Sword Born ss-5

by Jennifer Roberson

  Even as I lay against him, I looked back toward the ladder. Back where Del had been.

  Had been.

  Oh, bascha…

  "Del — "

  The stud swam his way free of his prison as it scraped off the reef and sank. He scrabbled against the reef, grunting with effort. I had images of his forelegs stripped of flesh, tendons sliced —

  "Del — ?"

  Where in hoolies was she — ?

  The reef was treacherous. I felt the stud falter beneath me, slipping and sliding. Felt him go down, felt the fire bloom in my own leg. I came off sideways, but did not let go of mane even as I fought for footing in the pockets and gullies of the reef. Sandals were stripped off entirely.

  "— up —" I urged, trying to suit words to action myself. If we could get free of the reef, back into open water —"Go —" I gasped. "Go on, you flea-bitten, lop-eared —" I spat out a mouthful of saltwater, sucked in air, "— jug-headed, thice-cursed son of a Salset goat —" I used the reef, tried to launch and jerk myself up onto his back again. Made it partway… and then he lurched sideways, hooves slipping, scrabbling; something banged me in the head, graying out my vision. More flesh came off against reef. And then he was free at last, lunging off treacherous footing into water again, swimming unencumbered, save for me. But if I let go —

  Never mind.

  I kicked as best I could, trying to hold up my own weight even as he dragged me. He swam strongly, nose thrust up into the air. A hoof bashed my knee, scraped off skin. I got my head above water long enough to gulp breath.

  "If I live through this," I told him. "I’m either never going on board a ship again"— hoolies, there went the other knee —"or else I’m going to learn how to swim —"

  But for the moment, luckily, he swam for both of us.

  I twisted, peering in snatches over my shoulder, looking for Delilah. My immediate horizon was transient at best: I saw a lot of slapping waves, the looming hulks of unidentifiable pieces of ship, floating casks, chunks of wood bound with rope. And a blue-sailed ship beyond, swooping in now like a desert hawk.

  It crossed my mind, even as I hung on with all my strength to a panicked stud-horse, that the renegadas could not have meant the ship to break up so definitively. I could see the intent: to run us hard aground, then come in for the kill. But surely it was next to impossible to find any of the supposed goods they were after, now that the ship was in pieces.

  Then again, maybe they hadn’t intended the ship to break up quite so — dramatically. Or at all. Could be they meant to trap her, and were as startled as any of us by her quick demise.

  I heard shouting. Couldn’t say if it came from members of our ship’s crew, or the renegadas. All I knew was I’d swallowed a gut-load of saltwater and had left a strip or two of skin on the reef. But I was alive, and so long as I didn’t lose the stud I’d stay that way. So long as he made it to land, that is.

  The next moment I wasn’t so sure he would, or I would. His hooves struck something substantial, and he floundered. One hand slipped out of his short mane as he jerked and flung his head, seeking balance; my feet banged on something hard and rough. My turn to fight for balance. There was land under us, or reef, or something. Enough for the stud to plant all four hooves, and for me to slip and slide and eventually lose footing and handholds.

  Before I could blurt out a word, before I could get my feet under me, the stud lurched off whatever we stood on. He was in the water again, swimming as strongly as before. Beyond him I saw a rim of land, a line of skinny, tall, spike-headed trees. He’d make it, I realized. He was but ten horselengths away. I, on the other hand, well…

  I managed to stand up. It was reef, not land. Water slapped at my knees. Most of me was out of it now. I was in absolutely no danger of drowning — so long as I stayed on the reef.

  A body floated by. My heart seized up as I saw the blond hair, then realized it was one of the sailors. I turned, trying to look beyond, trying to see anything that might be Del. Then a floating piece of wood banged into me and knocked me right off the reef.

  Ah, hoolies —

  Timber.

  Floating.

  I snatched at it, caught it, hung on with everything I had. Kicked my way closer, tried to pull myself up on it enough to get part of me out of the water. It rolled, bobbed; I got a mouthful of seawater for my trouble. Finally I just locked my hands into a strand of rope and hung on, floating belly-down. So long as I kept a death-grip on the timber, I wouldn’t sink, wouldn’t drown. Of course I had no idea where it or I might wind up. For all I knew it would float back out to sea… so, I applied myself to working out the magic it took to aim and steer the timber, which I thought might be part of the mast. If I kicked just so; if I pointed the wood in a specific way, and then kicked… hey. Maybe this is how you learn to swim — ?

