I almost winced yet again. Did he think bedplay had turned me into a fleeing maiden, like the Clau tales of girls shapeshifting to trees to escape amorous deities? I was no maid, and he was no god. “I do not fear you.” There, in the accent of my youth, the thorny pleasure of speaking G’mai. You may learn a thousand tongues, but the one you are born to is always there, an underground river. “I fear...”
What? What is it Kaia Steelflower, the Iron Flower they sing cheap ditties about in taverns, worth good red gold to any who want a sword’s service—what is it you fear?
He waited. No doubt I was straining his patience. I did nothing but strain the patience of any I allowed too close to me, any I...
I finally gathered enough spit in my dry, dry mouth to shape the next words. “No doubt you saw much to anger you last night.”
Darik regarded me quietly, top to toe, from my scarred boots to my mussed braids, my indifferently-mended jerkin and my harsh trews, the dirt on my face and the rancid breath of inebriation filling my throat.
“When the moment comes that I am angered,” he said, clearly, “I will not hesitate to inform you. I was pleased to accompany you. You might have been stabbed or worse, were you alone and unaware.”
A s’tarei is responsible for an adai’s protection, ever and always. Power moves in the women of the G’mai, and to teach us the meaning of mercy we feel any harm committed to our twin’s flesh. The balance is there, between the not-so-visible Power and the all too visible responsibility. Most know not to attempt any mischief on a drunken sellsword’s person, only their purse, but what if I had attracted more notice than was wise? He fought well, but a tavern knifebrawl was an unpredictable batteground at best, and I had placed him in danger.
Again.
Janaire had the right of it. Had I stayed home, in G’maihallan...
But I had not, and that was past, and what I had at the moment was a tavern full of creaking drunks who were beginning to stir, and the knowledge that my purse was several coins lighter. Money to get us through the winter, and I had squandered some portion of it. Just like any common sellsword. Not to mention a s’tarei I had not spoken more than courtesies to after our first blood-encounter. He was somewhat inexperienced, true, but not...not precisely bad, and feeling his half of the play had some very interesting effects.
Was I blushing? “I do not fear you.” Once I said it, my throat eased slightly. “You must believe that.”
“Then I will.” Darik took another step. I did not retreat, though I twitched. He simply offered his hand, palm-up. Said nothing. In Vulfentown there had been the twinsickness; I could not tell myself it had merely been a jai fever, prone to recurrence once you had suffered it. I could not tell myself much of anything at all. I longed for a bath, for a flesh-kneader at the temple, and for another few kegs of hanta to lose myself in.
Rikyat and I had matched each other with hanta in his army camp, the night before the battle. A thimbleful before a pitched battle is the custom, but in the irregulars, it pays to be generous.
My calluses scraped against Darik’s palm. Another reminder of what I was, and what I would never be—a soft G’mai girl, the adai he had been cheated of.
“I suspect you craved refuge in forgetting, for a short while.” He folded both his hands over mine. “Him. Ammerdahl.” Very softly, his accent turning the name into an exotic featherbrush. “His rebellion failed.”
There was nothing I wanted more than some fresh hanta to drown the sound of my own thoughts repeated to me in clear, tender G’mai, the most intimate of inflections. My mouth was so foul I could not bear to breathe upon him. That was the reason I dropped my chin, perhaps. For the moment, the black silk over his chest seemed the least troubling alternative. “He said I was his luck. And luck would desert him, if I...”
“Ah. Was that what he cried as you left?”
Of course, the Shainakh would not be so clear to my s’tarei, in the post-battle din. “Yes.” My eyes burned. There was no weeping in me, I told myself. I almost added the dream, but that would raise another specter—more lessons with Janaire, and the fatahn’adai, the future-knowing, was nothing to be wished for. Besides, it wasn’t precisely future-knowing if it showed the past, was it? It was only a dream; I had a full waggonload of problems. Adding one more would be folly.
His shoulders slackened. “Shaurauq’g’d’ia,” he breathed. It is one of the stronger imprecations a s’tarei may utter. “May he be cursed.”
