Peter Brett – The Desert Spear (страница 4)

JARDIR WAS NINE WHEN the dal’Sharum took him from his mother. It was young, even in Krasia, but the Kaji tribe had lost many warriors that year and needed to bolster their ranks lest one of the other tribes attempt to encroach on their domain.

Jardir, his three younger sisters, and their mother, Kajivah, shared a single room in the Kaji adobe slum by the dry well. His father, Hoshkamin, had died in battle two years before, slain in a well raid by the Majah tribe. It was customary for one of a fallen warrior’s companions to take his widows as wives and provide for his children, but Kajivah had given birth to three daughters in a row, an ill omen that no man would bring into his household. They lived on a small stipend of food from the local dama, and if they had nothing else, they had each other.

“Ahmann asu Hoshkamin am’Jardir am’Kaji,” Drillmaster Qeran said, “you will come with us to the Kaji’sharaj to find your Hannu Pash, the path Everam wills for you.” He stood in the doorway with Drillmaster Kaval, the two warriors tall and forbidding in their black robes with the red drillmaster veils. They looked on impassively as Jardir’s mother wept and embraced him.

“You must be man for our family now, Ahmann,” Kajivah told him, “for me and your sisters. We have no one else.”

“I will, Mother,” Jardir promised. “I’ll become a great warrior and build you a palace.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” Kajivah said. “They say I was cursed, to bear three girls after you, but I say Everam blessed our family with a son so great, he needed no brothers.” She hugged him tightly, her tears wet on his cheek.

“Enough weeping,” Drillmaster Kaval said, taking Jardir’s arm and pulling him away. Jardir’s young sisters stared as they led him from the tiny apartment.

“It is always this way,” Qeran said. “Mothers can never let go.”

“She has no man to care for her,” Jardir replied.

“You were not told to speak, boy,” Kaval barked, cuffing him hard on the back of the head. Jardir bit back a cry of pain as his knee struck the sandstone street. His heart screamed at him to strike back, but he checked himself. However much the Kaji might need warriors, the dal’Sharum would kill him for such an affront with no more thought than a man might give to squashing a scorpion under his sandal.

“Every man in Krasia cares for her,” Qeran said, jerking his head back toward the door, “spilling blood in the night to keep her safe as she weeps over her sorry excuse for a son.”

They turned down the street, heading toward the Great Bazaar. Jardir knew the way well, for he went to the market often, though he had no money. The scents of spice and perfume were a heady mix, and he liked to gaze at the spears and wicked curved blades in the armorers’ kiosks. Sometimes he fought with other boys, readying himself for the day he would be a warrior.

It was rare for dal’Sharum to enter the bazaar; such places were beneath them. Women, children, and khaffit scurried out of the drillmasters’ path. Jardir watched the warriors carefully, doing his best to imitate their carriage.

Someday, he thought, it will be my path that others scramble to clear.

Kaval checked a chalked slate and looked up at a large tent, streaming with colored banners. “This is the place,” he said, and Qeran grunted. Jardir followed as they lifted the flap and strode inside without bothering to announce themselves.

The inside of the tent smelled of incense smoke, and it was richly carpeted, filled with piles of silk pillows, racks of hanging carpets, painted pottery, and other treasures. Jardir ran a finger along a bolt of silk, shivering at its smoothness.

My mother and sisters should be clad in such cloth, he thought. He looked at his own tan pantaloons and vest, grimy and torn, and longed for the day he could don a warrior’s blacks.

A woman at the counter gave a shriek as she caught sight of the drillmasters, and Jardir looked up at her just as she pulled her veil over her face.

“Omara vah’Haman vah’Kaji?” Qeran asked. The woman nodded, eyes wide with fear.

“We have come for your son, Abban,” Qeran said.

“He’s not here,” Omara said, but her eyes and hands, the only parts of her visible beneath the thick black cloth, trembled. “I sent him out this morning, delivering goods.”

“Search the back,” Qeran told Kaval. The drillmaster nodded and headed for the dividing flap behind the counter.

“No, please!” Omara cried, stepping in his path. Kaval ignored her, shoving her aside and disappearing into the back. There were more shrieks, and a moment later the drillmaster reemerged clutching the arm of a young boy in a tan vest, cap, and pantaloons—though of much finer cloth than Jardir’s. He was perhaps a year or two older than Jardir, stocky and well fed. A number of older girls followed him out, two in tans and three more in the black, open-faced headwraps of unmarried women.

