I thought of the Northern sword. I recalled the alien shapes in the metal; the sensation of ice and death. As if the sword lived. As if the sword knew me. As if it meant to kill me as it had killed the an-kaidin.
Alric fingered the hilt of his Vashni sword. I wondered, absently, if it had a name. “Killing an an-kaidin, as you might imagine, is punishable by execution,” he said quietly. “Blood-guilt isn’t a thing anyone carries lightly.”
“No,” I agreed.
He met my eyes squarely. “In the North, there is a thing called blood-debt. The debt is owed to the kin of a man—or woman—whose death was undeserved. One person, or two, or even more than twenty, may swear to collect the debt.”
I nodded after a moment, thinking about the man who followed Del. Sworn to collect the blood-debt? “How is the debt collected?”
“In the circle,” Alric answered. “The dance is to the death.”
I nodded again. I wasn’t particularly surprised. I didn’t doubt the dance was justified by the crime that had been committed. A man killed; a teacher slain by his student. Because the student had needed the skill that was in the man, and not merely what he had taught.
I blew breath out of stiff lips. I thought of how desperately Del wanted to avenge the massacre of her kin; the enslavement of her brother; the humiliation she must have suffered at the cruel hands of Southron raiders. It was, I thought, a blood-debt owed to her. One she was more than due, regardless of the cost.
I knew full well Del was capable of doing anything she wanted to do.
Anything at all.
No matter what the cost.
Eighteen
Alric handed me the bota. But before I could unplug it and suck down a swallow, the two little girls came running around the side of the house.
They went straight to Alric, tugged on both arms, and babbled at him in an almost unintelligible mixture of Northern and Southron. I wasn’t sure how much of the unintelligibility had to do with their age, how much of it with their bilinguality.
Alric sighed and got up. “We’re to go inside. Lena sent them to fetch us both.” Then he said something in Northern to the little girls, and both went scurrying off again.
“Well-trained,” I remarked.
“For girls.” He grinned. “Del would skin me if she heard me say that. Well, she’d have the right. In the North, women know more freedom.”
“I noticed.” I rounded the corner of the adobe dwelling and ducked inside the door that was decidedly too short for Northerners, or Southroners like me.
And stopped.
Alric’s house is small. Two rooms. A bedroom, which I had willingly turned back over to Alric and his family once I was feeling better, and a front room, which doubled as sleeping quarters at night for Del and me. There was no question that with four adults and two children, the house was very crowded.
Except now it claimed one more adult, and the room got smaller still.
Del sat cross-legged on a pelt-rug of curly saffron goathair. She watched Alric and I enter, but said nothing. Locked in silence, she sat with her sword across her thighs.
Unsheathed.
I stepped aside so Alric could slip in. Lena stood in the shadows of the room. Her daughters flanked her, one on each side. No one said a word.
I looked at the stranger. He wore a mouse-gray burnous. The hood was pushed back from his head. Brown-haired, like me. Tall, like me. Very nearly as heavy. Other factors I couldn’t determine because of the burnous. But I saw the sword-hilt riding his left shoulder, and I knew the hunter had finally run down his prey.
The stranger smiled. The seam of an old scar diagonally bisected his chin. His face had been lived in. There was gray in his hair. I thought he had a good ten years on me, which put him a couple of years past forty. His eyes were as blue as Del’s and Alric’s, but mostly he looked like me.
He made me the desert gesture of greeting: spread-fingered hand placed over his heart, brief bow. “She says you are the Sandtiger.” A cool, smooth voice, tinged with the Northern accent.
“I am.”
“Then I am truly pleased to meet the legend at last.”
I listened for the bite of sarcasm, the tracery of scorn. There was none. No impoliteness I could discern. But it didn’t make me like him any better.
“His name is Theron.” Del, finally. “He has been the shadow who was not a shadow.”
Theron nodded a little. “I came down from the North seeking the an-ishtoya, but circumstances have conspired to delay me time and time again. Now, at last, they are in my favor.”
Beside me, Alric let out a breath. “How many of you are there?”
“Only me.” So quietly. So assured. “That is how I requested it.”
