Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (5 page)

Lifted the hem and folds of my cloak and snapped it away from my body, stripping

hair out of my face. Threatening beard with frost-rime and my lungs with frigid

breath.

Del sang on. A small, soft song. A song of infinite power.

She had traded her soul for that song. As well as humanity.

I turned my back on her. I turned my back on her power. On winter and on the wind, fixing my eyes on spring. Thinking of things to come, not on what had passed.

Walked out of her light into darkness. Into things I could understand.

Thinking: Del is alive.

Which meant I could be angry.

And so I was, when at last she came riding into my camp. Hoolies, six weeks.

And

all that time: alive. Me thinking her dead. Me thinking I'd killed her. All those days and nights. Delilah is alive. I squatted by the fire cairn and warmed

hands over the coals. I didn't really need to, since Del's sword-summoned winter

was banished, but at least it was something to do. It gave me something to look

at instead of staring at her.

Oh, I looked. I looked--and swallowed hard. Glanced away again in forced, false

negligence, staring blindly at hands that tried repeatedly to tremble; they didn't because I wouldn't let them. It took all the strength I had.

She rode a dark dappled horse; roan, I thought, blue, though in the darkness it

was hard to tell. A tall dark-eyed gelding stepping daintily through storm-strewn rubble.

The stud, less concerned with pride and appearances, peeled back his lip and squealed. He'd teach the gelding his place or know the reason why.

Moonbleached hair was white, scraped back from a too-pale face showing keen edges of too-sharp bone. The skull, now strongly visible, was flawless in its beauty, but I preferred more flesh on it. She had lost too much to the circle,

and to its aftermath.

The fire was gone from the sky like so much wine spilled from a cup. The blade

rode her back in its customary harness, slanting left to right. From the downward curve of ornate quillons to the carefully crafted pommel knot, nearly a

foot of shining steel rose beside her head.

Boreal: jivatma. A sword-singer's blooding-blade.

With it, she'd killed the man who had taught her how to fight. With mine, I'd nearly killed her.

Delilah is alive.

The stud stomped, pawed, squealed, arching neck and raising tail. I was relieved

to see it, because even though, for him, it was muted, the show of dominance nonetheless meant he was feeling better. Maybe I'd worried for naught.

About the stud and Del; here she was before me.

With customary prudence, Del reined in her gelding at the edge of the cairn's sphere of meager light. Not far enough to calm the stud, but enough to tell him

the gelding offered no threat to his dominance.

Or did she do it to tell me the same?

Hoolies, that was done with. The circle had made its choice.

All in white, Delilah: in the South, the color of mourning; in the North, I didn't know. Belted tunic, baggy trousers. Heavy cloak, free of all adornment,

save for the moonwashed silver of fur gaiters cross-gartered around her shins,

and brown leather bracers warding most of her forearms. They shone with silver

bosses, as did her belt; silver brooches clasped the cloak. Loose hair tumbled

over her shoulders.

I thought: I can't do this.

And knew somehow I would.

"Well," I said lightly, "what do you offer a wraith?"

"Amnit," she said, "if you have it."

There was nothing in her tone except familiar quietude. No trace of emotion; I

hoped mine showed the same.

"Oh, a bota or two." I pulled one up from the ground, let it dangle from my hand. The leather bag twisted on its thong, then unwound in the other direction

in a slow, predictable spiral.

She sat silently in her saddle, watching the bota spin. In the poor light her eyes were black. Too black in a too-white face.

Oh, hoolies, bascha. What do we do now?

She watched the bota spin.

Wondering what to say?

No, not Del. She hones words as well as weapons, but uses them less often.

She finally looked at me. "I came because I need you."

Deep in my gut, something spasmed.

Del's voice was steady; she gives little away in speech. "No one will dance with

me."

Of course. That. Nothing else, for her. Her needs are different from mine.

The wound ached afresh. I set the bota down, carefully exhaling. "Oh?"

"No one," she repeated. This time I heard it clearly: pain, anguish, grief.

