My thigh hurt. I glanced down at it as I sat hunched over the dead female and realized the male had striped me good. More scars. Then I glanced up at Del and saw her blazing more brightly than any sun.
“She was mine!” she cried. “Mine!”
I sighed, shoving a forearm across my sweaty forehead. “Let’s not argue about it. She’s dead. That’s what counts.”
“But you killed her and she was mine. You stole my kill.”
I stared at her. She was white with anger, sword still gripped in rigid fingers. For a moment I had the odd impression she might bring down that deadly blade in a vicious killing swipe. “Del—”
She let out a string of Northern words I didn’t understand, but didn’t need to. The girl had mastered the most foul-sounding oaths I’d ever heard, and I’m rather good at it myself. I heard her out, letting her vent her anger, then pushed to my feet and faced her. The tip of the sword rested against my chest.
Almost at once I shivered. The blade was cold, cold, even in the blazing heat of the Southron sunlight. It put that finger into my soul and tapped.
Tapping: Tiger, are you there?
I took a single lurching step away. “That cat might have killed you.” I said it curtly, more out of reaction to the sword than anger at her behavior. “Don’t act like a fool, Del.”
“Fool?” she blurted. “You are the fool, sword-dancer! Does a man steal another man’s kill? Does a man forbid another man to kill? Does a man protect another man when he’s perfectly prepared and willing to handle the situation himself?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I threw back. “You’re not a man, Del. Quit trying to act like one.”
“I’m just me!” she shouted. “Just Del! Don’t interfere simply because of my sex!”
“Hoolies, woman, don’t act like you’ve got sand in your head.” I walked past her to the water.
“You’re the one, sword-dancer,” she said bitterly. “You are the fool if you think I’m helpless and soft and unable.”
I ignored her. My thigh was afire, and reaction to the attack was setting in. I was also hungry, and anger never solves any confrontation, even in the circle. Especially in the circle. So I stripped off my sandals and stepped over the ring of stones into the water, blowing bubbles as I sank beneath the surface.
When I came up again, hanging onto the rocks, I saw Del twisting her way into the sandtiger lair. That got me out of the water instantly. I went dripping across the sand to her, roaring a question, but by the time I got there she was backing out again. When she was free of the crags, she shook back her damp braid and looked up at me. Clutched in her arms were two sandtiger cubs.
They squalled and bit at her, paws batting at her hands, but the claws of sandtiger cubs don’t break through a membranous bud until they’re three months old. It’s what makes the parents so protective and vicious; cubs have no natural defenses for far longer than most animals of the Punja. These still had their milkteeth, which meant they were only half-weaned.
I swore, dripping all over the sand. “You plan on keeping them?”
“They’ll die without help.”
“They’ll die with help.” I squatted down, ignoring the pain in my clawed thigh, and put out my hand to one of the cubs. I couldn’t deny it—at two months they were cute as could be. And about as cuddly as a cumfa. “They’ll be better off if I kill them now.”
Del jerked back. “Don’t you dare!”
“Bascha, they’re helpless,” I told her. “They’re sandtiger cubs, for valhail’s sake! We don’t need any more of them inhabiting this oasis, or we’ll start losing people.”
“People can look after themselves. These cubs can’t.”
I sighed again, letting the cub grab onto a finger. “Right now they have no defenses. Their teeth are blunt and their nails are budded. But in a month they’ll have fangs and claws, and they’ll kill anything that moves.”
The cub gnawed at my hand. It was painless. The purring growl was only the merest shadow of the angry scream I’d heard coming from his father.
Del thrust the cub into my arms and cradled the other one. “They’re just babies, Tiger. They deserve a chance to live.”
I scowled at her, but the cub kept gnawing on my finger until it fell asleep in my arms. She was right. I couldn’t do it. Tough old Tiger, professional sword-dancer.
I lugged the cub over to my burnous, put it down, watched it sleep, and swore. “What the hoolies do you want to do with them?”
Del was dangling her braid at her cub’s nose. It batted at the hair, grizzling deep in its throat. “We’ll take them with us.”
