“Is this all you have to eat?”
I shrugged. “There are caravans we can trade with. And we can stop at a couple of settlements. But this will be our main diet.” I smiled. “Doesn’t spoil.”
“Ummm.”
“You’ll get used to it.” I stretched luxuriously and leaned back against my saddle, content. Here I was, alone in the desert with a beautiful woman. I had a full belly and the sunset promised a cool night. The stars made it ideal. Once we reached the Punja things would change, but for now I was happy enough. Some good aqivi would make it better, but when I’d left the cantina to go after Del, I hadn’t had the coin to buy a bota of it.
“How far to the Punja?” she asked.
I glanced at her and saw her twisting her hair into a single braid. Seemed a shame to bind up all that glorious hair, but I could see where it might be a bit of a bother on the sand. “We’ll reach it tomorrow.” I shifted against my saddle. “Well, now that we’re comfortable, how about you telling me how it was you knew to ask for me in the cantina?”
She tied off the braid with a strip of leather. “At Harquhal I learned Osmoon the Trader was the likeliest source of information. But finding Osmoon promised to be difficult, so I asked for the next best thing: someone who knew him.” She shrugged. “Three different people said some big sword-dancer calling himself Tiger knew him, and I should look for him instead of Osmoon.”
Harquhal is a town near the border. It’s a rough place, and if she’d gotten such information out of people I knew to be close-mouthed without the right encouragement, she was better than I thought.
I eyed her assessively. She didn’t look all that tough, but something in her eyes made a man take notice of more than just her body.
‘So you came into the cantina looking for me.” I fingered the scars on my jaw. “Guess I’m easy to find, sometimes.”
She shrugged. “They described you. They said you were tough as old cumfa meat, only then I didn’t know what they meant.” She grimaced. “And they mentioned the scars on your face.”
I knew she wanted to ask about them. Everybody does, especially the women. The scars are a part of the legend, and I don’t mind talking about them.
“Sandtiger,” I told her, and saw her blank look. “Like the cumfa, they live in the Punja. Vicious, deadly beasts, who don’t mind the taste of people if they’re accommodating enough to walk into a sandtiger’s lair.”
“You were?”
I laughed. “I walked into the lair purposely. I went in to kill a big male who was terrorizing the encampment. He took a few chunks out of my hide and raked me a good one across the face—as you see—but I beat him.” I tapped the string of claws hanging around my neck on black cord. The claws are black, too, and wickedly curved; my face bears good testament to that. “These are all that’s left of him; the hide went to my hyort.” That blank look again. “Tent.”
“So now they call you the Tiger.”
“Sandtiger—Tiger for short.” I shrugged. “One name is as good as another.” I watched her a moment and decided it wouldn’t hurt my reputation—or my chances—to let her in on the story. “I remember very clearly the day it happened,” I said expansively, settling in for the tale. “That sandtiger had been stealing children who wandered too far from the wagons. No one had been able to track it down and put it out of business. Two of the men were killed outright. The shukar tried his magic spells, but they failed—as magic often will. So then he said we’d angered the gods somehow, and this was our punishment, but that the man who could kill the beast would reap the rewards of the tribe’s gratitude.” I shrugged. “So I took my knife and went into the lair, and when I came out, I was alive and the sandtiger was dead.”
“And did you reap the rewards of your tribe’s gratitude?”
I grinned at her. “They were so grateful, all the young, marriageable women fell on their faces and begged me to take them as wives—one at a time, of course. And the men feasted me and gave me all sorts of things to mark my greatness. For the Salset, that’s reward enough.”
“How many wives did you take?” she asked gravely.
I scratched at the scars on my face. “Actually—I didn’t settle on any of them. I just made myself available from time to time.” I shrugged. “I wasn’t ready for one wife then, let alone several. Still not.”
“What made you leave the tribe?”
I closed one eye and squinted up at the brightest star. “I just got restless. Even a nomadic tribe like the Salset can get confining. So I went off on my own and apprenticed to a sword-dancer, until I achieved the seventh level and became one myself.”
