Sword-Dancer

by Jennifer Roberson

  Del’s teeth were gritted so hard the muscles of her jaw stood up, sculpting her face into a mask of delicate marble; silk and satin and infinitely seductive. As well as determinedly dangerous. “Fight me—” she gasped. “Don’t just throw up a guard—fight me!”

  So I did. I stepped forward, feinting a stroke that I quickly turned against her. I slapped the flat of my blade against her upper arm, smacking it hard enough to raise a welt instantly. Had I used the edge, it would have sheared off her arm at the shoulder.

  The Hanjii were a blur. Part of me heard their voices muttering and mumbling, but most of me was focused on the dance, and my opponent. Breathing came hard and painful because I was hot and tired and dehydrated, yet somehow I had to conserve my strength for the second fight. If I allowed Del to tire me too much, I’d go down far too easily beneath the shoka’s knife.

  “I dance to win—” Del lunged at me across the circle.

  I’ll admit it, she caught me by surprise. Her sword slid easily under my guard, nicked the heel of my hand and continued along the line of my ribs.

  Angrily I slapped the flat of her blade aside with my bare hand (not generally recommended, but she’d stabbed my pride with the move), caught her wrist and squeezed hard enough to drop the sword from her hand. Her red face went white with pain. Ignoring it, I hooked an ankle around her feet and jerked.

  (Not precisely a move approved by the shodos, either, but then this had gone past being a ritualized dance).

  Del went down. Hard. She bit her lip, which bled immediately, and sprawled so awkwardly I almost felt sorry for her. She had blooded me twice, but in a single move I’d disarmed and tripped her onto her back, leaving her throat bare to my blade. I had only to rest the tip against her neck and ask for her to yield, and the dance was done.

  But not for Del. Her sword was out of reach, but not the rug. I’d forgotten about it. She hadn’t. She tore it from the sand, threw it around Singlestroke to foul the blade, then scooped a handful of sand into my face.

  To hoolies with the sword and the dance! I dumped it and lunged for Del, blind but not helpless. Both hands went around a slim ankle. I heard her cry out and felt her struggle, twisting, but I dragged her to me, inch by inch. Through the sand clogging my vision I saw her hand clawing out for the nearest sword—my own—but both were out of reach.

  “I don’t need the sword to win,” I jeered, trying not to gasp aloud. “I can kill you with my bare hands. How do you want it, bascha?” I put my hands around her throat and hung over her, knees on either side of her hips. “I can strangle you, or break your neck, or just plain sit on you until you suffocate.” I paused. “You can’t do anything to me—you can’t even move—so why don’t we just end this little farce? Do you yield?”

  Blood from her bitten lip was smeared across her face, mingling with the dusting of sand. Her breasts quivered as she struggled to breathe, which only made me want to forget all about winning and smother her in another fashion, with my mouth on hers.

  Del twisted her hips and jammed a knee up between my spread thighs. Hard.

  Once I finished making a thoroughly disgusting and humiliating spectacle of myself by throwing up into the sand, I realized the dance was decidedly over. So I just lay there trying to recover my breath and composure while over a hundred Hanjii warriors and double the number of wives and concubines looked on in silence. And astonishment.

  But I thought the women looked suspiciously satisfied.

  Del stood over me with her rune-worked sword grasped in one hand. “I have to ask you to yield,” she pointed out. “Are you all right?”

  “Are you happy now?” I croaked, refusing to give into the urge to cradle the portion of my anatomy she’d nearly destroyed. “You practically turned me into a eunuch without even using a knife.”

  Del’s expression was suitably apologetic, but I saw something lurking in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was a trick. It wasn’t fair.”

  At least she admitted it. I just lay there on my side and stared up at her, wishing I had the strength to jerk her down into the sand again. But I knew any sort of violent—or even nonviolent—movement would renew the pain, and so I didn’t. “Hoolies, woman, why do you even bother with a sword? You can beat a man with a knee!”

  “I have to ask you to yield,” she reminded me. “Or do you wish to continue the sword-dance?”

