Sword-Breaker

by Jennifer Roberson

  Oh, we’d survived. But not before I wound up with a Northern sword, a magical jivatma as dangerous as Del’s—only I didn’t know how to key it, and it damn near keyed me.

  And then, of course, there had been that thrice-cursed dragon, which wasn’t a dragon at all, and the sorcerer called Chosa Dei.

  A man no longer a man. A spirit, I guess you’d call him, who now lived in my sword.

  Ahead of me, riding hard, Del twisted in the saddle. Horse-born wind snatched at white-blonde locks, tearing them free of burnous. Pale, glorious silk masquerading as hair… and the flawless face it framed, now turned in my direction.

  I have never failed, not once, to marvel at her beauty.

  “Hurry up,” she said.

  Of course, then there’s her mouth.

  “One of these days,” I muttered, “I’m going to pin you down—sit on you, if I have to—and pour as much wine as I can buy down that soft, self-righteous gullet, so you’ll know what my head feels like.”

  I didn’t say it where she could hear it. But of course she did.

  “Even a fool knows better than to drink after being kicked in the head,” she commented over the noise of our horses. “So what does that make you?”

  I shifted on the fly, finding a more comfortable position over the humping spine of my galloping horse. “You left me,” I reminded her, raising my voice. “You left me lying there on the ground with my broken, bloodied head. If you’d stayed, I probably wouldn’t have drunk anything.”

  “Oh, so it’s my fault.”

  “Instead, you went flouncing off to fight Abbu Bensir—my dance, I might add—”

  “You were in no shape to dance.”

  “That’s beside the point—”

  “That is the point.” Del reined her roan around a dribble of rocks, then tossed hair out of her face as she twisted to look at me again. “I took your place in the circle because someone had to. You had been hired to dance against Abbu… had I not taken your place, you would have forfeited the dance. Do you want to consider the consequences?”

  Not really. I knew what they were. The dance was more than merely a sword-dance: it was binding arbitration between two factions of tanzeers, powerful, ruthless despots who, whenever they could, chopped the South into little pieces among themselves and passed out the remains as rewards.

  A reward I had been promised, if I won.

  Except I didn’t win, because the stud kicked me in the head, and Alric got me drunk.

  My belly was, I thought unhappily, riding somewhere in the vicinity of my breastbone, jounced and bounced and compressed within the cage of my ribs. Knees, bent by shortened stirrups, reminded me whenever they could that I was gaining in age, while losing in flexibility. And then there was my head, which shall go unremarked so as not to give it ideas.

  Hoolies, this sort of thing is enough to give a man pause. To remind him, rather emphatically, there are better ways than this of making a living.

  Except I don’t know of any.

  The stud’s misstep threatened to rearrange a portion of my body I was rather fond of. I bit out a curse, lifted weight off formed leather, and thought rather wistfully of other fleshly saddles.

  “You’re falling behind,” she said.

  “Just wait,” I muttered. “There will come a day—”

  “I don’t think so,” Del said, and bent lower over her roan.

  Harquhal is… well, Harquhal. A border settlement. The kind of town no one means to build, really, because if it had been planned from the beginning, everyone contributing would have done the job right.

  Oh, it was good enough, but not the sort of place I’d want to raise a family.

  Then again, I didn’t have a family, nor did I intend to start one, which meant the kind of town Harquhal was was good enough for me.

  Del and I rode in at a long-trot, having dropped out of a gallop sometime back, then from lope to trot as we approached the wall-girded town. The stud, who has an adequate gallop and a soft, level long-walk, does not, most emphatically, know how to trot very well. He just isn’t built for it, any more than I am built for low doorways and short beds.

  A long-trot, trotted by a horse who does not possess the ability to offer this gait in anything approaching comfort, is nothing short of torture. Particularly if you are male. Particularly if you are male, and your head has been abused by aqivi and the kick of the horse you’re riding.

