“Some men do.”
“He would have killed anyone he could stick a sword into.”
Justification. Rationalization. Easy to recognize. I’d faced both myself, when I was young. When I’d killed my first man. “Yes. But you prevented him from killing anyone. You did exactly what we are intended to do, as outriders. This isn’t dancing. This is fighting to stay alive and to make certain those in our care stay alive.”
After a moment, Neesha nodded. He looked away from me, watching the last vestige of the sun slip behind the horizon. “There is a lesson in this.”
“What is that?”
He rose, brushed soil and sand from his burnous, and faced me fully. “Boring is better.”
I grinned, stood up straight, prepared to walk back to the stud and my side of the caravan. “Get some sleep, Neesha. Del will relieve you in a couple of hours.”
But he probably wouldn’t sleep. I hadn’t, that first night so long ago.
We had a minor argument in the morning, all of us, as we gathered at the front of Mahmood’s wagon with horses standing by, saddled and ready to go. Mahmood wanted to go on to the stopping place. I did not. Del unnecessarily explained to me that the stopping place offered fresh water, and Neesha reminded us the stopping place wasn’t far—both of which I already knew. But my concern was the raiders.
“They might be there still,” I pointed out.
“Or not,” Neesha said. “Maybe they’re out raiding somewhere else.”
“That depends on how badly any of them might be injured.” I looked at Del. “Did you do any damage that might keep them stationary for a day or two?”
“If they’re there,” Del emphasized. “We don’t know if they’re there. Maybe they’re not there. Maybe they never were there.”
Here, there, everywhere. Patiently, I asked again, “Did you do any damage?”
Del said, “A few slices, no more. Maybe needing stitching, but not enough to keep them from riding again. They’re probably not there, if they were ever there, which we don’t know.”
“They’re probably not there,” Neesha interjected.
“They could be on their way here,” I pointed out irritably. “I just don’t like it. We’ve got enough water in Mahmood’s barrels to bypass the stopping place.”
“Shade,” Mahmood insisted.
“Look around,” I told him, gesturing widely. “Do you want to risk going in there without knowing if it’s safe or not? If it isn’t, you would never be able to escape in time.”
“Then one of us could scout,” Neesha said. “I can go in, find out how things stand.”
I scowled at him. “And be killed for whatever you have. Like a horse. A sword. A burnous.”
“It’s a good thought,” Del said, then clarified. “Scouting that is, not killing Neesha.”
“I kind of had an idea that’s what you meant.”
“I’ll go,” she offered.
“No no no,” I countered immediately. “They might be there.”
Her brow creased. “That’s the point, Tiger. To find out if they’re there.”
“I don’t want you going there alone. Not a woman.”
Del stared back at me. I knew that non-expression.
“It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a woman,” I said hastily, then realized how stupid that sounded, since I’d just said it was. “Well, yes, I guess it does…but not because I don’t have faith in your ability to defend yourself. I mean, people can lose. Even us.”
“Certainly not,” Neesha observed with delicate irony.
“You shut up,” I told him. “Del, with a man, all they’d do is kill him. With a woman, you know very well what would happen.” Hoolies, she knew. She’d been repeatedly raped by a raider at the age of fifteen.
“We killed three of them, Tiger,” Del reminded me. “Three men offer less trouble than six.”
“I don’t care how many we killed,” I said irritably. “Three men are still three men. And we probably made them really angry.”
“I said I’ll go,” Neesha insisted.
Apparently tired of the whole thing, Mahmood raised his voice. “You go,” he shouted at me. “No one agrees with you! All but you wish to go to the stopping place. So it should be you who goes to scout.”
I wasn’t quite certain there was logic in that. I mean, I didn’t think we should go, so I was the one who had to?
“And I pay your wages,” Mahmood declared obstinately. “You go, or we all go.”
Vastly annoyed, I said, “Fine. All right. I’ll go. But if I come back with news the raiders are there, we’ll go in a different direction for a day and then head north again. No questions or comments allowed. Just do whatever I say.”