  “That wasn’t a dance,” I retorted. “Not a proper one. And I don’t think I can continue anything right now.” I scowled up at her. “All right, bascha … I yield. This time. And I think even the shoka will be satisfied that the woman beat the Sandtiger.”

  She pushed loose hair back with one hand. “You’re right, it wasn’t proper. My kaidin would be outraged. But—it’s a trick my brothers taught me. A woman’s trick.”

  I sat up and wished I hadn’t. “Your brothers taught you that?”

  “They said that I needed an advantage.”

  “Advantage!” I said in disgust. “Hoolies, Del—you almost ruined me for life. How would you like that on your conscience?”

  She looked at me for a long moment, shrugged a little, and turned her back on me as she marched across the circle to the shoka. By the time I was on my feet (trying to act as if I felt fine) and had Singlestroke in harness again, strapped on, the shoka himself had buckled the harness on her, though he studiously avoided touching the sword. A mark of high respect, since ordinarily the Hanjii shun anything to do with swords. (And women, too, much of the time.)

  He looked at me as I joined them. “The dance was good. The woman was good. The Sandtiger was not so good.”

  Privately I agreed with him, but I didn’t say it aloud. Somehow my pride wouldn’t quite let me.

  Especially in front of Del.

  “The Hanjii have need of strong warriors,” the shoka announced. “Hanjii women do not always breed enough. The shoka will take the Northern woman as his wife and will improve the blood of the Hanjii.”

  I stared at him. Del, not understanding the dialect, glanced at me sharply. “What does he say?”

  I smiled. “He wants to marry you.”

  “Marry me!”

  “You impressed him.” I shrugged, enjoying the look of horror on her face. “He wants to get children on you—Hanjii warriors.” I nodded a little. “See what you get for resorting to dirty tricks?”

  “I can’t marry him,” she squeezed out between gritted teeth. “Tell him, Tiger.”

  “You tell him. You’re the one who impressed him so much.”

  Del glared at me, looked at the shoka a minute, then back at me again. Still glaring. But also, apparently, at a loss for words.

  I wasn’t, but neither could I figure out a diplomatic way of refusing the man. Finally I cleared my throat and tried the only thing that came to mind: “The woman is more than the Sandtiger’s woman, shoka. She is his wife, blessed by the Sun.”

  He stared at me out of malignant black eyes. “The Sandtiger did not tell the shoka that before.”

  “The shoka didn’t ask.”

  Del frowned, watching us both.

  The shoka and the Sandtiger spent endless minutes staring at one another, then at last the old man grunted, relinquishing his claim. “It was agreed: if the woman won, she was free to choose. The woman will choose.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Pick one of us, bascha.”

  Del looked at me a long, silent moment, blandly weighing us both. I knew it was all for my benefit, but I couldn’t say anything or risk being accused of manipulating her decision.

  And she knew it.

  Finally, she nodded. “The woman has a husband, shoka. The woman chooses him.”

  I translated.

  If nothing else, the Hanjii are an honorable sort of people. The shoka had said she could choose; she had chosen. He couldn’t go back on his word, or he’d lose face in front of all his people. I felt a whole lot better.

  Then the shoka looked at me with hostility in
his eyes, which is a whole lot worse than malignancy. Hostility he might do something about.

  He did. “The shoka promised nothing to the Sandtiger. He has his fate to suffer. Since the woman has freely chosen him, she will suffer it also.”

  “Uh, oh,” I muttered.

  “What?” Del whispered.

  “We’re free,” I told her, “in a manner of speaking.”

  Del opened her mouth to ask me something, but she shut it again as the shoka gestured. A moment later Gold Ring arrived on horseback along with his thirty-nine fellow warriors. He led two horses: Del’s dun gelding and my bay stud.

  “You go,” the shoka said, and made the sign of the blessing of the Sun. A rather definitive blessing.

  I sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

  “What?” Del demanded.

  “It’s the Sun Sacrifice. They won’t kill us or cook us—they’ll just let the sun do it for us.”

  “Tiger—”

  “Mount up, bascha. Time to go.” I swung up on the stud. After a moment, she climbed up on the little dun gelding.

