Pale brows arched. “You are suggesting we accept sword-dances to make money?”
I scowled. “It is how we make our livings.”
“But only when people are willing to pay to see the match, or to hire us to dance for some other reason. Why would they pay us to dance now, in hopes of winning a few wagers, when all they need do is take us prisoner? Surely the price on our heads outweighs any profit in a dance.”
“I’m not so sure there’s a price on our heads—” The stud tripped over a rock. “Pick your feet up, lop-ear, before you fall on your nose.”
“We—I—killed the jhihadi. What do you think?”
I leaned down from the saddle and spat grit out of my mouth. “What do I think? I think they’ll be like the hounds of hoolies, tracking us to ground. I don’t necessarily think there’s a price on our heads… I think they’ll want to kill us just for the doing of it, because we stole their dreams.”
“And such folk will pay to find us. Even a rumor of our direction will earn a copper or two.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” I sighed and scratched stubbled scars. “All right. I agree it might be best if we didn’t go looking for dances. But there are other occupations… we could hire on with a caravan. Holy war or no holy war, there will be caravans trying to cross the Punja through borjuni-infested areas. They’ll need us.”
“There is that,” she agreed. “Except that a holy war disrupts trade, and therefore the caravan traffic may not be quite what it was, for a while. And if you were a caravan-serai, would you hire on the two people who killed the messiah?”
“He wouldn’t have to know who we were.”
Del perused me intently. Her expression was exquisitely bland, which meant I was in trouble. “How many other Southron sword-dancers are there who are a head taller than other men, two shades lighter at least, without being Northerner-pale, who bears sandtiger scars on his face—not to mention the green eyes—and who carries a Northern jivatma?”
I scowled. “Probably about as many of them as there are six-feet-tall, blonde, blue-eyed, mouthy Northern baschas who also carry a sword. And a magical one, at that.”
Del’s tone was sanguine. “The price a panjandrum must pay.”
“Yes, well…” I aimed the stud monotonously southerly, suggesting he rediscover his soft-stepping long-walk. “We have to do something. We’re running out of money. Life on the run costs.”
“There is another option.”
“Oh?”
“We could steal.”
In shock, I stared at her. “Steal?”
Del’s Northern accent and word choice colors all her speech, but she managed a decent mimicry of my Southron drawl. “In all your vastly honorable life, have you never heard of such a thing?”
I thought it unworthy of an answer. “But you. This is you suggesting theft? I mean, isn’t it against Staal-Ysta’s code of ethics, or something? You’re always nattering on about how much emphasis you Northerners place on honor.” I stared at her more intently. “Have you ever stolen anything in your whole entire Northern life?”
“Have you?”
“I asked you first. And anyway, I’m not Northern. It doesn’t count.”
“It does count. Of you I would expect it… you yourself have said, time and again, you would do anything for survival.”
“A certain amount of ruthlessness does help in my line of work.”
“Well, then, as my line of work and yours are the same, regardless of gender, it would seem logical to assume I understood the concept of stealing.”
“Understanding and doing are two different things,” I reminded her. “Have you ever stolen? You, personally? You, the Northern sword-dancer, master of a jivatma? Trained in all the ancient and binding honor codes of Staal-Ysta?”
Del’s turn to scowl. Except hers is prettier. “Why is it impossible for you to believe I might have stolen? Have I not killed men? Have you not seen me kill men?”
“Only those who wanted to kill you. There’s a bit of difference between self-defense and stealing, bascha.” I grinned. “And the ‘might have stolen’ phrase is a dead giveaway.”
Del sighed. “No, I have not personally ever stolen. But it does not mean I can’t. Before Ajani murdered my family, I had never killed, either. And now it is my trade.”
A discomfiting chill touched the base of my spine. “It isn’t your trade, bascha. You have killed, yes—but it isn’t your trade. You’re a sword-dancer. Not all of us kill. When some of us do, it’s because we have to. When our own lives are in danger.”