“That’s not exactly fair,” Neesha muttered in an aside to Del.
I lost my temper. “Doesn’t anyone understand?” I yelled. “I’m trying to keep us safe!”
In the ensuing silence, the only thing audible was a prodigious snort from the stud.
“See?” Del said. “He wants to go, too.”
I turned my back on them, put hands on hips, walked about four paces away, stared south across the grasslands. Beyond lay the desert. The desert where water was worth more than gold. The Southroner in me argued that we should go to the stopping place. But the land was different here. The climate was milder. Grass replaced sand and hardpan. There was likely water to be had from many places in the borderlands. It truly wasn’t necessary to put our lives in peril. But Mahmood and his men were from the desert. All they knew was that you don’t pass up known water sources. And I guess I couldn’t blame them.
I turned and trudged back to the others, still clustered there at the front of Mahmood’s team. I wasn’t yelling anymore, but I didn’t curtail my annoyance. “All right. I’ll go. Do what you need to do here. Build a fire if you like, hunt coneys, play in the dirt, build irrigation canals, whatever you want to do. I don’t care. But—”
“Irrigation canals?” Neesha asked incredulously.
“Just be ready in case borjuni appear!” I took the stud’s reins from Del, tossed them over his neck, climbed up into the saddle and glared down at all of them. “I’ll be back when I’m back.”
It felt rather strange to be alone again with just the stud for company. Going into Julah from the canyon didn’t count because that was land I knew. It was home. I hadn’t been out in the wide open spaces on my own for years.
As yet, we were in the South, but to me, desert bred and raised, it didn’t feel like it. Grasslands, scattered trees here and there, shrubs bursting up from the soil. You could say the same about the portions of the South that were not the Punja, with its deadly crystal sands, but the trees were different, the shrubbery, even the types of rock. Unfamiliarity. And no one at my side, riding a white gelding.
She had told me on several occasions that if I wished to go off on my own, I could. That I should, if I wanted. She explained, too, that this did not mean she wanted me to go. Finally, I figured out what she meant and explained that I was already fully aware of my freedom. I stayed because I wished to.
And I still did.
I began to whistle, riding comfortably along on a good horse, happy about where life had led me. Ten years ago I’d have laughed in anyone’s face if they’d predicted I would put down roots, especially with a woman and a small girlchild. But at some point you realize it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, that you’ll do what it is you’ll do. And that included putting down roots with a woman and a girlchild.
I quit whistling. I grinned. Then laughed. I leaned forward in the saddle, speaking to twitching ears. “Hey, old son. Care for a gallop?”
The ears twitched again, trying to sort that out. But he knew exactly what I meant when I leaned down closer and squeezed with my legs.
He trotted. Loped. Then, when I urged him onward, he leaped into a gallop, and we went running, running hard, across the wind-waved grasslands beneath a gentler sun.
There wer
e no borjuni at the stopping place. In fact, there was no one at all, only me and the stud. I swung off, leading him in. It was a considerably smaller well than the one farther south, but there was a low rock surround and a wooden bucket tied to a rope for raising water up. Visits from others had beaten the soil into dust immediately around the waterhole, but it had some substance to it and held foot and hoof prints easily. There was some shrubbery, one broad-leafed tree, and three fire rings. None of the stone surrounds was warm, and all the horse droppings were old. So even if the raiders had been here, it was at least several days ago. And it was entirely possible they had their own encampment elsewhere.
I was in no hurry to return. I pulled the saddle off the stud, wiped him down while he drank from the bucket. The gallop had done us both good. I felt more relaxed than I had for a while. His temper seemed better, also.
Afterward, I stretched, applied thumbs to spine to pop out somewhat noisy kinks, twisted my torso to loosen a few more, and rolled my neck for anything remaining. What I wanted most was a hot bath. I wondered if the horse farm boasted a bathing tent. Neesha wasn’t one to build himself up to others, but from a few matter-of-fact comments he’d made, I got the impression the family lived very comfortably.
