Poor old Moon. His pig-eyes popped and he sweated so much I was surprised the sword didn’t slide from his neck. “Your brother?” he squeaked.
Cornsilk hair hung over her shoulders. “Five years ago my brother was stolen from across the Northern border. He was ten, slaver … ten years old.” A hint of emotion crept into her tone. “But we know how much you prize our yellow hair and blue eyes and pale skin, slaver. In a land of dark-skinned, dark-haired men it could be no other way.” The tip dug in a little deeper. “You stole my brother, slaver, and I want him back.”
“I stole him!” Outraged, Moon gulped against the bite of the sword. “I don’t deal in boys, bascha, I deal in women!”
“Liar.” She was very calm. For a woman holding a sword against a man, very calm indeed. “I know what perversions there are in the South. I know how high a price a Northern boy goes for on the slaveblock. I’ve had five years to learn the trade, trader, so don’t lie to me.” Her sandalled foot stretched out to prod his abundant belly. “A yellow-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned boy, slaver. A lot like me.”
Moon’s eyes flicked to me quickly, begging silently. On the one hand, he wanted me to do something; on the other, he knew a movement on my part might trip her into plunging the blade into his throat. So I did the smart thing, and waited.
“Five years ago?” He sweated through his burnous, patching the yellow silk with ocher-brown. “Bascha, I know nothing. Five years is a long time. Northern children are indeed popular, and I see them all the time. How can I know if he was your brother?”
She said nothing aloud, but I saw her mouth move. It formed a word. And then, though the sword bit into Moon’s throat no deeper, the bright blood turned raisin-black and glittered against his throat.
Moon exhaled in shock. His breath hissed in the air, and I saw it form a puff of cloudy frost. Instantly he answered. “There—was a boy. Perhaps it was five years ago, perhaps more. It was in the Punja, as I traveled through.” A shrug. “I saw a small boy on the block in Julah, but I can’t say if he was your brother. There are many Northern boys in Julah.”
“Julah,” she echoed. “Where is that?”
“South of here,” I told her. “Dangerous country.”
“Danger is irrelevant.” She prodded Moon’s belly once more. “Give me a name, slaver.”
“Omar,” he said miserably. “My brother.”
“Slaver, too?”
Osmoon shut his eyes. “It’s a family business.”
She pulled the sword away and slid it home without feeling for the scabbard. That takes practice. Then she brushed by me without a word, leaving me to face the shaking, sweating, moaning Moon.
He put trembling fingers to the sword slit in his neck. “Cold,” he said. “So—cold.”
“So are a lot of women.” I went after the Northern girl.
Three
I caught up with her at the horses. She already had one saddled and packed with waterskins, a little dun-colored gelding tied not far from my own bay stud. The white burnous had disappeared somewhere in one of Moon’s hyorts, so she was bare except for her suede tunic. It left a lot of pale skin exposed to the sunlight, and I knew she’d be bright red and in serious discomfort before nightfall.
She ignored me, although I knew she knew I was there. I leaned a shoulder against the rough bark of a palm tree and watched as she threw the tassled amber reins over the dun’s head, looping one arm through as she tended the saddle. The silver hilt of her sword flashed in the sunlight and her hair burned yellow-white as it fell down her tunicked back.
My mouth got dry again. “You headed to Julah?”
She slanted me a glance as she tightened the buckles of the girth. “You heard the slaver.”
I shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t pressed against the tree. “Ever been there?”
“No.” Girth snugged, she hooked fingers in the cropped, spiky mane and swung up easily, throwing a long leg over the shallow saddle covered with a coarse woven blanket. Vermilion, ocher and brown, bled into one another by the sun. As she hooked her feet into the leather-wrapped brass stirrups, the tunic rucked up against her thighs.
I swallowed, then managed a casual tone. “You might need some help getting to Julah.”
Those blue eyes were guileless. “I might.”
