Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (28 page)

guess he stays with your horses."

Garrod glanced back. Four Northern horses stood huddled together against the far

wall; the fifth lay dead in the entrance to the canyon. I saw his face go stiff,

and then he was climbing the ladder.

It left me. And Del.

Del's song faltered. Then stopped. I might have told her to keep singing in order to hold the hounds, but clearly Boreal's power was not what kept them from

attacking. Maybe some form of geas?

It didn't sit well. I was not at all fond of the idea that the beasts were more

than predators, but under a kind of guidance.

Del voiced similar thoughts. "They're creeping closer," she said as I joined her. "See? Right now they're watching me, judging me... they're thinking out the

attack."

She shivered slightly. "They have intelligence, Tiger. As much as you or I."

I looked out at the hounds. Dozens of them crouched down in front of the dead horse, tongues lolling in apparent idleness, but it was belied by the alertness

in pale eyes. Del was right; they were judging her.

I wet my lips. "It may not be intelligence," I said, "It may only be direction."

"What do you mean?"

"They cut us out of the kymri and herded us out onto the plain. They lost us briefly in the canyon, but now they've got us pinned. And yet they don't attack." I shrugged. "I still think it's sorcery... and I think they've been bewitched."

"If that's true--"

"It doesn't matter," I interrupted. "There's a way out, Del. The others are free--it leaves only us." I gestured. "There, bascha--up the wall and out.

There's a tunnel."

Del stared at the ladder of holes. The swordsong had taken all of her concentration, making her deaf and blind to the rest of us. I saw her surprise

transform itself into relief, and then she frowned, glancing at the horses.

"The stud..." She let it trail off, looking at my face. "Oh, Tiger--"

"Climb," I said evenly. "I can be as hardhearted as you."

I'd meant it as a joke. It came out otherwise. But it was too late to apologize;

Del was heading for the cliff.

The hounds moved to follow.

Oh, hoolies. It was Del they wanted.

"Up!" I shouted. "Get up!"

She turned back, saw the hounds coming over the horse.

"Climb!" I shouted, unsheathing. "It's you they want, bascha. Get up that wall--get above them--get out of their reach."

"Tiger--"

"Just do it, bascha--I can hold them off."

Well, I could try.

Del was halfway up the wall as the hounds poured over the horse into the trap-canyon, making it their own. I felt their hot breaths, the scrape of claws

on leather boots, the thrust of shoulders and chests against my legs. I stood knee-deep in a river of beasts.

They snapped, slashed, clawed, tried to thrust me aside. Most bit only halfheartedly, out of reflex. It wasn't me they wanted, but if I got in the way

they'd take pains to put me out of it.

Well, I intended to get in the way. And let them know it, leveling my sword like

a scythe. I took heads, severed spines, opened gaping holes in chests and ribs.

I made myself soundly disliked.

Del was gone. Accordingly, they turned from the wall to me, pressing me back, forcing me across the canyon, Behind me, Garrod's horses were restless; the stud

stomped uneasily.

The stud. Hoolies. Why do this on foot?

I pulled free of the spangled river, caught the stud, swung up onto his back.

"Well, old son, let's say we try this one together." I gathered reins in one hand, hefted the sword with the other. "Let's stomp some dogs, old man."

Most of the hounds seemed distracted by Del's disappearance. Others melted back,

licking at the ones I'd killed or wounded. But a few came for us. They snapped

at pasterns, hocks, knees. Slashed at belly, genitals, flanks. Tried to pull him

down, to shred him, to turn him back from flight. But the stud was angry and frightened, doing his best to run, and when a horse as single-minded as my old

man decides he wants to run, nothing gets in his way.

Not even the man on his back.

There is something exhilarating about fighting the odds while astride a very good horse. Some elemental emotion that strips bare the so-called civilization

we've undergone in order to live in settlements and cities, or to travel the sands in a caravan. Somehow I was not just a man anymore, but a man in tandem with the horse. It made me strong and proud and oddly content, all at once, with

a powerful surge of emotion that translated itself into an intensity that, to my

altered perceptions, slowed the attacking beasts to a crawl. And it made it easy

to kill them.

