I peered at her face, trying to judge her expression. “You did sleep with that little Punja-mite.”
She unlocked my left wrist. “I got you free, didn’t I?”
I scrambled to my knees and grabbed her by the shoulders, imprisoning her in my big hands. “If you think I’m willing to keep my manhood in exchange for that kind of sacrifice and not care, you’ve got sand in your head.”
“But you would,” she said. “Any man would. As for caring? I don’t know. Do you?”
“Care? Hoolies yes, Del. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate what you did for me.”
Her smile wasn’t really a smile, just a twisting of her mouth. “Tiger, a woman only loses her virtue once—right? She survives—right? … and learns what it is to pleasure a man. But that man—maybe a man like the Sandtiger—losing his manhood, might not survive. Right?”
Before I could answer, she twisted out of my hands and ducked out of the cell. I followed, cursing up a storm beneath my breath.
I hated the thought of Del in Hashi’s bed. I hated the thought of her doing it for me, even if she had learned how to pleasure a man years before. But most of all I hated myself, because deep inside I was relieved. Relieved she had done it and saved me from the life of a eunuch, which was surely far worse and degrading than the life of a Salset chula.
But being relieved isn’t the same as being glad.
I wasn’t glad at all.
At the top of the narrow dungeon stairs waited Sabo. He threw me a dark-blue burnous and a leather pouch filled with coin. “Payment,” he said. “For rescuing the lady and myself. Maybe Hashi isn’t grateful, but I am.” He smiled. “You treated me like a man, Sandtiger. The least I can do is make certain you remain one.”
I saw Del hand him the iron key. “You gave her the key!”
Sabo nodded. “Yes. I drugged Hashi’s wine, and when he fell asleep, I took Del from her room and brought her here.”
I looked at her. “Then you didn’t—”
“No,” she agreed. “But you were certainly willing to believe I had.” She brushed by me, by Sabo, and disappeared.
I looked at the eunuch. “I’ve made a horrible mistake. And a fool of myself.”
Sabo smiled, creasing plump cheeks. “Everyone makes mistakes and every man is a fool at least once in his life. You, at least, have it out of the way.” He touched my arm briefly. “Come this way. I have horses waiting for you.”
“Singlestroke,” I said, “and my knife.”
“With the horses. Now, come.”
Del waited in the darkness of a shadowed corridor. She had exchanged the diaphanous pink and rose veils for a simple burnous of apricot silk trimmed with white embroidery. The neck of the burnous gaped open and I saw her leather tunic underneath; like me, she lacked sword and knife.
I thought of her sword, and wondered if Sabo had experienced the same sort of sickening feeling I had known when touching the hilt. But I recalled Del’s comment: sheathed, the sword was harmless.
Harmless. No. Not quite.
“Where?” she whispered to Sabo.
“Straight ahead. There is a door that opens into the back courtyard of the palace, where the stables are. I have seen to it that horses await you, and your weapons.”
I reached out and grabbed his arm. “I give you heartfelt thanks, Sabo.”
He smiled. “I know. But there was nothing else I could do.”
Del leaned forward and slung her arms around his neck, kissing him soundly on one plump brown cheek. “Sulhaya, Sabo,” she whispered. “That’s Northern for ‘thank you,’ and anything else you want to make it.”
“Go,” he said. “Go. Before I wish to come with you.”
“You could,” I agreed. “Come with us, Sabo.”
His pale brown eyes were dark in the dim corridor. “No. My place is here. I know you think little of my lord Hashi, but once he was an honorable man—I choose to remember him so. You go, and I will remain.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Go now, before the stable servants grow uneasy and take away the horses.”
Del and I left. But we did it with the knowledge that it was Sabo who had gotten us free, and not any of the skills we claimed.
We hastened out of the palace into the stableyard, glad of the darkness. I judged the hour somewhere around midnight. There was little moon to speak of. We found the horses and untied them immediately, swinging up without delay. I felt Singlestroke’s familiar harness hanging over the short pommel, along with a knife tied to it. Gratefully I slid the harness over my head and buckled it around my ribs, then dragged on my burnous.