I waited. So did she. Inwardly, I grimaced; conversation wasn’t her strong point. But then, conversation in a woman is not necessarily a virtue.
We stared at one another: she on a fidgety dun gelding layered with a coating of saffron dust and me on foot (layered with identical dust, since I’d come straight from the cantina), leaning nonchalantly against a palm tree. Dry, frazzled fronds offered little shade; I squinted up at the woman atop the horse. Waiting still.
She smiled. It was an intensely personal smile, but not particularly meant for me—as if she laughed inwardly. “Is that an offer, Sandtiger?”
I shrugged again. “You’ve got to cross the Punja to reach Julah. Ever been there before?”
She shook back her hair. “I’ve never been South at all before … but I got this far all right.” The subsequent pause was significant. “By myself.”
I grunted and scratched idly at the scars creasing my right cheek. “You got to that dragtail cantina all right. I got you this far.”
The little dun pawed, raising dust that floated briefly in the warm air, then fell back to mingle once again with the sand. Her hands on the braided horsehair-and-cotton reins were eloquently competent; her wrists showed subtlety and strength as she controlled the horse easily. He wasn’t placid with a rider on his back. But she hardly seemed to notice his bad behavior. “I said it before—I don’t need to hire a sword-dancer.”
“The Punja is my country,” I pointed out pleasantly. “I’ve spent most of my life there. And if you don’t know the wells or the oases, you’ll never make it.” I thrust out a hand to indicate the south. Heat waves shimmered. “See that?”
She looked. The miles and the desert stretched on forever. And we weren’t even to the Punja yet.
I thought she might turn me down again. After all, she was a woman; sometimes their pride gets all tangled up with stupidity when they want to prove they’re able to get along on their own.
She stared out at the desert. Even the skies were bleached at the horizon, offering only a rim of brassy blue merging with dusty gray-beige.
She shivered. She shivered, as if she were cold.
“Who made it this way?” she asked abruptly. “What mad god turned good land into useless desert?”
I shrugged. “There’s a legend that says once the South was cool and green and fruitful. And then two sorcerers—brothers—went to war to decide who would lay claim to all the world.” She turned her head to look down at me, and I saw the clear, direct gaze. “Supposedly they killed one another. But not before they halved the world perfectly: North and South, and both about as different as man and woman.” I smiled in a beguiling fashion. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
She settled herself more comfortably in the saddle. “I don’t need you, sword-dancer. I don’t need you—I don’t need your sword.”
I knew, looking at her, she was not referring to Singlestroke. A woman alone in the world, beautiful or not, learns quickly what most men want. I was no different. But I hadn’t expected such forthrightness from her.
I shrugged again. “Just trying to lend a hand, bascha.” But I’d lend a sword—both swords—if she gave me half a chance.
I saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth. “Are you broke? Is that why a sword-dancer of your reputation would offer his services as a guide?”
The assumption stung my pride. I scowled. “I visit Julah at least once a year. Time I went again.”
“How much do you want?”
My eyes drifted the length of a well-shaped leg. So pale; too pale. I opened my mouth to answer, but she forestalled what I was more than prepared to name as my price by saying, distinctly, “In gold.”
I l
aughed at her, buoyed by her awareness of her value to me as a woman. It makes the game a little more enjoyable. “Why don’t we decide that when we get to Julah?” I suggested. “I always set a fair price based on the degree of difficulty and danger. If I save your life more than once, the price goes up accordingly.”
I didn’t mention I knew a man was hunting her. If she knew him and wanted to be found, she’d say so. Her behavior said she didn’t. And if that was so, the price just might go up sooner than she thought.
Her mouth twisted but I saw the glint in her eyes. “Do you conduct all your business this way?”
“Depends.” I went over to my own horse and dug through my leather pouches. Finally I tossed a bright scarlet burnous at her. “Here. Wear it, or you’ll be fried by noon.”
