Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 (3 page)

she continued, "what is our next move?"

It was considerably warmer here than on Skandi, though it lacked the searing heat of high summer. I

glanced briefly at the sun, sliding downward from its zenith. "The essentials," I replied. "A drink. Food. A

place to stay the night. A horse for you." The stud would be off-loaded and taken to a livery I trusted,

where he could get his earth-legs back. I'd paid well for the service, though the sailhand likely wouldn't

think it enough once the stud tried to kick his head off. Another reason to let the first temper tantrum

involve someone other than me. "Swords—"

"Good," Del said firmly.

"And tomorrow we'll head out for Julah."

"Julah? Why? That's where Sabra nearly had the killing of us both." Unspoken was the knowledge

that not far from Julah, at the palace inherited from her father, Sabra had forced me to declare myself an

outcast from my trade. To reject the honor codes of an Alimat-trained seventh-level sword-dancer.

"Because," I explained. "I'd like to have a brief discussion with my old friend Fouad."

" 'Discussion,' " she echoed, and I knew it was a question.

"With words, not blades."

"Fouad's the one who betrayed you to Sabra and nearly got you killed."

"Which calls for at least a few friendly words, don't you think?"

Del had attempted to fall in beside me as I wended my way through narrow, dust-floured streets

clogged with vendors hawking cheap wares to new arrivals and washing hung out to dry from the upper

storeys of close-built, mudbrick dwellings stacked one upon the other in slumping disarray, boasting

sun-faded, once-brilliant awnings; but as she didn't know Haziz at all, it was difficult for her to stay there

when I followed a route unfamiliar to her. She settled for being one step behind my left shoulder, trying to

anticipate my direction. "Words? That's all?"

"It's a starting point." I scooped up a melon from the top of a piled display. The melon-seller's

aggrieved shout followed us. I grinned, hearing familiar Southron oaths—from a mouth other than my

own—for the first time in months.

Del picked her way over a prodigious pile of danjac manure, lightly seasoned with urine. "Are you

going to pay for that?"

Around the first juicy, delicious mouthful I shaped, "Welcome-home present." And tried not to

dribble down the front of my Skandic silks. Still noticeably crimson, unfortunately.

"And I've been thinking ..."

Hoolies, I'd been
dreaming.

And I regretted bringing it up.

"Yes?" she prompted.

"Maybe . . ."

"Yes?"

The words came into my mouth, surprising me as well as her. "Maybe we'll go get my true sword."

"True sword?"

I twisted adroitly as a gang of shrieking children ran by, raising a dun-tinted wake of acrid dust. "You

know. Out there. In the desert. Under a pile of rocks."

Del stopped dead.
"That
sword? You mean to go get
that
sword?"

I turned, paused, and gravely offered her the remains of the melon, creamy green in the dying sun. I

could not think of a way to explain about the dream. "It seems—appropriate."

She was not interested in the melon. " 'Appropriate'?" Del shook her head. "Only you would want to

go dig up a sword buried under tons of rock, when there are undoubtedly plenty of them here in this city.

Un
buried."

Again the answer was in my mouth. "But I didn't make those swords."

Which conjured between us the memories of the North, and Staal-Ysta, and the dance that had

nearly killed us. Not to mention a small matter of Del breaking, in my name, for my life, the sword that

she
had made while singing songs of vengeance. Boreal was dead, in the way of broken
jivatmas
and

their ended songs. Samiel was not.

And something in me wanted him. Needed him.

Del said nothing. Nothing at all. But she didn't have to. In her stunned silence was a multitude of

words.

I tossed the melon toward a wall. It splatted, dappled outer skin breaking, then slid down to crown a

malodorous trash heap tumbling halfway into the street. "We'll stay the night, buy some serviceable

swords and harness, then go to Julah, to Fouad's." I said quietly. "A small matter of a debt between

friends."

And the much larger matter of survival.