In

Del, always muted. Nearly always hidden. Often not present at all.

Anger stirred. I suppressed it instantly, idly rubbing a bearded chin. "But you

think I will."

The gelding stomped. Del sat it out, hands only loosely holding reins across the

pommel of her saddle. Her eyes were very steady. "You are the Sandtiger.

Southron, not Northern. My dishonor means nothing to you." For only a moment, she paused. "After all, you were the victor."

I made no answer at first, letting the words settle. Victor, was I? In a way; I

had won the dance, and therefore won my freedom. But winning is often losing; the taste of victory, in this case, was decidedly bittersweet.

I stared hard at the glow of the cairn. Coals and color ran together, filling up

my eyes. Quietly, I said, "I very nearly died."

Softly, when she could, "I traveled farther than you."

I looked at her sharply. The residue of fireglow overlay her face, hiding expression from me. And then it faded, slowly, and I saw the expression. Saw the

determination.

I wanted to laugh. Here we were arguing over which of us had come closer to dying, and each of us responsible for the other's circumstances.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. And then both emotions spilled away. In their place was anger. "I nearly killed you, Del. I stepped into that circle hoping only to beat you, to stop you, and yet I nearly killed you." I shook my

head. "It's different now. Nothing can be the same."

"Sameness remains," she countered quietly. "There are still things I must do before my song is sung."

"Like what?" I demanded. "Hunt down Ajani and kill him?"

"Yes," Del answered simply.

Rising so abruptly pulled the new skin around my wound. But it didn't stop me.

It didn't stop me at all. I took the shortest route: straight across the fire cairn directly to her gelding, where I reached up and caught Del's left wrist before she could react.

It isn't easy to take Del unaware. She knows me well enough to predict much of

what I will do, but not so well as to predict everything I will do. And this time, she couldn't.

I heard her blurt of shock as I jerked her down out of the saddle. Heard my grunt of effort mingled with her sound.

It was awkward. It was painful. She is tall and strong and quick, but now weakened by her own wound. She came free in a tangle of stirrups, cloak, harness

and sword, arms and legs awry. I knew it would hurt; I meant it to hurt. But at

least it hurt us both.

She came down hard. The gelding snorted and sidled away, leaving us room as he

avoided further hostilities. I grunted again as my half-healed wound protested.

Sweat broke out afresh.

Hoolies, this hurts.

But I didn't regret it at all.

The pommel knot of her sword knocked me in the chin, though not hard enough to

do damage. Not hard enough to loosen my grip. Not hard enough to stop me as I dumped her on the ground.

Breathing hard, I stood over her, tucking down toward the right a little to ward

the wound from more pain. "You stupid, sandsick, selfish little fool, haven't you learned anything?"

Del was sprawled on her back with the sword trapped under her. Instead she went

for her knife.

"Uh-uh, bascha--I don't think so." I slammed her wrist down with my foot and put

some weight on it.

Enough to hold it still. The knife glinted in moonlight but a handspan away.

"What--are you going to kill me because I insulted you? Because I called you a

fool? Or selfish?" I laughed at her expression. "You are a fool, bascha... a silly, selfish, sandsick girl feeding off dreams of revenge."

Fair hair slipped free of her throat. I saw fragile flesh move as she swallowed

heavily. Tendons stood out tautly.

"Oh, no," I said sharply, and bent to snatch her from the ground.

It aborted her efforts entirely, if without any grace. Having felt the results

of her brothers' teaching before, I wasn't about to allow her the chance again.

I pivoted hips aside and took the kick she meant for my groin on the shin instead, which hurt, but not as much as it might have. Then I filled my hands with cloak, tunic and harness leather and yanked her up from the ground, half-dragging, half-carrying her thirty or forty feet, where I pressed her back

against one of the tumbled boulders. I restrained her the only way I knew how,

which was with all of my weight. Caught between me and stone, Del had nowhere to

go.

No knife. No sword. Now all she had was words.

