“If kaidin is a Northern word for shodo—sword-master—then I’d have to say he taught me respect for an honorable blade,” I said. “But—a sword is still a sword, Del. It takes a man to give it life. Not magic.”
“No,” she said. “No. That’s blasphemy. In the North, the kaidin teach us differently.”
The stud stomped in the sand as I frowned at her. “Are you maintaining you learned from a sword-master?”
She didn’t appear interested in answering my questions, only in asking me hers. “If you don’t believe in magic, then how did you come by your sword?” she demanded. “In whom did you quench it? What power does it claim?” Her eyes were on Singlestroke’s golden hilt. “If you can tell me its name, you can tell me all of this.”
“Wait,” I said, “wait a minute. First of all, how I came by Singlestroke is personal. And I never said I didn’t believe in magic, just doubted the quality—or sense—in it. But what I want to know is why you sound like you’ve been apprenticed.”
A little of her color came back. “Because I was. I learned a little from my father and uncles and brothers, but—later, there was more. I was ishtoya.” Her lips tightened. “Student to my sword-master.”
“A woman.” I couldn’t hide the flat note of disbelief in my tone.
Surprisingly, she smiled. “Girl, not woman, when my father first put a sword into my hands.”
“That sword?” A jerk of my head indicated the weapon riding her shoulder.
“This?—no. No, of course not. This is my blooding-blade. My jivatma.” Again, her eyes were on Singlestroke. “But—aren’t you afraid your sword might turn on you now that you’ve told me its name?”
“No. Why should it? Singlestroke and I go way back. We look after one another.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me who knows his name.”
She shivered a little. “The South is so—different. Different than the North.”
“True,” I agreed, thinking it an understatement. “And if that’s your way of telling me you’re a sword-dancer, it’s not very convincing.”
A glint came into her eyes. “I’ll let my dance speak for itself if we ever meet in the circle.”
I looked at her sharply, thinking of my dream; at the shrouded, hooded figure of a woman fit for a tanzeer, sharp as a blade and twice as deadly.
Sword-dancer? I doubted it. I doubted it because I had to.
Del frowned. “Tiger—is that a breeze I feel?” She pushed back her hood. “Tiger—”
We had been standing on horseback abreast of one another, facing south. I twisted in the saddle, looking back the way we had come, and saw how the sky had turned black and silver, which meant the sand was already flying.
The storm hung in the air, swallowing everything in its path. Even the heat. It’s an immensely peculiar sensation, to feel the heat sucked out of the air. Your hair stands on end and your skin prickles and your mouth goes very, very dry. When the desert turns cold, so does your blood, but it’s from fear, no matter how brave you are.
“Tiger—?”
“Simoom,” I said harshly, wheeling around and tightening my reins as the stud began to fret. “We’re only a couple of miles from the oasis. There’s shelter back in the rocks. Del—run for it!”
She did. I caught a glimpse of the dun as Del shot by me. The gelding’s ears were pinned back and his eyes were half-closed, anticipating the storm. No horse likes to face into the wind, particularly a desert-bred horse, so it spoke volumes for Del’s horsemanship that she managed to outdistance the stud, even for a moment. Our tracks showed plainly in the sand and Del followed them easily, ignoring the rising wind.
It’s frightening to ride into a deadly simoom. All your instincts scream at you to turn tail and flee in the opposite direction, so you won’t have to face it. I’d never turned into the face of a simoom before and intensely disliked the feeling; it left me sweating and slightly sickened. And I wasn’t the only one: a line of sweat broke out on the stud’s neck and I heard his raspy breathing. He crowhopped a bit, then lined out and overtook Del’s dun almost instantly.
“Faster!” I shouted at her.
She was hunched low in the saddle, hands thrusting the reins forward on the gelding’s neck. The scarlet hood flapped behind her as my own flapped behind me, tassels glinting in the strange amber-green light. Everything else turned gray-brown, hanging over our heads like an executioner’s sword. Only, when it dropped, it would fall so quickly we’d never see the blow.
