Peter Brett - The Daylight War

When it was over, half his face was covered in blood, and she could see his arm was broken, twisted at an impossible angle. She reached out for him, but her son rose smoothly to his feet. He took the wrist of his broken arm in his good hand, pulling the limb straight and letting it hang loosely at his side. The pain was no doubt incredible, but Asome kept control, showing no sign of it as he reached down to her, offering his good hand to help her to her feet. ‘It is nothing that cannot wait, Mother.’ He thrust his chin out beyond the wall. ‘You have greater concerns.’

Inevera accepted the hand, but put no weight on it as she sprang to her feet. She looked out in the direction her son had indicated, eyes widening. Fighting was fierce in the outer city, and fiercer still beyond the outer wall, but it was all a distraction.

From her vantage, Inevera could see what Ahmann could not, though even she had been so occupied by the battle she might have missed it until it was too late. Out in the teeming wheat beyond the city, flame demons were burning with precision, forming wards the size of entire fields. Soon the symbols would activate, giving the alagai a terrifying advantage.

Asome saw it, too. ‘They are truly the agents of Nie, stealing our ability to feed our people and using it to power their dark magics. We have no choice but to burn the rest of the fields to destroy the wardnet.’

‘Perhaps,’ Inevera said, remembering her prophecy. She looked to Ashia. ‘Your uncle must hear of this.’

The kai’Sharum’ting did not hesitate, leaping from the wall and redirecting the impact of her landing into a tight roll that threw her right back onto her feet. She sprinted down the hill into the outer city, quickly disappearing into the darkness.

Asome looked at her. ‘Bad enough you defy the Deliverer by bringing her out onto the wall, but now you send my jiwah out into the naked night? If the alagai don’t get her, surely Father will kill her for her disobedience.’

‘What do you care?’ Inevera asked. ‘If she dies in the night or is killed for her disobedience, your problems are solved, are they not?’

‘I asked for divorce, not her death,’ Asome said.

‘You will get neither, my son,’ Inevera said. ‘No demon will touch her, and you do not know your father as well as you think. His first duty is to Sharak Ka. Ashia’s information may mean the difference between victory and defeat. He will thank her for her service and forget it until Waning is past, and then offer her a token reprimand, followed by a public honouring. No longer will Sharum’ting be confined to the Undercity on Wanings.’

‘Your goal all along,’ Asome said. There was no bitterness in his tone, but she sensed it nevertheless.

‘What is more important to you,’ Inevera asked, ‘winning Sharak Ka, or keeping your wife beneath your sandal? The heroism of your jiwah can boost your power, if you let it. I know you do not feel for her as you do Asukaji, but she is the sister of your lover, the mother of your son, and you made oaths to her before Everam. Those ties bind an honest man as tightly as love.’

Asome looked ready to argue the words, but then deflated, considering. Inevera reached out, touching his good arm. ‘A great man does not fear his wife will steal his glory, Asome. He uses her support to reach even higher.’

333 AR Autumn

Waning

The alagai massed outside the city walls in a horde that cut fear into even the bravest Sharum . Thousands of demons, field and flame, rock and wood. The night sky teemed with wind demons, shrieking as they circled.

One of the rocks stomped over to a tree, its footfalls shaking the very ground. It pulled the thirty-foot trunk out by the roots, effortlessly snapping away the excess branches. Club in hand, it strode towards the nearest wardpost, a full reap of field demons at its flanks. Stinger teams took aim and fired, but even at this range it took many of the giant bolts to bring down a single rock. They would not stop it before the demon smashed the post, and there were dozens of the mammoth demons.

Jardir raised his spear, drawing a heat ward in the air. The tree in the demon’s hands exploded in flames, and the creature dropped it in shock.

‘Lock shields and advance,’ Jardir shouted, using the power of his crown to magically enhance his voice. ‘Strike on my command. We will fight our way to the rocks and bring them down!’

A line of interlocked shields formed, their wards glowing with power as they forced the alagai back. ‘Strike!’ Jardir called when the demons were clustered too tightly for a single thrust to miss. The Sharum took a unified step back, opening their shields enough to thrust warded weapons into the press. There was a flash of magic and a spray of ichor to accompany each point, but the disciplined warriors did not pause to savour it, snapping their shields closed again, continuing to press forward until Jardir called the next strike. A second line of warriors finished off the demons trampled into the ground by the front line’s advance.

Their first real test came when a copse of wood demons approached, carrying huge clubs. While not the massive trees the rocks were carrying, the weapons were larger than men, and the simple wood did what alagai talons could not, smashing into the shields of his warriors and scattering them in wide swathes.

Jardir concentrated before the demons could take advantage of the breaches, extending the power of his crown out beyond his warriors and stopping the demons short. He raised his spear and drew heat wards in the air, incinerating the wood demons, and then charged forward, his magic throwing the lesser alagai aside until he came up to the nearest rock. He pulled the protective field in tight, letting him get close enough to leap ten feet into the air and thrust the Spear of Kaji into the demon’s chest. Magic refilled the spear’s well as it pulsed up his arm, suffusing him with energy.

He kicked off from the falling demon, landing in a clear spot twenty feet away. Demons leapt at him from all sides, but their attacks skittered off his warding field, even as he attacked with impunity. Several demons fell to thrusts of his spear, but as many were destroyed by wards he drew in the air. Flame demons shattered as he froze the firespit in their bellies, and wood demons ran about frantically, immolated in flame. Impact wards threw field demons aside by the half dozen.

Still they closed in, their numbers undiminished. Every demon on the field was focused on him now. He extended the crown’s power again, driving them back until he could rejoin his men, but that only made him a clearer target as a rock demon threw a heavy boulder his way.

Jardir leapt aside, but was struck even as he landed by another stone dropped from above. He rolled with the impact, keeping hold of his spear and drawing on its magic to heal himself. He was given no respite, as rocks the size of melons began to fall like rain around him.

But as fast as the stones fell, Jardir was faster, dodging them like lazily drifting bubbles of soap. Even as he dodged the barrage from above, the rock and wood demons on the ground continued to hurl whatever they could grasp in their talons at him: rocks, trees, even a few of his own men. Wind demons bounced off his warding field, falling from the sky where his men quickly dispatched them before they could recover and take off again. One wind demon pulled up short just outside the limit of his protection and roared at him, a bolt of lightning leaping from its long toothed beak.

With a thunderous boom, the energy pierced the warding, going right for him, but Jardir could see the power for what it was, and did not fear. He raised his spear crosswise, absorbing the energy. The weapon tingled and burned with the power, but he threw it right back at the creature, blasting it from the sky.