  Not likely.

  However, it did result in the mast and me ending up closer to land than to open sea, and I let out a long string of breathless invective as at last I felt sand beneath me, not reef.

  Water sucked it out from under me almost as quickly as I found it. I staggered, caught my balance, lurched forward. The wind had stirred up the water enough to make footing and balance treacherous. I dragged myself out of it, feeling sand sliding beneath bare feet. Eventually I got free of waves and managed to escape the ocean altogether, staggering up onto the packed, wet sand of the beach.

  I turned back, looked for Del, for the remains of our ship: saw a ship, all right, but not ours. And people clambering over the sides, dropping down into a smaller boat. Several gestured toward the broken-up remains. Toward land. Toward me.

  Throw the dice, Tiger. Let them pick you up, put you on board a fast, sleek ship, give you food, rhuum; or run like hoolies.

  I ran.

  At some point, after I had stopped running, I fell asleep. Or passed out. Or something. I only woke up when a hand closed on my shoulder.

  I lurched upright from the ground, then finished the movement by springing — creakily — to my feet. I had no weapon, but I could be one.

  Except I didn’t need to. "It’s me," Del said.

  So it was. Alive and in one piece. Which gave me latitude to be outraged. "Where in hoolies have you been?"

  "Looking for you." She paused. "Apparently harder than you were looking for me."

  "Now, wait a minute," I protested. "I didn’t exactly plan to fall asleep. It was after I escaped those renegadas"— and threw up half an ocean, but I didn’t tell her that —"and I figured I’d better lay low for a while, then go looking for you." I sat down again, wincing; actually, I’d been so exhausted by the fight to reach land I hadn’t the strength to do anything but collapse. "Are you all right? — no. You’re not." I frowned. "What did you do to yourself, bascha?"

  She shifted her left arm away from me as I reached out. "It’s just a scrape."

  The scrape ran the length of her arm from shoulder to wrist. The elbow was particularly nasty, like a piece of offal left for scavenger birds. "Reef?"

  "Reef," she confirmed. "I think we both left skin back there."

  Now that she mentioned it, I was aware of the sting of salt in various cuts, scrapes, and scratches. I was stiff and sore and disinclined to move, and yet move was exactly what we needed to do. "Water," I said succinctly. "Fresh water. We need to clean off the salt, get a drink." My feet were a mess. I suspected hers were as well. "Have you seen any of the renegadas?"

  "Not since I got back here in the trees and brush." Del’s hair hung in salt-stiffened, drying ribbons. There was a shallow cut over one eyebrow, and her lower lip was swollen. "I don’t think they ever saw me. They saw the stud, saw you… I made like a floater in the water, hoping they’d miss me. Once they headed off after you and the captain, I got ashore."

  "The captain’s alive?"

  "He was when I saw him." Del shaded her eyes and peered back the way I’d come. Seaward. "We could wait until after sundown."

  I gritted my teeth. "We could. Of
course, I might go crazy from the salt by then."

  "Or get so stiff neither of us can move," she agreed, then eyed me sidelong. "There is one cure for that, though. And now that there’s room —"

  I grinned. "Hoolies, bascha, you do pick the worst times to get cuddly!"

  Del sniffed. "I am not ’cuddly.’ I am too tall for ’cuddly.’ "

  I reached out and very gently touched the scrape on her arm. Del hissed and withdrew the arm sharply. "And too raw," I suggested. "Sand on top of salt? No thanks."

  I moved, wished I hadn’t; got my legs under me. "Which way did the stud go?"

  "That way." She jerked her head to my left. "He’s not exactly a boat, Tiger. He can’t very well swim us to Skandi."

  "But he might take us to a boat." I stood up very slowly and couldn’t bite back a blurt of pain. "Ouch."