A cold wind blew. It filled my eyes with tears and my mouth with grit, chapping and tearing at my lips. The stud faltered, snorting his alarm, fighting his own demons in the wind. I heard Del shouting and turned in my saddle in time to see her little dun rear and plunge, totally panicked. She tried to ride it out but the gelding was terrified. And the delay was costing us.
I yanked the stud around and raced back to Del. By the time I reached her she was standing on the ground, fighting the dun from there because riding him had become impossible. But now she was in danger of being trampled, and I yelled at her to let the horse go.
She shouted something back, and then the world was brown and green and gray and my eyes were filled with pain.
“Del! Del!”
“I can’t see you!” Her shout was twisted by the storm, ripped away from her mouth and hurled into the wailing of the wind. “Tiger—I can’t see anything!”
I dropped off the stud, slapped him on the left shoulder and felt him go down, folding up and rolling onto his side, as he’d been trained. He lay quietly, eyes closed and head tucked back into his neck, waiting for my signal to rise. I hung onto the reins and knelt next to him, shouting for Del.
“Where are you?” she called.
“Just follow my voice!” I kept yelling until she reached me. I saw a faint shape loom up before me, one hand thrust out in front of her. I grabbed the hand and pulled her to me, shoving her down by the stud. His body would shelter us against the worst of the storm, but even so we’d be buffeted and blasted senseless if the simoom lasted long.
Del’s breath rasped. “I lost my horse,” she panted. “Tiger—”
“Never mind.” My hand was on her head, urging her down. “Just stay down. Curl up and stay next to the stud. Better yet, stay next to me.” I pulled her closer and wrapped an arm around her, glad of a legitimate excuse to touch her. Finally.
“I have knife and sword,” came her muffled voice. “If you’d like to keep your hands, put them where they belong.”
I laughed at her and got a mouthful of sand for my trouble. Then the simoom was on us in all its fury, and I had surviving on my mind instead of seducing Del.
Well, time for that later.
Seven
You don’t count the minutes during a simoom, or even the hours. You can’t. You simply lie huddled against your horse and hope and pray the storm will blow itself out before it strips your bones of flesh and spills your brains into the sand.
Your world is filled with the raging banshee howl of the wind; the scouring caress of gritty, stinging sand; the unremitting drying up of flesh and eyes and mouth until you don’t dare even think about water, because to think about it is torture of the most exquisite kind.
The stud lay so still I thought, for a moment, he might be dead. And the thought filled me with a brief, overwhelming uprush of fear because in the Punja a man on foot is prey to many predators. Sand. Sun. Animals. Humans. And all can be equally deadly.
But it was only a brief moment of fear—not because I am incapable of the emotion (though, admittedly, I don’t usually admit to it)—because I couldn’t risk trying to find out; I was alive myself at the moment and worrying too much about the stud might effectively get me killed, which more or less goes against my personal philosophy.
Del was curled in a lump of twined limbs, face tucked down against her knees as she lay on her side. I’d pulled her against my chest, fitting my body around hers as an additional shield; it left some of me bare to the w
ind and sand, but I was more concerned about her Northern skin than my Southron hide, which was—as she’d said—tough as old cumfa leather. So Del lay cradled between the stud’s back and my chest, blocked from most of the storm by us both.
Much of my burnous had already shredded, which left me mostly naked except for my dhoti. I felt the relentless buffeting of the wind and sand as it scoured my flesh. After a while it merged into one unending blast, which I blocked out fairly well in my mind. But at least Del didn’t have to deal with it much; I had the feeling that if she lost her burnous, she’d wind up shedding more than crimson silk. Probably most of her skin.
Her back was against my chest, rump snugged up against my loins. Since I have never been the stalwart sort when it comes to denying myself the pleasures of the flesh—or, occasionally, the mind—it made things a little rough for me in more ways than one. But the circumstances certainly didn’t encourage any intimate notions, so I restrained myself and concentrated mostly on simply breathing.
