Sword-Maker, page 10
We stopped, because we could ride no farther. The people pressed close, trampling slushy snow into mud and muck; then, as if sensing the stud’s uneasiness and their lack of courtesy, they fell back, shooing animals away, giving us room. But only a little room. Clearly they were afraid that if given the opportunity to leave, we’d take it.
Del reined in the roan to keep him from jostling a child. The mother caught the little girl and jerked her back, murmuring something to her. Del told the woman quietly it was all right, the girl was only curious; no harm was done.
I looked at her sharply as she spoke, hearing nuances in her tone. She was thinking, I knew, of Kalle, of her daughter on Staal-Ysta. And would, probably, for a long time. Maybe even every time she looked at a blonde, blue-eyed girl of about five years.
But Del would learn to live with this just as she’d learned with everything else. It is one of her particular strengths.
She glanced at me. “It was your promise.” In other words, she was leaving the introductions and explanations to me.
Uncomfortable, I shifted in the saddle, redistributing weight. Down south I’m happy enough to talk with villagers or tanzeers, to strike bargains, suggest deals, invent solutions to problems—but that’s down south, where I know the language. And also where they pay me for such things. Coin is a tremendous motivator.
The thing was, I wasn’t south. I didn’t know the people, didn’t know the language—at least, not very well—didn’t know the customs. And that sort of ignorance can make for a world of trouble.
“They’re waiting,” Del said quietly.
So they were. All of them. Staring back at me.
Well, nothing for it but to do the best I could. I sucked in a deep breath. “I’m hunting hounds,” I began in Southron-accented Northern—and the whole village broke into cheering.
It was noise enough to wake the dead. Before all I’d heard was the racket of animals; now there was human noise to contend with, too. And it was just as bad.
Hands patted my legs, which was all anyone could reach. I couldn’t help it: I stiffened and reached up for my sword; realized, belatedly, all the hands did was pat. It was a form of welcome, of joy; of tremendous gratitude.
Del’s roan was surrounded. She, too, was undergoing the joyful welcome. I wondered what it felt like for her, since she hadn’t come to Ysaa-den to help anyone. She’d come for her own requirements, which had nothing to do with hounds. Only with Ajani.
If anyone noticed I wasn’t Northern, which seemed fairly likely, it wasn’t brought up. Apparently all that mattered was that Staal-Ysta had heard of their plight, answered their pleas, sent us to settle things. No one cared who we were. To them, we were salvation with steel redemption in our sheaths.
I looked out across the throng. Since they expected us to save them, I saw no point in wasting time. So I got right to the point. “Where are these beasts coming from?”
As one they turned to the mountain. To the dragon atop their world. And one by one, they pointed. Even the little children.
“Ysaa,” someone murmured. And then all the others joined in. The world rolled through the village.
Ysaa. I didn’t need a translation: dragon. Which didn’t make any sense. There were no dragons. Not even in the North, a place of cold, harsh judgments. Dragons were mythical creatures. And they had nothing to do with hounds.
“Ysaa,” everyone whispered, until the word was a hiss. As much as the dragon’s breath, creeping down from the gaping stone mouth.
Then, having named it, they all turned once more to me. Bright blue eyes were expectant; clearly, they wanted something. Something to do with the dragon.
I glanced at Del. “This is ridiculous.” In Southron, not Northern; I have some diplomacy. “I came here to find whoever was sending out the hounds, not discuss bedtime stories.”
“Well,” she said lightly, “if it is ridiculous, your task will be that much simpler.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“Why do you think?” she retorted. “They want you to kill the dragon.”
I peered up at the dragon-shaped mountain. It was a pile of stone, nothing more. “If that’s true,” I told her, “this job will be very easy.”
All right, it was a stupid thing to say. If I have learned anything in this business, it is never to underestimate your opponent. But the idea of a mountain being an enemy was enough to irritate even me, even-tempered as I am; people who allow religion or mythology to control their lives are begging for trouble. It just doesn’t happen that way. We’re born, we live, we die—gods don’t have anything to do with it any more than dragons do.
And I’d come hunting hounds.
Now, inside a lodge, Del shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “No other sword-dancers from Staal-Ysta ever reached them. Only you. And so now you can fulfill your promise, as you said.” She paused. “Isn’t that what you told me? That you took on the task of aiding Ysaa-den in the name of your new-won rank?”
Well, yes. Sort of. I mean, I had, but all I’d been after was a chance to track down the hounds. At the time, it had provided a means of escape. A means of putting behind me what I’d done to Del. Because the only way I could deal with her death was to hide from it in a job.
Trouble was—well, no, not trouble—Del wasn’t dead. Which meant I no longer needed the job, because there was nothing to hide from.
