Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (10 page)

can't until I'm finished with the job I said I'd do. And in order to finish the

job, I have to stick around."

Del swallowed hard. "I only want to dance."

I tugged my tunic down. "I won't ask you to show me yours, since I've got a good

idea what it looks like. It was me who did it, bascha--I know what the thrust was. I know what it did to you. If you went into a circle now, you wouldn't survive the dance." I picked up my own sword, still on the ground between us.

"I

almost killed you once. I won't risk it again."

"Too much time," she whispered.

With a grunt, I stood up. "You've got all the time in the world, my Northern bascha. You're young. You'll heal. You'll recover your strength. You'll dance again, Delilah--that I promise you."

"How old are you?" she asked abruptly.

I frowned down at her. "I thought I already told you."

"No. All you ever said was you were older than me." Surprising me, Del smiled.

"That I already knew."

"Yes, well... I imagine so." Irritated, I scratched my sandtiger scars. "I don't

know. Old enough. Why? Does it matter? After all this time?"

"You're the one making age an issue, Tiger. I only wanted to know how old the old man is."

"How old are you?" I countered, knowing perfectly well. But it's a question women hate.

Del didn't flinch. Nor did she hesitate. "In three more days, I will have twenty-one years."

"Hoolies," I said in disgust, "I could be your father."

Del's face was serious. "He was forty when he was killed. How close are you to

that?"

"Too close," I muttered sourly, and went off to appease my bladder.

Nine

Del and I rode steadily northeast for two more days. We took it pretty easy on

several counts: one, the stud; two, me; and three, Del herself. Neither of us is

the kind of person who enjoys poor health. Neither of us is the kind of person

who likes to talk about it, either, which meant we mostly kept our mouths shut

regarding respective wounds.

But we did notice, of course. I noticed Del, she noticed me. But we each of us

said nothing, because to say something meant admitting to discomfort, which neither of us was prepared to do. Call it pride, arrogance, stupidity; only the

stud was completely honest, and he made no bones about it. He hurt. And he told

us.

I patted his neck, avoiding healing claw scores. "I know, old man--but it'll get

better, I promise."

Del, who rode in front of me amid bare-branched trees, twisted her head to mutter over a shoulder: "How do you know? You don't even know where we're going."

"We're going to Ysaa-den."

"And if you find no answers there?"

That again. It had briefly been a topic of discussion the day we'd set out.

She

was unconvinced I had made the right decision to follow the hounds to their origins. But since all of her decisions were governed by an insatiable need for

revenge, I'd told her I wasn't so certain she could be trusted to give me an unbiased opinion regarding much of anything; she had retreated into haughty silence, as women so often do when the man catches them out, and had said nothing of it again.

Until now.

I adjusted my posture to the motion of the stud, trying to find a position that

didn't pull at healing scar tissue. "Del," I said patiently, "you didn't know where you were going when you went south to find your brother. I don't notice that it stopped you, since before we met up we'd never heard of one another--well, maybe you'd heard of me--and here we are now, riding together in

the North. All of which means you didn't much care that you didn't know where you were going. You just went."

"That was different."

I nodded wryly to myself; isn't it always different?

Del peered at me over her shoulder, setting her jaw against the pain of twisting

her torso. "How will you know when you've found whoever--or whatever--you're looking for?"

"I just will."

"Tiger--"

"Del, will you just stop trying to grind me into the ground in hopes I'll give

in to you? I've made up my mind, and I intend to carry out my promise." I paused. "With you or without you."

Silence. Del rode on. And then, mostly muffled, "Those beasts were never after

you."

It was half challenge, half boast. Also truth; it had become fairly clear months

before the hounds wanted Del's sword, or Del, or both.

But that was then. Things had changed. "They are now."

Del stopped her gelding. Turned more squarely in the saddle, which hurt her, but

didn't stop her from staring back at me intently. "What?"