Del had arranged her own harness. The silver hilt of her sorcerous sword poked up behind her shoulder. “Come on, Tiger,” she whispered urgently, and we went out of the gate Sabo had paid one of the guards to open.
We clattered through the narrow streets of Sasqaat, heading south. I did not consider staying the night in the city. It might be clever to find a place beneath the very nose of Hashi, but a tanzeer is absolute authority in a desert city-state, and he could easily order Sasqaat shut up and searched house by house. Better to get free of the place once and for all.
“Water?” Del asked.
“Saddle pouches,” I said. “Sabo thought of everything.”
We rode on through the streets, anticipating alarms from the palace. But no tocsin sounded. And it was as we rode out of the city gates and passed the clustered hovels forming the outer edge of Hashi’s domain that we finally began to relax. For the first time in my life I was glad to see the Punja.
“How far to Julah?” Del asked.
“At least a week. More likely two. I’ve never gone by way of Sasqaat; I think it’s a little out of our way.”
“So what’s our next water-stop?”
“Rusali,” I said. “Bigger than Sasqaat; at least, from what I saw of Sasqaat.”
“Too much,” she said fervently.
Whole-heartedly, I agreed.
We rode through half the night and into the early hours of false dawn, not daring to stop in case the tanzeer sent men out after us. I doubted he’d do it; Hashi hadn’t really lost anything. There was Del, but for a man like old Hashi it would be no trouble buying half a dozen girls, or more. Admittedly, none of them would be Del, but then he didn’t know her, so he wouldn’t know what he’d be missing.
As for me … well, he could make a eunuch out of someone else. Not me.
At true dawn we finally stopped to rest. Del slithered off her sorrel and hung onto the stirrup a moment, then set about untacking the horse. I watched her a moment, concerned about her welfare, then dismounted and unsaddled my own horse. Sabo had even managed to give us our own Salset mounts. I still missed the stud, but the buckskin was at least a little familiar.
I hobbled the gelding, gave him a ration of the grain Sabo had thoughtfully included in our pouches, then spread a rug and dropped onto it. My ankles and wrists ached from the iron cuffs. The rest of me was pretty tired, too.
Del slung a bota into my lap. “Here.”
I unplugged it and drank gratefully. I felt a little more human as I replugged it and set it aside. I stretched out on my back and proceeded to stretch my arms and legs carefully, popping knotted sinews as I worked all the kinks out.
I very nearly drifted off. But I snapped back when I saw Del, sitting on her own spread blanket, unsheathe her sword and examine the rune-worked blade.
I rolled over onto my right hip, propping my head up on a bent elbow. I watched as she tilted the blade, turning it this way and that, studying the steel for marks or blemishes in the plum-bright light of the sunrise. I saw how that light ran down the blade: mauve and madder-violet, orchid-rose and ocher-gold. And through it all shone the white light of Northern steel.
Or whatever metal it was.
“All right,” I said, “time for a real explanation. Just what is that sword?”
Del tucked sun-bleached hair behind her left ear. All I could see was her profile; the smooth curve o
f a flawless, angular face. “A sword.”
“Don’t go tight-lipped on me now,” I warned. “You’ve spent the last few weeks dropping hints about your training as a sword-dancer, and I know from personal experience that sword has some form of magical properties. All right, I’ll bite. What is it?”
Still she didn’t look at me, continuing to examine every inch of the sword. “It’s a jivatma. My blooding-blade. Surely you know what that is.”
“No.”
At last, she looked at me. “No?”
“No.” I shrugged. “It’s not a Southron term.”
She shrugged a little, hunching one shoulder. “It’s—a sword. A true sword. A named sword. One that has been—introduced.” Her frown told me she couldn’t find the Southron words that would express what she meant to say. “Two strangers, introduced, are no longer strangers. They know one another. And, if they get to know one another well—they become more, even, than friends. Companions. Swordmates. Bedmates. Just—more.” Her frown deepened. “A jivatma is paired with an ishtoya upon attainment of highest rank. I—feed my sword … my sword feeds me.” She shook her head a little in surrender. “There are no Southron words.”