TWO

DEL WAS a little leery about the two of us striding around Haziz, instantly recognizable to any

sword-dancers who'd seen us before. I tried explaining that Haziz wasn't all that popular with

sword-dancers, who generally kept themselves to the interior, and that I didn't precisely look the way I

used to, thanks to my sojurn at Meteiera, but Del observed that even with short hair, earrings, the tracery

of tattoos at my hairline, and no sandtiger necklet, I was still a good head taller than most Southron men,

decidedly bigger and heavier, still had the clawmarks in my face—and who else traveled with a Northern

sword-singer? A
female
Northern sword-singer?

Whereupon I pointed out we could split up while in Haziz.

Del, tying on her high-laced sandals as she perched on the edge of the bed—we'd spent the night in

a somewhat squalid dockside inn, albeit in the largest room—lifted dubious brows. "And who then

would protect you?"

"Protect me against what?"

"Sword-dancers."

"I already told you there's not likely to be any here."

"We're
here."

"Well, yes, but—"

"And you already admitted you needed my protection."

I was astounded. "When was that?"

"On the island." Now she slipped on the other sandal. "Don't you remember? You were talking

about starting a new school at Alimat. I was talking about Abbu."

Come to think if it, I did vaguely recall some casual comment.

"Oh. That."

"Yes. That." She laced on the sandal, tied it off, stood.

"Well?"

"That was pillow talk, bascha."

"We didn't have any pillows. We had sand."

"I'm fitter than I've been in months. Leaner. Quicker. You've sparred with me. You know."

Del cocked her head assessingly, pointedly not observing that I also lacked two fingers. "Yes."

"So, you don't need to protect me."

"Are you prepared to meet Abbu Bensir?"

"Here? Now?"

"What if he is here? Now?"

I gifted her with my finest, fiercest sandtiger's glare. "So, you want me to hide up here in this pisshole

while you go hunting a swordsmith in a town you don't know?"

She was not impressed by the glare. "You don't know it much better. And I can ask directions."

"A lone woman? In the South? Looking for a swordsmith?"

Del opened her mouth, then closed it.

"Yes," I said. "We're in the South again." Which was very different from the North, where women

had more freedom, and very much different from Skandi, where women ran things altogether.

'I could," she said, but there wasn't much challenge in it. Del was stubborn, but she understood

reality. Even when it wasn't fair.

(Once upon a time she ignored reality, but time—and, dare I admit it, my influence—had changed

her.)

'Tell you what, bascha. I'll compromise."

With excess drama, "You?"

I ignored that. "We'll send a boy out to the best swordsmith in Haziz and have him come here."

Del considered. "Fair enough."

"And after that," I said, wincing, "I'll have to pay a visit to the stud."

"Ah, yes," she agreed, nodding. "Maybe he'll save the sword-dancers some trouble and kill you

himself."

"Well, since you're so all-fired ready to protect me, why don't you ride him first?"

Del scowled. Grinning, I exited the room to scare up a likely boy to run the message summoning
a

swordsmith.

The swordsmith's two servants delivered several bulky wrapped bundles to our room as well as a

selection of harnesses, swordbelts, and sheaths. Then they bowed themselves out to permit their

employer to conduct business. That employer was an older man in black robes and turban, gray of hair

and beard but hardly frail because of it. Anyone who spends years pounding metal to fold it multitudinous

times trains his body into fitness. A different kind from mine, perhaps, because of different needs, but age

had not weakened him. Nor his assessment of customers.

After formal pleasantries that included small cups of astringent tea, he had me stand before him, then

looked at me and saw everything Del had described earlier, cataloging details. All of them mattered in

such things as selecting a weapon. Most tall men had long legs but short to medium torsos; shorter men

gained what height they had in a long torso. I, on the other hand, was balanced. My height came from

neither, but from both. I had discovered that in Skandi mine was the normal build. Here in the South, it

was not. Southroners were shorter, more slender but wiry, very quick, and markedly agile.