  "You’re all sticky," she observed. "Is that blood? Tiger —"

  "I got pretty intimate with the reef. With several of them." I worked my shoulders, waggled sore fingers. "Nothing but cuts and scrapes, bascha." I put out a hand. "Come on."

  Del gripped it, used it. She set her jaw against any commentary on discomfort, but I saw it well enough in the extreme stillness of her face. Like me, she was sticky with oozing blood, fluids, salt, crusted with creamy sand.

  I said it for her. "Ouch."

  Del was looking at me. "Your poor face."

  "My face? Why?" I put a hand to it. "What’s wrong with my face?"

  "First the sandtiger slices grooves in one cheek, and then you get a splinter through the other."

  I’d forgotten that. No wonder my cheek and mouth were sore. I fingered the wound gingerly, tongued it from inside. "Well, it’s just more for the legend," I said offhandedly. "The man who survives sandtiger attacks and shipwrecks."

  Blandly, "But of course the jhihadi would."

  I gifted her with a very black look.

  Satisfied, Del smiled. "So, shall we hunt your misbegotten horse?"

  "You mean the misbegotten horse who got me — nearly — to land, thereby saving my hide? That horse?"

  "I’m only repeating what you’ve called him."

  "I suspect he’s called us much worse."

  "’Us’? I don’t ride him."

  "Me."

  "Better." Del tucked a hank of sand-crusted hair behind an ear. "Water, or horse. Which one first?"

  "Horse. He’ll probably lead us to water." Rhetorically she asked, "But will he drink?" With much gritting of teeth but no verbal complaints, we moved slowly, quietly, carefully — and painfully — through the vegetation in the direction Del had seen the stud go.

  THREE

  Found the stud. We found water. We found the wherewithal to clean off as best we could, stripping out of clothes to soak away salt from both fabric and skin, shivering and muttering and hissing and swearing vilely as we discovered various gooey scrapes, cuts, and gouges, and the promise of many bruises in places too numerous to mention. I put my leather dhoti back on, but nothing else was salvageable after introductions to the reef; I was barefoot and shirtless. Del’s long ivory-colored leather tunic was scoured white in places, but remained serviceable. She wasn’t as battered as I because she’d been able to swim over the reef — well, over most of it — but she had some nasty scrapes on her legs, and the one down her arm.

  As expected, the soles of our feet were sliced up the worst because we’d both lost our sandals; Del scrunched her face in eloquent if mute commentary as she dangled sore feet in the water.

  I was out of it now, checking the stud. His fetlocks were puffing, knees oozing, chunks were missing from shoeless hooves, and he stood with his weight on three legs, not four. "All right, old man — let me see…"

  He didn’t want me to. He told me so in horse language: pinned ears, swishing tail, bared teeth, an indifferent sideways snap in my general direction.

  I popped him on the nose with the flat of my palm, insulting the injury, and as he stared at me, wide-eyed and aggrieved, I bent over the foreleg. "Give it here." I waited. "Give it here —"

  He gave it to me eventually, if under protest.

  "— hold still —" His head hung perilously near my own, but I ignored it and the quivering upper lip. "Let me just take a look… oh, hoolies, horse! Look what you’ve gone and done to yourself!" No wonder he was three-legged lame; he’d sliced open the tender, recessed interior vee of the hoof, called the frog.

  "What is it?" Del was squeezing out hair darkened to wheat-gold by its weight of water.

  "He’s cut himself. Probably on the reef. It’ll heal all right, but in the meantime he’s no good for riding."

  "We’re on an island, Tiger. There’s not much to ride to."

  "Or from," I muttered, carefully looking for other signs of injury in the hoof. He was undoubtedly bruised as well. And every bit as sore and weary as we were. Plus there was a lot more of him to be sore. "It’s going to take days for this to heal."

  "I suspect we have days," Del observed gravely. "Probably even weeks, and possibly months —" She broke off. "What’s the matter?"

  I didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.

  "Tiger?"

  I was bent over the hoof. I don’t know if that was it, or too much fresh water on top of seawater, or just reaction to nearly drowning. But my gut decided at that moment it was not happy with its contents. Very carefully I let the hoof back down, then slowly straightened up. Almost immediately I hunched over again, palms on knees.