"I said, 'They are now.' Why do you think the one stole the ward-whistle?"

Del shrugged. "That was Canteada-made. Magicked. Lure enough, I think, without

thinking it was you."

The stud reached out to sample the gelding's bluish rump. I pulled him back, chastised him a bit, turned him off diagonally in hopes of interesting him in something else, like maybe a tree. "They came once before into my camp. All of

them. And they tried to take my sword."

"Take it!"

"Steal it," I confirmed. "They weren't much interested in me, just in the sword."

Del's frown deepened. "I don't understand."

"What's to understand?" I wrestled with the stud, who was showing signs of reacquainting his teeth with the roan's rump. "Originally all they wanted was your sword, remember? And then mine... once I'd blooded it. Once I'd killed that

cat." Memory was a spasming in my belly. "Even once--" But I cut it off.

Del's brows shot up. " 'Even once' what?"

Memory blossomed more fully. I stood on the overlook by the lakeshore, staring

down at Staal-Kithra, Place of Spirits, where Northern dead lay entombed in Northern earth, honored by barrows and stone dolmens.

I stood by the overlook by the lakeshore, staring down at Staal-Ysta, Place of

Swords, the island floating in water dyed black by winter's embrace. And I had

thrust a naked blade into the earth.

Naked when it went in. Rune-scribed when it came out.

A chill pinched my spine. "They've known since I named it."

Del waited.

"They must have," I mused. "They were one large group originally--I followed the

spoor for days... and then the group split up. Some tracks went on. Others circled back ..." I frowned. "Those hounds must have known."

After a moment, she nodded. "Names are powerful things. With jivatmas, one must

be careful. Names must be closely guarded." And then her expression softened.

"But you know that. You would never tell anyone the name of your blooding-blade."

"I told you."

Del was astonished. "Told me! When? You have said nothing of it to me.

Nothing

of its name."

I scowled at the stud's ears. "There on the overlook, above the island. After I

pulled it free. I just saw the runes, read the name--and told you." I squirmed

slightly, knowing how foolish it sounded. "I didn't really expect you to hear.

I

mean, I wasn't even sure ' you were still alive--" I cut that off abruptly.

"I

just-said it. There on the overlook... for you." I paused, needing to explain.

"You'd told me the name of your sword. I thought I should do the same. So we'd

be even." I exhaled heavily. "That's all. That's why. So we'd be even."

Del didn't say a word.

The memory was so clear. "There it was," I told her. "Spelled out. His name...

in the runes. Just as you and Kem had promised."

"Runes," Del echoed. "Runes you don't know how to read."

I opened my mouth. Shut it.

It had not occurred to me. The runes had looked so familiar I hadn't even thought about it. Not ever. I had just looked at them--and known. The way a man

knows the shape and texture of his jaw when he shaves every morning. The way his

body knows the fit of a woman's without requiring lessons.

Oh, hoolies.

Abruptly I unsheathed. Balanced the blade across the pommel of my saddle and stared at alien runes.

Stared hard. Until my eyes blurred and the shapes ran together. The shapes that

had not existed in the blade originally. Not when Kem had given it to me. Not when I had dipped it in the water, asking, very cynically, the blessings of Northern gods.

Not when I had sheathed it in Northern earth, at the brink of the overlook.

Only after I had drawn it out.

Del sat next to me on her blue roan. Like me, she stared at the blade. But she

was smiling, if only a little; all I did was glare.

"So," she said, "once again the Sandtiger walks his own path. Makes his own path, as you have made that sword."

My tone was curt. "What?"

"Do you recall when Kem nicked your hand and had you bathe the blade in blood?"

I nodded sourly; I hadn't liked it much.

"It is part of the Naming ceremony. Ordinarily the runes show themselves then.

Mine did; all jivatmas do." She paused. "Except, of course, for yours."