“Cursed or not, his luck abandoned him.” When you have fought side by side with a man, when he has taken a crossbow bolt for you, when you have dragged him to the healer’s tents and fought off Danhai raiders on horseback, when you kept watch at his side after the tribesfolk had been beaten away and chewed flavourless dried horsemeat with the salt stinging your mouth while he shudders and fights to breathe...even if that man seeks to use you afterward, even if he set a Blue Hand at you and would have gladly sacrificed you in the front of a battle because his god told him so...
Even then, what you hear is the sound of a crossbow, the bolt splitting air, the knowledge that you cannot move in time, and a shadow between you and death grunts and falls. Your own place in the Halls of the Moon is taken. I found myself leaning forward, perhaps because the world had not finished its shifting underneath me.
D’ri was right, I had sent Redfist and his friend home and continued to well and truly sot myself, in the time-honored fashion of sellswords, to salve an ache there was no cure for.
If Thanourt could lay aside the coverings for the marks on his wrists, perhaps after some measure of seasons I could think on Ammerdahl Rikyat without the sharp pinch of...what? Grief? Of all the languages I could handle, there did not seem to be a word that applied.
Even in G’mai.
My forehead met Darik’s chest. He was still as a stone, the faint rise of his breathing halting for a moment. Then he inhaled, and his voice was a comforting rumble. “He sent a skai’atair to kill his luck.” The word holds many meanings—unclean, foul, outcaste, the dregs of a poisoned bowl. Assassin, as well. “Is that the custom, in these strange lands?”
At least I had the benefit of understanding Antai, Vulfentown, Shainakh. Darik, fresh from G’maihallan, Janaire and Atyarik had all traveled, certainly, but mine was the sellsword’s way. You learn quickly, or you die, and I had gained my understanding with both time and blood.
My shoulders dropped still further. I leaned into him as if I were a ship, and he a safe harbor. He still held my fingers, but touched one of my sadly abused braids, a gentle, skating motion, as well.
“Not the custom.” I said into his shirt, wishing my head would cease pounding. “More the rule.”
“A fine distinction, adai’mi.” Quiet, gentle, as if I were a horse to be soothed.
The thought of a s’tarei to a horse made my breath hitch in, then out in short chuffing gasps. Darik’s arms closed about me, and I did not know whether I was weeping or laughing onto his fine silk and leather. In the middle of a just-rousing Antai tavern, the clenching in my chest loosened a little, then a little more. When he drew me out into the too-bright streets of the mist-locked city, I followed, my hand caught in his as if I trusted him, and my head empty of all but a great ringing unsound.
Baffle and Breeches
Breathing, in and out, a comforting rhythm. Complete darkness, for my arm was over my eyes, sealing out the faint glow of the banked fire. Darik’s inhalations were long and quiet, his exhalations the same. It was...pleasant, his arm across my belly and his mouth near my bare shoulder. Every so often his hand might twitch or his dark lashes flutter, not signs of restlessness but of deep dreaming.
I tried to match his breath with my own. I listened to the creaks and groans—any house, especially an Antai stone-and-timber villa midway up the hills, sings at night. The kitchen was stocked enough for a tenday, Janaire had taken over the cooking with a sigh of relief, declaring inn-fare passable but nothing more; our first meal in our new home ha
d been merry enough. She made skanta, and made it well, despite some of G’maihallan’s spices missing. They did not travel even so far as Hain, the flavours of my homeland.Gavrin attempted to strike up his song about the crossing again and was hissed at, Diyan had a long face because he had his own room—he’d grown quite used to sleeping next to Redfist, but I did not trust this Ninefinger enough to let a child rest near him. Still, the boy badgered Gavrin into playing some freetown drinking-songs, and that lightened the mood considerably.
Ninefinger himself was not so hearty an eater as Redfist, but he did not look askance at a free meal. It worried me, slightly. I did not like the idea of two giants to feed, and somehow the conversation had never turned to what business, precisely, the blond barbarian was in Antai upon.
D’ri moved slightly, his arm brushing my hip. Sleeplessness had left its mark on him. Perhaps he was not quite as used to it as I had become. Or perhaps my sotted stupor the previous night had given me a surfeit of rest.