“Abban am’Haman am’Kaji,” Qeran said, “you will come with us to the Kaji’sharaj to find your Hannu Pash, the path Everam wills for you.” The boy trembled at the words.

Omara wailed, grabbing at her son, trying to pull him back. “Please! He is too young! Another year, I beg!”

“Silence, woman,” Kaval said, shoving her to the floor. “The boy is old and fat enough as it is. If he is left to you another day, he will end up khaffit like his father.”

“Be proud, woman,” Qeran told her. “Your son is being given the chance to rise above his father and serve Everam and the Kaji.”

Omara clenched her fists, but she stayed where she had landed, head down, and wept quietly. No woman would dare defy a dal’Sharum. Abban’s sisters clutched at her, sharing in her grief. Abban reached for them, but Kaval jerked him away. The boy cried and wailed as they dragged him out of the tent. Jardir could hear the women crying even after the heavy flap fell closed and the clamor of the market surrounded them.

The warriors all but ignored the boys as they led the way to the training grounds, letting them trail after. Abban continued to weep and shake as they went.

“Why are you crying?” Jardir asked him. “The road ahead is bright with glory.”

“I don’t want to be a warrior,” Abban said. “I don’t want to die.”

Jardir shrugged. “Maybe you’ll be called to be dama.”

Abban shuddered. “That would be worse. A dama killed my father.”

“Why?” Jardir asked.

“My father accidentally spilled ink on his robe,” Abban said.

“The dama killed him just for that?” Jardir asked.

Abban nodded, fresh tears welling in his eyes. “He broke my father’s neck right then. It happened so fast…he reached out, there was a snap, and my father was falling.” He swallowed hard. “Now I’m the only man left to look out for my mother and sisters.”

Jardir took his hand. “My father’s dead, too, and they say my mother’s cursed for having three daughters in a row. But we are men of Kaji. We can surpass our fathers and bring honor back to our women.”

“But I’m scared,” Abban sniffed.

“I am, too, a little,” Jardir admitted, looking down as he said it. A moment later, he brightened. “Let’s make a pact.”

Abban, raised in the cutthroat business of the bazaar, looked at him suspiciously. “What kind of pact?”

“We’ll help each other through Hannu Pash,” Jardir said. “If you stumble, I will catch you, and if I fall, you,” he smirked and slapped Abban’s round belly, “will cushion it.”

Abban yelped and rubbed his belly, but he did not complain, looking at Jardir in wonder. “You mean that?” he asked, drying his eyes with the back of his hand.

Jardir nodded. They were walking in the shade of the bazaar’s awnings, but he grabbed Abban’s arm and pulled him into the sunlight. “I swear it by Everam’s light.”

Abban smiled widely. “And I swear it by the jeweled Crown of Kaji.”

“Keep up!” Kaval barked, and they chased after, but Abban moved with confidence now.

The drillmasters drew wards in the air as they passed the great temple Sharik Hora, mumbling prayers to Everam, the Creator. Beyond Sharik Hora lay the training grounds, and Jardir and Abban tried to look everywhere at once, taking in the warriors at their practice. Some worked with shield and spear or net, while others marched or ran in lockstep. Watchers stood upon the top rungs of ladders braced against nothing, honing their balance. Still more dal’Sharum hammered spearheads and warded shields, or practiced sharusahk—the art of empty-handed battle.

There were twelve sharaji, or schools, surrounding the training grounds, one for each tribe. Jardir and Abban were Kaji tribe, and thus were taken to the Kaji’sharaj. Here they would begin the Hannu Pash and emerge as dama, dal’Sharum, or khaffit.

“The Kaji’sharaj is so much larger than the others,” Abban said, looking up at the huge pavilion tent. “Only the Majah’sharaj is even close.”

“Of course it is,” Kaval said. “Did you think it coincidence that our tribe is named Kaji, after Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer? We are the get of his thousand wives, blood of his blood. The Majah,” he spat, “are only the blood of the weakling who ruled after the Shar’Dama Ka left this world. The other tribes are inferior to us in every way. Never forget that.”