The Daylight War (The Demon Cycle, #3)

by Peter V. Brett

Kaval glowered at the tent, and Rojer feared he would try to torch it. Amanvah caught his stare. “If you cannot be polite, Drillmaster, then make yourself useful. Take your men and kill seven alagai in honor of the union, one for every pillar of Heaven.” Kaval looked frustrated as he bowed. “We do not have our spears, dama’ting.” Amanvah’s eyebrows formed a tight V, and both Rojer and Kaval knew she was losing patience. “For more than three hundred years, Sharum killed alagai without warded spears, Drillmaster. Have the battle wards made you weak? Have you forgotten your skills?” Kaval knelt and pressed his forehead to the cobbles. “Forgive me, dama’ting. It will be done.” He seemed almost relieved as he signaled the other men and they left the Corelings’ Graveyard. Any excuse to kill demons, Rojer thought. “If they’re killin’ seven, then we’re killin’ seventy,” Gared said to Wonda. “Cutters! Get your axes! We’re going to give the Deliverer a wedding present: a demon pyre so big the Creator will see it from Heaven!” Amanvah watched the Cutters muster and head off into the night, and she sighed, taking Rojer’s arm. “Father is right,” she said. “Your people are not so different from ours.”