The line of her jaw was tight. “The last seven years of my life, I have done little but kill.”
“Ajani’s dead,” I told her. “That part of your life is over.”
“Is it?” Her voice was grim.
“Of course it is. The blood-debt is paid. What is left for you to do?”
“Live,” she bit out. “I have nearly twenty-three years. How many are left to me? Twenty more? Thirty? Perhaps even forty—”
“Occasionally,” I agreed, trying to lighten the mood.
“And what am I to do with forty more years?”
A man my age—thirty-six? Thirty-seven?—would love to have forty more years. Meanwhile, Del made the length of time sound obscene. Which didn’t sit real well.
“Hoolies, bascha—live them! What else is there to do?”
“I am a sword-dancer,” she said tightly. “I have made myself such on purpose. But now you say that purpose is finished, because Ajani is dead.”
“Del, in the name of valhail—”
Naturally, she did not allow me to finish. “Think, Tiger. You say that part of my life is over. The killing part; the part where I compromised my humanity in the name of my obsession.” Something glittered in her eyes: anger, and frustration. “If that is true, what is left to me? What is left to a woman?”
“Not that again—”
“Shall I retire to a tanzeer’s harem? Surely I would bring a fair price. I am exiled from the North—should I therefore marry a Southron farmer, or a Southron caravan-serai, or a Southron tavern-keeper?” She lifted an explanatory finger. “Remember, I am now barren. There can never be any children to repopulate the name.” The hand slapped down. “Of what use am I, then?”
I grinned wryly, a little amused, a lot self-conscious, because the answer was so easy. The answer was too easy; Del had taught me to see it. Nonetheless, it was true. “In your case, some men—a lot of men!—might argue children are not necessary in order to maintain interest.”
A wave of color washed through her face. Then Del gritted teeth. “If I am beautiful now, enough to ‘maintain interest,’ of what use will I be when the beauty has all faded? What do I do, Tiger? What is left to me?”
“Well, I hadn’t really thought in terms of you going off to marry some Southron farmer—”
“Do I become a cantina girl? You appear to like them.”
“Now, Del—”
“Or do I try to catch the eye of Julah’s tanzeer?”
“Julah’s tanzeer is a woman.”
She shot me a glare. “You know what I mean.”
“Julah’s tanzeer would also like to kill us, remember? Especially you. You killed her father.”
“Killing,” Del said vehemently, “is what I do best.”
“You don’t like it? Then change it,” I declared. “You’ve been spouting off to me for the last—what, almost two years?—about how a woman has to fight to make her way in a man’s world. You’ve fought, and you’ve won. But expecting me to give you your answers is devaluing what you’ve accomplished. You became what you had to be for a specific purpose. That purpose is finished. So now find another one.”
Del watched me. What she thought I couldn’t tell; she is, even for me, difficult to read. But she had lost the burning intensity of her anger moments before. Her tone was much less strident. “As you have found a purpose?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a purpose. I just am.”
<
br /> Del smiled at last. The last trace of tension flowed out of her face. “The Sandtiger,” she murmured. “Ah, yes, more than enough. A veritable panjandrum.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, “we still haven’t made a decision.”
“About what?”
“Where we’re going.”
“South.”
“I’ve got that part. Where in the South?”
Irritated, she scowled. “How in hoolies should I know?”
Which pretty much summed up the way I felt, too.
Three
The oasis was little more than a tumble of squarish, yellow-pink boulders stacked haphazardly against the southerly encroachment of wind and sand, and a few sparse palm trees with straggly gray-green fronds. Not much shade to speak of, except the north-side blanket’s-width of curving line at the foot of the boulder “wall,” but not much is better than none. And besides, we weren’t truly into the South by much; the border between the two lands is considerably cooler, and lacking in Punja crystals.
