Sword Breaker-Sword Dancer 4 (3 page)

I grinned fatuously, still oddly touched by the moment. "A swallow, but a swallow ..." I downed the last of my drink.

Blue eyes narrowed beneath down-slanting, dubious brows. "How many have you had?"

The moment was over. Reality intruded. I sighed. "Only as many as I had time for in the very brief moment of freedom allowed while you purchased provisions." I inspected the interior of the cup, but the aqivi was gone.

"The way you gulp wine, you might have had an entire bota." She scowled at the numerous suspect botas hanging over both shoulders. "Can you ride?"

I resettled bota thongs. "I was born on the back of a horse."

"Then I feel sorry for your mother." Del angled a shoulder, reaching toward the sacking.

"Are you coming?"

"Already halfway there." I strode past her rapidly, pausing long enough to bestow upon her outstretched arm five sloshing botas.

Del, muttering as she struggled to untangle thongs, followed me out of doors. "I am not carrying your foul-tasting aqivi."

"I have the aqivi. You have the water."

She glared up at me as I mounted the stud. "Equitable arrangement. I have more botas than you."

"Extra water," I agreed. "I thought at some point in time you might want to wash your face."

I swung the stud as she mounted, grinning to myself as she rubbed surreptitiously at her face. She is not a woman for vanity, though the gods have blessed her threefold, but I've never yet known a woman not to fall for the implication.

We all have our petty revenge.

Riding. Again. Only this time my head was better. This time I could see straight. Biting the dog back does wonders for the soul.

Del reined her horse in beside me as we left Harquhal behind and took the straightest road. "So," she said, "where?"

I planted a heel into the stud's shoulder as he reached to bite the roan. "Give it a rest, flea-bag.... Well, since we're already heading south, I thought it was sort of decided."

"We discussed it last night. Nothing was decided."

I vaguely remembered our conversation. Bits and pieces of it. Something to do with finding someone.

Realization pinched my belly. "Shaka Obre, " I blurted.

Del unstuck a strand of hair from her bottom lip. "And again, I say it will be difficult. If not impossible."

I shifted in my saddle. The nape of my neck crawled: hairs standing up. Even my forearms tingled. "Hoolies, bascha, now you've brought it all up again."

She slapped aside the stud's questing nose as it lingered near her left knee. "One of us had better."

I worked my shoulders, trying to shake off the crawly feeling. I'd spent all morning mostly concerned with abolishing my headache and the discontent of my belly. While neither was completely cured, both were much improved--which left me with the time to think about something else. Something downright confusing, as well as unsettling.

"I don't like it," I muttered.

"It was your idea to seek out Shaka Obre."

"That's what it was: an idea. Not everyone acts on them."

Del nodded sagely. "So, we are merely running, then? Not seeking?"

"It might make things easier. I know enough places in the South. We could find a spot and hole up until all the furor dies down."

Del nodded again. "There is that. Given time, even a holy war will pass."

I didn't think much of her tone of voice: too guileless. "Wait." I dug under my burnous and caught hold of my coin-pouch. Years of experience had taught me to count by weight. "How much coin do you have?"

Del didn't bother to check. "A few coppers, nothing more. I spent most on the provisions."

I tugged the burnous back into place, pulling it free of harness straps. "Well, we'll just have to rustle up a few dances here and there. Fatten the purses a little. Then go into hiding." I sighed. "Hiding always takes coin."

Pale brows arched. "You are suggesting we accept sword-dances to make money?"

I scowled. "It is how we make our livings."

"But only when people are willing to pay to see the match, or to hire us to dance for some other reason. Why would they pay us to dance now, in hopes of winning a few wagers, when all they need do is take us prisoner? Surely the price on our heads outweighs any profit in a dance."

"I'm not so sure there's a price on our heads--" The stud tripped over a rock. "Pick your feet up, lop-ear, before you fall on your nose."

"We--I--killed the jhihadi. What do you think?"

I leaned down from the saddle and spat grit out of my mouth. "What do I think? I think they'll be like the hounds of hoolies, tracking us to ground. I don't necessarily think there's a price on our heads ... I think they'll want to kill us just for the doing of it, because we stole their dreams."