I thought of Singlestroke. I’d told Del often enough he was just a sword, a weapon, a blade; he wasn’t. What he was I couldn’t articulate, any more than she could explain what her sword was. Singlestroke was power and pride and deliverance. Singlestroke was my freedom.
But I felt hers was more.
I looked at the runes on the blade. The shapes on the hilt. In the colors of the sunrise, the sword was everchanging.
“Cold,” I said. “Ice. That thing is made of ice.”
Del’s right hand was set around the hilt. “Warm,” she said. “Like flesh … as much as I am flesh.”
The grue ran down my spine. “Don’t make riddles.”
“I don’t.” She wasn’t smiling. “It isn’t—alive. Not as you and I are. But neither is it—dead.”
“Blooding-blade,” I said. “I assume it has drunk its fill?”
Del looked down at the blade. The sunrise turned the salmon-silver carmine in the rubescence of the dawn. “No,” she said at last. “Not until I have drunk my fill.”
The grue returned with a vengeance. I lay back down on my rug and stared up at the break of day, wondering if I had gotten myself mixed up in something a little more serious than simple guiding duty.
I shut my eyes. I draped one arm across my lids to shut out the blinding sun. And I heard her singing a soft little song, as if she soothed the sword.
Sixteen
Rusali is your typical desert town, crawling with people of all tribes and races. Rich and poor, clean and dirty, sick and ill, legal and crooked. (Actually, Rusali pretty well fits the description Hashi had given Julah.)
Del didn’t bother to put up her hood as we rode into the narrow, sandy streets and she drew plenty of attention. Men stopped dead in the street to stare at her, and the women who were for sale muttered loudly among themselves about Northerners trying to steal their business.
I realized then I’d made a mistake. I should have come in the front way, like any man with gold hanging on his hip. Instead, I’d come in as I usually do, seeking out the back streets and alleys like a thief myself. I’ve never been a thief, but sometimes a sword-dancer finds business better in the seamier parts of town.
“Just ignore them, Del.”
“It isn’t the first time, Tiger.”
Well, it was the first time while riding with me. And I didn’t like the way the men stared at her. Lewd, lascivious fools, practically drooling in the streets.
“We’ll need to get rid of the horses,” I said, to change the subject.
Del frowned at me. “Why? Don’t we need them to get to Julah?”
“Just in case old Hashi does decide to send people after us, we should switch mounts. Maybe it’ll confuse the pursuit a bit.”
“Hashi won’t come.” She shook her head. “He’s got Elamain to keep him busy.”
“Elamain’ll kill him!” I couldn’t help it. Imagining the old man in her bed was enough to make me laugh.
Del gave me a sidelong glance. “Yes, well … then he won’t be our problem any more.”
I smiled, thinking about it. “We’ll switch horses anyway. I’ll sell these, then go elsewhere to buy others. That way no one’ll get suspicious.” I glanced around the street. “There—an inn. We can get something to eat and drink. Hoolies, but I’m thirsty for some aqivi.” I dropped off my buckskin and tied one of the reins to the ring in the buff-colored wall.
The place was dark and stuffy with smoke from huva weed. It formed a wispy, greenish layer up near the rooting beamwork of the adobe inn. There were no windows to speak of, just a couple of holes knocked in the mud bricks. I nearly spun around and marched back out, Del in tow.
Only she wasn’t near enough to grab. She sat down on a stool at an empty table. After a moment spent scowling at her, I joined her.
“This isn’t the place for you,” I informed her.
Her brows rose a little. “Why not?”
“It—just isn’t.” I made certain Singlestroke was loose in his sheath. “You deserve better.”
Del stared at me a long moment. I couldn’t read the expression on her face. But I thought I saw a hint of consideration in her eyes, and more than a trace of surprise.
Then she smiled. “I take that as a compliment.”
“I don’t care how you take it. It’s a fact.” Irritably, I looked around for the wine-girl and shouted for aqivi.
