Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (7 page)

I agreed readily enough. Del had made up her mind, and I didn't much feel like

arguing it with her. For one, it was nice to sleep in a real bed again, and to

drink among men in a Southron cantina, knowing with the dawn I would leave such

comforts behind. For another, it wasn't difficult to look at things from Del's

point of view. A band of Southron raiders had overrun her family's caravan along

the border, brutally killing everyone save Del and her youngest brother. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what the raiders had done to Del or

Jamail before she had escaped; in her place, I'd be as dedicated to revenge.

She

wanted Ajani, the leader, and I wasn't about to try to dissuade her.

The day was not as tedious as it might have been; Del was quiet enough, lost in

private thoughts, but now that our names were known--thanks to Del's identification of me and a gregarious Bellin the Cat--men came around to ask me

about my exploits. Del they pretty much ignored, being indisposed to give a woman credit for killing one of their own in a circle--which has been, heretofore, a strictly male province--but they were chatty enough with me.

Before long I was the center of attention, swilling free aqivi and explaining how it was I'd come to be the best sword-dancer in the South.

(Other Southron sword-dancers might argue the fact, but I wasn't about to so long as these generous individuals felt like buying me drinks. Besides, it probably is true, Del's skill notwithstanding; and anyway, she's a Northerner.)

Come nighttime, nothing much changed, although aqivi and wine flowed more heavily, and the stories got more convoluted even as I told them. And I was aware, very aware, of Bellin's smiling face at the edges of the crowd. He watched me, he watched the others, clearly enjoying vicariously what he wanted

to badly to experience himself: fame.

I could have told him fame was not the name of the game. Survival is. I never knew who I might meet in the circle or when, and I certainly never knew what the

outcome might be. I am good, very good, but I am also a realist. Any man can be

defeated, depending on myriad circumstances.

Talk eventually turned to Del, in a sideways sort of way. No one wanted to say

much about her, although the undertones were quite distinct. They all wanted to

know how the Sandtiger had come to be riding with a Northern bascha who called

herself a sword-dancer, even though such a thing was tantamount to blasphemy.

I did not tell them everything. I told them enough. Enough to pique their interest and cause them to wonder if indeed the Northern bascha was as good as

she appeared. I felt it was self-evident, but no man changes his attitude overnight. Not even me. And the gods knew I had reason enough to know better, with Del sharing both bed and profession, not to mention lifestyle.

And so I gave them a little to chew on, knowing full well they would dream of a

blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman when they crawled into bed that night.

Thinking

of that very thing, I wondered if perhaps it wasn't time I did a little crawling

into bed myself.

With Del, of course, which was a whole lot better than being permitted only to

dream about her.

Except that it appeared I might be limited to that after all; Del had disappeared. Somewhere between the first jug of aqivi and the last, my Northern

bascha had vanished.

I went outside the cantina into the night. Torchlight cast eerie shadows along

the wall and made black pockets out of corners, turnings, alleyways. It was not

incredibly late. Passersby were frequent. In the distance I heard the watch calling out the time; the ninth hour after midday. And then I heard the step behind me.

"A full life, Sandtiger." Bellin moved to stand at my left. "Maybe someday..."

"Maybe someday you'll be an old man, and die in bed." I didn't smile at him, because the topic wasn't particularly amusing. "A man tells stories to please his audience, and embellishes them as he goes."

"Then none of them are true?"

"True enough." I barely glanced at him. "I don't lie, Bellin. Lies cause trouble."

Somewhat ruefully, he scratched at the smudge of mustache. "I know about that well enough." He grinned. "More aqivi?"

"No more room." I set my right shoulder against the vertical support post nearest me and leaned, squinting at him. "What do you want, Bellin the Cat?"

"I told you. To travel with you."

"Del and I ride alone."

"I wouldn't be in the way."

I grunted. "What we do isn't for fun or fame, boy. It's our profession."

