Abban resisted the urge to smile as Hamash struggled to his feet, his face pale and bloody. He had chosen his drillmaster well.

Looking pale and dazed, blood running down his face, Hamash stumbled after as they limped over to the first squad. Another tan-veiled drillmaster stood at attention before them. His bow to Qeran was so low, his beard nearly touched the ground.

They walked the line, Qeran calling each man forth, treating them no differently than slaves on the auction block.

'Flabby,' Qeran noted of the first, pinching at his arm, 'but a few months of gruel and carrying stones as he runs around the city walls would cure him of that. Perform the first sharukin.' The man began to sweat, but he complied, moving slowly through the series of movements.

Qeran spat in the dust. 'Pathetic, even for a khaffit.'

'What was your profession before you answered the Deliverer's call to sharak?' Abban asked the man, taking out his ledger and pen.

'I was a lamp maker,' the man said.

Abban grunted. 'Were you master or apprentice?'

'Master,' the man said. 'My father owned our business, but left me to train my sons.'

'What difference does this make?' Qeran demanded, but Abban ignored him, asking several more questions before moving to the next in line. He was so thin his bones showed through his skin as he stood in his bido. His eyes squinted as they came to stand before him.

Abban held up three fingers. 'How many?'

The man squinted harder. 'Two.' There was doubt in his voice.

Abban took several steps back, and the squinting stopped. 'Three,' the man said more decisively.

Qeran gave the spindly man a shove and he fell onto his back in the dirt.

'On your feet, dog!' one of the tan-veiled drillmasters shouted, whacking at him with a spear butt, and the man quickly got back in line.

'This one does not even belong here, much less among the Deliverer's elite,' Qeran said.

Again Abban ignored him, still facing the man. 'Can you read? Do sums on a bead lattice?'

The man nodded. 'I can, when I have my lenses.'

They continued on thusly, Qeran pinching and prodding the men as Abban interrogated them. Some few were ordered to stand apart from the others, a group of potentials for Abban and Qeran to choose from.

They approached one who stood a head and more higher than all the others, his chest broad and his arms thick with muscle. Abban smiled.

'You will not want that one,' one of the drillmasters advised. 'He is strong as a herd of camels, but he cannot hear the signal horns or anything else for that matter.'

'You were not asked,' Abban said. 'I remember this one. He was one of the first to answer the Deliverer's call. What is his name?'

The drillmaster shrugged. 'No one knows. We simply call him Earless.'

Abban made a few sharp gestures, and the giant left the line to stand with the other potentials.

There were over a thousand Kaji kha'Sharum in the capital. When the dama sang the curfew from the minarets, they had barely seen half of them. They culled from the potentials as they went, but still there were more than fifty men following them. Abban and Qeran took these into the pavilion, testing and interrogating them further until the group was narrowed to twenty, then ten, until at last they agreed upon four, including the deaf and mute giant.

Qeran argued against the giant. 'A warrior who cannot hear the horns is a liability.'

'In alagai'sharak, perhaps,' Abban agreed, 'but as the dama'ting have their tongueless eunuchs, I can make good use of a man who will never overhear anything he shouldn't.'

They returned the next day after court, spending every moment until sundown inspecting, testing, questioning, and arguing until satisfied. Six times, Qeran threatened to quit if Abban overruled him on a particular man.

'Go, then,' Abban said over the seventh, a pit dog from Sandstone. He was a powerful brute, but his eyes were glassy with stupidity, and he could barely count his fingers. 'I will not have idiot soldiers.' The brute glared at Abban, but Earless towered behind him, arms crossed, and he thought better of speaking.

Qeran glared at him, but Abban glared right back. At last, the drillmaster shrugged. 'Would that you had such steel when you were a boy, I could have made a man of you.'

Abban smiled and gave a slight bow. 'It was always there, Drillmaster. Just not for battle.'

'You have a good eye,' Qeran offered grudgingly in the end, as he looked over his ten new recruits. 'I can make warriors of these men.'

'Good,' Abban said. 'Tomorrow we will go to the Majah khaffit'sharaj and begin again.'

It was another day to vet the Majah, a third for the Mehnding. It went more quickly after that, the tribes shrinking in size as they went down the line of pavilions in the training ground. The smallest was the Sharach with only three dozen full dal'Sharum and barely a hundred kha'Sharum.

'We passed over hundreds of better men in the Kaji,' Qeran noted after they had selected the best the Sharach had to offer. Like many of the older warriors, trained before Ahmann united the tribes, Qeran was fiercely loyal to his own and would prefer the majority of his recruits share his blood.

Abban nodded. 'But the Sharach are masters of the alagai-catcher.' Indeed, they had watched the Sharach warriors drilling with the weapons, long hollow spears with a hoop of woven steel jutting from the butt end to loop around the neck of a demon or man. A lever near the crosspiece could quickly widen or constrict the hoop. There were sharusahk forms to leverage the weapon, keeping control of the victim.

'I can teach the weapon well enough,' Qeran said.

