Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (7 page)

Which meant she might well have left, since I'd given her my answer.

Had I? I didn't recall refusing to dance with her, so long as she admitted her

wrongdoing.

She'd conducted an atonement ritual. Begged my forgiveness. Spoken freely of dishonor, and how hers had tainted me. But not once, not once, had she admitted

she was wrong.

Hoolies, she is stubborn!

Cursing softly, I untangled blankets and pelts from legs, stood stiffly, cursed

some more. Then heard the roan gelding blowing in the darkness and realized Del

wasn't really gone, she simply wasn't present.

Well, a woman is due her privacy.

And then I saw the light.

Oh, hoolies, bascha, what are you doing now?

Boreal, of course. Del went nowhere without her. She didn't always use her, being disinclined to show off, but when she did it showed. Like now, with the light.

Del was up to something.

I am big, but I can move quietly. I learned in childhood, in slavery, how to stay motionless for long periods of time. How to be invisible, so no one notices

you. It saved me from extra whippings, from cuffs and slaps and blows. It was something I cultivated out of a need for self-preservation, and it served me even in freedom. It served me even now.

Silently I moved, muffling myself in my cloak, and slipped easily through the shadows. Pausing now and then, emulating trees; some say I am tall enough.

And

at last I found Delilah kneeling in the darkness. Singing softly to her sword.

Regardless of what had happened with my sword while killing the cat, music is still alien to me. I don't understand it. And I didn't, really, now, though the

words were clear enough, if sung in Northern instead of Southron. But the song

was a private song, composed solely for Boreal.

Del sings to her sword a lot. Northerners do that; don't ask me why. In the South, we merely dance, letting movement speak for itself. But on Staal-Ysta I'd

learned it was customary--no, necessary--for a sword-dancer to sing. A variation

of the dance. Music for the circle.

For Del, it was more than that. It was music for the sword. With it she keyed the power and used it, depending on the song to harness Boreal's magic.

Del sang softly, and Boreal came alive.

I've seen it before. Drop by drop, bead by bead, running the length of the blade

from tip to hilt until the steel is aflame. But this time the light was dull, private, as if she purposely damped it down. Her song was barely a whisper, and

the answer that came the same.

Guilt flickered. Clearly this was a private, personal ritual, meant for Del alone. But I didn't leave. I couldn't. Magic I've always distrusted; now I distrusted Del.

Deep inside, something spasmed. Something that spoke of unease. Something that

spoke of fear.

Would it ever be the same? Or had we gone too far?

Del sang her song and the sword came alive.

"Help me," she whispered. "Oh, help me--"

It was Northern speech, not Southron, but I've learned enough to understand.

Necessity had made me; this moment was no different.

Del drew in a breath. "Make me strong. I need to be strong. Make me hard. I need

to be hard. Don't let me be so soft. Don't let me be so weak."

She was the strongest woman I knew.

"I have a need," she whispered, "a great and powerful need. A task that must be

finished. A song that must be ended. But now I am afraid."

Light shirred up the sword. It pulsed as if it answered.

"Make me strong," she asked. "Make me hard again. Make me what I must be, if I

am to end my song."

Easy enough to ask. Harder, I thought, to live with.

Lastly, softly, she begged: "Make me not care what he thinks."

Oh, hoolies, bascha. Don't do this to yourself.

But it was already done. Boreal was quiescent. Delilah had her answer.

And I had a sword to hate.

Seven

Something bad woke me. Something snatched me out of a dreamless sleep and forced

me into wakefulness. Into an abrupt, unpleasant awareness.

Something bad that smelled. Something in my face--

I don't know what I shouted. Something loud. Something angry. And, I'll admit,

something frightened. But then I don't know a man alive who wouldn't feel afraid

if he woke up from a sound sleep to discover a beast standing over his head.

Even as I exploded out of my bedding, the hound lunged at my throat. I smelled

its stench, felt its breath, saw the white glint of shining eyes. Flailed out with both arms as I tried to thrust it away.