"I know that. I am not without some intelligence." His smile took the delicate

rebuke out of his words. "You could give me a chance just to see."

I sighed. "You're not from around these parts. Do you even know what a sword-dancer is?"

Bellin's white teeth flashed. "That all depends," he said lightly. "Some of them, maybe most of them, are honorable folk who take pride in their work.

But

others, I think, are no better than, say--" His smile broadened, hooked down wryly at one end "--a pirate."

I frowned. "What's a pirate?"

He blinked. Considered the best answer a moment. Then nodded slightly, lifting

one shoulder in an eloquent shrug. "A man who sails the oceans and--" he paused,

"--salvages what others neglect to adequately protect."

"Ah." I nodded. "A borjuni, we'd say, in the Punja, depending on the ferocity employed. Up here, so close to the border, the best word might be thief."

Bellin laughed. "Might be," he conceded, not in the least nonplussed by my frankness.

"Sword-dancing is a bit different," I pointed out. "We're not exactly out to steal an opponent's wealth."

"No. Just his life." Bellin sighed and gazed upward at the moon, a blade-sharp

crescent setting the walls aglow. "I'm not a pirate anymore."

"But still a thief."

He blinked at me, all innocence. "I'd rather be a panjandrum."

I couldn't help myself; I laughed. Bellin the Cat was about the most engaging and unaffected individual I'd ever met, especially considering what he chased invited affectation. I looked at him sidelong. Young, ages younger than myself,

but then I felt downright elderly at times, with Del around.

And that reminded me: she wasn't.

Bellin saw my frowning search of the immediate area. "She said she'd be back soon."

That snapped my head around. "What?"

Obligingly, he repeated the statement.

I scowled. "She told you that?"

He scratched his chin. "You weren't listening."

"That's a load of--" But I broke it off, because basically it was true.

"She said she'd go back to the inn, stable the horses, then come after you."

Come after me. Come after me, like a mother sending her tardy child home.

Balefully, I scowled at him. A very cool young man, was Bellin, so blithe with

his information. "Do you know anything about Ajani?"

He was busy rearranging the folds of his saffron robe; delaying tactics.

"Ajani," I said gently.

"The name is familiar."

"Remember what I said about lies, boy. How in the end they can trip you up."

"Only if you're clumsy." He grinned, reached beneath the robe to the small of his back, took from his belt three oddly shaped hand axes, or something like.

I'd never seen such things before.

Casually, effortlessly, Bellin the Cat began to toss them into the air, end over

end, from one hand to the other, until the weapons were little more than a blur

of wood and leather and steel. "On board ship," he told me, "we often get very

restless. This is one way to pass the time."

From the other side of the post, having dodged there somewhat more quickly than

I intended--and paying the price with my aqivi-addled head--I watched the flying

axes. Up. Down. Around. Closer to his head than I liked. And all the movement was beginning to make me dizzy.

Bellin's hands were supple and exceedingly quick. Undoubtedly he was a marvelous

pickpocket or cutpurse, except his mastery of the axes indicated action of a higher level altogether.

He caught them one, two, three, stopped throwing. And handed one to me.

I examined it in silence. About a foot and a half in length, altogether, but oddly constructed. One side of the haft boasted a flattened steel blade, quite

sharp, much like that of a normal single-bitted hand ax. But the other side was

a rounded knob of metal. The wooden haft was leather-wrapped for a truer grip;

for me, the balance was off, but obviously it suited Bellin perfectly.

"Give it a try," he suggested.

"And do what with it? Chop down this post?" I looked at said post. "Right now I

think I need it."

"No. No--here. Watch." And threw an ax across the street into a wooden mounting

block, where it stuck.

I squinted across the distance and looked at the ax-bedecked block a long moment. Then at the ax in my hand. Lastly, at Bellin himself. "There are people," I told him distinctly, "in the street."

Well, there had been. Most of them had panicked and quitted the street as soon

as they figured out what Bellin was throwing. Or fell down to lie in the dirt,

cursing him elaborately.