“Across the Punja?” I asked incredulously. “Hoolies, bascha, I know it’s a woman’s prerogative to want to mother something, but we’ll be lucky to get ourselves across. We don’t need to be saddled with a pair of sandtiger cubs.”
“We have no choice.” She met my eyes steadily. “You killed their parents. You cut off the line. Now you owe them a debt.”
“Hoolies!” I swore. “Trust me to pick up a crazy Northern woman with crazy Northern notions. And anyway—the last I heard you wanted to kill the female. Don’t make me the villain.”
Her eyes were incredibly blue beneath pale, sun-bleached brows. “You are what you are, sword-dancer.”
I sighed, giving it up. “Look, I have to get some sleep. We’ll talk about it when I wake up.”
She quit dangling the braid at once. “I thought you wanted to go on once we’d watered and rested.”
“I do. But I can’t, not until I get some sleep.” I saw the puzzled frown on her face. “Bascha, the claws of sandtigers are poisoned. If they claw you badly enough, they paralyze you—so they can enjoy a leisurely meal.” I gestured toward my thigh. The water had washed the blood away initially, but more crawled sluggishly down my leg. “This isn’t much, but it’s best if I get some sleep. So, if you don’t mind …” I stifled my grunt of effort and dropped down on my burnous, next to the sleeping cub. It—he—slept on, and in a moment I joined him in oblivion.
Six
The circle. A simple shape drawn in sand. Dark against light; the shallowness of the circle a chasm in the silk of the glittering sand. And yet, even in silence, the circle was loud with the promise of blood. Its scent was a tangible thing.
Mutely, I slipped out of my burnous and let it fall from my flesh. Soft silk, its slide a sibilant whisper; billowing briefly, then settling in a bright-brown puddle against the sand. Umber-bronze against ivory-taupe.
I unlaced my sandals and slipped free of them, kicking them aside. Deftly, I unbuckled my harness and let it fall atop my sandals: a pile of oiled leather, stained sienna by my sweat. But even as it fell, I slid the sword from the sheath.
Singlestroke, whose name was legendary. Blued blade, gold hilt. Blinding in the sunlight.
I walked to the edge of the circle. I waited. Against my feet the sand was hot, yet from its heat I took my strength; desert-born and bred, the Southron sun was, to me, an energizing force.
My opponent faced me. Like me, she had shed sandals and burnous, clad only in a suede tunic bordered with blue runic glyphs. And the sword. The salmon-silver sword with the shapes upon it; alien, angry shapes, squirming in the metal.
I looked at it. It touched me not, for we had yet to enter the circle, and still I felt the breath of death. Cold. So cold. Reaching out to touch my soul. In the heat of the day, I shivered.
And Del sang. She sang her Northern song.
I jerked into wakefulness and realized I had shivered, because Del’s hand was on my brow and it was cool, cool and smooth, against the heat of my flesh.
Her face loomed over me. So fair, so young, so grim. Almost flawless in its beauty, and yet there was an edge beneath the softness. The bite of cold, hard steel.
“Your fever’s gone,” she said, and took her hand away.
After a moment, I rolled over and hitched myself up on one elbow. “How long?”
She had m
oved away, kneeling by the wall of rock behind us. Her hands rested on her thighs. “Through the night. You talked a little. I cleaned the wound.”
I looked into those guileless eyes and saw again the level gaze of a dedicated opponent about to enter the circle. Behind her left shoulder rode the Northern sword, sheathed, settled quietly in its harness, the glint of rune-worked silver almost white in the rain of sunlight. I thought of the dream and wondered what I’d said.
But somehow I couldn’t ask her.
She wore the crimson burnous again. Her hair had been rebraided. The skin of her nose was redder than before, almost ready to burst and peel. That blonde, blonde hair and those blue, blue eyes pointed up the differences between North and South blatantly enough, yet I knew it didn’t have to do only with physicalities, but culture. Environment. Quite simply: we thought differently.
And it was bound to come between us.