“So,” I said sharply. “If Del kills you, no one else will take up the hunt.”
“For the space of a year,” Theron agreed. “A Northern custom bound by agreements and the rituals of the circle. Since you are a sword-dancer—Southron or no—I assume you understand.”
“Explain it to me anyway.”
Briefly, Theron’s cool smile fell away. But then he took it back. “She owes blood-debt to many people in the North. Ishtoya, kaidin, an-ishtoya, an-kaidin. Many desire her death, but only one may claim it in the circle—for the space of a year. When that year is done, another—or more—may seek her out again.”
“There is more to it than that,” Alric said sharply.
Theron’s smile widened. “Yes. In all fairness, Southron, I must also say there is a choice for the an-ishtoya to make. Although I have been given permission to challenge her to a dance, I must also offer the an-ishtoya the chance to gain full pardon.”
“How?” I demanded.
“By going home,” Del said. “I can go home and face judgment by all the kaidin and ishtoya.”
“Sounds more sensible than facing him in a circle,” I told her flatly.
Del shrugged. “I would almost certainly be judged guilty of premeditated murder. That is blood-guilt; why the debt is owed. Acknowledgment of an undeserved—and unnecessary—death.”
“Then you don’t deny you killed the an-kaidin.”
“No,” Del said in surprise. “Never. I killed him. In the circle.” Her hands tightened on the sword. “It was for the blade, Tiger. To blood my blade. Because I needed more sword-magic than what the an-kaidin had taught me.”
“Why?” I asked quietly. “Why did you need it so much? I’ve seen you dance, bascha, even if it wasn’t for real. I can’t believe you lacked so much skill as to need the an-kaidin’s more.”
She smiled a little. “For that, I thank you. But yes—I needed the an-kaidin’s skill. I required it … and so I took it.” For a moment she looked down at her bared sword, caressing the gleaming metal. “There were more than twenty raiders, Tiger. More than twenty men. Alone, would even the Sandtiger approach so many men intending to kill them all?”
“Not alone,” I answered. “I’m still alive because only rarely am I a fool, and never when it comes to figuring the odds.”
Del nodded. Her face was unmarred by frown or anxiety. Except for the continual movement of fingers against blade, she appeared more than composed enough. “It was owed me, Tiger. The blood-debt of more than twenty men. There was no one to collect it but me. There was no one I wished to collect it for me. My duty. My desire. My determination.” The hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. “I am not so foolish as to claim a woman, alone, could kill more than twenty men. And so I took the an-kaidin into my sword, and no longer was I a woman alone.”
I felt the faintest chill. “Figuratively speaking.”
“No,” Del said. “That is the quenching, Tiger. A named blade, unquenched, is merely a sword. Better than good. But cold metal, lacking life and spirit and courage. To get it, to bring a jivatma to life, it is quenched in the body of a strong man, as strong as you can find. The an-ishtoya, to become kaidin, seeks out a respected enemy, and sheathes the sword in his soul. The sword assu
mes the will of the man.” She shrugged a little. “I had need of much skill and power in order to collect the debt the raiders owed me. And so I took it.” She didn’t look at Theron. She looked at me. “The an-kaidin knew. He could have refused to join me in the circle—”
“No,” Theron said sharply. “He would never have refused. He was an honorable man. He could not, in all conscience, deny his an-ishtoya the chance to prove herself.”
Now she looked at him. “Let it be known: the an-kaidin joined the an-ishtoya in the circle, and the blooding-blade was quenched.”
I released a slow breath. “As she says, it’s done. And—I think maybe she had reason for what she did.”
Theron’s face tightened. “It’s possible the kaidin and ishtoya would agree her need justified the death. It’s also possible they would unanimously convict her of premeditated murder and order her execution.”
“Depriving you of your bounty.”
Theron shook his head. “If she chooses to go home for judgment, I will be paid my price. If she is sentenced to death, I will be paid my price.” He laughed aloud. “There’s no way I can lose.”
I had conceived a distinct dislike for Theron. “Unless she chooses the circle.”