  So why trot at all? Because if I dropped to a walk I surrendered the advantage to Del, except I suppose it wasn’t really an advantage, since we weren’t actually racing. But she can be so cursed patronizing at times… especially when she thinks I’m in the wrong, or have done something stupid. And while I suppose there have been times I haven’t been right, or I’ve behaved in such a way as to cast doubt upon my intelligence, this wasn’t one of them. It hadn’t been my fault the stud had kicked me. Nor my decision to suck down so much aqivi. And anyway, I had still managed to save her.

  No matter what she said.

  We reached the first sprawl of adobe wall encircling Harquhal. I eased the stud to a walk, breathing imprecations as he took most of the change of gait on his front legs, instead of distributed through his body. It makes a man sit up and take notice, in more ways than one.

  Del cast a glance at me over a shoulder. “We shouldn’t stay long. Only to buy supplies—”

  “—and get a drink,” I appended. “Hoolies, but I need a drink.”

  She opened her verbal dance pedantically, in the glacial way she has that ages her three decades. “We will not waste time on such things as wine or aqivi—”

  I reined the stud next to her roan, hooking a knee just under the inner bend of her own. It is a technique, when fully employed, that can unhorse an enemy. And while Del and I were not precisely enemies, we were most distinctly at odds. “If I don’t get a drink, I’ll never make it through the day. In this case, it’s medicinal… hoolies, bascha, haven’t you ever heard of biting the dog back?”

  Del disentangled her leg by easing the roan over. Her expression was wondrously blank. “Biting the dog? What dog? You were not bitten. You were kicked.”

  “No, no, not like that.” I scrubbed at a stubbled, grimy face. “It’s a Southron saying. It has to do with having too much to drink. If you have a taste of whatever it was that made you sick, it makes you feel better.”

  Blonde brows knitted. “That makes no sense at all. If something makes you sick, how can it make you feel better?”

  A thought occurred to me. I eyed her consideringly. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you drunk.”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you do drink. I’ve seen you drink, bascha.”

  Her tone was eloquent. “It is possible to drink and not get drunk. If one employs restraint—”

  “Restraint is not always desirable,” I pointed out. “Why employ restraint when you want to get drunk?”

  “But why get drunk at all?”

  “Because it makes you feel good.”

  Lines appeared in her brow. “But you have just now said spirits can make you sick. As you were sick this morning.”

  “Yes, well… that’s different.” I scowled. “Drinking spirits, as you call them, is not a good idea after you’ve been kicked in the head.”

  “It is not a good idea to drink so much at any time, Tiger. Especially for a sword-dancer.” She tucked a strand of hair back. “It was a thing I learned on Staal-Ysta: never surrender will or skill to strong spirits, or you may defeat yourself.”

  I scratched my sandtiger scars idly. “I don’t lose much, strong spirits or no. Matter of fact, I haven’t ever lost, not when it counted—”

  Del’s tone was level as she cut in. “Because you and I have never danced for real.”

  The riposte was too easy. “Oh, yes we did, bascha. And it nearly got us killed.”

  It shut her up altogether, which is what I’d meant it to. It’s how you win a dance: find the
weakness, then exploit it. It is a strategy that carries over even to life outside of the circle, in every single respect. Del knew it well. Del knew how to do it. Del knew how to win.

  Except this time she didn’t.

  And this time she knew she couldn’t.

  Two

  Under the eye of the morning sun, Del and I dismounted in an elbow-bend of a narrow, dust-choked street. She headed in one direction, leading her roan gelding, I in the other with the stud, until we realized what had happened and turned back, each of us, speaking at the same time. Telling one another which way was the proper direction.

  I pointed my way. She pointed hers.

  I pointed a bit more firmly. “Cantina’s down there.”

  “Supplies are down here.”

  “Bascha, we don’t have time to argue—”

  “We don’t have time to do anything more than reprovision and leave.”

  “Getting something to drink is reprovisioning.”

  “For some, perhaps.” Nothing more. She obviously believed it enough. Del is very good at saying much with little. It’s a woman’s thing, I think: they get more out of a tone of voice than a man out of a knife.

  Of course, some men might argue a woman’s tongue is sharper.

