He looked to Inevera, but she only shrugged. ‘It is as I expected. Let us tour the defences.’
Jardir tried not to feel stung as he turned to Jayan and Asome. ‘The inner city is yours tonight, my sons. We will range as the Damajah wills. The Spears of the Deliverer will see to our protection.’
Inevera touched his arm. ‘I would feel safer, beloved, with our sons leading our honour guard.’
Jardir looked at her curiously, wishing the sun would set so he could pierce the veil of serenity on her face to find the truth of her intentions. At last he shrugged.
Jayan turned, giving last orders to his kai’Sharum. Immediately the units began to break out of the training ground on their way to their posts.
Asome bowed deeply. ‘It is our honour to escort our divine mother.’ He called for his horse, a white charger like the one his father rode, save for a black diamond at its forehead. Jayan signalled for his, a black charger with white fetlocks and muzzle. They flanked Jardir and Inevera as they rode, followed in turn by the Spears of the Deliverer on their great black mustang.
As they conducted the tour Jardir lamented — not for the first time — how woefully insecure the greenland city was. The very weaknesses that had allowed his warriors to take ‘Fort’ Rizon so easily made the coming Waning fill him with dread. In time he would make Everam’s Bounty more impregnable than the Desert Spear itself, but for now he was left to work with what the lax Northern barbarians had built.
The inner city was the most defensible area, but also the most obvious target, as it housed the grain silos and Jardir’s seat of power. It was also where, lacking a proper Undercity, the women and children of the outer regions would be sent to take refuge. Even the chin were to be taken in. The Damaji had protested, but Jardir ignored them. It was the duty of men to protect women and children. Even chin.
The greenlanders claimed no alagai had penetrated the inner city in a century, but Jardir suspected it was because it had never truly been tested. The wardwall was barely taller than most rock demons. His stonemasons and Warders had been adding to it since they took the city, but it was still pathetic compared with the great wardwall of the Desert Spear. Jardir looked at the scorpions and stone slingers lining the newly built crenellations and hoped they would be enough to hold back a more direct assault. He was prepared for fighting in the streets of the main city, but if it came to that, it would mean the battle was going very badly.
The next line of defence was the outer city, several times the size of the inner and protected by a wardwall so low a man could leap over it. This wall had stone wardpillars like the obelisks of Anoch Sun set every twenty feet, casting overlapping protections to strengthen the defensive field.
Pillars throughout the outer city linked with it and one another, maintaining a net to cover the land from above as well, protecting the New Bazaar, orchards, and farmland that the inner city needed to survive.
The territory had been too vast for the chin to ward completely, leaving many pockets large enough for demons to rise. These were hunted clean each night, but places where the demons could infiltrate if they rose in numbers. Even with thousands of chin conscripts, Jardir did not have enough men to guard them all.
Yet despite these weaknesses, the outer city was surprisingly defensible. A single thrown boulder could take out a wardpillar, but the gap would soon be closed by another, each able to work independent of the others. This created a Maze of sorts, and his men knew well how to fight in a Maze, filling it with lures, pits, and ambush points. Alagai attempting to make their way to the inner city’s walls would be harried every step of the way.
Darkness fell as they rode, and with it came the welcome glow of crownsight. He felt his senses sharpen even further as his powers came to life, picking out the cries of alagai and the clash of spears and shields as the Sharum made their ambushes. It seemed a sin that Jardir felt more comfortable at night than in the day, but no thing happened but that Everam willed it. The Shar’Dama Ka needed to be at home in darkness.
He glanced at his sons, and took hope seeing they, too, were pondering the defences. Occasionally they came upon groups of Sharum engaged in fighting, but in most cases it was firmly under control, with seasoned warriors using the sparse demons as living lessons to the less experienced. Once they witnessed a more protracted battle, but even that was handled smoothly without need of their interference.
‘Have you seen all you wish, my wife?’ Jardir asked after they had ridden for more than an hour. He watched her aura carefully, but it was calm and smooth, telling him nothing.
‘Almost, husband.’ Inevera pointed to a hillock not far off. ‘But first, perhaps we could have a greater vantage atop there?’
Jardir nodded, and they set off. It came as no surprise when the sounds of battle reached his ears.
From atop the hill, they saw a reap of field demons in the valley below, circling a pair of slender dal’Sharum standing back-to-back. The warriors seemed unharmed, but they were outnumbered more than three to one, and thus unlikely to remain so. On foot, the warriors could not hope to escape. Even Krasian chargers could not outsprint a field demon.
Jardir tensed, ready to gallop to their aid, when Inevera raised a hand. ‘Just watch, beloved. We are not meant to interfere.’
All three men looked at Inevera, but she sat serene in her palanquin, her aura calm, though laced with satisfaction. They turned back, watching the battle unfold.
‘Who are they?’ Jayan wondered. ‘What unit are they from? This pocket isn’t due to be swept for another hour.’
Just then the largest of the field demons broke the circling ring to leap at one of the warriors who seemed to have dropped his guard. It was a lure, and the warrior whirled the moment the attack came, driving his spear right down its throat. Another demon leapt at the opening, but the warrior’s partner had his shield in place to block. He struck a blow of his own, hard in the foreleg joint, that sent the demon skittering back with a yelp.
From the other side of the ring, more attacks came, but the first warrior pulled his ichor-stained spear free and they rotated a quarter turn in perfect precision to put his shield in place.
So impressed was Jardir with the warriors’ skill, it took him a moment to realize there had been no flare of magic when the warriors struck. He looked to Inevera. ‘Their spears are not warded?’
Inevera shook her head. ‘They fight in the old way, as did my honoured husband.’
‘Everam’s beard,’ Jayan said. Even he had never faced an alagai without a warded weapon. Asome was silent, but he drew wards in the air, blessing the combatants.
Without combat magic the Sharum blows had to be precise, for the demons’ armour had few weaknesses, and they healed quickly. The field demons struck like lightning, flashing paws and snapping jaws, sometimes darting in low and others standing on hind legs to strike high. After the first of them fell, its fellows grew more cautious, the quick and agile beasts dodging return blows the moment they began.
But the warriors fought like nothing Jardir had ever seen, working in perfect unison, like a single fighter with two heads and four arms. Again and again the demons were thrown back, until one, struck what seemed a glancing blow by one of the warriors, had its leg collapse under it. The pair had already begun to turn, and the other warrior put the sharp point of his spear into its eye socket and the brain beyond, killing it.