Sword Breaker-Sword Dancer 4 (30 page)

Del's voice was unrelenting. "There is a way, Tiger. You could call on the magic again."

No, bascha. I don't dare.

"It's stupid to ignore the chance to heal yourself. Why turn your back on a gift?" The tone grew more pointed. "And if you don't, you'll never make it across the Punja."

I gritted teeth. "I said I'm just tired. Sore. It'll pass, Del. I've had worse."

"Then why are you sitting here?"

I managed a lopsided grin. "It seemed the easiest thing to do."

Her jaw tightened. "I don't believe you. Not a bit."

"Too bad for you," I jeered.

Eyes flickered. Mouth tightened. "If you wish to be so foolish... very well. But if you need to stop, say so. The oasis is not so far."

I shivered. I felt--swollen. "Then let's go on."

Let her go, Chosa said. I'm beginning to lose my patience.

I tapped heels to the stud and let him go on with the mare.

Mistake, Chosa whispered. I don't like mistakes.

I shivered. But I kept riding.

Del's legs approached. Stopped before me. I saw them at knee level. It hurt too much to look up from where I sat slumped on the blanket.

"How much longer?" she asked tautly. A dropped bota slapped sand by the hand braced to support my arm, braced to support me. "It has been two days since the dance with Nezbet, three since Umir's attack, and you are worse."

Much worse. "I don't know," I mumbled.

Frustration and fear made her strident. "You can't even ride, Tiger! How are we to escape the threat you say is coming if you can't even ride?"

I tilted my head back, setting my jaw against the pain. "What in hoolies do you want me to do? Pray? It'll pass, Del--I just got beat up worse than I thought. It'll pass."

Deep inside, Chosa gloated.

"Will it?" She squatted. Her face was a travesty, stretched tight and pale and thin, but the words were brutal. "The bruises are worsening--you are black and blue and swollen, because you are bleeding under the skin. And from the inside, also--do you think I haven't seen it when you spit?"

"So maybe a rib broke loose. ..." I gathered myself, shifted. "Look, bascha--"

"You look!" she retorted. "If it goes on like this, you could die. Is that what you want? To fulfill Iskandar's fate, so everyone knows you really are the jhihadi?"

"I just need some time to heal. All this running..." I let it go, summoning the strength to stand. "All right--just give me a moment."

Del's voice was glacial, as it is when she is very angry--or very frightened. "You are still passing blood."

I stood exquisitely still, giving my body no reason to protest. "Because someone--or several someones--kicked and punched me in the kidneys," I rasped. "What in hoolies do you expect?"

"I have seen a man die from that."

I stopped testing things. "What?"

"I have seen a man die from it."

Anger flared, burning away what little strength remained. "There's nothing I can do!"

"You can tend to yourself," she said. "You have the magic--use it!"

It was all I could do to answer. "I told you why I won't."

"No, you didn't. You just said you won't. Nothing more." Del stood up stiffly. Her face was tight and pale. "I think you've given up. I think you want to die."

I wavered on my feet. "Oh, in the name of--"

"So you can die as the jhihadi, and be better than Abbu that way."

"What?"

Her mouth was rigid. "He's only a sword-dancer. You are the jhihadi."

No, no, bascha--it's because I feel so bad.

But why tell her that?

"Del--"

"If you can't beat him in the circle, you will beat him in your death."

I managed a laugh. "You're sandsick."

"Am I?"

"Do you really think I want to die to prove myself better?"

"More," she said bitterly. "To prove yourself more."

"Sandsick, " I muttered. Hoolies, couldn't the woman see I just needed to rest? To lie down again, and sleep, and rest, and let the body recover?

Let her go, Chosa said. For now, I only need you. She will come later.

It was easier to give in. "Go on," I croaked. "If you feel that strongly... look, I need to rest. Go on to the oasis. I can catch up later."

Clearly, it surprised her. "I don't want that. I want us both--"

"Go on. You. Go on."

"The oasis isn't much farther. You can reach it, then rest."

"Go on without me. I'll catch up."

The line of her shoulders was impossibly taut. "If you would simply use the magic ..."

She gritted teeth. "You only refuse because you hate it so much. Because you won't admit you need more than yourself."

