Sword Breaker-Sword Dancer 4 (10 page)

"Twenty-two," she corrected.

"Twenty-one, twenty-two--who cares? You can do anything you want, ask anything of your body, and it does it without fanfare..."I probed gently at the knee, checking for things that shouldn't be there, wincing at the pain. "I wish I were your age again. ..."

"No, you don't," she said briskly, finally sheathing her sword to squat down beside me, examining my knee. "I don't know a soul who would trade the wisdom he's gained for a younger, more ignorant body." She paused. "Of course, that's if he has any wisdom."

I saw blood on arms and legs, staining the ivory tunic. Her braid was sticky with it. "Are you all right?"

"One of us has to be, and you are already damaged." Her palm was cool on my knee.

"Will you be able to ride?"

"Not if I have a choice."

Del's mouth quirked. "That depends," she said, "on whether you want to wait and see if their fellow borjuni come out to discover what's keeping the rest from the midday meal."

I glanced again at the bodies. Eight of them, as before. Also a handful of dead and dying horses. My stud was where I'd left him, tied to a palm tree. He was not particularly happy, surrounded by so much death.

I frowned. "Four are missing."

"They galloped off. If there is a camp, that is where they will go."

"Thereby carrying word." I stretched the leg again, testing the knee. "You're right: there is no choice. Find me something to bind this with, and we'll be on our way. We don't dare stay long enough even to tend the bodies--we'll let the other borjuni do that." And as she walked away, "Don't forget to refill the botas."

Del shot me an eloquent glance that said she knew very well what was to be done before we departed, but she checked it without saying a word. Grimly she went to the nearest body, cut a portion of burnous, came back ripping it. She dropped the pieces down to me. "There. I will see to the botas. You tend your knee--and then you will tend that sword."

That sword.

As she walked away I looked, and saw the suspect sword. Lying quietly in the sand, stained red and black and silver.

The sword with which I had killed a handful of borjuni, who without question deserved it

... and had also tried to kill Del?

Hoolies, I was afraid. But I didn't dare let her see it, because then she would realize how precarious was my control.

I rubbed wearily at my face. Then bound up my aching knee.

Ten

I waited. I watched her unsaddle the stud and stake him out, doing my work for me in deference to my knee, and then I watched her settle us in for the night. It wasn't precisely night yet, but close enough; besides, the stud was extra tired because I hadn't been able to do my share of walking in order to rest him.

We had no shelter to speak of, just a scattered cluster of spare, scrubby trees with next to no foliage on knotty branches, and a fringe of sparse, sere desert grass. A few rocks and a little kindling served as a fire cairn. A sad, shabby encampment, but adequate to our needs.

Whatever those needs might be, under the circumstances.

I waited. I watched her spread blankets, build the tiny fire, portion out food and water.

She didn't say much. Didn't look at me much. Just did what needed doing, then settled down on her blanket.

Across the fire from me.

Foreboding flickered, but I ignored it, seeking a restoration to normality by falling back on familiar banter. "It's only a knee," I told her. "Not exactly catching."

Del's frown was brief, but significant. There is a look she gets in her eyes no matter how hard she tries to hide it. She masks herself to the world--and still to me, sometimes--but I can read her better now than when we first met. Which is to be expected.

With effort, I maintained a light tone. "Ah," I nodded, "it isn't the knee at all. That must mean it's me."

Del's mouth flattened minutely. She flicked me a glance, chewed briefly and thoughtfully on her bottom lip, then twisted it into a crooked grimace of futility.

"Well?" I prodded. "I know it's been a long time since I had a proper bath, but that goes for you, too. And that never stopped me."

"Because you have no self-control. Most men do not." But the rejoinder was halfhearted; no sting underlay the tone.

I gave up on normality. "All right, bascha--say what you have to say."

Del was clearly unhappy. "Trust," she said softly.

I put my hand upon the sheathed sword lying next to me. "This."

"It is abomination. The soul of the sword is black. Chosa Dei has perverted the jivatma, perverted the honor codes--"

"--and you're afraid he's perverted me."