  Gold Ring led us into the desert. We rode in circles all over for an hour or two before he motioned us to dismount, and even then I don’t think Del quite understood. At least, not until two other warriors gathered the reins to our horses.

  I patted the stud as he was led away. “Luck, old man. Remember all your tricks.” I grinned, recalling them myself. Some I’d taught him; most he’d been born knowing, as horses sometimes are.

  Del watched as her dun was taken away. And then she understood.

  Neither of us said anything. We just watched the Hanjii ride out of sight into the line of the horizon, an undulating line of black against the brown. The sun beat down on our heads, reminding us of its presence, and I wished it was a god.

  Because then we might reason with it.

  Del turned to face me squarely. She waited.

  I sighed. “We walk.” I answered her unasked question, “and hope we’re found by a caravan.”

  “What if we followed the Hanjii? At least we know where they are.”

  “We’ve been dedicated to the Sun,” I told her. “If we go back, they’ll cook us for certain.”

  “We’ll cook out here, anyway,” she said in disgust.

  “That is the general idea.”

  We stared at one another. Del’s pride and defiance warred with realization in her sunburned face, but the acceptance portion won. She looked at me in irritated acknowledgment. “We could die out here.”

  “We’re not dead yet. And I’m tough as old cumfa leather, remember?”

  “You’re wounded.” Consternation overrode the dry displeasure in her tone. “I cut you.”

  The cut wasn’t deep, mostly just a shallow slice along my ribs. It had bled quite a bit but was dry now, starting to crust, and it wouldn’t bother me much.

  Recalling the rather painful trick she’d played on me in the circle, I was tempted to let her think the sword cut was worse than it really was. But I decided it would be utterly stupid in light of the situation.

  “It’s nothing,” I told her. “Hardly more than a scratch. See for yourself.”

  She touched the wound with gentle fingers and saw I spoke the truth. Her mouth twisted. “I thought I cut deeper than that.”

  “Not dancing against me,” I retorted. “You’re lucky you got close enough even for a little cut like this.”

  “That wasn’t a real dance. That was a travesty. And you weren’t so tough,” she threw back. “You went down quickly enough when I kneed you. Howled like a baby, too.”

  I scowled at her. “Enough, woman. Do you know how hard it was for me to ride a horse out here?”

  She laughed, which didn’t do much to settle my ruffled feathers. Then she recalled our circumstances and the laughter went away. “Why did they leave us our weapons?”

  “We’re a Sun Sacrifice. It would be blasphemy if we went to the god incomplete, and the Hanjii believe a man without his weapons is incomplete. It would lessen the sacrifice. As for you … well, I guess you proved yourself worthy in the circle.”

  “For whatever good it did me.” She scowled. “Maybe if I’d lost, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “We wouldn’t,” I agreed. “If you’d lost, I’d have had to fight the shoka. And if I’d lost, you’d have become his wife—all scarred and dyed. And that’s something I wouldn’t stand for.”

  She looked at me expressionlessly a moment. Then she walked away from me and drew her sword. Again I saw the blade plunged into the sand and her cross-legged posture on the hot sand. The hilt stood rigidly upright, a locus for the sunlight. The shapes twisted in the metal.

  I shivered. Frowned. Wanted to accuse her of carrying an ensorcelled sword, which took her right out of the realm of fairness when it came to a proper sword-dance.

  But Del was talking to her gods again, and this time I did some talking to my own.

  Ten

  Within two hours, Del was bright red all over. The sun sought out all the portions of her skin that the burnous had hidden, and now she was on the verge of blistering. Never had I seen such color in a sunburn; such angry red flesh. Against the blonde hair and brows and blue eyes, the burn looked twice as bad.

  There was nothing I could do. The skin would swell until something had to give, and the skin itself would give, forming blistered pockets of fluids that would burst, spilling badly needed moisture over other blisters. And then she would burn again as the flesh—lacking moisture—shriveled on her bones, until she was nothing more than a cracking hide stretched incredibly taut over brittle bones.