"You're scared," she accused. "Swear at me if you like--call me all the names you can think of, if it makes you feel better. It doesn't change a thing. I see

it in your face, in your eyes... I feel it in your hands. You're scared to death, Tiger. Scared because of me."

It was not what I expected.

"Scared." Less vehemence, but no less certainty. "I know you, Tiger--you've spent the last six weeks punishing yourself for what you did... I know you, Tiger--you've spent every day and every night of the past six weeks scared I was

dead, and scared I was alive. Because if I was dead, you couldn't live with it--with killing your Northern bascha?" Only once, she shook her head. "Oh, no,

not you... not the Sandtiger, who is not quite the uncaring, unfeeling killer he

likes people to think he is. So you prayed--yes you, just in case--you prayed I

was alive so you wouldn't have to hate yourself, and yet the whole time you've

been scared I was alive. Because if I was, and we ever came face-to-face again,

you'd have to explain why. You'd have to tell me why. You'd have to find a way

to justify what you did."

I took my weight from her. Turned. Took two disjointed steps away from her.

And

stopped.

Oh, hoolies, bascha. Why does it always hurt so?

Her voice was unrelenting. "So, Tiger... we are face-to-face. There is time now

for the explaining, the telling, for the justifying--"

I cut her off curtly. "Is that why you came?"

She sounded a little breathless, if no less definite. "I told you why I came.

No

one will dance with me. Not in Staal-Ysta, certainly... and I think nowhere else, as well. Women are freer in the North than in the South, but few men will

dance against a woman, even in practice bouts. And I need it. Badly. I have lost

strength, speed, fitness... I need you to dance with me. If I am to kill Ajani,

I must be strong enough to do it."

I swung, intending to say something, but let it die as I saw how she clung to the boulder. There was no color in her face, none at all, even in her lips.

She

pressed one arm across her abdomen, as if to hold in her guts. She sagged against the stone.

Oh, hoolies, bascha.

"Don't touch me," she said sharply.

I stopped short of her and waited.

She drew in a noisy breath. "Say you will dance with me."

I spread my hands. "And if I don't, you won't let me touch you--is that it?

You

won't let me pick you up from the ground--which is where you'll be in a moment--and carry you to the fire, where there's food and amnit--"

"Say it," she said, "and we won't have to find out that you can't carry me, which would hurt your pride past repairing."

"Del, this is ridiculous--"

"Yes," she agreed. "But we've both been that before."

"If you think I'm going to step into a circle with you after what happened the

last time--"

"Just say it!" she cried, and something at last broke. She crossed both arms against her ribs and hugged herself hard, standing only by dint of braced legs

and sheer determination. "If I don't go after him--if I don't kill Ajani--if I

don't honor my oath ..." She grimaced, loosened hair hanging, obscuring much of

her face but not the ragged tone in her voice. "I have to, I have to... there is

nothing left for me... nothing at all left for me... no parents, no brothers, no

aunts and uncles and cousins... not even Kalle is mine--not even my daughter is

mine--" She sucked in a painful whooping breath. "Ajani is all I have. His death

is all I have. It's all the honor that's left."

I wondered briefly who she was talking to: me or to herself? But I let it go, thinking of something else. "There's more to honor than that." I intended to explain thoroughly, but broke it off to catch her as her legs buckled and she slid down the boulder to huddle against cold stone. And discovered she was right: I couldn't pick her up. So the two of us sat there, cursing private pain,

hiding it from one another behind sweaty, muttered curses and denials to half-gasped questions.

"Dance with me," she said. "Do you want me to beg?"

I gritted it out through tight-shut teeth. "I don't want you to beg. I don't want you to dance. I don't want you to do anything but heal."

Del curled one hand into a fist and thumped herself weakly in the chest.

"It's

all I have--it's all I am... if I don't kill Ajani--"

I turned toward her awkwardly, trying not to twist sore flesh. "We'll talk about

that later."

Her voice was startled. "What are you doing?"