The water itself, captured in a natural stone basin rimmed by hand-mortared stones, was little more than wrist-deep, and therefore suspect as a sufficient supply—except that deep in the earth, buried beneath sand, soil, pebbles, and webby, red-throated grass, there was a natural spring. While it was simple enough to drain the basin within a matter of minutes—a horse could do it faster—it refilled itself rapidly. The resource appeared undiminished, but no one in the South took any chances. The hand-mortared rim of rocks kept the basin from being fouled by wind-blown sand; the crude lettering cut into each stone supposedly protected the oasis from anyone—or anything—that sought to destroy its bounty.
I swung off the stud and gave him rein, letting him suck the basin dry. The sand-colored stone briefly glistened wetly, then hid itself beneath water as the spring refilled the basin. I let the stud drink half again, then pulled him away.
Del, still atop her roan, frowned as I began to undo knots in pouches and cinch. “You don’t mean for us to stay here…?”
“It’s getting on toward sundown.”
“But this is so exposed… would we not do better to go elsewhere? Somewhere less obvious?”
“Probably,” I agreed. “Except there’s water here. You know as well as I that in the South, you don’t pass up water.”
“No, but we could refill the botas, let the horses cool, and then ride on.”
“Ride on where?” I dropped the pouches to the ground. “The next closest water is a good day’s ride from here. It would be foolish to leave now with nightfall coming on. There’s no moon tonight… do you really want to chance getting lost in the darkness?”
Del sighed, absently battling her roan with restraining reins. The gelding snorted wetly. “I thought you told me once you knew the South like the back of your hand.”
“I do. Better than most. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” I undid the saddle, peeled it and the sweaty blanket-pad off, dropped everything atop the pouches. The stud’s back was wet and rumpled. “We haven’t been through here in some time, bascha. For all I know there’ve been twenty sandstorms since then. I’d just as soon discover the changes in landscape when I can see them.”
“I understand,” she said patiently. “But if we stay here, it makes it easy for others to find us.”
I pointed toward the basin. “See those carvings? In addition to protection for the water, it gives sanctuary to desert travelers.”
Her chin rose a notch. “Even to travelers accused of murdering a messiah?”
I gritted teeth. “Yes.” I didn’t know any such thing, but I wasn’t disposed to argue.
She grunted skepticism. “Will they respect it?”
“It all depends on who shows up.” I braced and stood my ground as the stud planted his head against my arm and began to rub exuberantly, scratching heat- and dust-born itches. “The tribes have always honored the traveler’s truce. They’re nomads, bascha… such places as this carry meaning. Those are tribal devices carved into the stone, promising protection to water and traveler. I don’t think they’d break that custom, even if they caught up. And that’s not a certainty.”
“What if it’s someone else? Someone who doesn’t honor this custom?”
The stud rubbed even harder, nearly upsetting my balance. I pushed the intrusive head away. “Then we’ll just have to deal with it. Sooner or later. Tonight, or tomorrow.” I squinted up at her. “Don’t you think it’s time you gave that horse a drink? He’s been pulling rein since we got here.”
He had. The roan, inhaling water-scent, had been stomping hooves and swishing tail, trying to edge toward the basin. Del had kept him on a taut rein, fighting his head.
She grimaced and unhooked from the stirrups, swinging a long, burnous-swathed leg over as she slid off the roan. She let him water as I had, cursorily attending amount—you don’t let a hot horse drink too much right away—but still knitted pale brows in a faint, annoyed frown. But the expression faded as she pulled the roan away and tended to the untacking. Work smoothed her face, banishing the tautness of jaw and the creases between her brows. It made her young again.
And gloriously beautiful, in a deadly, edged way, like a sword blade newly honed.
Ordinarily I’d have slipped the stud’s bridle and left him haltered and hobbled. But current circumstances called for a bit more care and preparation. We needed the ability to mount and ride instantly; a hobbled, unbridled horse makes for too much delay. So the stud I left bitted with the reins trapped beneath a flat stone, although he was not much for wandering when water was near. Desert-born and bred, he knew better than to leave a known supply.