Theron’s smile came back. “I do hope she does.”
“He’s a sword-dancer,” Del said lightly. “He was trained by the an-kaidin who trained me. Theron was one of the few an-ishtoya who were given a choice upon completion of his schooling: would he be sword-dancer or an-kaidin?” Her face was very calm as she looked at me. “Do you understand, Tiger? He was an-ishtoya. The best of the best. Only an-ishtoya are given the choice between teaching or doing.” She sighed a little. “Theron chose to be a sword-dancer instead of kaidin, and so the dwindling ranks of the an-kaidin were denied the younger, stronger man they needed. A man who could have trained promising ishtoya to achieve the highest rank.”
“An-ishtoya,” I said. “The best of the best.”
“You have heard,” Theron said flatly. “You have heard how it was the old an-kaidin—the master who taught me!—offered the choice to his female an-ishtoya, and how she repudiated him. How she invited him into the circle so she could quench the thirst of her blade before it tasted the blood of another.” The grave politeness was banished from his tone. “You have heard her choice!”
“This is blood-feud,” Del said quietly. “Sword-dancer against sword-dancer. An-ishtoya against an-ishtoya.” She smiled. “And, as Theron would also have it, man against woman. So he can prove he is superior.”
Theron said something in Northern. The tone was almost a singsong, and it didn’t take much for me to recognize a formal challenge. I’ve given and received my own share over the years.
When he was done, Del nodded once. Said something quietly, also in Northern. And then she got up and walked out of the shadowed house into the light of the day.
Theron turned to follow. But when he reached me, he smiled. “You are welcome to watch, sword-dancer. There should always be a witness to the collection of a blood-debt.”
I waited until he was gone from the house. I looked at Alric. “I don’t think I much like that son of a Salset goat.”
Solemn-faced, Alric nodded. He said something to Lena and the girls—requesting they remain inside—and followed me outside.
The circle Alric and I had used was nearly obliterated. Here and there I saw a trace of the curving line, but we’d obscured much of it with bare and sandaled feet. Now it begged to be drawn again.
I looked at Theron. Quietly he stripped himself of sandals, belt, harness. Of everything save his dhoti. In his hands he held his naked sword, and I saw the alien runes.
For a brief moment we faced one another: Northerner to Southron. Judging. It wasn’t our dance, but we judged. Because he knew as well as I did that if he overcame Del, the next opponent in the circle would be a sword-dancer called the Sandtiger.
Deftly, Del stripped out of her burnous. Unlaced sandals and set them aside. Unbuckled harness and put it with the sandals. Tunicked, with the jivatma in her hands, she turned to look at Theron. “I would ask the Sandtiger to draw the circle.”
Theron didn’t smile. “Agreed: he will draw the circle. But he may not act as arbiter. The Sandtiger would hardly be impartial to the woman in whom he sheathes his other sword.”
I thought Del would immediately deny it. But she let him think what he would.
It was me who wanted to speak; to split open his Northern face.
“I will be arbiter.” Alric, next to me. Like me, he looked at Theron.
The older man dipped his head in a gesture of acceptance. “It might be as well. As a Northerner, you will have some better idea of the rituals required.” Another subtle gibe at me. Or was it aimed at Del? Hard to tell, though it was possible Theron intended to put her in poor temper.
But I had never seen Del angry, not really angry, and I doubted this would do it.
“Tiger,” she said. “It would please me if you set the circle in the sand.”
For a dance, the ground was treacherous. For a practice circle, it had done well enough because we had no better. The alley between this row of dwellings and that row of dwellings was not particularly wide, although there was more room at the junction of this alley and another running at a right angle from it. The ground was hardpacked, yet veiled in a layer of sand and soft dirt. Alric and I had spent much of our time unintentionally sliding around the circle, trying to keep our feet beneath our bodies. For practice it was all well and good. For a genuine sword-dance, the footing would be deadly.
Del and Theron waited. I saw by the grim set to Alric’s mouth he knew as well as I did the implications of a genuine dance conducted here. But the thing was settled. Del and Theron had settled it.
I unsheathed Singlestroke and began to draw the circle.
