Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (12 page)

Del dipped her sword. Briefly. Slightly. Barely. A salute to her opponent. In blue eyes I saw concentration. And no indication of fear.

Did it mean nothing at all to Del that she had nearly killed me?

Did it mean nothing at all to Del that I had nearly killed her?

"Kaidin," she said softly, giving me Northern rank. Giving me Northern honor.

I lifted my sword. Shifted into my stance. Felt the familiarity of it, the settling of muscles and flesh into accustomed places. Felt the protest of scar

tissue twisted into new positions.

Sweat ran into my eyes. Desperation took precedence over other intentions.

I lowered the sword. Swung around. Stepped out of the circle completely. And cursed as my belly cramped.

"Tiger?" Del's tone was bewildered. "Tiger--what is it?"

"--can't," I rasped.

"Can't?" She was a white-swathed wraith walking out of the circle, carrying Boreal. "What do you mean, 'can't'? Are you sick? Is it your wound?"

"I just--can't." I straightened, clutching at abdomen, and turned toward her.

"Don't you understand? The last time we did this I nearly killed you."

"But--this isn't a real dance. This is only sparring--"

"Do you think it matters?" Sweat dripped onto my tunic. "Do you have any idea what it's like stepping into the circle with you again, two months after the last disastrous dance? Do you have any idea what it feels like to face you across the circle with this butcher's blade in my hands?" I displayed Samiel to

her. "Last time it--he--did everything he could to blood himself in you...

and

now he's even stronger because I did finally blood him." I paused. "Do you want

to take that chance? Do you want to trust your life to my ability to control him?"

"Yes," she answered evenly, without hesitation. "Because I know you, Tiger. I know your strengths, your power. Your own share of power, from deep inside...

do

you think I would ever doubt you?"

She should. I would.

I flung damp hair out of my eyes. "Del, I can't dance with you. Not now.

Maybe

never. Because each time I try, I'll see it all over again. You, on the ground... with blood all over the circle. With blood all over my sword."

Del looked at my blade. Then at her own. Recalling, perhaps, that Boreal had been bloodied also? That someone other than herself had left his share of blood

in the circle?

She drew in a deep breath. Shut her eyes briefly, as if she fought some inner battle; then opened them and looked at me. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I am--different. For a purpose. I put behind me what may be disturbing to others.

Again, for a purpose; memories can turn you from your path. But--you should know

it was not easy for me to cut you." She frowned a little, as if the words hadn't

come out the way she meant them. "You should know that I was afraid, too...

that

you were dead. That I had killed you."

"I can't," I said again. "Not now. Not yet. Maybe never. I know I promised. I know you need someone to dance with, so you can face Ajani. But--well ..." I sighed. "Maybe what you should do is head south. Go on to the border.

Harquhal,

maybe--you should find someone there who will dance with you. Sword-dancers will

do anything for coin." I shrugged. "Even dance against a woman."

"It will pass," she told me. "Perhaps--if I made you angry?"

I grinned. "You make me angry a lot, bascha--it doesn't mean I want to settle it

with swords."

"It will pass," she said again.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe what--" I stopped.

Del frowned. "What is it?"

My belly rolled. All the hairs on my arms stood up. A grue rippled through flesh

and muscle. "Magic," I said curtly. "Can't you smell it?"

Del sniffed. "I smell smoke." She frowned, assessing, identifying.

"Smoke--and

something else. Something more." She glanced around, brow creased. "It is gone

now--"

"Magic," I repeated. "And no, it's not gone. It's there. It's there, bascha--I

promise." It was all I could do not to shudder again. Instead I contented myself

with rubbing fingers through wool to flesh, scrubbing a prickling arm. "Not the

hounds--not quite the hounds... something different. Something more."

Del stared northeast. "We are but a day away from Ysaa-den--"

"--and in clear, cold air like this, smells travel; I know. But this is more."

"Smoke," she said again, musingly, and then moved away from the circle. Away from me. Like a hunting hound tracking prey, Del sifted through trees and shadows until she found a clearing open to the sky, unscreened by trees.

