Jardir was taken aback. Indeed, in his dreams of conquest in battle, such things had seemed too inconsequential to matter. Inevera had been masterful in manipulating his rise, but somehow he doubted she considered such things, either. He looked at Abban with new respect.
“My coffers would open wide to someone who could care for such small things,” he said.
Abban smiled, bowing as low as his crutch would allow. “It would be my pleasure to serve the Shar’Dama Ka.”
Jardir nodded. “I want to march in three summers.” He put his arm around Abban, drawing him close like a friend and putting his lips within inches of Abban’s ear.
“And if you ever try to cheat me like some mark in the bazaar,” he added in a low voice, “I will tan your skin and use it as a dung sack. That is a promise you should remember.”
Abban paled and nodded quickly. “I will never forget it.”
CHAPTER 10
KHA’SHARUM
331 AR
JARDIR HISSED, EMBRACING THE CUT.
“Am I hurting you?” Inevera asked.
“I’ve taken far worse in the Maze,” Jardir scoffed. “But if you should slip at a tendon…”
Inevera snorted. “I know the course of a man’s flesh far better than you, husband. This is no different than carving alagai hora.”
Jardir looked at the silver tray that held the thin strips of flesh she had sliced from the palm of his hand. He let the sting pass through him as Inevera packed herbs into the wounds. “I fail to see the need for this.”
“According to the Canon we took from one of the Northern Messengers in the dungeon, the greenlanders believe the Deliverer will have marked flesh that corelings cannot abide,” Inevera said. She let go of his hand, allowing him to raise it before his eyes, marveling at the precision of the ward she had cut into the skin.
“Will they work?” he asked, flexing his hand experimentally.
Inevera nodded. “When I am through, your touch will bring more harm to the alagai than a thrust from the Spear of Kaji itself.”
Jardir felt a thrill run through him. The thought of wrestling a demon on its own terms and killing it with his bare hands was intoxicating.
Inevera had just finished binding the hand when Damaji Ashan entered the throne room, followed by his son Asukaji and Jardir’s second son, Asome. Both young to be wearing the white robes of dama, but they were Blood of the Deliverer, and none dared question it.
“Deliverer,” Ashan greeted him, bowing. “The khaffit,” he spat the word as if it had a foul taste, “is here with the tallies.” Jardir nodded, and Abban limped into the room on his ivory camel crutch while Inevera draped herself at Jardir’s feet. Damaji Aleverak followed Abban in, the empty right sleeve of his robe pinned back. Jardir’s son Maji, in his nie’dama bido, shadowed his steps. They joined Ashan, Asukaji, and Asome to the right of the Skull Throne.
Abban bowed and pulled a small vial from his belt. He threw it to Jardir. “Dama Qavan of the Mehnding asked me to give you that,” he said.
Jardir caught the vial and looked at it curiously. “He asked you to give this?”
“The contents, anyway,” Abban said. “Mixed in your food or drink.”
Inevera snatched the vial from Jardir and pulled the stopper, sniffing the contents. She put a drop on the tip of her finger, tasting it.
“Tunnel asp venom,” she said, spitting. “Enough to kill ten men.”
Jardir tilted his head at Abban “What did he pay you?”
Abban smiled, lifting a jingling sack of coins. “A Damaji’s ransom.”
Jardir nodded. Damaji Enkaji of the Mehnding had proven a vocal supporter of him in public, but this was not the first assassination attempt to come from one of his minions.
“I’ll have Dama Qavan arrested and put to the question,” Ashan said.
“It’s a waste of time,” Abban said. “He won’t betray his Damaji to your torturers. He is better left alone.”
“No one asked your opinion, khaffit!” Damaji Aleverak growled, making Abban jump. “We can’t let the man live to further plot against the Shar’Dama Ka.”
“Perhaps the khaffit has a point, husband,” Inevera interrupted, drawing the outraged glare Aleverak always gave when the woman dared speak her mind before the Skull Throne. “Abban can tell Qavan you ate the poison without so much as a cramp, and seed the tale in the bazaar to spread it everywhere. Project such invincibility, and even the bravest assassin may reconsider his course.”
“The Damajah is wise,” Abban said with a bow. They were two of a kind, he and Inevera, always twisting others to their wishes. Jardir saw the khaffit’s eyes flick to her, just for an instant, drinking of his wife’s wantonly displayed beauty. He swallowed a flare of anger. Inevera said it should make him feel powerful to flaunt something other men coveted, but even after two years the opposite still held true.
But like it or not, both Abban and Inevera had skills Jardir needed, skills that the dama and Sharum sorely lacked. Abban’s tallies and Inevera’s dice gave only brutal truth, while every other man in Krasia fell over himself to say only what they thought Jardir wished to hear, even if the words held no truth at all.
Jardir had grown to depend on them, and both knew it, continuing to dress outlandishly, adorned with golden trinkets, as if daring Jardir to punish them.
“Damaji Enkaji is powerful, Deliverer,” Abban reminded him, “and his tribe’s engineering skills are essential to your preparations for war. You already slight him by denying him a place in your inner council. Perhaps now is not the time to follow a trail that may lead to him and force you to act publicly.”
“Savas is not yet old enough to become Damaji of the Mehnding,” Inevera added, speaking of Jardir’s Mehnding son. “They will not follow a boy still in his bido.”
They were right. If Jardir killed Enkaji before Savas earned the white robe, the black turban would simply pass on to one of Enjaki’s sons, who would bear Jardir the same animosity their father did, if not more.
“Very well,” he said at last, though it sickened him to play Inevera and Abban’s games. “Spin your web over Qavan. Now on to the tallies.”
“As of this morning, there are 217 dama, 322 dama’ting, 5,012 Sharum, 17,256 women, 15,623 children, including those in Hannu Pash, and 21,733 khaffit living in the Desert Spear,” Abban said.
“That isn’t enough warriors if we are to march in another summer,” Jardir said. “Only a few hundred come out of Hannu Pash each year.”
“Perhaps you should delay your plans,” Abban suggested. “In a decade, you could double your forces.”
Jardir felt Inevera’s hand squeeze his leg, her long nails digging into flesh, and shook his head. “We delay too long as it is.”
Abban shrugged. “Then you will have to march with the warriors you have next year. Not six thousand.”
“I need more,” Jardir insisted.
Abban shrugged. “What can I do? It’s not as if dal’Sharum are stores of grain hidden in the bazaar, with merchants waiting for the price to go up before bringing them out.”
Jardir looked at him so sharply that Abban flinched.
“Something I said?” he asked.