The burnous is a little gaudy. I hate to wear it, but every now and then it comes in handy. Like when one of the local tanzeers desires my company at a meal to discuss business. A few gold tassels depended here and there from sleeves and hood. I’d cut a slit in the left shoulder seam so Singlestroke’s hilt poked through unimpeded; ease of unsheathing is exceedingly important when you’re in a business like mine.
She held up the burnous. “A little too subtle for you.” She dragged it on over her head, arranged the folds so her own sword hilt was freed, and shoved the hood back. It was much too big for her, falling into shadowed ripples and folds that only hinted at her shape, but she wore it better than I do. “How soon can we reach Julah?”
I untied the stud, patted his left shoulder once warningly, then jumped up into my blanketed saddle. “Depends. We might make it in three weeks … might take us three months.”
“Three months!”
“There’s the Punja to cross,” I shook the bleached tassels of my vermilion reins into place. Out here, nothing retains its original color for long. Eventually, brown swallows everything. In all its shades and variations.
She frowned a little. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”
I watched as she wheeled the little dun gelding around and headed south. At least she knew her directions.
The burnous rippled in her wind like a crimson banner of a desert tanzeer. The hilt of her Northern sword was a silver beacon, flashing in the sunlight. And all that hair, so soft and silky yellow … well, she’d be easy to keep track of. I clucked to my stud and rode after her.
We rode neck and neck for a while at a reasonable pace. My bay stud wasn’t too thrilled to match gaits with the little dun gelding, preferring a faster, more dramatic gait (often enough, that’s a full gallop spiced with intermittent attempts to remove me from his back), but after a brief “discussion,” we decided on a compromise. I’d do the directing and he’d do the walking.
Until he saw another chance.
She watched me handle the stud’s brief mutiny, but I couldn’t tell if she appreciated my skill or not. The stud is one nobody else willingly climbs aboard, being a sullen, snuffy sort, and I’ve won wagers on him when betting men thought he might be the winner of the regular morning hostilities. But he and I have worked out a deal whereby he provides all the fireworks and I make it look good; whenever I come out ahead with a few coins jingling in my belt-pouch, he gets an extra ration of grain. It works out pretty well.
She didn’t say a word when the stud finally settled down, snorting dust from his nostrils, but I caught her watching me with that blue-eyed sideways appraisal.
“That’s not a Northern horse you’re riding,” I pointed out conversationally. “He’s a Southron, like me. What kind of horses do you have up North?”
“Bigger ones.”
I waited. She didn’t add anything more. I tried again. “Fast?”
“Fast enough.”
I scowled. “Look, it’s a long journey. We might as well make it shorter with good conversation.” I paused. “Even bad conversation.”
She smiled. She tried to hide it behind that curtain of hair, but I saw it. “I thought sword-dancers were generally a surly lot,” she said idly, “living only for the blood they can spill.”
I slapped one spread hand against my chest. “Me? No. I’m a peaceful man, at heart.”
“Ah.” With all the wisdom of the world contained in the single syllable.
I sighed. “Have you got a name? Or will Blondie do?”
She didn’t answer. I waited, picking sandburs out of the clipped mane of my stud.
“Delilah,” she said finally, mouth twisted a bit. “Call me Del.”
“Del.” It didn’t suit her, somehow, being too harsh and abrupt—and too masculine—for a young woman of her grace and beauty. “Are you really chasing your brother?”
She slanted me a glance. “Do you think I made up that story I told to the slaver?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “My job is not to pass moral judgment on my employer, just to get her to Julah.”
She nearly smiled. “I’m looking for my brother. That’s not chasing.”
True. “Do you really have any idea where he might be or what might have happened to him?”
Her fingers combed the dun’s upstanding mane. “Like I told the slaver, he was stolen five years ago. I’ve traced him here—now to Julah.” She looked at me directly. “Any more questions?”
“Yes.” I smiled blandly. “What in hoolies is a girl like you doing chasing down a lost brother? Why isn’t your father handling this?”
“He’s dead.”
“Uncle?”
“He’s dead.”