The hound lunged again, still trying for my throat. Dimly I heard Del, on the other side of the cairn, crying out in Northern. She sounded startled and furious; I made no answer, having no time to make the effort, but hoped she'd do

something other than shout. Which, of course, she did, with Boreal at her beck.

My own sword was buried beneath tumbled bedding. Now I lay on dirt, hard, cold

dirt, with my head at the cairn stones. The hound might take my throat; the coals might take my hair.

No one wants to die. But least of all with no hair.

The beast made no sound. But Del did, and loudly, as she told me to flatten myself.

I tried. I mean, no man aware of Boreal's power risks himself so readily. But even as I kicked over and tried to dig myself into the dirt, the hound evaded the blade. Del's skill was better than that, but my head was in the way. So were

my flailing hands, locking themselves at a furred throat. I wanted nothing more

than to try for my knife, but dared not take a hand off the hound, or I'd lose

my brief advantage.

I felt teeth at my own throat. Snapping, grasping, grabbing. The stench was overwhelming. It smelled of rotting bodies.

Something snugged taut against the back of my neck. Something like wire, or thong. And then I realized it was my necklet. My string of sandtiger claws.

Hoolies, it wanted my claws?

But I had no time to wonder beyond my initial surprised response. I heard Del's

muttered order to watch my head, which I couldn't actually do since my eyes were

in it, and ducked. But she missed again, though barely; I heard Boreal's whisper

as steel sang past my head.

"Just do it--" I blurted.

And then the beast was lunging away, evading the blade yet again. It left me in

the darkness and fled away into the trees.

I lay sprawled on my back, one hand at my throat busily digging through woolen

wrappings to see if I was whole. To feel if my flesh was bleeding. I yanked wool

away with some violence, then heaved a sigh of relief as nothing but skin met my

fingers. No blood or torn flesh at all; only whole, unbitten skin.

Meanwhile, Del ignored me entirely and stepped across my body to follow the spoor of the beast. Just in case it might double back. Just in case it might have companions. Not a bad idea, but she might have thought of me. After all, for all she knew I could be bleeding to death right there on the ground, dwindling bit by bit--or bucket by bucket--before her eyes.

Except she wasn't looking. Which sort of ruined the effect.

I felt the thong at my neck, heard the rattle of claws, felt relief wash quickly

through me. Which meant I was perfectly entitled to be testy, since there was nothing wrong with me.

I let Del get four steps. "Don't bother," I said. "It got what it came for."

She swung back, sword aglint. "What do you mean, 'what it came for'?"

I sat up slowly, still massaging the flesh of my throat. It felt bruised; no surprise. "The whistle," I told her hoarsely. "The Canteada ward-whistle.

That's

what it wanted." Not my claws after all, though I didn't tell her that. I didn't

think she'd understand why I'd worried about it at all.

Del glanced back into the shadows. I knew the beast was gone; the stink of it had faded. But she waited, sword at the ready, until her own suspicions died.

And then she came to me.

"Let me see," she said.

Finally. But I shrugged negligence as she knelt down, setting Boreal close at hand. "I'm all right. It didn't even break the skin."

Del's hands were insistent. She peeled back wrappings, shoved my hand aside, carefully examined flesh in the thin light of the moon.

It was odd having her so close to me after so long a separation. I smelled her

familiar scent, felt her familiar touch, saw her familiar face; the faint frown

between her brows. At moments like this it was hard to recall just what had come

between us.

And then there were other moments when I remembered all too well.

Ah, hoolies, bascha... too much sand blown out of the desert.

If Del was aware of my scrutiny, she made no sign of it. She simply examined my

throat carefully, nodded slightly, then took her hands away. "So," she said,

"they have learned. And we are back where we started."

"Not quite," I muttered. "Too much sand blown out of the desert."

Del frowned. "What?"