I laughed once. Sat down very carefully. Tented my knees and rested my brow against them. "You don't understand at all--you have no idea what kind of toll magic takes--"

Self-control frayed. "It makes you sick," she snapped. "So? Too much aqivi does the same, but that does not dissuade you."

I mumbled something against my thighs.

Del swore. I heard her walk smartly through the sand, pause--muttering--then come back again. "I will go," she declared. Part threat. Part plea. But also a familiar conviction I knew better than to dismiss.

I dragged my head up. Something deep inside me flared from apathy into fear.

Del's face was cold as ice. Blue eyes glittered. She spat it out all at once, almost sing-song, acquiring determination with every syllable. "You have given me leave, though I take it anyway. And so I say this: If you will do nothing--if you make no attempt to try--then I will not stay here to see it. The death of the jhihadi will have no witnesses. And so his body will be consumed by the Punja until only bones are left, and they will be scoured in time, and carried away, and scattered unto dust... until there is nothing left. No jhihadi. No sword-dancer. And nothing at all of Tiger."

Stung, I applied a rather uncomplimentary term to her.

"Yes," Del agreed, and marched away to the mare.

I watched her go. I watched her saddle the mare; split the botas, leaving me half; then mount. She reined the mare up short. "I will be at the oasis until dawn. If you are not there by then, I go on."

She didn't mean it. I knew she didn't mean it.

Del's face twisted briefly. Then she spun the mare and left.

I watched Del go.

"Hoolies," I croaked, "she meant it."

Sand drifted in her passage, dusting me with grit.

Dull anger flared anew. "She's only doing this to make me come after her."

Of course she was. She'd tried everything else.

Anger died to ash. No one--and nothing--answered. Inside me, Chosa was silent.

There is a time to set pride aside. I sighed deeply, nodding. "All right, bascha... I'm coming." I pressed myself to my knees, prepared to try for my feet.

The world turned upside down, spilling me like meal.

Fear punched into my belly: what if I couldn't reach her?

"Wait--" I rasped. "Del--don't go yet--"

But Del, meaning well, was already gone.

Chosa Dei was not.

Fear faded. Replacing it was a dull, colorless surprise, that Chosa could do so much when I wasn't even looking.

"Punja-mite," I croaked.

It occurred to me to wonder, as I sprawled across the blanket, if Shaka Obre's construct was coming apart at the seams. Unraveling from inside out, because Chosa was cutting into pieces the fabric of my begetting.

"Iskandar," I muttered. "Is this how it happened with you?"

* * *

Hands. They invaded burnous, belt, unbuckling and stripping away. A hand lingered on my rib cage, then withdrew.

"Dead," a man said.

"Or dying," said another.

Then a voice I knew. "Take the horse and the sword, and any coin he might have. Leave the rest for Sabra. I don't care about him. I just want the woman."

Tentatively: "He is--the Sandtiger."

Umir, impatient: "What do I care about that? He's not worthy of my collection."

No. Abbu was.

Hands again. The belt was yanked from under me, leaving me bare from chest to dhoti.

Coppers rattled briefly; someone cursed. If I could have, I would have smiled: a nearly empty pouch. Small pickings from the legend.

Sound: movement. A hand at my throat, grasping sandtiger claws. "Leave that," Umir ordered. "We want to make certain Sabra knows who he was."

"There is his face," someone said. "The scars..."

"Vermin may eat his face--and the rest of him--before Sabra arrives. Leave the necklet.

Abbu Bensir himself may choose to make it a keepsake."

Abbu? Abbu--with Sabra?

"Water." Another voice.

"Put it on the horse. We'll take it all." Umir strode away. "Waste no more time recalling legends. His is finished now, and I want the woman."

I heard the stud snort. Then the urgent, rumbling nicker that wasn't greeting, but warning. Southron voices called out. Then the stud screamed. Then a man did.

Ah. Good boy.

Voices, gabbling about the stud. He had crushed a man's head.

"Leave him," Umir snapped. "You won't get close to him now."

Someone by me, bending. He picked up the harness, the scabbard. Paused. Through sealed lids, I could see it: The man looking upon it. The legendary sword. His hand so very close--why not unsheathe the blade and see what the balance is like? The Sandtiger's sword--

He screamed. Long and loud and horrified, as the magic ate into his bones.

