“Not as pretty as a Damaji’s palace,” Qeran said at his side, “but as strong a fortress as the Desert Spear.”
“Return me to it alive, Drillmaster,” Abban said, “and I shall make you richer than a Damaji.”
“What need have I for wealth?” Qeran asked. “I have my honor, my spear, and Sharak. A warrior needs no more.”
The Drillmaster laughed at Abban’s worried look. “Fear not, khaffit! I have sworn to you now, for better or worse. Honor demands I return you safely, or die in the attempt.”
Abban smiled. “The former, if you please, Drillmaster. Or both, if need be.”
Qeran nodded, kicking his horse and starting the procession. Behind them followed Abban’s Hundred, kha’Sharum handpicked and trained by Qeran. The Deliverer’s decree granted him one hundred warriors and one hundred only, but Abban had taken one hundred twenty in case some failed or were crippled in training.
Thus far all had excelled, but the training had only just begun. Abban would return them when the Skull Throne demanded it and not a moment before. He wished he could take them all to Lakton, and his five hundred chi’Sharum as well, but Jamere and Abban’s women needed men to guard his holdings, and it would not do to show his full strength to Jayan’s court. At least a few of them could count past a hundred.
The Sharum Ka was giving last-minute instructions to his younger brother Hoshkamin when they found him in the training grounds. Jayan had dropped jaws in the Andrah’s court when he announced that Hoshkamin, just raised to the black, would sit the Spear Throne in his absence.
It was a bold move, and one that showed Jayan was not blind to the danger of leaving his seat of power. Hoshkamin was too inexperienced to truly lead, but like Jamere, the Deliverer’s third son and his eleven half brothers were intimidating stewards.
Jayan may yet take the Skull Throne, Abban thought. I had best ingratiate myself while I still can.
“Horses, I said, khaffit,” Jayan snapped, looking down his nose at Abban’s camel. “The chin will hear that beast braying a mile off!”
The other warriors laughed, all save Hasik, who glared at Abban with open hatred. Rumor had it the man had become even more sadistic since Abban had cut his balls off. Denied the brutal but simple release of rape, he had become … creative. A trait Jayan was said to encourage.
“A khaffit in our company is an ill omen, Sharum Ka,” Khevat said. “And this one, in particular.” Dama Khevat sat straight-backed and stone-faced on his white charger. The man hated Abban nearly as much as Hasik, but the cleric was too experienced to reveal his feelings. Not yet sixty and still vital, Khevat had trained both Ahmann and Abban in sharaj. He was now the ranking dama in all Krasia, father to the Andrah and grandfather to the Damaji of the Kaji. Perhaps the only man powerful enough to keep Jayan in line.
Perhaps.
Next to Khevat, on a smaller, if equally pristine white charger, was Dama’ting Asavi. Other dama’ting would ride in a carriage with the supply train, but it seemed Inevera was taking no chances on this mission. No doubt the sight of a woman, even a dama’ting, riding a horse like a man set the rest of the Sharum Ka’s court on edge, but she was a Bride of Everam, and none would hinder her.
Asavi’s gaze was even harder to read than Khevat’s. Her eyes gave no indication they had ever met. Abban was pleased Inevera had another agent close at hand, but he was not fool enough to think he could depend on her to protect him should he anger his host.
“I cannot sit a horse, Sharum Ka,” Abban said. “And I will, of course, remain behind while you conquer the city. My noisy camel and I will only approach Docktown when you have claimed victory and need to begin tallying the spoils.”
“He will slow our progress through the chin lands, Sharum Ka,” Hasik said. He smiled, revealing a gold tooth that replaced the one Qeran had knocked out in sharaj a quarter century ago, earning him the nickname Whistler. “This is not the first time Abban has been dead weight to a march. Let me kill him now and have done.”
Qeran nudged his horse forward. The drillmaster had trained the Deliverer himself—even Jayan was respectful to him. “You will need to get through me first, Hasik.” He smiled. “And none know your failings as a warrior better than I who instructed you.”
Hasik’s eyes widened, but his look of surprise was quick to turn into a snarl. “I am not your student anymore, old man, and I still have all my limbs.”
Qeran snorted. “Not all, I hear! Come at me, Whistler, and this time I will take more than your tooth.”
“Whistler!” Jayan laughed, breaking the tension. “I’ll need to remember that! Stand down, Hasik.”
The eunuch closed his eyes, and for a moment Abban thought it was a ruse precluding attack. Qeran was relaxed as he watched, but Abban knew he could react in an instant if Hasik made a move.