For some reason, I was irritated. "We're not back where we started because too

many things have changed." I shifted position, felt the pull of newly stretched

scar tissue, tried to hide the discomfort from her. Just as she hid her own from

me. "Go back to sleep, Del. I'll take first watch."

"You're in no shape for that."

"Neither of us are, but we'll each of us have to do it. I just thought I might

as well start."

She considered protesting, but didn't. She knew better; I was right. And so she

went back to her bedding on the other side of the cairn and wrapped herself in

pelts. All I could see of her was the dim pale glow of her hair.

I sorted out my own tumbled bedding and made sense of it again. And then I settled carefully, snugging deep into cloak and pelts, and prepared to wait through the night. I wanted to give her till dawn; she'd done the same for me.

Trouble was, I couldn't.

It didn't take much. Just a glance at Del on the far side of the cairn, all bound up in pelts and blankets. The glow of the moon in her hair. The sound of

her even breathing. And all the feelings recalled.

I sat there rigidly, half sick. Joints ached, my wound throbbed, the flesh of my

throat complained. Even my head hurt. Because I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw

threatened to crack.

Just tell her, you fool. Tell her the truth.

Across the cairn, she settled. Hurting at least as much as I, inside and out.

Deep in my belly, something tightened. Not desire. Something more powerful yet:

humiliation. And more than a little discomfort. Of the spirit as well as the flesh.

Oh, hoolies, fool, just tell her the truth.

Just open your mouth and talk; it's never been very hard.

You made Del ask for atonement. She's at least due an explanation.

But that she hadn't asked for one made me feel even worse.

Something inside of me quailed. Guilt. Regret. Remorse. Enough to break a man.

But the woman was due the words.

I stared hard out into the darkness. The night was quiet, save for its normal song. It was cold--colder in bed alone--but spring promised warmer nights.

Already the color was different.

You're avoiding the truth, old man.

The woman is due the words. The least you can do is say them out loud where she

can hear them, instead of inside your head.

Easier thought than said.

I looked at Del again. And knew all too well that even though she was--and had

been--wrong, I shared the responsibility of putting things to rights. Of admitting my own faults. Because when things have gone awry, it takes two to straighten them out.

I drew in a deep breath, so deep it made me lightheaded, then blew it out again.

And finally opened my mouth. This time the words would be spoken instead of locked away.

"I was afraid," I told her. "I was scared to death. I was everything you accused

me of earlier. And it was why I left Staal-Ysta."

I knew she was still awake. But Del said nothing.

"I left on purpose," I continued stolidly. "I wasn't driven out, or invited out,

or even asked to leave; I was a kaidin, according to all the customs, and they

had no right to ask it. I could have stayed. They would have let me stay, to see

if you lived or died... but I couldn't. I saw you lying there in the circle, cut

open by my sword, and I left you behind on purpose."

Del was very still.

I scraped a tongue across too-dry lips. "They put you in Telek's lodge--in Telek's!--because it was the closest. Because they thought you would die, and that your daughter deserved to watch. To hear the funeral songs."

Her breath rasped faintly.

"They stitched me back together--you carved me up pretty good--and gave me the

gifts bestowed upon a new kaidin. I had, they said, conducted myself honorably,

and was therefore due the tribute as well as the rank. They patched me up, gave

me gifts, rowed me across the lake." I swallowed painfully; it was much harder

than I'd imagined. "I knew you were alive. When I left. I knew. But I thought you would die. I thought you would die. I thought--I did--I just... and I couldn't--I just couldn't--" I let it trail off. The emptiness was incredible.

"Oh, hoolies, Del... of all the lives I've taken, I couldn't face taking yours."

Silence. It hadn't come out the way I'd wanted it to. I hadn't said everything

that needed saying, that I wanted to say; I couldn't. How could I explain what

I'd experienced when I'd felt my own sword cut into her body? How could I tell

her what it was to see her lying on hardpacked dirt like a puppeteer's broken toy, bisected by my sword? How could I tell her how frightened I had been, how