  Hoolies, I hated the idea. And yet I was helpless to prevent it.

  We walked. To stop would only intensify the heat, the pain, the futility of our situation. Movement gave the impression of a breeze, though nothing moved at all. I almost wished for a simoom; was glad there was none, for the wind and sand would scour the burned flesh from our bones.

  For the first time in my life, I wanted to see what snow was like; to learn firsthand if it was as cool and soft and wet as people claimed. I thought of asking Del if it were true—but didn’t. Why speak of something you can’t have? Especially when you need it.

  The Punja is filled with mystery, including the mystery of its own sands; one moment you walk on hardpack, the next you stumble into a pocket of loose, deep softness that drags at your feet, slowing you, making the effort of continuing that much harder. Poor Del was having a more difficult time than I because she didn’t know and couldn’t tell the subtle differences in the sand’s appearance. Finally I told her to step where I did, and she fell in behind me like a lost, bewildered puppy.

  When darkness fell, she threw herself down on the sand and flattened herself against it, trying to soak up the sudden, unexpected coolness. This is yet another danger of the Punja: the days are hot and blistering, yet by night—if you are unprotected—you can shiver and shake with cold. When the sun drops below the horizon, you draw in a sigh of relief: release from the heat; and then the Punja turns cold and you freeze.

  Well, cold is relative. But after the blistering heat of the days, the nights seem incredibly cold.

  “Worse,” Del muttered. “Worse than I thought. So much heat.” She sat on the sand with the sword unsheathed, resting across red thighs. Recalling the cold bite of the alien metal, almost I wanted to take it from her and touch my flesh with its own.

  Except I recalled also the numbing tingle I’d experienced, the bone-deep pain that was unlike any pain I’d ever felt. And I didn’t want to experience that again.

  I saw how her hands caressed the metal. The hilt: tracing out the shapes. The blade: gently touching the runes as if they might bring her surcease. Such odd runes, worked into the metal. Iridescent in the twilight. They lighted the blade with a rosy, shimmering lambence.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What is it really?”

  Del’s fingers caressed the shining sword. “My jivatma.”

  �
�That doesn’t tell me anything, bascha.”

  She didn’t look at me. Just stared out across the blackening desert. “A blooding-blade. A named blade. Full of the courage and strength and skill of an honorable fighter, and all the power of his soul.”

  “If it’s so powerful, why doesn’t it get us out of here?” I was feeling a trifle surly.

  “I asked.” Still she didn’t look at me. “But—there is so much heat … so much sun. In the North, there would be no question. But here … I think its strength is diluted even as my own is.” She shivered. “Cool now, but it’s wrong. It’s just—contrast. Not an honest coolness.”

  And yet with her skin burned so badly and her physical defenses down, Del was twice as chilled. She sheathed the sword and drew herself up into a ball of huddled misery. I shared my own measure of the discomfort: your skin is so burned it feels incredibly hot, even when the night is cool. And so you burn and freeze all at once.

  I wanted to touch her, to hold her close and give her some of the fiery heat of my own burned flesh, to warm her, but she cried out at my touch, and I realized it hurt too much. The sun had seared her Northern skin, while my Southron hide was barely darkened.

  We slept side by side in fits and starts, dozing and waking, only just losing ourselves in the blissful release of sleep before we would wake again, and the cycle would begin once more.

  By midday the sun is so hot it burns the soles of your feet and you walk with funny, mincing steps, trying to avoid keeping each foot on the sand for very long. Your toes curl, arching back over your foot until they cramp, and then you find yourself hopping on one burning foot while you rub the cramp out of the other. When the heat is too bad and the cramp is worse, you sit down until you can stand again, and then you walk some more.

  If you have tough soles, like mine, the foot stays on the sand longer and the toes do less curling; the stops are less frequent, and you keep your rump off the sand. But if your soles are like Del’s—softer, thinner, whiter—each step is agony, no matter how quickly you hop onto the other foot. After a while you stumble, and then you fall, and then you do your best not to cry because your feet are burning, your skin is afire, and your eyes are so hot you can hardly see.