Speaking of a bath tent…well, there was no tent available here, but there was water. I appropriated the bucket when the stud was done drinking, refilled it, then took off burnous and harness and poured water over my shoulders to run down chest and back.
As I slicked water over ribs, arms, and legs, it occurred to me to wonder if Neesha, after taking the trouble to track me down two years ago, would stay with me very long, or return to what he had known as home all of his life. I believed he intended to be a sword-dancer, no question. He had the dedication, focus, skills, and raw talent, but by watching him with the horses it was obvious he cared deeply for them. His departure left his stepfather the only male working the farm, unless he’d hired help—which was entirely possible. But what was also possible was Neesha discovering he liked horses better than dancing. And dancing was all I had to offer.
I caught movement out of the corner of one eye even as my ears registered the metallic chip of shod hoof striking stone. I glanced up and saw a man riding in on a blue roan. A mare, I noticed. He wore a sun-bleached, rust-colored burnous. And from behind his left shoulder a sheathed sword poked the air.
Borderer, I guessed. His hair was sandy, skin tanned but not dark, and his eyes, once he rode close enough for me to see, were blue. I thought it likely that beneath the burnous was a well set-up man, judging by the width of his shoulders. Borderers were just that: born of Southron and Northern parents who lived in the northern South and the southern North. Sometimes they looked all Southron, sometimes they looked all Northern, sometimes, as with this man, they were clearly a mix.
I judged him younger than me, but then, that wasn’t unusual among sword-dancers anymore. I’d outlived many, had danced for over twenty years, was old enough to have sired some. After all, there was Neesha.
The borderer nodded at me as I bent down to gather up saddle with attached pouches, blanket, harness, and sword. I hitched everything up on my right hip, leaning away to counterbalance the weight, and walked from the well to give the man room to bring in his horse. I took up residence beneath the lone tree, set down gear, pulled the saddle blanket free and swung it over the stud’s back. I did not touch the harness or sword, but anyone intending harm would note that it was easy for me to yank it out of the sheath and engage with an attacker. But this man was a sword-dancer, not a borjuni. Sword-dancers do not as a rule steal; or if they do, they soon find themselves targets of other sword-dancers who send a message loud and clear: It isn’t tolerated.
However, if you won a death-dance, you were entitled to anything the dead man had.
I swung the saddle over the blanket, settled it, made sure it was positioned properly. Bent, grasped the dangling cinch, pulled it beneath the ribs, up the stud’s side, and ran a long length of leather through it. Then I pulled it tight, doubled over the leather, and ran it through itself. Yanked it snug.
The stranger dismounted, pulled up the bucket hand-over-hand, set it on the ground. Before letting the roan nose her way in, he scooped up water and sluiced it over his face and head. Then he shook water out of his hair and blinked droplets away.
He smiled at me. “I know exactly who you are,” he said pleasantly. “You can’t hide those scars on your face.”
I waited for it.
“My name is Kirit.” he said. “Let’s dance.”
I nodded. Under the circumstances, it had to be asked. “To the win? Or to the death?”
He laughed. “Oh, to the death.”
I bent, slid my sword from the sheath. Straightened, grasping it lightly. Modesty had never been a virtue of mine. But then, arrogance has its place among sword-dancers. Why not use what you have? Or what you can affect?
Or what is wholly true?
I met his eyes. “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want to do?”
“Hah! I think so!”
“No,” I said levelly. “Are you certain? Are you willing—ready—to die?”
Sandy brows rose. “I don’t plan to. That’s your role.”
“This is what you want,” I said clearly. “Is this what you can win?”
“Your life? Oh, I think so.”
He was arrogant. It had its place, and he knew how to use it. You use what you have. Or what you wish to have.
“Ride out of here,” I said gently, “and live another day.”