Fortunately, I had been gifted with speed despite my size, and superior strength. Both had served me

well.

Now the old man examined me to see what kind of sword would serve me well.

After a moment he smiled. He lacked two teeth. Without a word he turned, knelt, and set aside four

of the bundles. He pulled out
a
fifth bundle I hadn't noticed, much narrower than the others and more

tightly wrapped, and began to undo knots.

Del seated on the bed, exchanged a glance with me, eyebrows raised. I shrugged, as baffled.

The swordsmith glanced up, saw it as he began to unwrap the bundle. A spark of amusement leaped

in dark eyes. In a Southron dialect I hadn't heard in well over a year, he said, "It is a waste of time to

display my best to undiscerning customers. Then, I begin with the lesser weapons."

"And I'm a discerning one?"

Tufted brows jerked upward into the shadow of the turban. "With a body so carved and cut by

blades? Yet still breathing?" He grinned again. "Oh, yes." He opened wrappings reverently, folding back

the fabric with great care. Steel glinted like ivory ice in meager, sallow sunlight slanting through narrow

windows chopped into mudbrick. He rose and gestured. "Do me the favor of showing me your hands."

Mutely, I put them out. Saw the abrupt widening of his eyes, the startled glance into my face. That he

wanted to speak of such things as missing fingers was obvious; that to do so would offend a discerning

customer was equally obvious and went against his training as tradesman as well as artisan. After a

moment he took my hands into his and began to inspect them, measuring breadth of palm, length of

fingers, feeling calluses. He took great care not to so much as brush the stubs.

Then, quietly, he bent, took up a sword, set it into my hands, bowed. And stepped away even as

Del moved back on the narrow bed, giving me room to move, to lend life to the sword as I tested its

quality.

It took me no longer to judge the blade than it took the sword-smith to judge me. He had selected

the one he believed was most appropriate. And indeed it was, in every important way. It was more than

adequate—for a temporary weapon.

But then, that was all I required, until I found Samiel.

The swordsmith's expression was a curious blend of surprise and reconsideration. Though he had

correctly surmised I knew how to handle a blade—or had, at one time—it was clear he had been

dubious because of the missing fingers. The stumps were still pinkish; anyone familiar with wounds,

particularly amputation, would recognize that the loss of the fingers was relatively recent. He paid me

tribute by displaying his best to me, but he clearly expected less of me in the handling of the weapon.

Unfortunately, testing a blade and going against another sword-dancer were two very different

things.

"It will do," I said, after complimenting him on his art. "What is your price? I will need a sheath and

harness as well."

He named an outrageous amount. I praised his skill, the product, but politely refused and offered

less. He praised my obvious expertise, my experience, but politely declined my counter. So went the

bargaining until both of us were satisfied.

His eyes glinted briefly. He knelt again and began to rewrap the bundle of his best.

"Wait." When he glanced up, I indicated Del.

At first he did not understand.

"A sword," I explained, "for the lady."

It was fortunate he spoke a dialect Del did not, or she very likely would have tested one of the

blades on him. As it was she knew by his tone, his expression, by the stiffness in his body, what he said.

She was a woman. Women did not use swords.

"This one does." I said. And then, grateful Del didn't understand, "Indulge me."

That, he would accept: that a man might be foolish enough, or lust-bound enough, to woo a woman

by seemingly giving into her fantasies, however ludicrous they might be. It lessened me in his eyes, but so

long as it resulted in the desired end, I didn't care. For this insult to his person, his skill, his Southron

sensibilities, he would vastly overcharge, and I would vastly overpay, but Del would have her blade.

She rose from the bed and stood before him in creamy pale leather tunic, legs and arms bare, a

plaited rope of fair hair fallen forward over one breast. He shut his eyes a moment, muttered a prayer,

and asked to see her hands. As he touched them, his own shook.