"And such folk will pay to find us. Even a rumor of our direction will earn a copper or two."

"Maybe. Maybe not." I sighed and scratched stubbled scars. "All right. I agree it might be best if we didn't go looking for dances. But there are other occupations ... we could hire on with a caravan. Holy war or no holy war, there will be caravans trying to cross the Punja through borjuni-infested areas. They'll need us."

"There is that," she agreed. "Except that a holy war disrupts trade, and therefore the caravan traffic may not be quite what it was, for a while. And if you were a caravan-serai, would you hire on the two people who killed the messiah?"

"He wouldn't have to know who we were."

Del perused me intently. Her expression was exquisitely bland, which meant I was in trouble. "How many other Southron sword-dancers are there who are a head taller than other men, two shades lighter at least, without being Northerner-pale, who bears sand-tiger scars on his face--not to mention the green eyes--and who carries a Northern jivatma?"

I scowled. "Probably about as many of them as there are six-feet-tall, blonde, blue-eyed, mouthy Northern baschas who also carry a sword. And a magical one, at that."

Del's tone was sanguine. "The price a panjandrum must pay."

"Yes, well ..." I aimed the stud monotonously southerly, suggesting he rediscover his soft-stepping long-walk. "We have to do something. We're running out of money. Life on the run costs."

"There is another option."

"Oh?"

"We could steal."

In shock, I stared at her. "Steal?"

Del's Northern accent and word choice colors all her speech, but she managed a decent mimicry of my Southron drawl. "In all your vastly honorable life, have you never heard of such a thing?"

I thought it unworthy of an answer. "But you. This is you suggesting theft? I mean, isn't it against Staal-Ysta's code of ethics, or something? You're always nattering on about how much emphasis you Northerners place on honor." I stared at her more intently.

"Have you ever stolen anything in your whole entire Northern life?"

"Have you?"

"I asked you first. And anyway, I'm not Northern. It doesn't count."

"It does count. Of you I would expect it ... you yourself have said, time and again, you would do anything for survival."

"A certain amount of ruthlessness does help in my line of work."

"Well, then, as my line of work and yours are the same, regardless of gender, it would seem logical to assume I understood the concept of stealing."

"Understanding and doing are two different things," I reminded her. "Have you ever stolen? You, personally? You, the Northern sword-dancer, master of a jivatma? Trained in all the ancient and binding honor codes of Staal-Ysta?"

Del's turn to scowl. Except hers is prettier. "Why is it impossible for you to believe I might have stolen? Have I not killed men? Have you not seen me kill men?"

"Only those who wanted to kill you. There's a bit of difference between self-defense and stealing, bascha." I grinned. "And the 'might have stolen' phrase is a dead giveaway."

Del sighed. "No, I have not personally ever stolen. But it does not mean I can't. Before Ajani murdered my family, I had never killed, either. And now it is my trade."

A discomfiting chill touched the base of my spine. "It isn't your trade, bascha. You have killed, yes--but it isn't your trade. You're a sword-dancer. Not all of us kill. When some of us do, it's because we have to. When our own lives are in danger."

The line of her jaw was tight. "The last seven years of my life, I have done little but kill."

"Ajani's dead," I told her. "That part of your life is over."

"Is it?" Her voice was grim.

"Of course it is. The blood-debt is paid. What is left for you to do?"

"Live," she bit out. "I have nearly twenty-three years. How many are left to me? Twenty more? Thirty? Perhaps even forty--"

"Occasionally," I agreed, trying to lighten the mood.

"And what am I to do with forty more years?"

A man my age--thirty-six? Thirty-seven?--would love to have forty more years.

Meanwhile, Del made the length of time sound obscene. Which didn't sit real well.

"Hoolies, bascha--live them! What else is there to do?"

"I am a sword-dancer," she said tightly. "I have made myself such on purpose. But now you say that purpose is finished, because Ajani is dead."

"Del, in the name of valhail--"

Naturally, she did not allow me to finish. "Think, Tiger. You say that part of my life is over. The killing part; the part where I compromised my humanity in the name of my obsession." Something glittered in her eyes: anger, and frustration. "If that is true, what is left to me? What is left to a woman?"

