their small kiosk. Their mother, Manvah, sat there, working her own basket. The pile of tough date palm fronds at the centre of the ring they formed shrank steadily as they worked.

Inevera was nine years old. Soli was almost twice that, but still young to be wearing the robes of a full dal’Sharum, the black cloth still deep with fresh dye. He had earned them barely a week ago, and sat on a mat to ensure the ever-present dust of the Great Bazaar did not cling to them. His robe was cinched loosely on top, revealing a smooth, muscular chest glistening with sweat.

He fanned himself with a frond. ‘Everam’s balls, these robes are hot. I wish I could still go out in just a bido.’

‘You may have the shade if you wish it, Sharum,’ Manvah said.

Soli tsked and shook his head. ‘Is that what you expected? That I would come back in black and start ordering you around like …’

Manvah chuckled. ‘Just making certain you remain my sweet boy.’

‘Only to you and my dear little sister,’ Soli clarified, reaching out to tousle Inevera’s hair. She slapped his arm away, but she was smiling as she did it. There was always smiling when Soli was about. ‘With everyone else, I am mean as a sand demon.’

‘Bah,’ Manvah said, waving the thought away, but Inevera wondered. She’d seen what he did to the two Majah boys who teased her in the bazaar when they were younger, and the weak did not survive in the night.

Inevera finished her basket, adding it to one of the many stacks. She counted quickly. ‘Three more, and we’ll have Dama Baden’s order complete.’

‘Maybe Cashiv will invite me to the Waxing Party when he picks them up,’ Soli said. Cashiv was Dama Baden’s kai’Sharum and Soli’s ajin’pal, the warrior who had been tethered to him and fought by his side on his first night in the Maze. It was said there was no greater bond two men could share.

Manvah snorted. ‘If he does, Dama Baden will have you carrying one oiled and naked, celebrating the Waxing by offering a full moon of your own to his lecherous old hangers-on.’

Soli laughed. ‘I hear it’s not the old ones you need to worry about. Most of them just look. It’s the younger ones that carry vials of oil in their belts.’

He sighed. ‘Still, Gerraz served at Dama Baden’s last spear party and said the dama gave him two hundred draki. That’s worth a sore backside.’

‘Don’t let your father hear you say that,’ Manvah warned. Soli’s eyes flicked to the curtained chamber at the back of the kiosk where their father slept.

‘He’s going to find out his son is push’ting sooner or later,’ Soli said. ‘I won’t marry some poor girl just to keep him from finding out.’

‘Why not?’ Manvah asked. ‘She could weave with us, and would it be so terrible to seed her a few times and give me grandchildren?’

Soli made a face. ‘You’ll need to wait on Inevera for that.’ He looked at her. ‘Hannu Pash tomorrow, dear sister. Perhaps the dama’ting will find you a husband!’

‘Don’t change the subject!’ Manvah slapped at him with a palm frond. ‘You’ll face what’s between the Maze walls, but not what’s between a woman’s thighs?’

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Peter Brett – The Daylight War (страница 1)

THEDAYLIGHTWAR PETER V. BRETT

Prologue Inevera 300 AR

THE
DAYLIGHT
WAR

PETER V. BRETT

Prologue

Inevera 300 AR