  "What’s the matter?"

  "Unnngffu," I managed. Unfortunately, my belly managed something else entirely.

  Del had the good grace to wait until I was done retching and swearing. Then she said, politely, "Thank you for avoiding the water hole."

  I scowled at her balefully, took the two paces to the water’s edge. I huddled there miserably on aching, stinging, reef-scalped knees, rinsing my mouth out and my face off.

  Hands were on my head, peeling hair aside so she might inspect the skull. "You smacked it on something," she said, fingering the swelling.

  "I smacked it on several somethings." The ship, the stud, the reef. "I’m probably lumpy as a bad mattress — ouch!"

  She patted wet hair back into place. "This reminds me of when the stud kicked you in the head in Iskandar. Before the sword-dance. That I ended up having to dance for you."

  Well, yes. The stud had indeed kicked me. In the head. In Iskandar. I’d also ended up drinking too much aqivi on top of it, thanks to a well-meaning friend, and Del had indeed danced the dance for me against Abbu Bensir, before being interrupted. But there had been more to it than that. There’d been magic.

  "You know —" But I stopped short. No one knew better than I what a bladetip set against the spine feels like. "Not worth it," I told her, feeling her tense beside me. And it wasn’t. We were too stiff, too battered, too slow, in addition to being weaponless. They’d cut us down before we could even begin to turn.

  Del muttered something succinct in uplander. The stud added a virulent, damply productive snort, then limped off a couple of paces.

  Well, he was a horse, after all. Not a watchdog.

  A big hand touched me, a rigid finger poked me — and with a garbled blurt of startlement I abruptly threw up again. Except there wasn’t anything left to throw up, so all I did was heave.

  Which served to amuse everyone but me. And maybe Del.

  Someone cuffed me across the back of the skull, much as I cuffed the stud when he offended. "No sailor, this fool!" Amidst more laughter.

  Well, no, so I wasn’t. But then, I’d never claimed to be. I wobbled on my knees and one braced arm and thought very unkind and vulgar thoughts inside my abused head.

  "Maybe you got stung by something," Del offered. "Something in the reef, maybe? Who knows what creatures could be lurking in those cracks and crannies. Or maybe something in the water itself."

  I could think of many other things to talk about besides what was making me sick. I managed to cast her a poin
ted glance, then felt the meaty slap of a sword against my ribs. I winced as it connected with gnarled scar tissue. Lucky for me, it was the flat of the blade.

  "Look." The same voice that had spoken earlier. "Look, fool!"

  "I think you’d better," Del suggested after another blade-slap. "Look at them, I mean."

  So I did, after a fashion. I sat back on my heels, let them see I was unarmed — which they probably knew already, but it never hurts to underscore such vital bits of information — then twisted my torso enough to look at them ranged behind us.

  "Oh. Only six," I said, with carefully couched disdain.

  "Four more than you," the closest man said, and thwapped me across the head with a broad-palmed hand as if I were an erring child.

  "He’s going to be sick again," Del warned as I clamped my jaws tightly. Which occasioned additional frivolity among the six renegadas.

  "Maybe later," I said between gritted teeth, determined to impose self-control over an oddly recalcitrant stomach. "Hoolies, bascha — do you have to be so cursed helpful?"

  "I just thought —" And then a sword lingered at her throat. Steel flashed, pale hair stirred — and a lock fell away. Nice warning, that. Sharp sword, that.

  "No," someone said: a woman’s voice, accented but comprehensible. "You will not distract us with foolish chatter." She paused. "Even if you are fools."

  Oh, thanks.

  "We are not fools," she went on.

  "You should sit very still, very quietly, and pray to whatever gods and goddesses you worship that we do not lose our patience. So that you do not lose your lives."

  I eyed them, marking swords, knives, stances, expressions. Six. Five men, all fairly large, all quite fit, all poised and prepared to move instantaneously. One woman, not so big — in fact, she was rather small — but every bit as armed, every bit as fit, every bit as poised, every bit as prepared.

  And there was absolutely no mistaking her for anything but a woman, either. Not in those clothes. Not with that body. I blinked, impressed.