'Well enough is not good enough, Drillmaster,' Abban said.

The drillmaster showed his teeth. 'I taught the Deliverer himself to fight. That is not good enough?'

Abban was unimpressed. 'You taught him much, but the dama taught him more, and it was blending the two that gave him true mastery. Ahmann studies the sharukin of all tribes now, and you will, too. You will teach these men, but you will also learn all they know. The Nanji spear and chain. The Krevakh ladder techniques. Everything. And if you are not up to the task, I will find one who is.'

'I can learn the tricks of lesser tribes,' Qeran growled.

'Of course,' Abban agreed. 'And improve many of them, no doubt. I chose the greatest living drillmaster for a reason. You will make the least of these men more than a match for any kai'Sharum.'

Qeran seemed mollified by that. Sharum were such simple creatures. A bit of lash with a compliment at the end, and they were yours.

'I cannot teach them the secrets of the dama that kai'Sharum learn,' Qeran admitted.

Abban smiled. 'Let me worry about that, Drillmaster.'

A wooden palisade had gone up around Abban's compound by the time he and Qeran marched in the 120 kha'Sharum. The stakes were planted deeply and lashed tight to give no sign of what went on behind them, but they were carefully worn to look haphazard and weak. The wards along its length were strong, but painted with no artistry nothing to draw attention to what might be going on behind.

It was, of course, an elaborate disguise. Once inside, Qeran gaped. Hundreds of chin slaves laboured to haul and mortar fine cut stone into the true wall already waist-high just inside the palisade. Others cleared rubble from the remains of the shoddy greenland homes that had previously populated the area. Great pavilions had been raised, some venting great plumes of smoke. The sounds of ringing metal, smashing stone, and shouting workers filled the compound.

'You're building a fortress,' Qeran said.

'A fortress from which we will arm and armour the forces of Sharak Ka,' Abban said. 'A fortress that must be protected, especially now, when it is weakest.'

For perhaps the first time since Abban had come upon him in a drunken stupor, Qeran smiled, his trained eyes dancing along the palisade and the foundation of the inner wall. 'Leave that to me. Your kha'Sharum will be patrolling in shifts by nightfall.'

'That will do for now, but it will not be enough,' Abban said. 'My agents have purchased many slaves from the auction block, and their labours have made them hard, but they are not warriors. You must train them as well.'

'I have never been comfortable with Shar'Dama Ka's decision to arm the chin,' Qeran said. 'The Evejah tells us to disarm our enemies, not train them.'

'Your comfort is irrelevant, Drillmaster,' Abban said. 'The Shar'Dama Ka has spoken. These are not enemies, they are slaves, and I do not mistreat them. They sleep in warmth with full bellies, many of them beside their own families, safe from predation.'

'You are a fool to trust them,' Qeran said.

Abban laughed in spite of himself, forced to stop walking and clutch his crutch for balance. He wiped a tear from his eye as he looked at Qeran, who scowled, unsure if he were the butt of the joke. 'Trust?' He chuckled again. 'Drillmaster, I do not trust anyone.'

Qeran grunted at that, and they continued their tour. Abban led him to the armourer's pavilion, where metal rang and the forges burned hot. Even with fanned vents along the walls, the air inside was stifling, thick with smoke, heat, and the steam of quenching troughs. Artisan stalls ran the length of the pavilion forges of metal or glass, blacksmiths, grinders, woodworkers, fletchers, weavers, and warders.

Each stall was run by several women in the thick black robes of dal'ting, seemingly oblivious to the damp heat. Qeran, too, showed no sign of discomfort, though he had taken on the rhythmic breathing of a Sharum embracing pain.

Abban took a deep breath of the hot, foul air and let out a contented breath, as if tasting the finest tobacco from his hookah. It was the atmosphere of profit.

In the centre of the pavilion were neat, growing stacks of finished products: spears, shields, ladders, hooks and lines, alagai-catchers, as well as the smaller though no less deadly weapons Watchers concealed about their persons. Scorpion stingers by the gross, and the giant cart-driven bows to launch them.

The drillmaster selected a spear at random from a pile, setting his peg leg firmly and putting it through a series of spins and thrusts. 'It's so light.'

Abban nodded. 'The greenlanders have a tree called the goldwood, and true to its name, it is worth its weight in precious metal. Goldwood is lighter and stronger than the rattan used for Sharum spears in Krasia, and needs less lacquer to harden the wards carved along its length.'

Qeran tested the tip against the meat of his palm, smiling broadly as the point slid in easily with only the barest pressure. 'What metal is this, to hold such an edge?'

'No metal,' Abban said. 'Glass.'

'Glass?' Qeran asked. 'Impossible. It would shatter on the first blow.'

Abban pointed to a cold anvil in one of the forge stalls, and Qeran did not hesitate, limping over and bringing the spear down on it hard enough to break even a steel blade. But there was only a ringing in the air, and a notch in the anvil.