When it was done, I put my sword away and looked at both of the dancers. “Prepare.”
Theron and Del stepped into the circle, placed swords in the precise center, and stepped outside again.
I looked at the weapons on the ground. Del’s I knew; at least, as much as I could know. Theron’s was strange to me. Cold, alien steel, steel that was not steel, as Alric had described it. Del’s was the now-familiar salmon-silver. Theron’s was palest purple.
They faced one another across the circle. To me, preparation meant positioning oneself outside the circle. Taking up a posture that lends itself to speed, strength, strategy. A moment for introspection and self-evaluation, before the mind tells the muscles what to do. And it was what I expected out of them.
I had, however, reckoned without the Northern rituals. I’d forgotten just how different all the similarities could be. Del and Theron stood quietly on either side of the circle, and they sang.
Softly. So softly I could hardly hear it.
Confidence. Serenity. Exultation, exhortation. All of these, and more.
Deathsong? No. A lifesong. The promise of victory.
Alric took his place. As arbiter, it was his word that claimed the dance was won or lost. Even if it was obvious one of the dancers was dead, the ritual required a declaration.
I moved away. My task was done. Theron was right; there was no way I could possibly be impartial. But not because Del and I had shared a bed.
Because I wanted to.
But also because I’d come to know the woman as more than just a woman.
I smiled a little. Wryly. Shook my head. Alric frowned across the circle at me, not understanding, but I didn’t bother to explain. Such things are just too personal.
“Dance,” Alric said. It was all either of them required.
Together they reached their swords. I saw Del’s hands flash down, flash up; saw Theron’s flash down, flash up.
And then I stopped looking at their hands. I stopped listening to their songs. Because the swords had come alive.
Del had told me, once, a named blade wasn’t alive. But she’d also said, neither was it dead. And as I wat
ched, astounded, I perceived the paradox in the explanation. The paradox in the swords themselves.
Salmon-silver, flashing in the sunlight. And Theron’s: pale purple. And yet, they changed. The colors shifted, running from hilt to tip, until I saw rainbows in the sunlight. Not the sort that comes after a rainstorm, but rainbows of darkness and light. Pale-rose, raisin-purple, a tint of madder-violet. All the colors of the night. All the colors of a sunset, but showing their darker side. No pastels. No water-washed tints. Lurid luminescence. Raw color stripped down to nakedness.
Both blades were a blur. From wrists too subtle for me to follow sprang patterns I’d never seen. And I could see them, clearly, because each blade as it moved traced the pattern in the air. It etched a ribbon of purest color, a streak of livid light, like the afterglow of a torch carried away too quickly.
As if the blades severed the air itself like a knife will cut into flesh.
They danced. How they danced. Spinning, gliding, feinting, sliding, ripping apart the day to leave eerie incandescence in its place: cobalt-blue, livid purple; viridescent, lurid rose.
When I could, I stopped watching the swords. Instead I watched the dancers, to learn what I could learn. To soak up the gift they offered: the gift of the Northern style.
It was, as I have said, far different from my own. With my height, strength and reach, my best strategy is endurance. I can swing steel with the best of them. I can hack and slash and sweep, thrust and counter and riposte. I wear down my opponents. I can stand toe to toe and hew them down, blocking and stopping their blows. Or I can dance with the fastest man because, for all my size, I am quick. Just not as quick as Del.
Theron, nearly my physical duplicate, might have done better to mimic my style. But he hadn’t been trained that way. Like Del, he employed the subtle strength in wrists and forearms, using quick, slashing patterns. Much like a stiletto against an ax, if you were to compare his style to mine. He might have stood there and banged on her sword, but it wasn’t Theron’s way. And I could tell it wouldn’t beat her.
Quite frankly, I’d done the lady a disservice. In all my arrogance and pride in my own reputation (warranted, of course), I’d neglected to acknowledge her own tremendous ability. I’d scoffed, supremely confident a woman could never face a man in the circle and win. Not even against a less than competent dancer. But I’d been too quick to underestimate her talent. Now I saw it plainly, and realized my mistake.
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