It was a strange detachment. I felt the bunching of the stud's muscles beneath

my buttocks, sensed the powerful anger, heard the snorts and squeals of rage.

He

struck unerringly with iron-shod hooves; together, we were invincible.

I smelled blood and urine and excrement. The stink of fresh-spilled entrails.

Mostly, I smelled power, and the stench of sorcery.

"Sorry," I said aloud, "but I am not impressed."

I knew better than to give the hounds a chance to pull us down. They still outnumbered us badly, and the stud and I couldn't hold them off forever. I waited until the flood paused to reconsider, jammed heels into the stud's heaving sides, took him through the snarling hounds.

There was, I knew, a chance he might refuse to jump the dead horse. In which case we were fairly trapped, because he couldn't hold out much longer. On foot,

I stood little chance. So I aimed him at the opening, fed him rein, slapped the

flat of my borrowed blade across his blood-flecked rump.

He jumped, my game old man, and cleared the body easily, landing with a clatter

of iron on stone beyond. And, since he had momentum in his favor, I didn't bother trying to stop him. I merely gave him a second slap and bent down over his spike-maned neck.

"Now's your chance!" I shouted.

Obligingly, the stud ran away with me.

Twenty-three

We were noisy, the stud and I. Hooves clopped and clattered against hard stone,

scraping grit, crushing small rocks, scattering bits and pieces against the looming walls. It was easier to see now that the sun was up, but I was still a

stranger to the canyon even though I'd ridden through it only the night before.

At a dead run and bareback, the stud was hard to stay aboard. I hugged him with

all the strength in thighs and calves, locking my left hand in the stiff upstanding hair of his undipped mane. My other hand was full of sword, which I

did not, at this speed, dare to put away. I'd probably cut off my left arm.

We threaded our way through the canyon, dodging overhanging cliffs and jumping

ribs of rock. At times the cliffs loomed perilously near my head, threatening to

scrape off my ears, but I bent low and tried to stay as unobstructive as possible. At this particular moment the stud didn't need my help; he seemed to

know what he was doing. But then again, during a runaway, the stud usually does.

At last we reached the earthfall. I knew better than to try riding up it to the

plain; the footing was impossible, too soft for stud or man. And so I went straight, leaving the narrow canyon behind, and entered the riverbed instead, the wide floodplain of vanished water. A canyon remained, but here the walls parted, taking leave of one another. To my left reared the plainside cliffs, to

my right the low, ridged line of reddish wall, reminding me of the tunnel I'd sent the others into.

The others. I cursed, twisting on the stud, to look back the way we'd come.

The

canyon vanished into little more than a thready black line, made invisible by distance.

Hoolies, where was Del?

Where, for that matter, were the hounds?

Was it possible--? No, probably not. And yet it wasn't me they'd been after, but

Del. And Del had walked up walls, disappearing into nothingness. I had no idea

how well the hounds took a scent, but it was possible they'd lose her entirely.

It was even possible, I hoped, they'd give up chasing me.

Briefly, I patted the stud. "Bet you'd like that, old man."

He labored beneath me. I didn't like the sound of his breathing. If he ran much

longer at this speed, he could break his wind. Or throw shin splints. Or even break his legs. All of which would render him useless to me or to anyone else.

And a horse no longer useful... I swore violently. No. He deserved better than

that.

I twisted to look back again. No hounds, though I could hear howling in the distance. I sucked in a deep breath, considered things a brief moment, made my

decision. Carefully I eased the stud's headlong gallop, slowing him to a lope,

then to a jagged trot. And, at long last, into a stumbling walk.

I hooked my leg over and slid off the right side instead of the left in order to

keep the sword clear of the stud, who stumbled and weaved so badly I was afraid

he might swing his head and smack into the blade itself. I caught up the reins

and led him, searching for a break in the low canyon wall. I wanted to get out

of the riverbed, wide as it was, and find higher ground, a place where I could

keep an eye out for hounds while I gave the stud--and myself--a rest.