“Does it pay well in the South?”
“I’m a very rich man, Del.”
She smiled. “I see.”
“And I’ll be even richer when we’re done with this chase.”
She tightened the strip of leather that bound her hair into its shining braid. “But you don’t really think we’ll find him, do you?”
I sighed. “Five years is a long time, Del. Anything might’ve happened to him. Especially if he wound up with slavers.”
“I have no intention of giving up,” she said clearly.
“No. I didn’t figure you did.”
She tugged the burnous over her head and then carefully folded it, settling it next to her saddle. She’d been shrouded in it all day; suddenly seeing all that pale, smooth flesh again reminded me—vociferously—how much I wanted her. And for an ecstatic moment my hopes surged up as she glanced at me.
Her face was perfectly blank. I waited for the invitation, but she said nothing. She merely slid her sword free of its sheath and set it down in the sand next to her. With a rather long, enigmatic look at me, she lay down and turned her back on me, one hip thrust skyward.
The blade gleamed salmon-silver in the starlight; the runes were iridescent.
Chilled, I shivered. And for the first time in many a night I didn’t strip off my burnous. Instead, I flattened myself on my rug and stared at the stars while I willed myself to go to sleep.
Hoolies, what a way to spend a night—
Four
To the inexperienced eye, the border between the desert and its older, deadlier brother is almost invisible. But to someone like me, who has spent thirty-odd years riding the shifting sands, the border between the desert and the Punja is plain as day and twice as bright.
Del reined in as I did and glanced around at me curiously. Her braid hung over her left shoulder, the end just tickling the mound of her breast beneath the crimson silk. Her nose was pink with sunburn, and I knew the rest of her face would follow soon enough if she didn’t pull up the hood of the burnous.
I did so with my own, though needing it less; after a moment she followed my lead. I pointed. “That, my Northern bascha, is the Punja.”
She stared out across the distances. The horizon merged with the dunes into a single mass of dusty beige. Out here even the sky is sucked dry of all color. It is a smudge of pale taupe, paler topaz; a trace of blued-steel, met by the blade of the horizon. To the south, east and west there was nothing, miles and miles of nothing. Hoolies, we sometimes call the place.
Del glanced back the way we had come. It was dry and dusty also, yet there is a promise in the land, telling you it will end. The Punja promises too, but it sings a song of death.
Her face was puzzled. “It looks no different.”
I pointed down at the sand in front of the horse’s hooves. “The sand. Look at the sand. See the difference?”
“Sand is sand.” But before I could reprimand her for such a stupid statement, she dropped off the dusty dun gelding and knelt. One hand scooped up a fistful of sand.
She let it run through her fingers until her hand was empty, except for the glitter of translucent silver crystals. They are the deadly secret of the Punja: the crystals catch and keep the sun’s heat, reinforcing it, reflecting it, multiplying its brightness and heat one thousandfold, until everything on the sand burns up.<
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Del’s fingers curled up against her palm. “I see the difference.” She rose and stared out at the endless Punja. “How many miles?”
“Who can say? The Punja is an untamed beast, bascha, it knows no fences, no picket ropes, no boundaries. It goes where it will, with the wind, freer than any nomad.” I shrugged. “One day it might be miles from a settlement; within two days it may swallow down every last goat and baby. It’s why a guide is so necessary. If you haven’t crossed it before, you don’t know the markers. You don’t know the waterholes.” I waved a hand southward. “Out there, bascha, death is the overlord.” I saw her twisted mouth. “I’m not being overly dramatic. I’m not exaggerating. The Punja allows neither.”
“But it can be crossed.” She looked at me and wiped her hand free of dust against the crimson, tasseled burnous. “You’ve crossed it.”
“I’ve crossed it,” I agreed. “But before you step over the invisible border onto the silver sands, you’d best be aware of the dangers.”