But I stopped looking when I heard Del’s indrawn hiss of shock.
And then I looked at the tall, lanky, blond-haired Northerner as he walked into the inn, and I knew why she stared.
Almost instantly, Del was on her feet. She called out to him in Northern, catching his attention.
It occurred to me the man might be her brother. But no, I knew better almost instantly. The big Northerner looked thirty. Not fifteen.
It occurred to me then the man might be the one who hunted her, one of the ishtoya she claimed she owed. And it was quite obvious that had occurred to Del as well, for she had drawn the Northern sword.
Conversation in the inn broke up almost at once as one by one the patrons became aware of the confrontation. And then, bit by bit, I heard the voices start up again. And all the comments had to do with the fact that one of the Northerners was a woman, and a woman with a sword.
My right hand itched. At first I thought it was the ice-brand in the palm, then realized it had nothing to do with that. What it had to do with was my desire to draw my own sword in defense of Del.
Except she didn’t look like she needed any.
The inn was close, stuffy, cramped. What light there was came from the open door and the holes serving as windows. The scent of huva weed was cloying, almost stifling. The atmosphere was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Or a sword.
Del waited. Her back was to me so she faced the open door; the Northerner, silhouetted, lacked clear features. But I could see his harness. I could see the bone-handled hilt of his own sword, poking up behind one shoulder. Conspicuously, his hands were empty.
Del asked him a question. His answer was accompanied by a shake of the head that told me he voiced a denial. Del spoke again for several minutes, rolling the strange-sounding syllables around on her tongue smoothly.
Again the Northerner shook his head. His hands remained empty. But I did understand a couple of words. One was ishtoya. The other was kaidin.
After a moment, Del nodded. I couldn’t see her face. But she shot her sword home in its sheath, and I knew she was satisfied.
The Northerner’s expression was speculative, then his eyes took on the warm, interested glow most males’ eyes assume when they light on Del, and I saw his smile of appreciation.
He strolled over to the table and sat down as Del gestured to the remaining stool. The aqivi arrived with two cups; Del
filled one and handed it to the Northerner, the other she took for herself. So I grabbed the jug and drank out of that.
The only thing I got out of their conversation was the word Alric, which I took to be his name. Alric was tall. Alric was strong. Alric looked powerful enough to knock down trees.
In contrast, his white-blond hair curled with a gentle softness around broad shoulders. He wore a burnous striped in desert tones—amber, honey and russet—and carried a big sword. A curved sword. A Southron sword, not a Northern one like Del’s. And I recognized its origins: Vashni. A Northerner with a Vashni sword; tantamount to sacrilege, as far as I was concerned. Worse, he had also acquired a Southron tan. It wasn’t nearly as dark as mine, but it would do in a pinch.
I drank from my jug of aqivi and discovered a predilection within myself to glower at Del’s new friend.
I heard the name Jamail and realized she was telling Alric about her missing brother. He listened closely, frowning, and spat out a violent comment between his white teeth. Probably something about the Southron slave trade. I’m not exactly proud of the practice, myself, but nothing gave him the right to criticize my desert.
Del glanced at me. “Alric says there are slavers who deal specifically in Northerners.”
“They make more money that way,” I agreed.
Del turned back at once to Alric, chattering away so fast I doubted I’d be able to understand it even if I did speak her dialect.
After a while I got bored. “Del.” I waited a moment. “Del, I’m going to get rid of the horses.” I waited again, but she didn’t seem to hear me. Finally, I cleared my throat noisily. “Del.”
She looked at me, startled. “What is it?”
“I’m going to sell the horses.”
She nodded and turned immediately back to Alric.
I rose, scraping my stool against the adobe floor, and glared at them both a moment. Then I walked out of the inn, wishing the big lunk had never shown his face south of the border.
Outside, I untied the horses, mounted my buckskin and led Del’s sorrel down the cobbled street. It was late in the afternoon, going on evening, and I was beginning to get downright hungry. But Alric the Northerner had left a bad taste in my mouth.
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