I assessed the tiny camp. Del knew what she was doing. Both horses were saddled and packed, waiting silently in the heat. Heads hung loosely at the end of lowered necks, eyes were half-shut against the sunlight, patches of flesh quivering as stud and gelding tried to rid themselves of bothersome insects.
I looked at Del, prepared to make a comment, and she handed me a chunk of roasted meat. But I knew it wasn’t cumfa.
Tentatively, I tongued it. “Sandtiger,” she said. “I thought the male might be too tough, so I cooked the female.”
The first bite was in my mouth, but I didn’t swallow. It sat there in my teeth, filling up my mouth even though it wasn’t that big a bite; the idea of eating the animal I’d been named for struck me as something close to cannibalism.
Del didn’t smile. “In the Punja, one eats what meat one can find.” But there was a glint in her eyes.
I scowled. Chewed. Didn’t answer.
“Besides, I fed the cubs on cumfa meat mixed with milk, so I had to replace it with something.”
“Milk?”
“They’re only half-weaned,” she explained. “There was still milk in the female, so I put the cubs on her. No sense in wasting what was left.”
“They suckled from their dead mother?”
Del shrugged a little; I got the feeling she knew how odd it sounded. “She was still warm. I knew the milk wouldn’t turn for an hour or so, so I thought it was worth the try.”
To give her credit, I’d never have thought of it. But then, I wouldn’t be so concerned with cubs bound to turn vicious in a month. Trust a woman … “What do you intend to do with them?”
“They’re packed on your horse,” she told me. “I made room in your pouches because there wasn’t any in mine. They’ll be no trouble.”
“Sandtiger cubs on my horse?”
“He didn’t seem to mind,” she retorted. “Why should you?”
Ah, hoolies, some women you just can’t talk sense to. So I didn’t even bother. I finished the roasted tiger, which wasn’t too bad, tugged the burnous over my head and stood up. My thigh still stung, but the poison had worked its way out of my system. The claw marks stretched from the edge of my dhoti to mid-thigh, but they weren’t terribly deep. They’d slow me down for a couple of days, but I heal fast.
“You ready to ride?” I took a final drink and headed for the stud.
“Since dawn.”
There was, I thought, the slightest hint of a reprimand in her tone. And I didn’t like it. I glared at her as she mounted her little dun, and then I recalled the reason. “You’re still angry about me killing the female!”
Del hooked her feet into the stirrups and settled her reins. “She was mine. You took her away from me. You had no right.”
“I was trying to save your life,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
She sat atop the gelding, the crimson silk of the burnous almost shimmering in the sunlight. “It counts,” she agreed. “Oh, it does, Tiger. An honorableness on your part.” Her Northern accent twisted the words. “But in adding luster to your honor, you tarnished mine.”
“Right,” I agreed. “Next time I let you die.” I turned my back on her. It’s useless arguing with a woman when she has her back up, or her mind set on something. I’ve been in this kind of situation before, and there’s never a simple resolution. (And while I’m the first to admit I’ve never embroiled myself in a conflict involving the right to kill a sandtiger before, for valhail’s sake, the principle’s the same.)
The stud sidled a little as I swung up, which made it difficult to hook my feet into my stirrups. I heard the hissing whip of his tail as he slashed it in eloquent protest of my temper. He swung his head low and brass ornamentation clashed. I heard a muted questioning mewl from one of the pouches and realized all over again I was packing two sandtiger cubs. Here I’d gotten my name from killing one, had just killed two more, and now I was hauling cubs across the desert like a besotted fool.
Or a soft-hearted woman.
“I’ll take them on my horse,” Del offered.
She’d already said her pouches were too full. The offer made no sense, unless it was a peace offering. Or, more likely, an implication I couldn’t handle my horse.
I scowled at her, kicked the stud into a trot and headed out across the sand. The spine beneath my saddle twisted alarmingly a moment—the stud, when he protests, is fairly dramatic about it—and I waited for the bobbing head and whipping tail that signaled a blowup. It’d be just like him to wait until I had a pouch full of sandtigers, a wounded leg, and a gut full of irritation before he bucked me off. Then I’d have a craw full of crow.
