Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3

Sword-MakerSword Maker

Book 3 of the Sword Dancer series

By Jennifer Roberson

Sword Maker

Table of Contents

Prologue

Part I: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen Part II: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven Part III: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen Prologue

She is not a woman for idle conversation, having little patience for small talk,

and even less for excuses and explanations. Including those dealing with life and death; mine, or her own. And yet I resorted to both: excuses, explanations.

Somehow, I had to.

"It wasn't my fault," I declared. "It wasn't. Did I have any choice? Did you leave me any choice?" I snorted in derision. "No, of course not--not you...

you

leave no choice or chance to anyone, least of all me... you just stare me down

across the circle and dare me to take you, to cut you, to chop you down with my

blade, because it's the only thing that will make you admit you're just as human

as anyone else, and just as vulnerable. Just as fragile as anyone, man or woman,

made of flesh and blood... and you bleed, Del... just like anyone else--just like me--you bleed."

She said nothing. Fair hair shone white in firelight, but blue eyes were nothing

more than blackened pockets in a shadow-clad face lacking definition or expression. The beauty remained, but changed. Altered by tension, obsession, pain.

Behind me, tied to a tree, the stud snorted, stomped, pawed a thin layer of slush away from winter-brown turf. Pawing again and again, stripping away even

the turf until what he dug was a hole.

Horses can't talk, not like humans; they do what they can with ears, teeth, hooves. What he told me now was he didn't want to eat. Didn't want to sleep.

Didn't want to spend the night tied to a bare-branched tree, chilled to the bone

by a Northern wind that wouldn't--quite--quit. What he wanted was to leave.

To

go on. To head south toward his desert homeland where it is never, ever cold.

"Not my fault," I repeated firmly. "Hoolies, bascha, you and that storm-born sword of yours... what did you expect me to do? I'm a sword-dancer. Put me in a

circle with a sword in my hands, and I dance. For pay, for show, for honor--for

all those things most men are afraid to name, for fear of showing too much...

well, I'm not afraid, Del--all I know is you left me no choice but to cut you,

coming at me like that with that magicked sword of yours--what did you expect?

I

did what I had to. What was needed, for both of us, if for different reasons."

I

scratched angrily at the scars in my right cheek: four deep-scored claw marks,

now white with age, cutting through the beard. "I tried like hoolies to make you

quit, to make you leave that thrice-cursed island before it came to something we'd both regret, but you left me no choice. You stepped into that circle all on

your own, Del... and you paid the price. You found out just how good the Sandtiger is after all, didn't you?"

No answer. Of course not; she still thought she was better. But I had proven which of us was superior in the most eloquent fashion of all.

Swearing at the cold, I resettled the wool cloak I wore, wrapping it more closely around shoulders. Brown hair uncut for far too long blew into my eyes,

stinging, and my mouth. It also caught on my short-cropped beard repeatedly, no

matter how many times I stripped it back. Even the hood didn't help; the wind tore it from my head again and again and again, until I gave up and left it puddled on my shoulders.

"You and that butcher's blade," I muttered.

Still Del said nothing.

Wearily I scrubbed at brows, eyes, face. I was tired, too tired; the wound in my

abdomen ached unremittingly, reminding me with each twinge I'd departed Staal-Ysta far sooner than was wise, in view of the sword thrust I'd taken.

The

healing was only half done, but I'd departed regardless. There was nothing left

for me in Staal-Ysta. Nothing at all, and no one.

Deep in the cairn, flame whipped. Smoke eddied, tangled, shredded on the air.

Wind carried it away, bearing word of my presence to the beasts somewhere northeast of me in darkness. The hounds of hoolies, I called them; it fit as well as any other.

I waited for her to speak, even to accuse, but she made no sound at all. Just sat there looking at me, staring at me, holding the jivatma across wool-trousered thighs. The blade was naked in the darkness, scribed with runes I

couldn't--wasn't meant to--read, speaking of blood and forbidden power too strong for anyone else to key, or to control, with flesh, will, voice.

Del could control it. It was part of her personal magic; the trappings of a sword-singer.

Sword-singer. More than sword-dancer, my own personal trade. Something that made

her different. That made her alien.

Whose name was Boreal.

"Hoolies," I muttered aloud in disgust, and raised the leather bota yet again to

squirt Northern amnit deep into my throat. I sucked it down, gulp after gulp, pleased by the burning in my belly and the blurring of my senses. And waited for

her to say something about drink curing nothing. About how a drinking man is nothing more than a puppet to the bota. About how dangerous it is for a sword-dancer, a man who lives by selling sword and skill, to piss away his edge

when he pisses liquor in the morning.

But Del said none of those things.

I wiped amnit from my mouth with the back of a hand. Glared at her blearily across the guttering fire. "Not my fault," I told her. "Do you think I wanted to

cut you?" I coughed, spat, drew in breath too deep for the half-healed wound.

It

brought me up short, sweating, until I could breathe again, so carefully, meticulously measuring in- and exhalations. "Hoolies, bascha--"

But I broke it off, confused, because she wasn't there.

Behind me, the stud dug holes. And he, like me, was alone.

I released all my breath at once, ignoring the clutch of protest from my ribs.

The exhalation was accompanied by a string of oaths as violent as I could make

them in an attempt to overcome the uprush of black despair far worse than any I'd ever known.