I recalled Kem saying something of the sort. I also recalled him saying something about belief being a requisite; that until I fully believed in the magic of a jivatma, its true name could not be known. Which was why, at that specific moment, there had been no runes.

But there on the overlook, so frightened Del was dead, I had believed.

Because

it had been the sword, not me, that had tried so hard to kill her.

And so, in that moment of belief, the sword had revealed its true name. In runes

I couldn't read.

I said something very rude. Very violent. It had to do with things I would like

to do with the sword. Do to it; things that would give me great pleasure, great

relief; things that would resolve all potential future problems because if I did

them--one, or even all of them--there would be no future for the sword.

"Yes," Del agreed. "It is difficult to accept the second soul--especially when

that soul was once cat, not man. But you will." She smiled; a bit smugly, I thought, which was altogether unnecessary as well as unappreciated. "It knows you, now. It has told you what it must be. What it wants most of all."

"To kill," I muttered.

Del's tone was even. "Isn't that what you do? Isn't that what you are?"

I stared at the blade. The runes remained. Familiar shapes. But nothing I could

read.

I looked away from the sword into Del's face. "Samiel," I told her.

Del drew in a startled breath.

"Samiel," I repeated. "You couldn't hear me the first time. Now you can. Now you

know what it is."

I saw her mouth the name. I saw her look at my sword. I saw her think of her own; of what the "honor" entailed.

She turned her horse and rode on.

At sundown, Del watched pensively as I tended the stud, feeding him handfuls of

grain and talking to him quietly. I didn't think anything of it; people riding

alone often talk to their horses. And she'd seen me do it before, though admittedly not as much. She had talked to her silly speckledy gelding during the

ride north; now she had the blue roan, but I doubted she'd change her ways.

She handed me the bota when I returned to the cairn and arranged myself on my bedding, wrapping myself in cloak and pelts. Quietly, she said, "You care for him very much."

I sucked amnit, swallowed, shrugged. "He's a horse. Good as any other, better than most. He'll do in a pinch."

"Why have you never named him?"

I tossed the bota back. "Waste of time, names."

"You named your sword. Both of them; your Southron sword, Singlestroke, and then

your Northern sword." But she didn't say the name. "And you have a name yourself, honorably won. After years of having none."

I shrugged. "Just never got around to it. It seemed sort of silly, somehow.

Sort

of--womanish." I grinned at her expression. "He doesn't really need one. He knows what I mean."

"Or is it a reminder?"

She asked it mildly enough, implying nothing by it other than genuine curiosity;

Del isn't one to purposely ask for hostilities, in words or with weapons. But it

seemed an odd question.

I frowned. "No. I have a couple of good reminders: these scars and my necklet."

I pulled the leather cord from beneath the woolen tunic and rattled curving claws. "Besides, I got him years later, long after I was free."

Del looked at her gelding, tied a prudent distance from the stud. "They gave him

to me," she said, "to encourage a swifter departure."

Her tone was even enough, but I've learned how to read the nuances. More than the wound hadn't healed, and wouldn't for a while.

I let my necklet drop. "You did the right thing."

"Did I?" Now bitterness was plain. "I deserted my daughter, Tiger."

I saw no sense in diplomacy. "You did that five years ago."

It snapped her head around. She stared at me angrily. "What right have you--"

"The one you gave me," I told her evenly, "when you pledged me to Staal-Ysta--without my permission, remember?--to buy time with Kalle. Even though you'd given her up five years before."

I didn't intend to criticize her for it; it had been her decision. But by now she was so defensive she considered any comment at all a questioning of her motives. Which meant, as before, she was questioning them herself.

It is not something Del likes to do.

"I had no choice." Her tone was implacable. "I had made oaths. Blood oaths.

All

oaths should be honored."

"Maybe so," I agreed patiently, "and you're doing a fine job... but losing Kalle

was the price. It was the choice you made."

Del turned her head and looked at me. "Another thing," she said quietly,

"worth

killing Ajani for."