Something caught my eye. A notch in the ridged wall. It was possible... yes; not

only possible, but definite. The notch was a jagged break that cut through the

line of wall clear to the riverbed. A rough, treacherous stairway up to level ground.

Rain had smoothed the stone, wearing down jagged edges. There were hollows where

puddles gathered, shoulders curved like a woman's, crannies wide enough for booted feet and shod hooves. It was not, thank the gods of valhail, incredibly

steep, but it would still be a tough climb for the stud. He was horse, not mountain goat.

Tough climb for me, too, I didn't dare lead him up because once he'd gathered his willingness he'd also gather speed. Horses, when left to themselves, climb

such things in leaps and bounds; I'd end up splattered all over the rock. And I

couldn't ride him up; it was too steep, too treacherous to burden him with my weight, and--without a saddle--I'd probably come off. But I doubted he'd go up

it alone without some sort of encouragement, so I stuffed his head into the break, tugged the bit forward, stepped aside quickly as I slapped him once again

with the flat of Theron's sword.

Maybe he was a mountain goat after all... three lunging strides took him halfway

up, where he slipped, slid, scrabbled, then caught himself and lunged upward again, until he cleared the top.

"Wait for me," I said lamely, and sheathed my sword at last.

He did wait, being too exhausted to go on without me. Upon topping the break myself, I found the stud engaged in standing still, head drooping in weariness.

Lather flecked chest, shoulders, flanks; sweat ran down between his ears to drip

off the end of his nose. He was breathing like a bellows.

"Sorry, old man... nothing else we could do." I caught a rein and examined him

quickly, gritting teeth as I noted the damage. Red flecks stained salty white lather. Blood ran from chest, flanks, hocks, ankles. The hounds had stripped hair and flesh away in their bid to pull him down. He needed rest, attention, food and water. And I could give him none of it; the hounds were far too close.

I shivered. Glanced skyward. It was early yet, but again clouds snuffed out the

sun and gave me gray light instead of yellow, softening the hard edge of the day

into one of dampness, of muted sounds and colors. When the rain began to fall, I

was unsurprised, and equally unhappy.

It was little more than a heavy mist. But I was miserable nonetheless, longing

for my desert. I wanted warmth. I wanted sunlight. I wanted sand beneath my feet, instead of turf and leaves.

And now that I had the stud again, I also wanted Del.

"Hoolies, you're sandsick." I said it aloud, and emphatically, generally disgusted by the intensity of my longing. "You spent thirty-some-odd years without anyone, and now you're bleating like a newborn danjac begging for his mother." I scratched the stud's wet face. "First of all, you'll undoubtedly find

her soon enough--they're not that far from here; second of all, even if you don't, it means you can go home again. To the South, where it's warm and bright

and mostly free of this thrice-cursed rain. Where cantina girls sit on your knee

and men buy you aqivi, counting it a privilege, telling stories later of how they spent time with the Sandtiger. Where the circle is drawn in sand, not mud;

where opponents don't mutter of Northern patterns and Northern an-kaidin; where

the tanzeers know your name and offer gold if you'll do them a service. And where, for that matter, you don't have to worry if the Northern bascha might get

herself killed in the circle, leaving you alone in the world again--"

I stopped. The exhausted stud stared back at me with an abiding disinterest.

"Oh, hoolies... I am sandsick." I turned the stud north and walked. Hunting the

Northern bascha.

The hunt took until late afternoon, and when it ended I was the hunted, not the

hunter, because it was Del who found me instead of the other way around.

I was relieving myself when she melted out of the mist, damp hair straggling down her back. She saw the stud, not me; I'd left him in the open while I sought

the trees. I considered calling to her, then discarded it. The reunion could wait until I'd finished.

Del went directly to the stud, speaking to him quietly. He whickered a little,

nosed her, rubbed his head on her shoulder as she stepped close to stroke his neck. I finished, took two steps, stopped. Said nothing. Instead, I listened to