"There," she said as I came up beside her. "Do you see?"

I looked beyond her pointing hand. There was not much to see other than the jagged escarpments of a mountainside, and the blade-sharp spine of the highest

peak, all tumbled upon itself into bumps and lumps and crevices, some dark, some

shining white in the sunlight.

"Clouds," I said.

"Smoke," Del corrected. "Much too dark for clouds."

I stared harder at the peak. She was right. It wasn't a cloud I saw, rolling down from the heights to swath the peak, but smoke rising from the mountainside

itself. Ash-gray, gray-black; it trailed against the sky like a damp cookfire in

the wind.

"Ysaa-den," she murmured.

I frowned. "Then that little mountain village is a lot bigger than I was told.

That's enough smoke for a city half the size of the Punja--"

Del interrupted. "No, not the village. The name. Ysaa-den."

I sighed. "Bascha--"

"Dragon's Lair," she said. "That's what the words mean."

I scowled up at the mountain. "Oh, I see--now I'm supposed to believe in dragons?"

Del pointed. "You should. There it is."

"That's a mountain, Del--"

"Yes," she agreed patiently. "Look at the shape, Tiger. Look at the smoke."

I looked. At the smoke. At the mountain. And saw what she meant: the shape of the mountain peak, so harsh and jagged and shadowed, did form something like the

head of a lizardlike beast. You could see the ridged dome of the skull, the overhanging brows, the undulating wrinkles of dragon-flesh peeled back from bared teeth. Only the teeth were spires of stone, as was the rest of the monstrous beast.

A mythical monstrous beast.

"There's the mouth," she mused, "and the nostrils--see the smoke? It's coming out of both."

Well, sort of. There was smoke, yes, and it kind of appeared to be coming out of

odd rock formations that did, in a vague sort of way, slightly resemble mouth and nostrils--if you looked real hard.

"Dragon," I said in disgust.

"Ysaa-den," she repeated.

I grunted.

Del glanced at me. Tendrils of hair lifted from her face. "Don't you hear it, Tiger?"

"I hear wind in the trees."

She smiled. "Have you no imagination? It's the dragon, Tiger--the dragon in his

lair, hissing down the wind."

It was wind, nothing more, sweeping through the trees. It keened softly, stripping hair out of our faces, rippling woolen folds, blowing smoke across the

sky. And the smell of something--something--just a little more than woodsmoke.

The back of my neck tingled. "Magic," I muttered.

Del made a noise in her throat that sounded very much like doubt and derision all rolled into one. And then she turned and walked past me, heading back toward

the circle she had drawn in the damp, hard soil of a land I could not trust.

No more than my own sword.

Eleven

With a name as dramatic as Dragon's Lair, you might expect Ysaa-den to be an impressive place to live. But it wasn't. It wasn't much more than a ramshackle

little village spilling halfway down the mountainside. There were clustered lodges like those on Staal-Ysta, but smaller, poorer. Not as well-tended.

There

was an aura of disrepair about the whole place; but then the villager who'd come

to the island had said something about the inhabitants losing heart because of

the trouble with the hounds.

I sniffed carefully as Del and I rode into the little mountain village. There was plenty to smell, all right, and not all of it good, but the stench had less

to do with hounds than with sickness, despair, desperation. Also the odd tang I'd noticed back by the circle Del had drawn. Smoke--and something more.

It was midday. Warm enough to shed our cloaks, even this high in the mountains.

And so we had shed them earlier, tying them onto our saddles, which left harnesses and hilts in plain sight. And that is what brought so many people out

to watch us ride into the village: Northern swords in Northern harness. It meant

maybe, just maybe, we were the sword-dancers sent from Staal-Ysta. The saviors

Ysaa-den awaited.

I am accustomed to being stared at. Down south, people do it because, generally,

they know who I am. Maybe they want to hire me, buy me aqivi, hear my stories.

Maybe they want to challenge me, to prove they are better. Or maybe they don't

know me at all, but want to meet me; it happens, sometimes, with women. Or maybe

they'd stare at any man who is taller than everyone else, with sandtiger scars

on his face. All I know is, they stare.

