The Daylight War

28

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.

He felt suffused with power, unstoppable, and yet he saw he was being slowly cut off from his men and surrounded. Rock demons were hurling more and larger missiles at him, and sooner or later one would connect.

I have made a target of myself, he realized.

With that thought, he pulled his protective field in close, throwing up his hood and wrapping himself in Leesha’s Cloak of Unsight as he quickstepped several yards to the side. To his warriors nothing had changed, but he could see confusion in the auras of the alagai. To their senses, he had simply vanished.

Calmly, he walked back to the re-formed lines of the Sharum as the warriors took advantage of the demons’ confusion, striking hard as the alagai vainly searched for sign of him.

‘Uncle!’ a voice cried, and he saw Ashia running towards him. His niece was wrapped in her Sharum blacks, but in the darkness he recognized her aura more clearly than he ever might her face. A field demon leapt at her, but she turned to catch it on her shield, throwing it aside without slowing. A flame demon stopped in her path and hawked firespit, but she sidestepped smoothly as the creature closed its eyes to spew, skewering it.

Next, a pair of wood demons barred her path. Charged now with demon magic, Ashia only increased the speed of her advance, using the edge of her shield to stab at the joints of their long, spindly limbs, keeping them off balance and unable to attack. To an untrained eye, every move was as if practised by rote, but Jardir could see that she was in fact probing, applying dama’ting sharusahk as she searched for pressure points. At last she found one in a demon’s thigh, collapsing the limb with a relatively gentle blow. Only then did she plunge her spear in for the kill.

She spun to meet the next attack from the other wood demon, slapping it aside with a casual thrust of her shield’s edge into its spindly armpit as it lashed its talons at her. The demon stumbled back, and she advanced calmly. Her aura confirmed what he already knew: that she was utterly confident in her ability to kill it at will, and was using the opportunity to learn her enemy better.

No two demons were precisely alike. Each was shaped by its preferred hunting terrain, and Everam’s Ala was vast and varied. It took her two blows to find the same pressure point on the next wood demon, but after a moment she collapsed its leg. She filed the information away, finishing the demon quickly and closing the space between herself and Jardir in two great bounds.

Jardir frowned. His pride in his beloved sister Imisandre’s daughter was overwhelming. He had commanded she be twice the warrior of her male zahven, but she had surpassed them by far, and her own father, as well. Watching the graceful and precise movements of her art, so confident and in control, was like reading a poem.

But for all his pride, her defiance of his will in coming out into the night was unacceptable. No doubt Inevera had a hand in it, but he could not allow even the Damajah to flaunt his decrees so openly. Poor Ashia would be caught in the middle when he was forced to make an example of her.

He grabbed her arm hard when she reached his side, extending his crown’s protection just enough to envelop, but hopefully not enough to alert the alagai princes who even now sought him through the eyes of their drones. ‘Are you begging to have your new blacks stripped from you, girl, to defy my command?’

‘Forgive me, Uncle,’ Ashia said, falling to one knee and baring her neck. ‘The Damajah bade me to inform you that the alagai are burning great wards into the crops outside the city, creating a net.’

Jardir felt a chill run down his spine as he looked up, seeing the magic gathering off in the distance and sensing its purpose. The demons were constructing wards to repel men. If they succeeded in creating a circle around Everam’s Bounty, they could kill every man, woman, and child within. The Skull Throne was no protection against this.

‘Did she tell you anything else?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Ashia said. ‘But when my honoured husband told her the only way to stop them would be to burn our harvest, the Damajah suggested there might be alternatives.’

Jardir nodded. How could he forget the words he had pondered day and night since Inevera’s foretelling?

— The Deliverer must go into the night alone to hunt the centre of the web, or all will be lost when the Alagai Ka comes-

He looked back at his niece. She had as much as told him that his wife and son also defied his will, but that seemed an insignificant thing now. ‘Tell the Damajah I understand, and will follow the path Everam has set before me.’ Ashia bowed and turned to go, but he caught her arm once more. ‘I am proud of you, niece.’