  “Or,” I continued, overriding what she would undoubtedly refer to as common good sense, “we could hole up in one of the cantinas. Rent us a room.” Which I thought was good sense; we’d have plenty of provisions, plus a roof over our heads.

  One hand perched itself on a burnous-swathed hip. A jutting elbow cut the air, eloquent even in silence. “And do what, Tiger? Wait for them to come find us?”

  I ground teeth. “They might assume we’d ridden on.”

  “Or they might realize we’d need provisions and rest, and search all the rooms. Each and every one.” She paused. “Then again, I think there would be no need for such trouble. Do you truly believe there is a soul alive in Harquhal who would not sell us to them?”

  Maybe one or two. Maybe three or four.

  But all it took was one.

  We glared at one another, neither of us giving an inch. The roan slobbered on Del’s left shoulder; with a grimace of distaste, she shook off the glop of greenish grass-slime. Meanwhile the stud dug a hole, raising gritty Southron dust that insinuated itself between my sandaled toes.

  Which put me in mind of a bath; I’m as clean as I can be, mostly, though the desert makes it hard. The sun makes you sweat. Dust sticks to sweat. Pretty soon you’re caked.

  I hadn’t had a bath in days. During those days I’d gotten real sweaty, drunk, and bloody, not to mention dust-crusty. I needed a bath badly. And if we had a room, I could have a bath.

  But.

  “How many do you think?” I asked finally, ignoring the dispute altogether.

  She shrugged, avoiding it also; thinking, as I did, of other considerations. “We killed the jhihadi—at least, the man they believe was jhihadi. It is all to pieces, now—the prophecy, the Oracle, the promises of change. Many will not come, but the zealots will not give up.”

  “Unless your brother has managed to talk some sense into them. Convince them Ajani wasn’t their man at all.” And that I was, but that I doubt they’d believe. To everyone in the South—well, at least to the people who knew me, which wasn’t quite the whole South (if I do say so myself)—I was the Sandtiger. Sword-dancer. Not messiah. Not the person who was supposed to, somehow, change the sand to grass.

  Del raised an illustrative finger intended, I knew, to put me in my place by pointing out lapses in logic. She likes to think she can. She likes to think she can tell. “If my brother can talk. You say he can. You say he did—”

  “He did. I heard him. So did a lot of others. The only reason you missed it was because you were dancing with Ajani.”

  “It wasn’t a dance,” she countered instantly. (Trust a woman to change the subject in mid-discussion.) “Dances have honor attached. That was an execution.”

  “Yes, well…” It had been, but I didn’t feel like debating it just now, under the circumstances. “Look, I don’t know what those religious fools are going to do, and neither do you. They could still be back in Iskandar—”

  “Then what was all that dust we saw earlier?”

  Sometimes she has a point.

  I sighed. “Go get the provisions, bascha. I’ll go get us some wine.”

  “And water.”

  “Yes. Water.”

  And aqivi as well. But I didn’t tell her that.

  Eventually, she came looking. I’d known she would, because women always do. They make you wait forever when you want to go somewhere, but when they want to leave they don’t give you even a moment. I’d barely swallowed my aqivi.

  My second cup, that is, but I wouldn’t tell Del that.

  The cantina was dim, because cantinas in border towns—in any desert town, for that matter—always lack for light except for what the sun provides. Here in the South, a little sun goes a long way; hence, windows are nearly nonexistent, and usually cut in the eastern wall because the sun’s morning eye is coolest. Which means that by midday the sun’s altered angle cuts off much of the light that would otherwise slant through a window and illuminate the room. By late afternoon, it starts to get downright gloomy. But at least it’s not so hot.

  Del pulled aside the door sacking hung to cut the dust, and stepped into the cantina. One swift glance assessed the place easily: tiny, grimy, squalid. A barely breathing body sprawled on the dirt floor in a corner near the door, far gone in huva dreams. A second, more lively body hunched on a stool by one of the eastside windows. As Del entered, it murmured and sat up. I’d gotten used to that. I wondered if Del had.