Del didn't answer at once. Color bloomed in her face, then drained away as quickly. "It shames me," she said finally. "To trust, and then not trust. To question the truth of the loyalty ..." She gestured emptily, as if lacking the proper words. "We have done much, you and I, in the name of honor, and other things. Trust was never questioned, as is proper in the circle, whether drawn or merely believed." Her accent was thicker, twisting the Southron words. "But now, there is question. Now there must be question."

I sighed heavily. My bound knee ached unremittingly, but so did everything else. "I suppose I should ask you what it was I did. Just to understand. I don't remember much after the second borjuni."

"You killed them," Del said simply. "And then you tried to kill me."

"Tried? Or merely appeared--" I let the irony go. The shield fashioned of bluster and sarcasm was not required. The imagery was too lurid; the truth too painful. "Bascha--"

"I am sure," she forestalled. "I know it wasn't you, not really you--but does that matter?

Chosa Dei wants me. Chosa Dei wants you... and for a time today, he had you." Del picked violently at her blanket, shredding a fraying corner. "The song you sang was--not right. It wasn't a song of your making. It was a song of his--"

The first stirrings of comprehension made me itchy, shifting on the blanket. It was easier to dismiss her fears than consider them. "I can control him, Del. It's just a matter of being stronger."

"He is growing stronger. Tiger, don't you see? If you give in to violence, it lends the power to him. Once he collects enough, he will use the sword as a bridge to you, then use you for his body." Distaste briefly warped her expression. "I saw it today, Tiger. I saw him today, as I saw him inside the dragon."

Denial was swift. Was easy. "I don't think--"

She didn't let me finish. "Chosa Dei looked out of your eyes. Chosa Dei was in your soul."

The tiniest flicker of fear lighted itself in my belly. "I beat him," I blurted urgently. "Last night, and again today. I'll go on beating him."

The setting sun was gone. Firelight overlay her face. "Until he grows too strong."

Desperation combined with impotent anger. The explosion was potent. "What do you expect? I can't get rid of this sword the way any sane man would--you said it's too dangerous to sell, give away, or cast off, because then he'd have his body. And I can't destroy the sword--you said it would free his spirit. So what does that leave me? What in hoolies am I to do?"

Del's voice was steady. "Two choices," she said quietly. "One you already know: find a way to discharge the sword. The other is harder yet."

I swore creatively. "What in hoolies is harder than tracking down a sorcerer out of legend--Chosa's brother, no less!--who may not even exist?"

"Dying," she answered softly.

It was a punch in the gut, but I didn't let her see it. "Dying's easy," I retorted. "Look at what I do for a living."

Del didn't answer.

"And besides, Chosa--in this sword--already tried to kill me once. Remember? So how would dying serve any purpose?"

Her mouth twisted. "I doubt he wanted to kill you. More like he wanted to wound you; seriously, yes, because then you would be weakened. Then he could swallow the sword... and eventually swallow you. But if you were to die ..." She let it trail off. No more was necessary.

Trying not to jar my knee, I flopped spine-down on my blanket and stared up at the darkening sky. As always in the desert, the air at night was cool, counterpoint to the heat of day. "So, as I understand it--" I frowned "--all I have to do is stay alive--and in one piece--long enough to find Shaka Obre, who can help me discharge this thrice-cursed sword ... or avoid all kinds of violence so as not to give him power ... or not turn my back on you."

It startled her. "On me!"

I rolled my head to look at her. "Sure. So you won't start thinking of ways to defeat Chosa--through me--without benefit of discharging."

Stunned, Del gaped. It was almost comical.

I managed a halfhearted grin. "That's a joke, bascha. But then I keep forgetting: you don't have a sense of humor."

"I would not--I could not--I would never..." She broke it off angrily, giving up on coherency.

"I said it was a joke!" I rolled over onto a hip, easing my sore knee, and leaned upon an elbow. "See what I mean about no sense of humor?"

"There is nothing amusing about loss of honor, of self--"

Abruptly very tired, I smeared a palm across my face. "Forget it. Forget I said anything.

Forget I'm even here."

"I can't. You are here... and so is that sword."

"That sword," again. I sighed heavily, aware of a weary depression, and lay down again on my blanket. "Go to sleep," I suggested. "It'll be better in the morning. Everything's better in the morning--it's why they invented it."

"Who?"