Ashia’s aura, so flat and professional, suddenly blossomed with warmth. Jardir hugged her close, then drew back, meeting her eyes. ‘Remember that, when I must punish your defiance.’

The warmth of her aura did not dim in the least as she bowed one last time and turned back into the night. Only then did her detachment return, like a cloak she threw over herself before stepping into battle.

Jardir threw off his robes, stripping down to his white bido to reveal his warded flesh. Beyond that he wore only plain sandals, his crown, and Leesha’s cloak. In his hands he carried only the Spear of Kaji.

He looked back at Jayan, spotting his son’s aura in the crowd of warriors even more easily than his white turban.

Everam grant you be worthy, my son, he prayed.

There was a whispering on the night wind, and without understanding how he knew, he understood it was the demon princes, speaking to one another with magic rather than simple words. He could not understand what they were saying, but he isolated the nearest of the voices and followed it into the night. Warriors cried out and attempted to go with him, but while a berth appeared in the demons barring Jardir’s way as the crown forced them aside, they closed in quickly behind him.

It was not far before he began to see the currents of magic flowing towards the wheat fields. Demons patrolled the area, but they walked by him, oblivious to his presence as he crept through the stalks to the edge of the alagai princes’ wards. The tall wheat stopped abruptly, and before him the ala was scorched clean, glowing with magic.

Jardir marvelled at the precision of the lines. Flame demons could burn almost anything, but their magical fires tended to start very real ones. The fact that the burning went only in one direction, stopping as abruptly as it began, spoke of other magics involved.

He could feel the ward pushing at him. At first approaching had been like walking against a heavy wind, then like striding in deep water. When he reached out to the edge, it felt as solid as a wall of thick glass. Energy skittered along his fingertips, but he embraced the sting, tasting the magic.

Finally understanding the power, he concentrated, and felt the Crown of Kaji warm at his brow. He thrust his hand into the ward, and the magic parted around him like the stalks of wheat he had pushed through to get here.

Still the call on the night wind led him on as he walked openly along the lines of the demons’ web. He kept the power tight around himself, seeming no more than a slight ripple in the warding, like a pebble thrown into a rushing river.

He walked for some time before finding his quarry. The mind demon wasn’t even looking his way, its attention on the blaze of flame demons burning a path in the wheat. The demon was drawing wards in the air, snuffing the flames along precise lines. Its bodyguard, an amorphous blob of flowing black scales, hot with magic, slithered at its side.

The demon’s aura was bright with power, like looking at the sun, and it moved with casual security. And Jardir could see why. Magic was woven around the creature to protect it from prying eyes, but not, it seemed, his crownsight. Trusting in Leesha’s cloak, he strode right up to it.

The mimic perked up when he came within striking distance and the mind demon turned to face him, but it was too late. He stabbed hard with the Spear of Kaji, piercing its black heart.

The burst of power was like nothing Jardir had ever dreamed. He had killed powerful demons before, used to the feeling of magic running up the length of the spear, filling its well and pumping into him, making him stronger, faster. It healed his wounds, honed his senses, and polished away the years like rust buffed from steel.

But that feeling was a sip of water compared with the flood that ran through him, threatening to drown him in magic.

The demon prince shrieked in agony, and its pain was reflected in the screams and convulsions of the mimic and every other demon in the area. The demon reached for him, and while the claws at the end of its spindle arms were no longer than a pillow wife’s manicured nail, they were sharp as razors.

Jardir growled, sending a blast of the magic suffusing him back through the spear. It shocked through the demon like lightning, rattling it so hard its teeth ground and shattered. Its body began to smoke and stink, and Jardir pulled the spear free, swinging it in a tight slash that took the razor edge right through the slender demon’s neck.

The lesser demons collapsed as the mind demon’s head struck the ala, but the mimic took longer to die, shrieking wildly as its flesh bubbled and shifted, sometimes taking on familiar shapes, and others taking forms only seen in nightmares.

Still awash in power, Jardir pointed at it and drew a ward with the tip of his spear, blasting the creature back to Nie. He could hear bits of gelatinous flesh strike the ground as the smoke cleared.