"I know," he said brightly, nodding agreement. "Part of the trick is in the timing, of course; it's the real challenge." His smile was eloquently innocent.

"Once, I even missed."

I gave him back his ax as Del approached from the left, and prepared to step out

and meet her. "Maybe we'll talk again some day."

"Do you think there's any chance I might join up with you you?" Bellin asked, following.

I felt the weight of Theron's sword across my shoulders. "Where we're going,"

I

told him, "there isn't room for three. And it's personal."

Bellin stopped. Sighed. Nodded. And sank two more axes into the mounting block,

ignoring renewed--and louder--curses.

Del's brows were raised as I fell into step beside her. Reading her face, I shrugged an answer. "Passing time." I stumbled over a shadow, which elicited a

brief breathy snort of amusement from her. "He really wants to join us."

"No."

We turned a corner and were funneled into a tighter, deserted street. "So I told

him." We bumped elbows twice as we strolled, and I heard Del sigh. Well, I'd had

a lot of aqivi. "I told him--"

I was unable to tell her what I'd told him because four shapes detached themselves from the shadows and came at us.

"Ah, hoolies," I muttered, unsheathing Theron's sword, "couldn't they have done

this when I was sober?"

It was, of course, a rhetorical question, and Del did not waste time on an answer. (Although undoubtedly she had one.) I heard the whine of Boreal as Del

loosed her from the sheath. I also heard a snatch of song, and knew Del wasn't

going to waste much unaugmented effort on the Punja-mites. She was keying the sword, which meant they stood less of a chance than ever.

The light was bad, but only for a moment. Del's blade burned salmon-silver in the darkness, and I saw four dark Southron faces suddenly thrown into relief: all planes and hollows and black blots for eyes and mouths. They squinted, swore, then advanced with appreciable determination.

Two of them came at me, two at Del. At least they had learned that much by watching her fight.

They wore baggy robes over equally baggy jodhpurs and tunics. All the excess material makes it more difficult to separate flesh from fabric and stab the part

that counts before it can stab back. I shredded one robe, sliced through a silken sash, caught a rib, but little more. He was very fast, or else I had gotten slower. (Possible, in view of the aqivi sloshing in belly and head.) Something stung my left wrist. Providentially, as it turned out. The pain nagged

me right out of my liquor haze and made me considerably more accurate; I spitted

one man through the belly, sliced open the other lower still, so that he dropped

his sword altogether and concentrated on keeping his entrails from spilling out

to soil his silks.

I caught my balance, turned, saw Del kill one of her assailants. And then, as she spun to dispatch the fourth, we discovered there was no need. The pock-faced

Southroner was engaged in falling flat on his face, quite startled to discover

himself dead, and landed with nary a protest.

Protruding from his spine was one of Bellin's axes.

Del and I stared at the ax a moment, then looked up. The would-be panjandrum approached quietly, bent over the body, jerked the ax free. The sound was different than that made by a sword withdrawn; I decided the latter was less troubling to a man who had partaken too freely of aqivi.

Bellin inspected the blade, cleaned it on the dead man's robe, looked at us.

"Missed the post again."

I sighed. "You still can't come."

He thought it over, nodded, turned on his heel and marched away. Juggling his three deadly axes.

"Well," Del remarked, "at least the boy's accurate."

"Boy?" I scowled at her. "He's your age, at least."

She looked after Bellin. Then back at me. "Well," she said again, "I guess he looks so young to me because I've been riding with you."

I did not dignify it with an answer.

Del grinned and raised pale brows. "Now, what was it you were telling him?"

She

cleaned Boreal and slid her home again. "What was it you were saying before we

were interrupted?"

I grunted, doing my own clean-up duties. "That life was too short for him to waste it tagging along with us."

"Is that why you're coming with me?"

"You know why I'm coming."

"No," she said as we headed down the street again, "you never told me. You just