Breathing seems easy, most of the time. But it isn’t when you’re swallowing sand with every inhalation. I sucked air shallowly, trying to regulate my breathing, but it’s not a simple thing when you want to suck in great gulps. My nose and mouth were masked with a portion of my hood, but it wasn’t the most efficient filtering system. I cupped my hand over my face, stretching fingers to shield my eyes, and waited it out as patiently as I could.
But after a while, I sort of slid off the edge of the world into a cottony blankness with only the faintest of textured edges.
I woke up when the stud lunged to his feet and shook himself so hard he sent a shower of sand and dust flying in all directions. I tried to move and discovered I was so stiff and cramped I hurt in every fiber of my body. Muscle and sinew protested vociferously as I slowly straightened everything out. Stifling the groan I longed to make (it doesn’t do to shake the foundations of a legend), I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position.
I spat. There was no saliva left in my mouth, but I expelled grit nonetheless. My teeth grated. I couldn’t swallow. My eyes were rimmed with caked sand. Carefully I peeled the layers away, de-gumming my lashes, until I could open both eyes at once without fear of sand contamination.
I squinted. Grimaced. Nothing makes a man feel filthier inside and out than surviving a simoom.
On the other hand, I much prefer filth to death.
Slowly I reached out and grasped Del’s shoulder. Shook it. “Bascha, it’s over.” Nothing much came out of my throat except a husky croak. I tried again. “Del—come on.”
The stud shook again, clattering brass ornaments. A tremendous snort cleared most of the dust from clotted nostrils. I saw eyelids and lashes as gummed as my own, even beneath the brown forelock. And then he yawned prodigiously.
I pushed myself up, stretching to crack knotted sinews. Then I looked around, slowly, and felt the familiar grue slide down my spine.
The aftermath of a simoom is so quiet it is oppressive. Nothing is the same; everything looks the same. The sky is flat and beige and empty; the sand is flat and beige and empty. So is a man’s soul. He has survived the savage sandstorm, but even the knowledge of survival is not as exciting as it might be. In the face of such strength and mindless fury—and the awesome power of an elemental force no man may hope to master—all you sense is your own mortality. Your transience. And an overwhelming fragility.
I moved to the stud and used the remains of my shredded burnous to finish clearing his nose. He snorted again, but I didn’t curse him for the blast of damp sand and mucus that splattered me. His head drooped dispiritedly; horses fear what they can’t understand, trusting to the rider to keep them safe. In a simoom, only luck keeps you safe.
I patted him on his dusty bay face and carefully degummed his eyes. By the time I was done, Del was up.
She was in better shape than the stud, but not by much. Her lips were cracked, gray-white, even when she spat out sand. Her face and body were one uniform color, the color of sand; only her eyes had any true hue, and they were made bluer by the raw, red rims.
She hawked and spat again, then looked at me. “Well, we’re alive.”
“For the moment.” I unsaddled the stud and set the pouches on the sand, pulling my burnous off all the way to wipe him down. His fear had caused him to sweat and sand was caked on him, altering his color from dark bay to taupe-gray. Carefully I began scrubbing it off, hoping his flesh wasn’t so abraded he’d refuse to carry us.
Del walked over to the the pouches stiffly, hissing as she discovered how much she hurt. She knelt and unlaced one of the big pouches and pulled forth the two sandtiger cubs.
I’d forgotten about them entirely. And I had put the stud down on his side without even considering the results if he’d gone down on top of the pouch they rode in. Crushed cubs.
Del, realizing it about the same time I did, sent me an accusatory glare. Then she winced and sat down all the way, cradling the cubs in her lap.
From all appearances they were unharmed and equally unsanded. Protected by the pouch, they’d slept through the entire simoom. Now they rediscovered one another and attacked, rolling around in her lap like kittens.
Except they weren’t.
