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Hannu Pash, there were even a few hard bits of unidentifiable meat mixed into Jardir’s bowl. It was more food than Jardir had seen in quite some time and it smelled of a mother’s love, but Jardir found he had little appetite, especially when he noted that the bowls of his mother and sisters lacked the bits of meat. He forced the food down so as not to insult his mother, but the fact that he ate with his left hand only made his shame worse.
    After the meal, they prayed as a family until the call came from the minarets of Sharik Hora, signaling dusk. Evejan law dictated that when the call sounded from the minarets of Sharik Hora, all women and children were to go below.
    Even Kajivah’s mean adobe hovel had a barred and warded basement with a connection to the Undercity, a vast network of caverns that connected all of the Desert Spear in the event of a breach.
    “Go below,” Kajivah told his sisters. “I will speak privately with your brother.” The girls followed her command, and Kajivah beckoned Jardir to the corner where his father’s spear and shield hung.
    As always, the arms seemed to look down on him in judgment. Jardir felt the weight of his cast keenly, but there was something that had been weighing on him even more. He looked to his mother.
    “Dama Khevat said father took no honor with him when he died,” Jardir said.
    “Then Dama Khevat did not know your father as I did,” Kajivah said. “He spoke only truth, and never raised a hand to me in anger, though I bore him three daughters in succession. He kept me with child and put meat in our bellies.” She looked Jardir in the eyes. “There is honor in those things, as much as there is in killing alagai. Repeat that under the sun and remember it.”
    Jardir nodded. “I will.”
    “You wear the bido now,” Kajivah said. “That means you are no longer a boy, and cannot go below with us. You must wait at the door.”
    Jardir nodded. “I am not afraid.”
    “Perhaps you should be,” Kajivah said. “The Evejah tells us that on the Waning, Alagai Ka, father of demons, stalks the surface of Ala.”
    “Not even he could get past the warriors of the Desert Spear,” Jardir said.
    Kajivah stood, lifting Hoshkamin’s spear from the wall. “Perhaps not,” she said, thrusting the weapon into his good left hand, “but if he does, it will fall to you to keep him from our door.”
    Shocked, Jardir took the weapon, and Kajivah nodded once before following his sisters below. Jardir immediately moved to the door, his back straight as he stood throughout the night, and the two that followed.
    “I’ll need a target,” Jardir said, “for when the dama’ting remove my cast, and I need to get back in the food line.”
    “We can do it together,” Abban said, “like we did before.”
    Jardir shook his head. “If I need your help, they’ll think I’m weak. I’ve got to show them I’ve healed stronger than before, or I’ll be a target for everyone.”
    Abban nodded, considering the problem. “You’ll have to strike higher in the line than the place you left, but not so high as to provoke Hasik and his cronies.”
    “You think like a merchant,” Jardir said.
    Abban smiled. “I grew up in the bazaar.”
    They watched the line carefully over the next few days, their eyes settling just past the center, where Jardir had waited before his injury. The boys there were a few years his senior and larger than him by far. They marked potential targets and began to observe those boys carefully during training.
    Training was much as it had been before. The hard cast kept Jardir’s arm in place as he ran the obstacles, and the drillmasters made him throw left-handed during spear and net practice. He was given no special treatment, nor would he have wished it. The strap found his back no less often than before, and Jardir welcomed it, embracing the pain and knowing every blow proved to the other boys that he was not weak, despite his injury.
    Weeks passed, and