Stupid Punja-mite.

Gabbling again, all around me. The man still screamed.

"Kill him," Umir said. "I will not have such noise."

In a moment, the screaming stopped.

Silence. A gathering of others as they contemplated the sword.

"Pick it up," Umir ordered.

One man protested that it was a magicked blade, and no one knew the spell.

"Pick it up," Umir repeated. "Use something to shield yourself--here, use the blanket."

They ripped it from under me, spilling limbs and head awry. Stupid Punja-mite. A blanket against Samiel?

A second man shrieked, called on his (deaf) god, then fell into sobbing. Dispassionately, Umir the Ruthless ordered him killed, too, because he did not like the noise.

"Leave it," he said curtly. "Magicked blade it may be, but I won't lose the woman. If no one can pick it up, it will be here when we return."

"But--what if Sabra herself--?"

Umir laughed. "Let us hope she tries. A woman has no business attempting to rule in a man's stead."

Retreat. Horses remounted. Men riding off.

I lay slack-limbed on the sand and wondered if it was worth it.

Maybe I wasn't. But Del was worth everything.

The merest breath of sound hissed through dry, unmoving lips. "Chosa?" I whispered.

Inside me, something rustled. Then flared into life, gibbering exaltation: the battle had been won.

Now there was the war.

"Ah, hoolies," I mumbled, "I really don't want to do this."

Thirty-two

I hunched beside the sword: obscene, unintended obeisance. But my bones were so brittle I expected them to shatter and crumble into dust even inside my living flesh.

Mottled, discolored flesh, but living nonetheless.

I stretched out a hand. Fingers trembled. The nails were bluish again; the forearms streaky black, tinged with violet, outlined luridly with traceries of yellow. What had begun as normal--if painful--bruising had spread to swallow me whole. The skin was puffy and squishy, swollen by leaking fluid.

Hoolies, I was a mess. No wonder Del got mad.

Because she was scared, too.

Pain centered in the small of my back. Fire burned brilliantly, climbing the length of my spine, then out along each of the ribs to curve around my chest and meet at the breastbone, where more pain lived. My whole body was a pyre.

Time to put it out.

The sword lay bare in the sand. I was very grateful; had Umir's man dropped it in its sheath, someone could have picked it up and carried it away. The blanket was no shield--nor anything else so plain--but the runes worked into the leather muted the weapon's bite. While sheathed in my harness, touching only the straps or scabbard, anyone could steal it.

"--song--" I croaked. "Hoolies, I hate singing--"

I wavered, nearly fell. I'd made no promises to Chosa--wouldn't keep them anyway--and he knew it well. He was taking no chances. By summoning the healing, I opened the door for him. And he would try to snatch it and tear it away from the wall, rushing in to fill the room that doubled as my body.

I didn't like the risk. I didn't like it at all.

But Umir was after Del.

I summoned my little song. Croaked it into the day. Reached down and caught the sword, then dragged it into my lap.

--circle, Tiger. Don't forget the circle--

Inside me, Chosa stirred.

He'd wanted me to forget.

On knees and one hand, I swung-dragged the tip of the sword in a ragged circle, taking care to seal the ends together. There could be no break, no crack in the drawn line, or Chosa would find and use it.

Circle. I hunched within the confines, cradling the sword, and sang my little song.

What a waste of--

Power reached out and caught me. It shook me from head to toe, rattling every bone, then threw me down again.

Belly climbed up my gullet. Chosa, crawling out?

"--sick--" I gulped. "--worse than aqivi--"

Every bone was wracked, twisting in sockets, pulling free of tendons.

"--wait--"

Blood broke from my nose.

"I take it back--" I mumbled. "--don't want it after all--"

Power dug into my hair and jerked my head up straight. I have a tough scalp, but this was too much.

"--s-ssstop-- "

The sword glowed dully black. Inside me, Chosa answered.

I panted. Labored to swallow. Twitched from Chosa's touch, sensing his invasion. Tried to shut it--him--off, to deny him entrance.

But trying to deny Chosa also denied the magic.

Power had no patience. I'd sent it an invitation, and it was bringing friends.

"I take it back--" I shouted. "Forget I said anyth-- "