“Other brothers?”
“They’re all dead, sword-dancer.”
I looked at her. Her tone was even, but I’ve learned to listen to what people don’t say more than what they do. “What happened?”
Her shoulders moved under the scarlet burnous. “Raiders. They came north about the same time we headed south, into the borderlands. They crossed over and attacked our caravan.”
“Stealing your brother—” I didn’t wait for her to answer “—and killing all the rest.”
“Everyone but me.”
I pulled up and reached over to grab her tasseled reins. Ocher tassels, and orange, no longer bright. “How in hoolies,” I demanded, “did the raiders miss you?”
For a moment the blue eyes were shuttered behind lowered lids. Then she looked at me straight on. “I didn’t say they did.”
I said nothing at all for a minute. Through my mind flashed a vision of Southron raiders with their hands on a lovely Northern girl, and there was nothing pleasant about it. But the lovely Northern girl looked right back at me as if she knew precisely what I was thinking and had come to terms with it completely, neither humiliated nor embarrassed by my knowledge. It was merely a fact of life.
I wondered, briefly, if the man Moon had mentioned tracking her was one of the raiders. But—she’d said five years. Too long for a man to chase a woman.
But not for a woman to hunt a brother.
I let go of her reins. “So now you’ve come south on some lengthy cumfa hunt, searching for a brother who could very well be dead.”
“He wasn’t dead five years ago,” she said coolly. “He wasn’t dead when Osmoon saw him.”
“If he saw him,” I pointed out. “Do you think he’d tell you the truth while you held a sword at his throat? He told you exactly what you wanted to hear.” I scowled. “Five years makes it nearly impossible, bascha. If you’re so determined to find your brother, what took you so long to begin?”
She didn’t smile or otherwise indicate my irritation bothered her. “There was a matter of learning a trade,” she told me calmly. “A matter of altering tradition.”
I looked at the silver hilt rearing above her shoulder. A woman bearing a sword—yes, that would definitely alter tradition. North or South. But my suspicions about the trade she referred to couldn’t possibly be right.
I grunted. “Waste of time, bascha. After so long in the South—I’m sure he’s probably dead.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But I’ll kno
w for sure when I get to Julah.”
“Ah, hoolies,” I said in disgust. “I’ve got nothing better to do.” I glared at her crimson back as she proceeded on ahead of me. Then I tapped heels against the stud’s slick sides and fell in next to her again.
We camped out under the stars and made a meal of dried cumfa meat. It isn’t what you’d call a delicacy, but it is filling. The best thing about it is it isn’t prepared with salt as a preservative. In the Punja, the last thing you want is salted meat, except for a trace of it to keep yourself alive. Cumfa is rather bland and tasteless, but it’s dressed with an oil that softens and makes it palatable, and it’s the best thing for a desert crossing. A little goes a long way, and it’s light, so it doesn’t weigh down the horses. I’ve become quite accustomed to it.
Del, however, wasn’t too certain she thought much of it, though she was too polite to mention her dislike. She gnawed on it like a dog with a slightly distasteful bone; not liking it, but knowing it was expected of her. I smiled to myself and chewed on my own ration, washing it down with a few swallows of water.
“No cumfa up North?” I inquired when she’d finally choked down the last strip.
She put one hand over her mouth. “No.”
“Takes some getting used to.”
“Ummm.”
I held out the leather bota. “Here. This will help.”
She gulped noisily, then replugged the bota and handed it back. She looked a little green around the edges.
I busied myself with rewrapping the meat I’d unpacked. “Know what cumfa is?”
Her glance was eloquent.
“Reptile,” I told her. “Comes out of the Punja. Mean. The adults can grow to twenty feet and they’re tough as old boot leather—about this big around.” I held up my circled hands, thumbs and fingers not quite touching. “But catch and dress out a youngster and you’ve got a meal on your hands. I’ve got two pouches full of it, and that ought to more than get us across the Punja.”
Sword-Dancer Page 3