Jardir stood still in the silence that followed, listening hard, but the calls of the other demon princes were gone.

They had felt their brother’s death, and fled the field.

Jardir bent, slinging the alagai prince’s body over his shoulder. He picked up its conical head with his free hand. With enough electrum, he could double the range of the Skull Throne, or build another to take with him as he conquered the North.

But first, there needed to be an early harvest.

‘I do not see the point of this, Father,’ Jayan said, when Jardir called his court in the hours before dawn and laid out his plan. ‘We should be rebuilding the defences and resting for the coming night, not …’

‘Be silent and listen well,’ Jardir snapped. ‘The alagai cannot defeat us on the field, and your mother has magicked the central city beyond their reach. The mind demons’ plan to build greatwards in the wheat fields has failed, and they will not attempt it again, lest they reveal their locations to me and meet the same fate as their brother.’

‘Then we have won,’ Jayan said.

‘Do not be a fool,’ Asome said. ‘The alagai need not meet our spears or storm our wards to kill us. They have only to burn the fields.’

‘And so we must leave them nothing to burn,’ Ashan agreed. ‘Harvest everything. Even grain not fully fruited.’

‘Work for the women, khaffit, and chin who cowered behind the walls while men stood for them in the night,’ Jayan said.

‘Work for all of us,’ Jardir corrected. ‘Even if every man, woman, and child in Everam’s Bounty, from the proudest dama to the lowliest chin cripple, bends their back from sunup to sunset, we will only be able to harvest …’

‘Twenty-two percent,’ Abban supplied.

‘… twenty-two per cent of the crop before night falls and the fires begin,’ Jardir finished. ‘It is essential that we have every hand, and that those of us considered above such toil be seen in the fields with the rest.’

Aleverak laid a hand on Jayan’s shoulder. ‘You did great honour to the white turban last night, son of Ahmann. Take heart in this. Did not Kaji himself begin life as a simple fruit picker?’

Jayan glanced at the hand, and there was a flare of anger in his aura at the perceived condescension. Aleverak had humbled him before, however, and he was wise enough to swallow the emotion.

There, my son, is the beginning of wisdom, Jardir thought.

‘Be careful, Deliverer,’ Hasik said as they approached a group of chin farmers, ‘they’re armed.’

Jardir studied the huge reaping tools the men held and did not deny they could be effective weapons in the right hands, but he sensed no danger here. The chin seemed terrified of him.

‘You worry too much, Hasik,’ he chided. ‘If a chin can kill me with a farming tool, what hope have I against Alagai Ka?’

He strode up to the men, and as expected they immediately fell to their knees, clumsily pressing their faces to the dirt in a crude imitation of proper obeisance.

‘Rise, brothers,’ Jardir said, bowing in return. ‘We have work to do, and no time for such formality.’ He reached out, taking one of the reaping tools. ‘What is this called?’

‘Ah, that’s a scythe, Y’Grace,’ one of the men said. He was past his prime but still strong.

Jardir nodded. He had heard the name. ‘Show me how to use it?’

‘Yur gonna mow?’ the man asked, incredulous.

The man next to him slapped him on the back. ‘Do as he says, idiot,’ he whispered.

The farmer nodded, taking the tool and demonstrating how to hold it, his muscular arms straight as he twisted to pass the blade close to the ground, mowing a small section of stalks with each pass.

‘A good tool, and an efficient stroke,’ Jardir said. ‘You would have been a great warrior, if you had taken that path.’

The man bowed. ‘Thank you, Y’Grace.’

‘But it is slow,’ Jardir said, taking the tool, ‘and our time is short. Please stand aside.’ He removed his outer robe, stripped to the waist save for the Crown of Kaji at his brow and the Spear strapped to his back. He held the scythe in reverse, blade behind him as he crouched low and called upon the magic in the items, filling himself with the strength and speed of a hundred men.

He leapt forward, moving along the field at a run as he brought the blade into the stalks. His sandalled feet beat a steady rhythm on the soft tilled ala, and in moments he was at the far end, turning for another pass. Cut stalks were still falling as he mowed those beside them.