'A trick we learned from the Hollow tribe,' Abban said. 'Warded glass lighter and stronger than steel, and hard enough to hold the sharpest edge. We silver the glass to obscure its nature.'

He took Qeran to another stall, handing him a ceramic plate. 'These plates are what dal'Sharum currently wear in the pockets of their robes.'

'I am familiar,' Qeran said drily.

'Then you know they break on impact, proof against one blow at most, and often making a powerful hit all the worse with shrapnel,' Abban said.

Qeran shrugged.

Abban gave him a second plate, this one of clear, warded glass that glittered in the light of the forge. 'Thinner, lighter, and strong enough to break a rock demon's claw.'

'The Deliverer's army will be unstoppable,' Qeran breathed.

Abban chuckled. 'No ordinary dal'Sharum could afford such armament, Drillmaster, but nothing is too good for the Spears of the Deliverer.' He winked. 'Or my Hundred. Your recruits will be better equipped than all but the Shar'Dama Ka's elite.'

Abban saw the glitter of greed that shone in the drillmaster's eyes at that, and smiled. One more gift, and he will be mine.

'Come,' he said. 'No drillmaster in my employ will hobble on a cheap peg.'

Abban watched in satisfaction as Qeran paced before the khaffit and chin he had selected for training. The drillmaster's peg had been thrown on the fire, replaced by a curved sheet of warded spring steel. It was simple, elegant, and gave him the potential to regain almost all the combat ability he had lost. He still used his spear for balance, but was becoming more sure-footed by the moment.

The men had been stripped down to bidos, their robes and other clothing burned. The khaffit wore tan, the chin a cloth the colour of green olives.

'I do not care what titles the paltry excuses for drillmasters in sharaj gave you,' Qeran shouted. 'You are all nie'Sharum to me, and will be until you have proven yourselves. If you do well, you will be rewarded. A warrior's robes and veil. Fine weapons and armour. Better food. Women. If you shame me,' he stopped, looking just over the heads of the crowd, seeming to stare in all their eyes at once, 'I will kill you.'

The men stood stock-still, backs arched and chests thrown forward, more than a few sweating and pale, even in the cool morning air. Qeran turned to Abban and nodded.

'Now,' Abban murmured to his nephew Jamere, but the young dama was already striding forward. He was tall but not thin, having never partaken in the dietary restrictions of the Evejah. Neither was he fat, moving with the fluid grace that marked Evejan clerics. Jamere had lived in Sharik Hora most of his life, and had copied or pilfered the secret sharusahk manuals of almost every tribe, mastering forbidden techniques. Skills he was all too happy to sell his uncle.

'Kneel before Dama Jamere!' Kaval barked, and the men fell immediately to their knees, none hesitating to put their palms in the dust.

Jamere held up his hands. In one, he held the writ Ahmann had signed, and in the other, the Evejah. 'Loyal nie'Sharum! Ahmann asu Hoshkamin am'Jardir am'Kaji, Shar'Dama Ka and Everam's voice on Ala, has given you to his servant Abban. It was Abban who brought the Deliverer's eyes to you, giving men cast from Everam's light a chance at redemption, a chance to prove your loyalty.'

He swept his gaze over the assembled men. 'Are you loyal?'

'Yes, Dama!' they shouted as one.

'Everam is watching!' Jamere cried, sweeping his hands up to the sun. 'Those who serve with loyalty and faith will see their rewards both on Ala and in Heaven. Those who break their oaths or fail in their duty will suffer greatly in their final hours before He casts their spirits down into Nie's abyss.'

Abban suppressed a snicker. The fanatical light in his nephew's eyes was nothing but a practised act, like that of a Northern Jongleur. The man was utterly faithless, and had been since before he was called by the clerics.

But the fear in the eyes of the men showed that his veil was perfect. Even Qeran seemed cowed as Jamere held out a copy of the Evejah.

'Your spear hand,' Jamere commanded, and the drillmaster laid his right hand on the worn leather.

'Do you swear to serve Abban asu Chabin am'Haman am'Kaji?' Jamere asked. 'To protect him and obey him and no other save the Deliverer himself, from now until your death?'

Qeran hesitated. His eyes flicked to Abban, his brows bunching together in outrage. When the three men had met earlier to rehearse the oath-taking, no one had mentioned the drillmaster would be included. It was one thing for Abban to demand oaths from khaffit and chin, but another to expect one from a dal'Sharum drillmaster of Qeran's stature.

Abban smiled in return. Make your choice, Drillmaster, he thought. Everam is watching, and you cannot take it back. Serve me, or go back to walking on a cheap peg and sleeping in your own vomit.

Qeran knew it, too. Abban had given him a path to glory, but glory had its price. The drillmaster looked to the waiting nie'Sharum, knowing that every second of hesitation would be a doubt he would have to beat from the men.

'I swear to serve Abban,' he growled at last, meeting Abban's eyes, 'until my death, or the Deliverer relieve me of the oath.'

Abban reached into his vest, producing a flask of couzi. He lifted it in salute to the warrior and drank.

13.

Playing the Crowd