The little dun nosed at her, asking for attention. Del put one hand on his muzzle, the other beneath his wide, rounded jaw, scratching the firm layers of muscle. But her eyes and her attention were on me. “Then you’d better say what they are.”
She wasn’t afraid. I thought she might be dissembling so I wouldn’t think her a weak, silly woman trying to behave like a man, but she wasn’t. She was strong. And, more importantly, she was ready to listen.
The stud snorted, clearing dust from his nostrils. In the still, warm air I heard the clatter of bit and shanks; the rattle of weighted tassels against brass ornamentations. An insect whined by, making for one tufted, twitching bay ear. The stud shook his head violently, ridding himself of the pest, and stomped in the sand. It raised dust, more dust, and he snorted again. In the desert, everything is a cycle. A wheel, endlessly turning in the soft harshness of the environment.
“Mirages,” I told Del. “Deadly mirages. You think you see an oasis at last, yet when you reach it, you discover it’s been swallowed up by sand and sky, blurring in the air. Do it one time too many and you’ve left yourself too far from a real oasis, a real well. You are dead.”
Silently, she waited, still scratching her little dun horse.
“There are simooms,” I said, “siroccos. Sandstorms, you might call them. And the sandstorms of the Punja will wail and screech and howl while they strip the flesh from your bones. And there are cumfa. And there are sandtigers.”
“But sandtigers can be overcome.” She said it blandly, so blandly, while I scowled at her and tried to discern if she were serious or merely teasing me about my name and reputation.
“There are borjuni,” I went on finally. “Thieves who are little better than scavengers of the desert. They prey on unwary travelers and caravans. They steal everything, including the burnous right off your back, and then they kill you.”
“And?” she said, as I paused.
I sighed. With her, when was enough, enough? “There are always the tribes. Some of them are friendly, like the Salset and the Tularain, but many of them aren’t. The Hanjii and Vashni are good examples. Both of them are warrior tribes who believe in human sacrifice. But their rituals differ.” I paused. “The Vashni believe in vivisection. The Hanjii are cannibals.”
After a moment, she nodded once. “Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Maybe it is,” she said at last. “Maybe it’s more than enough. But maybe you’re not telling me everything.”
“What do you want to hear?” I asked curtly. “Or do you think I’m telling tall tales to occupy a child?”
“No.” She shaded her eyes with one hand and stared southward, across the shimmering sands. “But you mention nothing of sorcery.”
For a moment I looked at her sharply. Then I snorted inelegantly. “All the magic I need is that which resides in the circle.”
The sunlight beat off the bright crimson of her hood and set the gold tassels to glowing. “Sword-dancer,” she said softly, “you would do better not to belittle that which holds such power.”
I swore. “Hoolies, bascha, you sound like a shukar, trying to make me think you’re full of mystery and magic. Look, I won’t say magic doesn’t exist, because it does. But it’s what you make of it, and so far about all I’ve ever seen are fools tricked out of their money or their water. It’s mostly a con game, bascha. Until it’s proved otherwise.”
Del looked at me squarely a moment, as if she judged. And then she nodded a little. “A skeptic,” she observed. “Maybe even a fool. But then—it’s your choice. And I’m not a priest to try and convince you otherwise.” She turned and walked away.
Automatically, I reached out and caught the reins of the little dun gelding as he tried to follow her. “Where in hoolies are you going?”
She stopped. She stood on the invisible border. She didn’t answer me. She merely drew her gleaming sword and drove it into the sand as if she spitted a man, and then she let go of the hilt. It stood up from the sand, rune-scribed blade half buried. And then she sat down, cross-legged, and closed her eyes. Her hands hung loosely in her lap.
The heat beat at me. Moving, it isn’t so bad. I can forget about it and concentrate on where I’m going. But sitting still on horseback with the deadly sands but a dismount away, I could feel only the heat … and a strange wonder, stirred by the woman’s actions.
Eyes closed. Head bent. Silent. A shape in scarlet silk, cross-legged on the sand. And the Northern sword, made of alien steel (or something), hilt thrust against the fabric of the air.