"Not that again--"

"Shall I retire to a tanzeer's harem? Surely I would bring a fair price. I am exiled from the North--should I therefore marry a Southron farmer, or a Southron caravan-serai, or a Southron tavern-keeper?" She lifted an explanatory finger. "Remember, I am now barren. There can never be any children to repopulate the name." The hand slapped down. "Of what use am I, then?"

I grinned wryly, a little amused, a lot self-conscious, because the answer was so easy.

The answer was too easy; Del had taught me to see it. Nonetheless, it was true. "In your case, some men--a lot of men!--might argue children are not necessary in order to maintain interest."

A wave of color washed through her face. Then Del gritted teeth. "If I am beautiful now, enough to 'maintain interest,' of what use will I be when the beauty has all faded? What do I do, Tiger? What is left to me?"

"Well, I hadn't really thought in terms of you going off to marry some Southron farmer--"

"Do I become a cantina girl? You appear to like them."

"Now, Del--"

"Or do I try to catch the eye of Julah's tanzeer?"

"Julah's tanzeer is a woman."

She shot me a glare. "You know what I mean."

"Julah's tanzeer would also like to kill us, remember? Especially you. You killed her father."

"Killing," Del said vehemently, "is what I do best."

"You don't like it? Then change it," I declared. "You've been spouting off to me for the last--what, almost two years?--about how a woman has to fight to make her way in a man's world. You've fought, and you've won. But expecting me to give you your answers is devaluing what you've accomplished. You became what you had to be for a specific purpose. That purpose is finished. So now find another one."

Del watched me. What she thought I couldn't tell; she is, even for me, difficult to read.

But she had lost the burning intensity of her anger moments before. Her tone was much less strident. "As you have found a purpose?"

I shrugged. "I don't have a purpose. I just am."

Del smiled at last. The last trace of tension flowed out of her face. "The Sandtiger," she murmured. "Ah, yes, more than enough. A veritable panjandrum."

"Speaking of which," I said, "we still haven't made a decision."

"About what?"

"Where we're going."

"South."

"I've got that part. Where in the South?" Irritated, she scowled. "How in hoolies should I know?" Which pretty much summed up the way I felt, too.

Three

The oasis was little more than a tumble of squarish, yellow-pink boulders stacked haphazardly against the southerly encroachment of wind and sand, and a few sparse palm trees with straggly gray-green fronds. Not much shade to speak of, except the north-side blanket's-width of curving line at the foot of the boulder "wall," but not much is better than none. And besides, we weren't truly into the South by much; the border between the two lands is considerably cooler, and lacking in Punja crystals.

The water itself, captured in a natural stone basin rimmed by hand-mortared stones, was little more than wrist-deep, and therefore suspect as a sufficient supply--except that deep in the earth, buried beneath sand, soil, pebbles, and webby, red-throated grass, there was a natural spring. While it was simple enough to drain the basin within a matter of minutes--a horse could do it faster--it refilled itself rapidly. The resource appeared undiminished, but no one in the South took any chances. The hand-mortared rim of rocks kept the basin from being fouled by wind-blown sand; the crude lettering cut into each stone supposedly protected the oasis from anyone--or anything--that sought to destroy its bounty.

I swung off the stud and gave him rein, letting him suck the basin dry. The sand-colored stone briefly glistened wetly, then hid itself beneath water as the spring refilled the basin.

I let the stud drink half again, then pulled him away.

Del, still atop her roan, frowned as I began to undo knots in pouches and cinch. "You don't mean for us to stay here...?"

"It's getting on toward sundown."

"But this is so exposed... would we not do better to go elsewhere? Somewhere less obvious?"

"Probably," I agreed. "Except there's water here. You know as well as I that in the South, you don't pass up water."

"No, but we could refill the botas, let the horses cool, and then ride on."

"Ride on where?" I dropped the pouches to the ground. "The next closest water is a good day's ride from here. It would be foolish to leave now with nightfall coming on.

There's no moon tonight ... do you really want to chance getting lost in the darkness?"