"The gods, I guess." I shrugged. "How in hoolies should I know? I'm only a jhihadi."

Del didn't lie down. She sat there on her blanket, staring pensively at me.

"Go to sleep," I said.

A dismissive shrug. "I will sit up for a while. To guard."

I also shrugged, accepting it readily enough; it was a common enough occurrence. I snugged down carefully beneath a blanket, swearing softly at the taut bindings that made it hard to settle my knee comfortably, then stopped moving entirely.

Something new occurred. Something I didn't like, but knew was possible. More likely probable.

"Guarding, are you?" I growled. "Guarding me against danger--or guarding against me?"

Del's voice was even. "Whatever is necessary."

Eleven

I woke up surly, which I do sometimes. Not very often, on the whole; like I've said before, I'm generally a good-natured soul. But occasionally, it catches up to the best of us.

Usually it's after a night of too much aqivi (and, once upon a time, too many women, but it seems like everything changes as you get older); in this case, it was after a night of too-active sleep, and a sore knee less than pleased about having to move.

Del, one of those perfectly disgusting people who wakens with relative ease and no disgruntlement that the sun has reappeared, watched me untangle the blanket, muttering beneath my breath as I did so, and then, equally silently, watched me try to lever myself up. Sitting was easy enough. Standing was not. Walking was worse.

I hobbled off, tended my business, hobbled back. I was stiff, itchy from healing sand scrapes, smelly from lack of bath, stubbled on cheeks and chin. My knee hurt like hoolies. So did a few other things: namely, my pride.

"You talked," Del mentioned, neatly folding her blanket aside.

It was, I thought, basically inconsequential. But since she'd brought it up ... "Talked?"

"Last night. In your sleep." Kneeling, she set about stirring life into the coals of the cairn.

"I almost woke you, but--I was... well ..."

"Afraid?" I bit it out between gritted teeth. "Did you think I'd snatch the sword out of my sheath and have at you with it in the middle of the night?"

Del said nothing.

Which hurt most of all: it meant there was a chance my sarcastic question was more accurate than I liked.

Explosively, I challenged her. "Hoolies, bascha, this is going to have to be settled once and for all. If you really are afraid of me--"

"For you," she said quietly.

"For me? Why? For me?"

She bent, blew on the coals, looked through ash grit and smoke at me. "I am afraid of what he will do to you. What he would make of you, once you were made."

I'll admit it: it was unsettling. "Yes, well ... I don't think he'd get very far, with me. I'm sort of stubborn about things like sorcerers trying to make me over into some sort of thing, like those men-turned-hounds." A grimace of distaste warped my mouth.

"Hoolies, what a way to die ..." I let it go, forcibly thinking about something else as I sat down awkwardly. "What was it I said, in my sleep?"

"Patterns," Del answered, tossing a bota to me. "Lines and patterns and furrows."

I stared. "That's what I talked about?"

"Some of it. Some I could not understand. Drawings in the sand, you said." She pointed.

"See?"

I looked. Beside my blanket, near to hand, was a "pattern" of four straight lines, with the hint of a curve at the bottom. As if someone had taken a stick and sketched one line after another.

I frowned. "I did that?"

She nodded, digging through saddle-pouches. "You muttered something about patterns and lines. Then you stuck all four fingers in the dirt and drew that." She touched her cheek. "It looks like you."

"You" meant my own cheek, beneath the stubble: four slashed lines, very straight, to the bottom of the jaw. Where the sandtiger had at last been persuaded to take his claws out of my face.

The lines in the dirt did look very much like claw marks. A "pattern," I guess you could say.

I grunted, unimpressed. "Who knows? I don't even remember dreaming." I sucked down water, then replugged the bota. "Our best bet is to head toward Quumi. It's a trade settlement on the edge of the Punja--that is, usually it's on the edge. Depending on what the Punja feels like."

Del nodded absently, staring beyond me toward the horizon. She squinted, frowning; the expression didn't inspire trust.

I was instantly alert. "What?"

"Dust. I think. In thin light, it's hard ... no, it is. Dust." She rose, dropping the pouch, and bent swiftly to retrieve the salmon-silver blade from its rune-worked sheath. "If it is borjuni--"