He laughed. The roan mare nosed his shoulder. “Are there people I should tell when you’re dead?” His brows rose sharply. “Ah, that’s right. There’s the Northern woman. Well, the winner takes it all. Even a woman.”
I left the stud. Left the tree. Walked out into the sun. “Draw the circle.”
Smiling, he agreed.
And eventually, smile entirely banished, he died.
Chapter 14
MAHMOOD’S FOUR-WAGON CARAVAN was right where I’d left it. A small part of me had wondered if they would set out for the stopping place without me. But no. For a wonder, they had actually taken my advice. Though I suppose some might declare it an order, such as Mahmood, Neesha, and Delilah.
The drivers were apparently napping in their respective wagons. Mahmood, Neesha, and Del sat on blankets on the shady side of the first wagon. Del’s gelding and Neesha’s bay, tied behind the wagon, dozed in the sun but woke when the stud whinnied loudly in greeting.
“No raiders.” I halted the stud and swung myself down. “So yes, all of you may now take me to task for being so stubborn.”
Neesha grinned. “Well, we talked it over after you left and decided you were probably right.”
“I usually am.” I looked at Mahmood, still sitting on his blanket. “It will be dusk when we reach the well. If we leave now.” I glanced at Del. “How far is Istamir from this place?”
“A day on horseback. Longer with a caravan.”
Mahmood pushed himself up, nodding. “I’ll wake my drivers.”
“Any sign of the borjuni?” Neesha asked.
I dug out the flattened bucket from a saddle pouch, scenting the air with cinnamon and saffron, punched it open and filled it at Mahmood’s water barrel. I set it down so the stud could drink. “No one’s been there for a few days.”
Del told Neesha, “Why don’t you bring the horses around?”
He nodded, rose easily, and walked toward the back of the wagon.
She came up to me, smoothed a hand down the stud’s shoulder as he drank. “What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened?”
“You’re bleeding.” She set fingers on my side, pressing burnous against skin. “Right here.”
I winced. “No, that’s from the raiders yesterday.”
“Ah,” Del said. “It must have migrated from the other side.”
I scowled at her.
She turned from t
he stud and met my eyes. “A sword-dancer.”
“Yes.”
“You won.”
“Well, yes. Or I wouldn’t be here.”
“Ah,” she said again. “A death-dance.”
Neesha came around the other side of the wagon with his mount and Del’s. He hadn’t heard everything. “You danced?”
I shrugged. “I do try to be accommodating when people ask me to do certain things.”
Neesha wasn’t smiling. His eyes were serious, as was his tone. “You killed him. Didn’t you?”
Grimly, I said, “He insisted on it.”
Del’s hands were on my burnous, lifting the sheath slit up and over the hilt of my sword. “Let’s get this off. I want to see how badly you’ve been cut.”
“Not badly. Honest, bascha. I know better than to try to mislead you. You always find out.”
“No, you don’t.” She tugged emphatically at fabric. “And yes, I do. Now, take this off, or I’ll cut it off.”
“Don’t cut it! It’s my only burnous!”
“That’s the point, Tiger.”
“All right, all right.” I unbuckled my belt and dropped it, shrugged out of the burnous, which landed in a pile of cloth. “I told you it’s not bad.”
Del examined it with careful hands. She was frowning.
“It’s not,” I said.
Mahmood came up. “Sweet gods!” he cried.
I looked at him, baffled, and saw he was staring at me. I was in dhoti, harness, sandals, doubled silver earrings, and nothing else. It left visible lots of browned skin and multiple scars. The one that caught his interest, as it always does, was the concavity below my left ribs and the gnarled flesh around it.
He looked me in the eyes, clearly stunned. “They say you’re the best. Everyone does. But if you have survived such dances as this…” He shook his head. “I apologize for doubting you.”
I smiled crookedly. “Just a love tap, Mahmood.”
Del said, with a slight shrug and delicate irony, “Courting ritual.”
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