But Hasik was not fool enough to disobey the Sharum Ka. He had fallen far since Abban had castrated him for raping his daughter, and only Jayan had offered him a chance to restore his honor.
“Our reckoning will come, pig-eater,” he growled, easing his heavy mustang back.
Jayan turned to Abban. “He is right, though. You will slow us, khaffit.”
Abban bowed as low as he could from his saddle. “There is no need for me to slow the swift march of your warriors, Sharum Ka. I will travel a day behind with my Hundred and the supply trains. We will meet you at the camp a day before the attack, and join you in Docktown by noontime on first snow.”
Jayan shook his head. “Too soon. There may still be fighting throughout the day. Best you come the following dawn.”
You and your men need a day to properly loot the town, you mean, Abban thought.
He bowed again. “Apologies, Sharum Ka, but for the mission to be successful, there cannot. There must not. As you told the council, you must seize the town and secure the tithe before they know you are upon them. Strike hard and fast, lest they escape on their ships, or fire the harvest simply to deny it to us.”
He lowered his voice for Jayan alone to hear as the young Sharum Ka’s face darkened at the tone. “Of course my first duty in the tallies will be to see to it the Sharum Ka has his share of the spoils before they are shipped to Everam’s Bounty. The Skull Throne has empowered me to give you ten percent, but there is some, ah, flexibility in these matters. I could arrange fifteen …”
Jayan’s eyes flashed with greed. “Twenty, or I will gut you like the pig you are.”
Ah, Sharum, Abban thought, suppressing his smile. All the same. Not a haggler among you.
He blew out a breath, molding his face into a look of worry—though of course the number was meaningless. He could weave such a web of lists and tallies Jayan would never penetrate it, or realize whole warehouses and thousands of acres had disappeared from the ledgers. Abban would make the Sharum Ka think he had taken fifty percent, and give him less than five.
At last he bowed. “As the Sharum Ka commands.”
Perhaps this would not be so bad after all.
Abban lounged with his distance lens in the comfortable chair he’d had placed atop the small rise as the attack fell upon Docktown. Qeran, Earless, and Asavi preferred to stand, but he didn’t begrudge them that. The warrior and holy castes had ever been masochists.
He had chosen the knoll for its fine view of the town and docks from a direction refugees were unlikely to flee when the fighting broke out. The day was clear enough that Abban could just make out the city on the lake with his naked eye, a blur coloring the edge of the horizon. It was clearer with his distance lens, though all he could make out were docks and ships. Accounting for the distance, it was much larger than he had anticipated.
Shifting back to Docktown and adjusting his lens, Abban could clearly see individual workers on the docks. They moved easily, unaware what was about to befall them.
Even from this distance, Abban could hear the thunder of the Krasian charge. The first Dockfolk they encountered looked up at the sound just in time to die, impaled on light spears thrown from moving horses. The dal’Sharum were brutal, uneducated animals, but at killing they were second to none.
They spread out as they made the town, some riding into the streets to create havoc and subdue the Dockfolk as others flanked the town to either side and put on speed, racing to come at the docks from both directions, before the sailors even realized what was happening.
Now the screams began, cries of victims cut quickly short, and the prolonged wails of those left in the wake. Abban took no pleasure in the sounds, but neither did he feel remorse. This was not senseless killing. There was more profit to be made in a quick submission than an extended siege. Let the Sharum have their fun, so long as they captured the docks, the ships, and the tithe.
Fires began to crop up as the warriors sought to sow confusion and chaos while they made their way to their objective. As a rule, Abban hated fire as a tool of war. Indiscriminate and expensive, it inevitably destroyed things of value. Sharum lives were cheaper by far.
Horns began to sound, followed by the great bell on the docks. Abban watched as the sailors dropped the cargo they were loading and raced for the ships.
The air around the docks turned sharp as Mehnding archers loosed their arrows and Sharum hurled throwing spears, killing first the men on deck—frantically trying to cast lines and raise sail—and then the fleeing workers.
Abban smiled, turning his lens out onto the water. A few approaching ships turned away, but one found a clear stretch of dock and swept in, throwing down planks for women and children fleeing the attack.
The planks bowed under the weight of the rush, and more than one refugee fell into the water. Able men joined the press, pushing and shoving until it seemed more than not were falling into the water. No one bothered to help the fallen—all were focused on getting aboard.
At last the ship reached capacity, dipping noticeably deeper in the water. The captain shouted something into his horn, but the fleeing townsfolk kept trying to get aboard. The sailors kicked out the planks before they sank the ship, and turned the sails to the wind, moving swiftly away from water churning with desperate, screaming refugees.