I felt the sweat spring up. It rose on brow, on belly, in the pockets of flesh beneath my arms. The silk of my burnous melted against my skin and stuck there. I could smell an acrid tang.
I looked at the sword. I thought I saw the shapes twist in the metal. But that would take magic, a powerful personal magic, and there is so little in the world.
Except in the sword-dancer’s circle.
Del rose at last, jerking the sword free of the sand. She slid it home over her shoulder and walked back to the dun, slipped tasseled reins over his flicking ears.
I scowled. “What was that all about?”
She mounted quickly. “I asked permission to continue. It’s customary in the North, when undertaking a dangerous journey.”
“Asked who?” I scowled. “The sword?”
“The gods,” she said seriously. “But then, if you don’t much believe in magic, you won’t much belive in gods.”
I smiled. “Bang on the head, bascha. Now, if the gods—or that sword—have given you permission, we may as well continue.” I gestured. “Southward, bascha. Just ride south.”
The Southron sun is hard on anyone. It hangs in the sky like a baleful god of hoolies, staring down with a single cyclopean eye. A burnous is good for protecting the flesh, but it doesn’t dissipate the heat entirely. The fabric of the silk, over-heated, produces heat itself, burning against the skin until you shift within the folds, seeking cooler areas.
After a while, your eyes ache from squinting against the brightness and, if you shut them, all you see are crimson lids as the sun bakes through. The sands of the Punja glitter blindingly; at first it seems a lovely sort of taupe-and-amber velvet stretching across the miles, crusted with colorless gemstones. But the gemstones burn and the velvet has no softness.
There is the silence, so oppressive, save for the sloughing of hooves threshing through the sand and the occasional creak of saddle leather beneath the muffling blanket. Southron horses are bred for the heat and brightness; long forelocks guard their eyes and form a sort of insulation against the heat, and their hides are slick as silk without excess hair. Many times I’d wished I was as adaptable as a good desert pony, and as uncomplaining.
The air shimmers. You look out across the sand and you see the flat horizon, flat sky, flat color. You can feel it sucking the life from you, leaching your skin of moisture until you feel like a dry husk ready to blow into millions
of particles on the first desert breeze. But the breeze never comes, and you pray it doesn’t; if it does, it brings with it the wind, and the simoom, and the deadly sand sharp as cumfa teeth as it slices into your flesh.
I looked at Del and recalled the freshness of her pale skin and knew I didn’t ever want to see it burned or scarred or shredded.
We drank sparingly, but the water levels in my botas went down amazingly fast. After a while you find yourself hyperaware of the liquid, even though you ration it carefully. Knowing you have it within reach is almost worse than knowing you have none. Having it, you want it, knowing you can have it instantly. It’s a true test of willpower and a lot of people discover they don’t have that in their psychological makeup. Del did. But the water still went down.
“There’s a well,” I said at last. “Ahead.”
She turned her head as I caught up to her. “Where?”
I pointed. “See that dark line? That’s a ridge of rocks marking the cistern. The water isn’t the best—it’s a little brackish—but it’s wet. It’ll do.”
“I still have water in my botas.”
“So do I, but out here you don’t ever pass up a well. There’s no such thing as an embarrassment of riches in the Punja. Even if you’ve just filled up your botas, you stop. Sometimes a swim can make all the difference in the world.” I paused. “How’s your nose?”
She touched it and made a rueful face. “Sore.”
“If we find an alla plant, I’ll mix a salve. It’ll leach some of the pain, and the paste keeps the sun off delicate extremities.” I grinned. “No use in denying it, bascha—your tender Northern flesh just isn’t up to the heat of the Punja.”
A twist of her mouth. “And yours is.”
I laughed. “Mine’s tough as cumfa leather, remember? The Punja is my home, Del … as much as any place is.” I stared out across the blazing sands. “If there is such a thing as home when you’re a sword-dancer.”
I don’t know why I said it. Least of all to her. Women sometimes use such things as weapons, fighting with words instead of blades.
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