The sun was still low in the sky when Jardir paused and looked out over the mown field. Inevera had found a basket weaver in the bazaar to deliver a cartload, and she herself led the work of harvesting the wheat, carrying a full basket as she directed women and children like she had been working the fields her entire life.

She was beautiful in the morning light, almost demure in opaque linen pants and a tight vest, maroon trimmed with gold. The khaffit and chin looked at her with worship in their eyes, and bent their backs all the harder at seeing her toil.

He looked out over the fields, seeing dama and Sharum working side by side with the lesser castes. It was an inspiring sight, a taste of the unity Kaji dreamed of, the common cause that would allow mankind to throw back the alagai and win Sharak Ka.

He prayed it would be enough.

‘… complete destruction of the Mehnding apple orchards,’ Abban said, ‘and over two thousand acres of pasture.’

Jardir sat the Skull Throne, stinking of the greasy ash that covered his clothes and smudged his skin. The burns were already healed, but he listened with a heavy heart to Abban’s private morning report after the third night of Waning.

His fears proved true the second night as the alagai princes, their original plan thwarted and unwilling to attempt it again lest they meet him on the field, moved instead to destroy his people through starvation.

The many rivers and streams throughout his fertile lands had proven natural firebreaks, and he had led warriors to destroy the flame demons and fight fires wherever they might appear, but even his powers were not infinite, and the depredations were devastating. Jardir lost count of the tonnage as Abban read list after list.

Abban turned over the next sheet. ‘In the Krevakh lands, there was a loss of …’

Jardir felt as if he might burst out of his skin if he had to sit and listen another moment. He stood abruptly, striding down the steps to pace the court floor. ‘Just tell me, khaffit,’ he growled. ‘How bad is it?’

Abban shrugged. ‘If the loss is done, then your people will survive, Deliverer.’ He met Jardir’s eyes. ‘But if the loss continues, month after month, half the people of Everam’s Bounty will lie dead before the winter snows recede, all without the alagai raising a claw.’

Jardir put his face in one of his hands.

‘You do have two advantages, however,’ Abban said.

Jardir looked up at him. ‘Advantages?’

‘Your people see you as the true son of Everam now,’ Abban said. ‘Even the chin whisper your name with awe, spreading the tales of your efforts to protect them, day and night. Working in the fields alongside them was a masterstroke.’

‘I didn’t do it to win hearts,’ Jardir said.

‘It does not matter why you did it, my friend,’ Abban said. ‘With that gesture, and the body of the alagai prince to parade before the Damaji, they will follow you, Krasian and greenlander alike.’

‘Follow me where?’ Jardir asked.

‘Why, to Lakton,’ Abban smiled. ‘The fields in the chin lands to the east of Everam’s Bounty are still ripening.’

The Royal Consort waited in the cave as dawn approached. The dark was still enough to leave the surface stock blind, and the lesser drones could hunt for hours more, but to the coreling prince, used to the utter blackness of the mind court, the sky was brightening at an alarming rate.

He had waited purposely until the last moment to summon the others as the last night of Waning drew to a close. They would be forced to materialize outside the cave, weakening in the light as they approached. The consort had drawn powerful wardings around the cave and the fissure at its rear, focusing the magic venting from the Core and ensuring no other could Draw upon it.

Two of the six minds he had brought with him to the surface were dead — the most powerful, no less, but it was still wise to take every precaution when facing so many of his brethren so far from the Queen’s influence.

It was an advantage to be rid of two potential rivals, but not worth drawing the Queen’s displeasure this close to a laying. The other four minds seemed heroes by comparison, fighting on even as his plans failed, sapping the enemy’s strength. The experience and prestige they gained positioned them well to take the place of his lost rivals.

He Drew hard on the vent as the four approached, holding as much power as he could bear. He made no effort to mask the energy, letting the others see and fear it. His mimics surrounded him, but a simple forbiddance kept the rival mimics outside the cave.

The day star approaches, brother, one of the demons thought.

We should return to court and report to the Queen, another agreed.

The consort hissed. You will report first to me.