Already their green eyes had the unfocused menace of adult sandtigers. Their tiny stub tails stuck straight up in the air as they crouched and attacked. Watching, I thanked valhail their claws were budded and their fangs immature. Otherwise Del would have been clawed, poisoned, paralyzed, and wide awake as they consumed her flesh.
Eventually, I unplugged one of the botas and handed it to her. Del took it in shaking hands, ignoring the cubs as they rolled and tumbled and sank buds into her legs. Some of the water trickled out of her mouth, channeling dark lines in the dusted face; she cupped a hand beneath her chin in an attempt to catch the precious drops.
Her throat moved as she swallowed. Again. Again. Then she stopped herself and handed the bota back, staring at one dampened hand. The moisture was sucked into her flesh almost instantly.
“I didn’t know it would be this dry.” She squinted through gummed lashes. “It was hot before, when I crossed over from the North. But this is—worse.”
I sucked down a substantial swallow of water and plugged the bota again, tucking it into the pouch. “We can turn back.”
Del stared at me, eyes unfocused like those of the cubs still scrabbling about in her lap. She was—somewhere else. And then I realized she was dealing with the experience in her own way, acknowledging her fear and therefore dissipating its power over her. I could see it move through her body, knotting her sinews until they stood up beneath her dusty skin; unknotting, passing through her body like a ripple of cumfa track in the sand.
She sighed a little. “We’ll go on.”
I licked at my cracked lips, wincing inwardly at the pain. “We risk another simoom, bascha. There’s rarely one when there can be two. Or even three.”
“We survived this one.”
I looked at the set of her jaw: locked into place, it was a blade beneath her flesh, sharp-edged and honed. “Your brother means that much to you, even though it’s possible you might die trying to find him?”
She looked back at me. In that moment her eyes mirrored her soul, and what I saw made me ashamed of my question; of myself. Of my tactless, unthinking assumption that she valued her life more than her brother’s.
But I was alone in the world, as I have always been, and the realization of such familial loyalty is not very easy to deal with.
Such binding, powerful kinship, as alien to me as the sword she bore. And the woman herself.
Del rose, cradling the cubs by fat, tight bellies as she pushed them back into the pouch. She ignored their mewling, muted protests as she laced the leather closed. Her spine was incredibly rigid. I had offended her deeply with my question.
I resaddled silently. Done, I swung up and held my hand down to Del, who used my stiffened foot as a stirrup as she climbed up behind me.
> “Half-rations,” I told her. “Water and food both. And that goes for the cubs, too.”
“I know.”
I tapped the stud’s dusty sides with my heels, hooking toes into the stirrups. I fully expected him to protest the added weight—he’s more than strong enough to carry a heavier second load than Del; he just likes to make a fuss—but he didn’t. I felt a hitch-and-a-half in his first step out, then something very like a shrug of surrender. He walked.
We headed south again.
Surviving a simoom sucks the strength and heart out of you. I knew we couldn’t go on much longer. The stud was stumbling and weaving; I swayed in the saddle like a wine-drowned man and Del slumped against my back. The cubs were probably the most comfortable of us all. I almost envied them.
The fouled well had also fouled our course. Because we had gone to the oasis, we now no longer followed the shortest way to Julah. It meant we had to go even farther before we reached water again. I knew it. Del, I had the feeling, also knew it. But the stud didn’t.
A horse can’t acknowledge the need for rationing. He simply wants. Needs. In the Punja, with the sun burning down on a blazing carpet of crystal sand, water becomes a commodity more precious than gold, gems, food. And I have known times when I was more than willing to trade a year of my life in exchange for a drink of cold, sweet water.
Even warm water.
The sand had scoured us dry, leaching our flesh of moisture. Slowly, we died of thirst from the outside in. The stud wobbled and wavered and drifted in a ragged journey across the bright sands. I didn’t do much better, though at least I could ride instead of walk.
I roused Del twice when I slid to the ground to pour a little water into my cupped hand for the stud, but she refused her own ration. So did I. A taste can become a gulp, a gulp a sustained swallowing, and that consumes the resource so fast you only hasten your own death.
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