The little Vulfentown boy would need proper winter trews and jerkin, and would likely outgrow both by spring. Now that we were settled for this season, I could begin to plan for the next. I could not drag the entire troupe about for the rest of my life, could I? Janaire and Atyarik could return to G’maihallan whenever they pleased, what kept them was my unfinished training and perhaps their fealty to Darik. At least he was not subtly hinting at homesickness. Redfist could sellsword with me; it could even be an advantage. The boy, though...did I really think him fit for a thief’s life? He was quick and capable, and most thieves are winnowed early; he was past the most dangerous age.
Gavrin was all but useless, especially if I wished to hie myself to any city I required a decent amount of anonymity in.
A sharp dissatisfied sigh caught me unaware, but Darik’s breathing didn’t alter. It was useless. I would not sleep that night, between the worry and—useless to deny it—the dread of another dream. Battles sometimes returned while a sellsword visited the night country, often bleeding into what could have happened instead of what had. There was no reason to suspect anything more, but such apprehension is not a philosopher to be argued with. All that soothes it is time.
I finally slid carefully from under D’ri’s arm. It was a chance to practice silent-moving, a thieves’ skill indeed. The trick is to spread your weight slowly against the floorboards, and to count—and remember—your steps in any house. Ghosting across the room, barefoot, standing in the hall to wriggle into my breeches and shrug into my unlaced shirt once the door was safely closed, I immediately felt much better.
Careful, precise prowling is a brand of moving, and motion helps thinking. There were no guards posted and I was not here to relieve a treasury of its cargo, and the unfamiliar sounds of the house would mask my stealthy creeping. Down the stairs, testing my memory of their squeaks and dimensions, wringing a betraying whisper out of one and chastising myself sharply for it. On the lower floor, stone underfoot chill-hard, wind mouthing the corners of the house, I paused to fix the stairs more clearly in my memory. Going up would be different, and I did not wish to make a sound upon my return. I should have felt better, but irritation settled just under my roughening skin.
I turned towards the kitchens. I had bought a double-fistful of kafi beads, now might be a good time to grind and brew some, sip at something hot while the night breathed around me. It was not raining, and in the shelter of the courtyard it would be warm enough, even barefoot, as long as I kept moving.
I closed my eyes, running my fingertips lightly over the wall on my right. One, two, three openings—a shuttered window, another, then the door leading to the tiled room with two bathing-tubs. We could even hire a servant or two, and without the drudgery of cleaning or cooking I could perhaps study something. Poetry, or history; there were no shortage of scrollsters on the Street of Dust and its branching capillaries.
Wait.
The door moved slightly under my fingers. Everything inside me tightened.
It was open; the latch was not caught. I replayed the evening in my head. Diyan had taken the office of closing and latching, just as a pot-boy in an inn might. It was unlike him to perform slipshod any task I gave him.
I lifted the latch bar, and it moved smoothly. My nostrils flared slightly—a distinctive odor.
Cras oil.
My free hand flashed to my hip, but no knifehilt greeted me. It could simply be our little thief-boy, taking it upon himself to quiet a squeak or two—except he had barely been able to stay awake at the end of dinner, stuffed to the backteeth with Janaire’s skanta.
My skin crawled, little skittering feet of unease prowling every inch of me. Stop. Think.
If I were about quiet business, I might have tested the kitchen’s back door, easily propped open to allow a breeze through when the ovens drew out cooksweat. There was a short passage to the prasium—the room where lather from cras-oil soap would be scraped from a rich Antai merchant’s skin before he plunged into a bath tepid or scalding—that a servant could take to bring the fruits it was customary to sample while bathing from downcellar or kitchen cupboard. This was a small villa, without a grand dining room or the scilbahua, the bathing-room that could seat enough of the city’s powerful to sit in steam and decide matters of policy or trade.
The mental walls between me and the outer world thinned, an instinctive reaching-out. I had shifted my weight back, intending to slide up the stairs and at least fetch a knife, when a small deadly hiss, lost under the sound of the wind, slid past my ear.
When a knifeblade is traveling quickly enough, it cleaves air and pushes a deathbreeze before it.