Here in the North, my size is not so unusual, because Northern men are very nearly always as tall, or taller. But here in the North I am many shades darker

in hair and skin. And still scarred. So they stare.

In Ysaa-den also, they stared. But I doubt they noticed size, color, nationality. Here they stared because someone had loosed magic on the land, and

it was killing them. And maybe, just maybe, we could do something to stop it.

By the time we reached the center of the village, the lodges had emptied themselves, disgorging men, women, children, dogs, chickens, cats, pigs, sheep,

goats, and assorted other livestock. Del and I were awash in Ysaa-den's inhabitants. The human ones formed a sea of blue eyes and blond hair; the others--the four-legged kind--serenaded us with various songs, all of which formed a dreadful racket. Maybe Del could have found something attractive in the

music, since she was so big on singing, but to me all it was was noise. Just as

it always is.

We stopped, because we could ride no farther. The people pressed close, trampling slushy snow into mud and muck; then, as if sensing the stud's uneasiness and their lack of courtesy, they fell back, shooing animals away, giving us room. But only a little room. Clearly they were afraid that if given

the opportunity to leave, we'd take it.

Del reined in the roan to keep him from jostling a child. The mother caught the

little girl and jerked her back, murmuring something to her. Del told the woman

quietly it was all right, the girl was only curious; no harm was done.

I looked at her sharply as she spoke, hearing nuances in her tone. She was thinking, I knew, of Kalle, of her daughter on Staal-Ysta. And would, probably,

for a long time. Maybe even every time she looked at a blonde, blue-eyed girl of

about five years.

But Del would learn to live with this just as she'd learned with everything else. It is one of her particular strengths.

She glanced at me. "It was your promise." In other words, she was leaving the introductions and explanations to me.

Uncomfortable, I shifted in the saddle, redistributing weight. Down south I'm happy enough to talk with villagers or tanzeers, to strike bargins, suggest deals, invent solutions to problems--but that's down south, where I know the language. And also where they pay me for such things. Coin is a tremendous motivator.

The thing was, I wasn't south. I didn't know the people, didn't know the language--at least, not very well--didn't know the customs. And that sort of ignorance can make for a world of trouble.

"They're waiting," Del said quietly.

So they were. All of them. Staring back at me.

Well, nothing for it but to do the best I could. I sucked in a deep breath.

"I'm

hunting hounds," I began in Southron-accented Northern--and the whole village broke into cheering.

It was noise enough to wake the dead. Before all I'd heard was the racket of animals; now there was human noise to contend with, too. And it was just as bad.

Hands patted my legs, which was all anyone could reach. I couldn't help it: I stiffened and reached up for my sword; realized, belatedly, all the hands did was pat. It was a form of welcome, of joy; of tremendous gratitude.

Del's roan was surrounded. She, too, was undergoing the joyful welcome. I wondered what it felt like for her, since she hadn't come to Ysaa-den to help anyone. She'd come for her own requirements, which had nothing to do with hounds. Only with Ajani.

If anyone noticed I wasn't Northern, which seemed fairly likely, it wasn't brought up. Apparently all that mattered was that Staal-Ysta had heard of their

plight, answered their pleas, sent us to settle things. No one cared who we were. To them, we were salvation with steel redemption in our sheaths.

I looked out across the throng. Since they expected us to save them, I saw no point in wasting time. So I got right to the point. "Where are these beasts coming from?"

As one they turned to the mountain. To the dragon atop their world. And one by

one, they pointed. Even the little children.

"Ysaa," someone murmured. And then all the others joined in. The world rolled through the village.

Ysaa. I didn't need a translation: dragon. Which didn't make any sense. There were no dragons. Not even in the North, a place of cold, harsh judgments.

Dragons were mythical creatures. And they had nothing to do with hounds.

"Ysaa," everyone whispered, until the word was a hiss. As much as the dragon's

breath, creeping down from the gaping stone mouth.