The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett Read Free Book Online Page A

walk again, but he may not run.'
    'Will he be able to fight'' Qeran asked.
    'It is too soon to tell,' the dama'ting said.
    'If that is the case, you should kill him now,' Qeran said. 'Better dead than khaffit. '
    The dama'ting raised a finger at him, and the drillmaster recoiled. 'It is not for you to dictate what goes on in the dama'ting pavilion, dal'Sharum, ' she hissed.
    Immediately the drillmaster laced his hands as if in prayer and bowed so deeply that his beard nearly touched the ground.
    'I beg the dama'ting 's forgiveness,' he said. 'I meant no disrespect.'
    The dama'ting nodded. 'Of course you did not. 'You are a dal'Sharum drillmaster, and will add the glory of your charges to your own in the afterlife, sitting among Everam's most honored.'
    'The dama'ting honors me,' Qeran said.
    'Still,' the dama'ting said, 'a reminder of your place will serve you well. Ask Dama Khevat for a penance. Twenty lashes of the alagai tail should do.'
    Jardir gasped. The alagai tail was the most painful of whips'three strips of leather braided with metal barbs all along their four-foot length.
    'The dama'ting is forgiving,' Qeran said, still bent low. Jardir fled before either one could catch sight of him and wonder what he might have heard.
    'You shouldn't be here,' Abban hissed as Jardir ducked under the flap of the dama'ting pavilion. 'They will kill you if you're caught!'
    'I just wanted to see that you were well,' Jardir said. It was true enough, but his eyes scanned the tent carefully, hoping against hope that he might see Inevera again. There had been no sign of the girl since the day Jardir broke his arm, but he had not forgotten her beauty.
    Abban looked to his shattered legs, bound tight in hardening casts. 'I don't know that I will ever be well again, my friend.'
    'Nonsense,' Jardir said. 'Bones heal stronger when they are broken. You will be back on the walls in no time.'
    'Maybe,' Abban sighed.
    Jardir bit his lip. 'I failed you. I promised to catch you if you should fall. I swore it by Everam's light.'
    Abban took Jardir's hand. 'And so you would have, I do not doubt. I saw you dive to catch my hand. It is not your fault I struck the ground. I hold your oath fulfilled.'
    Jardir's eyes filled with tears. 'I will not fail you again,' he promised.
    Just then a dama'ting entered their partition, floating in silently from deeper within the pavilion. She looked their way, and she met Jardir's eyes. His heart thudded to a stop in his chest, and his face went cold. It seemed they stared at each other forever. The dama'ting 's expression was unreadable beneath her opaque white veils.
    At last, she tilted her head toward the exit flap. Jardir nodded, hardly believing his luck. He squeezed Abban's hand one last time and darted out of the tent.
    'You will encounter wind demons upon the walls, but you are not to engage,' Qeran said, pacing before the nie'Sharum. 'That duty will be for the dal'Sharum you serve. Still, it is important you understand your foes.'
    Jardir listened closely, sitting in his usual spot at the front of the group, but he was keenly aware of Abban's absence at his side. Jardir had grown up with three younger sisters, and then found Abban the day he came to the Kaji'sharaj. Loneliness was a strange feeling.
    'The dama tell us the wind demon resides on the fourth layer of Nie's abyss,' Qeran told the boys, gesturing with his spear at a winged image chalked on the sandstone wall.
    'Some, like the fools of the Majah tribe, underestimate the wind demon because it lacks the heavy armor of the sand demon,' he said, 'but do not be fooled. The wind demon is farther from Everam's sight, and a fouler creature by far. Its hide will still turn the point of a man's spear, and the speed of its flight makes it difficult to hit. Its long talons,' he outlined the wicked weapons with the point of his spear, 'can take a man's head off before he realizes it's there, and its beaklike jaws can tear off a man's face in a single bite.'
    He