We have given you our reports, one of the princes sent to the North argued. He was older than the other, and stronger. His will had grown considerably since coming to the surface. He masked his aura well, but the consort could sense his tension.

At a thought, one of his mimics lashed out, wrapping a tentacle around the prince’s throat and hauling him in close. The consort did not change his stance, but he readied his power. If they were to strike in unison, it would be now.

But the others stood frozen. They might hate the consort even more than the day star, but they hated one another as well, and none would risk his own life without assurance of victory.

The consort caressed the knobbed skin of the prince’s cranium. You have given your reports, but have not told all. Did you think me a fool?

The young mind struggled, no match for the mimic’s strength. His cranium pulsed, attempting to seize control of the drone, but the consort’s will was second only to that of the Queen herself. The mimic tightened the tentacle around the prince’s throat, and his efforts to escape ceased.

What happened the night your brother died? the consort asked.

We captured the unifier, the prince admitted, drawing a hiss from his cohort. The princes sent south tensed at the words, craniums pulsing as they conversed.

Then why is your brother gone while the unifier continues to kill drones and draw humans to serve him? the consort demanded.

We walked his mind to learn of his power, the prince thought, but he escaped before we could bring him to you.

A second lie? the consort asked. The prince’s lidless eyes widened, but he had no time to protest before the mimic slashed a talon, opening his cranium wide. The consort reached inside, tearing bits of the prince’s mind, feeding as the others watched with horror and jealousy mingled in their auras.

As he fed, the memories and will of the prince transferred to him, and he learned in an instant everything they had taken from the unifier’s mind. The consort was nearly overwhelmed by the pleasure and power of it. He had feasted on the minds of his brethren numerous times over the millennia, and it never failed to leave him dizzy with strength. Outside, the prince’s mimic shrieked and began to lose cohesion.

The consort looked to the other prince that had shared in the deception. He stood frozen with fear, no doubt wondering if he would share his brother’s fate.

Go, the consort ordered, and the prince did not question his fortune, backing quickly out of the cave and fleeing to the Core, taking his mimic with him.

The other two princes stood motionless as the consort digested the memories of their brother. One licked his teeth, looking at the broken cranium.

The consort was shocked to learn that the unifier had stolen much of his power by consuming drones. He had not known it was possible for the surface stock to store Core magic in their bodies and learn to Draw. It seemed as impossible as a rock drone debating philosophy, but there was no denying it.

And now he knew, too, the answer to the question that had drawn them all to the surface in the first place. The fighting wards had been found buried in the sand to the south.

The Northern unifier has stolen a bit of our power, but I have his measure now, he thought to the others. There is nothing he can do we cannot. We must simply devise the right lure to draw him off his greatwards.

No mind would be so foolish, one of the princes thought.

This one has foolishness to spare, the consort assured him. He is not nearly as evolved as he thinks, and he has led us to the source of the uprising. He sent a mental image of the lost city of the last unifier.

We must go there on the next cycle and grind every last stone to powder, the consort thought. I will shit on the unifier’s corpse myself, for the trouble he caused us.

The other minds gave their agreement, and the consort met their eyes, letting them see him in the fullness of power.

Open your minds to me, he ordered. It was not something he would dare back in the mind court, but these princes knew well that they would never see the court again if they did not comply, and it was a better fate by far than having their minds consumed. As one, they lowered their defences, letting the consort sift their memories of the last three nights.

They had been in contact with their brother when the heir appeared, wearing the cursed crown and driving his vicious weapon into the prince’s chest.

The consort felt a chill of fear as he relived the memory. The Northerner was powerful, but his power was no more than the weakest of princelings. The heir had done what he feared most and unlocked the full power of the artefacts.

He had become the mind hunter, like the withered corpse out in the desert.

How many of the consort’s brethren and ancestors had fallen before that one? The Queen herself had not been alive then, but he was. He had been juvenile and weak, surviving more by luck than cunning, but he remembered well the terror that permeated the air of the mind court.

The consort dismissed the others with a nod, letting them flee the surface before gathering his mimics and riding the currents of the vent back to the Core.

The heir must be killed quickly, before he could set up a dynasty.