I was already moving, pitching aside and ducking, my left foot flicking back to catch a knee. A faint brush of cloth against my toes and I went down all the way, shock of stone flooring unsweetened by carpet or rushes against my knee, tucking and rolling to take myself out of range. My pupils dilated, the shadow moved, and a flickering gleam told me curved blade, can’t blacken the honed edge itself as I gained my feet with a silent lunge. As tall as me, slightly broader at shoulder and narrower at hip, the intruder kicked, meaning to throw me off balance, but I was already leaning back and shuffling, toes spread to grip and everything but the knife-edge vanishing from my consciousness. Could have another blade...move, move move!
Another low deadly note, and that answered me. Two knives, and all I had was the shirt I was tearing at and my wits. “Hai!” I yelled, and flung myself aside again. We had exchanged places now, my back to the stairs and the intruder hesitating just out of range.
Thief, or assassin? The next moment or two would give me an answer.
The shape darted for me, I threw myself back again, finally tearing the cloth and laces of my shirt enough to free it from my shoulders and arms, wrapping it over my left arm as a baffle as I gave yet more ground, retreating for the stairwell’s foot. Another lunge, the cloth on my arm was thin protection and if I took a strike there was the best place. To coldly calculate catching a knife in your own arm-muscle is no pleasant task.
True combat brings out the water, even in one or two passes. Tiny puffs of chill over my sweating skin, my breasts bounced slightly as I dodged yet another strike, and if the assassin was fast enough they could cut off the stairs and work me toward the kitchen. At least there were blades there, unless Janaire had locked the cupboard.
Edged metal caught cloth, tearing, sharp tip caressing the back of my forearm, a lick of fire and first blood to this shadow. I dropped as if something vital had been hit or I had tripped, both legs flung out as the stone burned my bare back, and just caught one dark-wrapped knee. Not enough to injure, but it threw the intruder’s pattern off, and I rolled, knowing if I could just move, just move, I could gain my feet and there was a spindly table from previous inhabitants on this side of the hall, ugly enough to be left behind. It was better than nothing, once I had one of its legs within range I would be armed, after a fashion, and—
A choking noise, a clatter, and I scrambl
ed for the table. More noise overhead—thank the gods, now I was grateful for the entire sorry lot of them dragging my keel—turned into running feet, but the assassin made another soft, helpless noise.
A gleam over the dark shoulder rose, a pale face.
His eyes burning, his hair mussed, my s’tarei wrenched my own largest knife free and plunged it into the assassin’s other kidney. His hand came up, cupping the chin, and as I blurted “No, for questioning—” he made a convulsive cracking movement, and the body slid through his hands.
That was the moment Janaire reached the top of the stairs and whispered a globe of soft silver glow—zaradai, a witchlight— into existence, sending it into the air with a quick, practiced flick of her wrist, effectively destroying my night-vision. I swore foully, my hip bumping the table and sending it along the floor with a screech.
“How many?” D’ri, in clear, harsh G’mai.
“What in the name of—” Redfist’s bellow from overhead.
I shook my head, Darik arrived at my side, and I restrained the urge to reach for his knife. “Don’t know,” I snapped.
Atyarik loomed behind Janaire, his hair a wild mess and a fire in his Tyaanismir gaze promising trouble to any of the assassin’s cohorts.
“Kaia?” Redfist. No Gavrin, and no piping of Diyan’s voice.
“Check the boy, Redfist!” I yelled up the stairs, tradetongue harsh against my tongue, and grabbed the three-legged table. I half-turned, meaning to search the kitchen, but Darik’s hand closed over my shoulder.
“Wait.”
“If there are more—”
“Then they are long gone. Or just as dead as this one.” His chin lifted slightly. “Tyaanismir?”
Atyarik arrived at the stair-foot, tossed something—harness straps, two hilts, D’ri’s blades—to my s’tarei, and half-turned as Janaire ran, velvet-foot, down in his wake. “With the princess, J’na.”
She nodded, sending the witchlight spinning, and I realized I was naked save for baffle and breeches, clutching a table, and could have been killed if not for Darik. I sagged against the wall for a moment, ignoring the cold, and let out a long, comfortingly obscene term I had learned in Hain.
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