But he didn’t buck. He settled, a bit hump-backed to remind me of his mood, and walked quietly enough, for him. Del came up beside me on her undramatic dun and kept an eye on the pouches. But I heard no more protests out of the cubs and figured they’d gone to sleep. If they had any sense, they’d hibernate permanently. I wasn’t looking forward to unpacking them.
“Well?” I asked. “What’s the decision? Plan on raising them as pets?”
She shook her head. With the hood up I couldn’t see her hair; her face, even shadowed by the bright silk, was pale as cream. Except for her sunburned nose. “They’re wild things. I know what you say is true: in a month they’ll be deadly. But—I want to give them that month. Why let them starve to death because their mother’s dead? In a couple of weeks they’ll be weaned, and then we can turn them loose.”
A couple of weeks. She was downright crazy. “And what do you plan on feeding them in place of milk?”
“We only have cumfa meat. It’ll have to do.” Her mouth quirked a little and I saw a glint in her eyes. “Surely if a human mouth can swallow it, sandtiger mouths can.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“It’s horrible.”
Well, it is. No getting around it. But it’s the best thing for crossing the Punja, where edible game is scarce and almost uniformly smarter than you are.
I squinted as the sunlight flashed off the silver hilt of her sword. So incongruous, harnessed to a woman. “Do you really know how to use one of these?” I tapped Singlestroke’s hilt, rising above my shoulder. “Or is it mostly to scare off men you’d rather not deal with?”
“It didn’t scare you off.”
I didn’t dignify that with an answer.
After a moment, she smiled. “Asking me that question makes as much sense as me asking it of you.”
“Implying, I take it, a vigorous yes.”
“Vigorous,” she agreed. “Yes.”
I squinted at her dubiously. “It’s not a woman’s weapon.”
“Usually not. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be.”
“Down South it does.” I scowled at her. “Be serious, bascha—you know as well as I do that very few women can handle a knife well, let alone a sword.”
“Perhaps because too often the men won’t let us.” She shook her head. “You judge too quickly. You deny me my skill, but expect me to honor yours.”
I thrust out my arm, flexing the
fingers of my hand. “Because you only have to look at me—and my size—to know no woman could go aginst me and win.”
She looked at my fingers; my hand. And then she looked at me. “You are bigger, much bigger, it’s true. And no doubt more experienced than I. But don’t disregard me so easily. How do you know I haven’t entered the circle myself?”
I let my hand slap down against my thigh. To laugh outright at her would be uncharitable and unnecessarily rude, but I couldn’t quite hide the tail end of the sound that turned into a snort of amusement.
“Do you wish it proven?” she asked.
“How—by going aginst me? Bascha … no man has gone against me and won, or I wouldn’t be here.”
“Not to the death. In mock-battle.”
I smiled. “No.”
Her mouth twisted. “No, of course not. It would be unbearable for you if you discovered I’m as good as I say I am.”
“A good sword-dancer never says how good he is. He doesn’t have to.”
“You do. By implication.”
“I don’t think so.” I grinned. “I wouldn’t say my reputation comes by implication. It wouldn’t be fair to Singlestroke.” I hunched my left shoulder and joggled the hilt a little.
Del’s mouth fell open in eloquent shock. “You named your sword.”
I frowned at her. “Every sword has a name. Doesn’t yours?”
“But—you gave it to me.” She reined in the gelding and stared at me. “You told me the name of your sword.”
“Singlestroke,” I agreed. “Yes. Why?”
Her left hand rose as if to touch her own sword hilt protectively, then she stopped the motion. But her face was pale. “What did your kaidin teach you?” She asked it almost rhetorically, as if she couldn’t believe the thoughts forming in her head. “Didn’t he teach you that to make your sword’s name known is to give its power to another?” I didn’t answer, and she shook her head slowly. “To share a magic that is personal, meant only for one, is sacrilege. It goes against all teachings.” Pale brows drew down. “Do you place so little trust in magic, Tiger, that you deny your own measure of it?”
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