  For just that suspended moment, I saw her as others did; as I had, so often, the first few times I’d laid eyes on her. She was—and is—spectacular: tall, long-limbed, graceful, with a powerful elegance. Not feminine, but female, in all the vast subtleties of the word. Even swathed in a white burnous the body was glorious. The flawless face was better still.

  Something flared deep in my guts. Something more than desire: the knowledge and the wonder that what other men might dream about was freely shared with me.

  A brief, warm moment. I lifted my cup in tribute. “May the sun shine on your head.”

  Del eyed me in speculation. “Are you ready yet?”

  I grinned fatuously, still oddly touched by the moment. “A swallow, but a swallow…” I downed the last of my drink.

  Blue eyes narrowed beneath down-slanting, dubious brows. “How many have you had?”

  The moment was over. Reality intruded. I sighed. “Only as many as I had time for in the very brief moment of freedom allowed while you purchased provisions.” I inspected the interior of the cup, but the aqivi was gone.

  “The way you gulp wine, you might have had an entire bota.” She scowled at the numerous suspect botas hanging over both shoulders. “Can you ride?”

  I resettled bota thongs. “I was born on the back of a horse.”

  “Then I feel sorry for your mother.” Del angled a shoulder, reaching toward the sacking. “Are you coming?”

  “Already halfway there.” I strode past her rapidly, pausing long enough to bestow upon her outstretched arm five sloshing botas.

  Del, muttering as she struggled to untangle thongs, followed me out of doors. “I am not carrying your foul-tasting aqivi.”

  “I have the aqivi. You have the water.”

  She glared up at me as I mounted the stud. “Equitable arrangement. I have more botas than you.”

  “Extra water,” I agreed. “I thought at some point in time you might want to wash your face.”

  I swung the stud as she mounted, grinning to myself as she rubbed surreptitiously at her face. She is not a woman for vanity, though the gods have blessed her threefold, but I’ve never yet known a woman not to fall for the implication.

  We all have our petty revenge.

  Riding. Again. Only this time my head was be
tter. This time I could see straight. Biting the dog back does wonders for the soul.

  Del reined her horse in beside me as we left Harquhal behind and took the straightest road. “So,” she said, “where?”

  I planted a heel into the stud’s shoulder as he reached to bite the roan. “Give it a rest, flea-bag.… Well, since we’re already heading south, I thought it was sort of decided.”

  “We discussed it last night. Nothing was decided.”

  I vaguely remembered our conversation. Bits and pieces of it. Something to do with finding someone.

  Realization pinched my belly. “Shaka Obre,” I blurted.

  Del unstuck a strand of hair from her bottom lip. “And again, I say it will be difficult. If not impossible.”

  I shifted in my saddle. The nape of my neck crawled: hairs standing up. Even my forearms tingled. “Hoolies, bascha, now you’ve brought it all up again.”

  She slapped aside the stud’s questing nose as it lingered near her left knee. “One of us had better.”

  I worked my shoulders, trying to shake off the crawly feeling. I’d spent all morning mostly concerned with abolishing my headache and the discontent of my belly. While neither was completely cured, both were much improved—which left me with the time to think about something else. Something downright confusing, as well as unsettling.

  “I don’t like it,” I muttered.

  “It was your idea to seek out Shaka Obre.”

  “That’s what it was: an idea. Not everyone acts on them.”

  Del nodded sagely. “So, we are merely running, then? Not seeking?”

  “It might make things easier. I know enough places in the South. We could find a spot and hole up until all the furor dies down.”

  Del nodded again. “There is that. Given time, even a holy war will pass.”

  I didn’t think much of her tone of voice: too guileless. “Wait.” I dug under my burnous and caught hold of my coin-pouch. Years of experience had taught me to count by weight. “How much coin do you have?”

  Del didn’t bother to check. “A few coppers, nothing more. I spent most on the provisions.”

  I tugged the burnous back into place, pulling it free of harness straps. “Well, we’ll just have to rustle up a few dances here and there. Fatten the purses a little. Then go into hiding.” I sighed. “Hiding always takes coin.”