I dropped the bota and rose, turning my back on the cairn. Went to the stud, so

restless, checking rope and knots. He snorted, rubbed a hard head against me, ignored my grunt of pain, seeking release much as I did. The darkness painted him black; by day he is bay: small, compact, strong, born to the Southron desert.

"I know," I said, "I know. We shouldn't even be here." He nibbled at a cloak brooch: garnet set in gold. I pushed his head away to keep curious teeth from wandering to my face. "We should go home, old son. Just head south and go home.

Forget all about the cold and the wind and the snow. Forget all about those hounds."

One day he would forget; horses don't think like men. They don't remember much,

except what they've been taught. Back home again in the South, in the desert called the Punja, he would recall only the grit of sand beneath his hooves and

the beating heat of the day. He'd forget the cold and the wind and the snow.

He'd forget the hounds. He'd even forget Del.

Hoolies, I wish I could. Her and the look on her face as I'd thrust home the steel in her flesh.

I was shaking. Abruptly I turned from the stud and went back to the cairn.

Leaned down, caught up the sheath and harness, closed my fist around the hilt.

In my hand the cold metal warmed at once, sweet and seductive; gritting teeth, I

yanked the blade free of sheath and bared it in firelight, letting flame set steel to glowing. It ran down the blade like water, pausing only briefly to pool

in the runes I now knew as well as I knew my name.

I was shaking. With great care, I took the sword with me to one of the massive

piles of broken boulders, found a promising fissure, wedged the blade into it.

Tested the seating: good. Then locked both hands around the hilt, meaning to snap it in two. Once and for all, to break it, for what it had done to Del.

Samiel sang to me. A small, private song.

He was hungry, still so hungry, with a thirst that knew no bounds. If I broke him, I would kill him. Was I willing to run that risk?

I tightened my hands on the hilt. Gritted teeth--shut my eyes--

And slid the blade, ringing, very carefully out of the fissure.

I turned. Sat. Slumped, leaning against the boulders. Cradling the deadly jivatma; the one I had made my own.

I rested my temple against the pommel of the twisted-silk hilt. It was cool and

soothing, as if it sensed my anguish.

"I must be getting old," I muttered. "Old--and tired. What am I now--thirty-four? Thirty-five?" I stuck out a hand and, one by one, folded thumb

and fingers absently. "Let's see... the Salset found me when I was half a day old... kept me for--sixteen years? Seventeen? Hoolies, who can be sure?" I scowled into distance. "Hard to keep track of years when you don't even have a

name." I chewed my lip, thinking. "Say, sixteen years with the Salset.

Easiest.

Seven years as an apprentice to my shodo, learning the sword... and thirteen years since then, as a professional sword-dancer." The shock was cold water.

"I

could be thirty-six."

I peered the length of my body, even slumped as I was. Under all the wool I couldn't see anything, but I knew what was there. Long, powerful legs, but also

aching knees. They hurt when I walked too much, hurt after a sword-dance.

Hurt

when I rode too long, all thanks to the Northern cold. I didn't heal as fast as

the old days, and I felt the leftover aches longer.

Was I getting soft around the middle?

I pressed a stiff hand against my belly.

Not so you could tell, though the wound had sucked weight and tone. And then there was the wound itself: bad, yes, and enough to put anyone down for a couple

of weeks, but I'd been down for nearly a month and still was only half-healed.

I scratched the bearded cheek riven by scars. Old, now; ancient. Four curving lines graven deeply into flesh. For months in the beginning they'd been livid purple, hideous reminders of the cat who had nearly killed me, but I hadn't minded at all. Not even when people stared. Certainly not when women fussed, worried about the cause. Because the scars had been the coinage that bought my

freedom from the Salset. I'd killed a marauding sandtiger who was eating all the

children. No more the nameless chula. A man, now, instead, who named himself the

Sandtiger in celebration of his freedom.

So long ago. Now the scars were white. But the memories were still livid.

So many years alone, until Del strode into my life and made a mockery of it.

I scratched the scars again. Bearded. Long-haired. Unkempt. Dressed in wool instead of silk, to ward off Northern wind. So the aches wouldn't hurt so much.

The sword, in my hands, warmed against my flesh, eerily seductive. The blade bled light and runes. Also the promise of power; it flowed up from tip to quillons, then took the twisted-silk grip as well. Touched my fingers, oh so gently, lingering at my palm. Soft and sweet as a woman's touch: as Del's, even

Del's, who was woman enough to be soft and sweet when the mood suited her, knowing it something other than weakness. An honest woman, Delilah; in bed and

in the circle.

I flung the sword across the cairn into the darkness. Saw the flash of light, the arc; heard the dull ringing thump as it landed on wind-frosted turf.

"I wish you to hoolies," I told it. "I want no part of you."

And in the dark distances far beyond the blade, one of the beasts bayed.

Part I

One

Only fools make promises. So I guess you can call me a fool.

At the time, it had seemed like a good idea. The hounds that dogged Del and me

to Staal-Ysta, high in Northern mountains, were vicious, magic-made beasts, set

upon our trail by an unknown agency. For weeks they merely stayed with us, doing

nothing other than playing dogs to sheep, herding us farther north. Once there,

they'd done much more; they attacked a settlement on the lakeshore, killing more

than thirty people. Some of them were children.

Now, I'm no hero. I'm a sword-dancer, a man who sells his sword and services to

the highest bidder. Not really a glorious occupation when you think about it; it's a tough, demanding job not every man is suited for. (Some may think they are. The circle makes the decision.) But it's a job that often needs doing, and