I stacked saddle and pad against the boulder wall, hair-side up to dry, and made my own arrangements with blankets, botas, pouches. All in all I was feeling pretty cheerful. My head had stopped throbbing, although a whisper of discomfort remained, and my belly no longer rebelled. I was human once again: I cast Del a grin.
She eyed me askance and tended the roan, rocktying him as I had the stud, and stripped him free of saddle and pouches. He was a good enough horse, if tall—but then I’m used to my short-legged, compact, hard-as-rock stud, not a rangy, hairy Northern gelding with too much fat beneath his hide. Then again, in the North it was cold, and the extra layer of fat undoubtedly kept him warmer, along with the extra coat. As it was, the roan was shedding; Del, grimacing, stripped a few handfuls of damp blue-speckled hair and let them drift down through still air.
With the roan tended to, Del turned to me. “So, we are staying here the night.”
I considered her a moment. “I thought we’d settled that.”
She nodded once, decisively, then turned her back on me and stalked off through the grass and dirt and pebbles to a spot facing north. There she unsheathed her sword.
“Not again,” I murmured.
Del lifted the naked weapon above her head, balancing blade and pommel across the flat of both bare palms, and sang. A small, quiet song. But its quietude had nothing to do with power, or the quality thereof; she summoned so easily, then dealt with what she wrought: a shimmer of salmon-silver, a spark of blinding white, the blue of a deep-winter storm. All ran the length of the blade, then purled down as banshee breath to bathe her lifted arms.
She held the posture. I could not see her face, only the arch of spine beneath burnous, the spill of hair down her back. Still, it was enough; deep inside of me, painfully, Del stirred emotions I could not fully acknowledge. More than simple lust, though there is always that; less than adoration, because she is not perfection. But all the things in between. Good and bad, black and white, male and female. Two halves make a whole. Del was my other half.
She sang. Then she brought the sword down, slicing through the breath of frost, and plunged the blade into the earth.
I sighed. “Yes: again.”
Another soft little song. Undoubtedly she meant me not to hear it; then again, maybe she didn’t care. She’d made her feelings known. This
little ritual, so infinitely Northern, was undoubtedly meant as much for me as for the gods she petitioned.
Abruptly, I sniggered. If I really was this jhihadi, she might as well pray to me. At least I was Southron.
Then, unexpectedly, a doubt crawled out of darkness to assail me in the daylight. A quiet, unsettling doubt, ancient in its spirit, but wearing newer, younger clothing.
Was I Southron? Or something else entirely?
I hitched a shoulder, scowling, trying to ward away the unsettling doubt. There was no room for it here, no place in my spirit for such things; I was home again after too many months away: warm, whole and contented by life, feeling comfortable again. Familiar.
Home.
Del sang her Northern song, secure in heritage, kinships, customs. I lacked all three.
Irritably, I scowled. Hoolies, what was the use? I was “home,” no matter how odd it felt once I thought about it. I mean, even if I weren’t fully Southron, I’d been born here. Raised here.
Enslaved here.
Del jerked the blade from the soil and turned back toward me. Her face was smooth and solemn, hiding thoughts and emotion.
With effort, I hid mine. “All better?” I asked.
She hunched a single silk-swathed shoulder. “It is for them to decide. If they choose to offer protection, we will be doubly blessed.”
“Doubly blessed?”
Del waved a hand briefly toward the rock-ringed basin. “Southron gods. Northern gods. Nothing is wrong with asking the favor of both.”
I managed a grin. “I suppose not. Doubly blessed, eh?” I caught up my sheath and drew my own sword, sliding it free of scabbard. “I’m not much for little songs, as you know, but this ought to be enou—hoolies!”
Del frowned. “What?”
Thoroughly disgusted, I inspected the cut on my right hand. “Oh, not much—just a slip…” I scowled, sucking the shallow but painful slice in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. “Stings like hoolies, though.” I removed the flesh from my mouth and inspected the cut again. “Ah, well, too far from my heart to kill me.”
Sword-Breaker Page 3