The people of Ysaa-den—with all their animals—had escorted us en masse to the headman’s lodge. It was the biggest, but also the emptiest; he’d lost half of his family to, he told us, the dragon.
I sighed, hung onto my patience, went about my business. Del and I settled our horses in the guest pen behind the lodge—the stud didn’t like it much, threatening the sapling fence with iron-shod hind hooves until I told him to mind his manners—then joined the headman inside, where I tried to bring up the hounds. But he waved them off like so much unnecessary baggage. What he wanted to talk about was the dragon.
I listened for a moment or two, knowing better than to cut him off too soon—you always have to humor people impressed by their own authority—then mentioned something about a long journey. He took the hint; he bowed himself out of the lodge, leaving us alone. To rest and refresh ourselves.
At least the empty lodge was quiet. The thought of living with multitudinous people and animals was not something I cared to consider.
The headman’s dwelling, like the lodges on Staal-Ysta, was built of wood with mud, twigs, and cloth stuffed into the cracks between the logs. It provided shelter from the worst of the cold and wind, but nonetheless remained a bit chilly on the inside despite the fire laid at one end of the lodge, beneath the open smoke hole, which let air in as well as letting smoke out. An open corridor ran the length of the rectangle, lined on either side by wooden roof supports evenly spaced about ten feet apart. Beyond the supports were the compartments the inhabitants called their own; small, cramped spaces more like stalls than rooms. It was a place of enforced closeness. Del had spoken of kin ties and blood loyalties strengthened by living customs; I could see why. If they didn’t learn to live with one another, they’d end up killing each other.
Del went into the first empty compartment she came to. No doubt the headman expected us to use another—his own well-appointed one, I’m sure, down at the far end—but Del has never been one for unnecessary ceremony. She untied her bedding, spread pelts over hard-packed earth, sat down. And took out her jivatma.
It was a ritual I had witnessed many times. For anyone who lives by the sword, the care of a blade is an important part of survival. Del and I had spent many an evening beneath the moon, cleaning, honing and oiling our swords, tending the little nicks, or inspecting and repairing harness and sheaths. But now, here, in this place, it seemed odd to watch her yet again tending her sword. I don’t know why. It just did.
In the distance, beasts bayed. I heard the mournful howls, echoing in rocky canyons; the eerie keening of magic-made hounds drifting down from the dragon to thread its way throughout Ysaa-den, sliding through chinks in the lodges and ghosting down the smoke hole. I shivered.
“Hoolies,” I blurted irritably. “How can you people live in a place this cold? I have yet to see a truly warm day, or a piece of ground without some kind of snow on it. How can you stand it, Del? All this cold and snow and drab, gray-white days? There’s no color here!”
Her head was bent over her work. The laced braid swung, back and forth, gently, as she tended the blade. With abrupt discomfort, I recalled the wager we’d made regarding solitary nights in different beds.
And then recalled other things. Behavior I couldn’t condone. Explanations I couldn’t accept.
Del didn’t even look up. “There is color,” she said at last. “Even in winter. There are the subtle colors of snow—white, gray, blue, pink, all dependent upon sun and shade and time of day—and the richness of the mountains, the lakes, the trees. Even the clothing of the children.” She flicked a glance at me. “There is color, Tiger. You have only to look for it.”
I grunted. “I prefer the South. The deserts. Even the Punja. At least there I know what’s what.”
“Because there are no dragons?” Del didn’t smile, just ran her whetstone the length of the blade. “But there are cumfa, and danjacs, and sandtigers … not to mention lustful tanzeers, murderous borjuni, and warrior tribes like the Vashni.”
Standing wasn’t accomplishing much except sore knees and tired back; I dropped my roll of bedding and perched my rump upon it, addressing her final comment. “They gave your brother a home.”
“The remains of him,” she said. The whetstone rang out more loudly than usual. “You saw what he was to that old man.”
So I had. I am a man for women, having no desire for men in my bed, but I’d seen clearly what there was between Del’s brother and the old Vashni chieftain who’d taken him in.
And had thought, at the time, that at least the boy had found someone to love after being stripped of manhood and tongue. Someone to love him.
“But you would have brought him back anyway,” I said. “Isn’t that what you intended, to get him out of the South?”
“Of course. And I would have. But—he chose otherwise.”
“I don’t think he had a choice, Del. I think he knew it was best for him to remain with the Vashni, where he was accepted for himself.”
“Accepted because he belonged to the old man.”
I knew what she meant by the emphasized word. In the South, where women are little more than brood mares or ornaments, men often seek more stimulating companionship with their own sex. In bed as well as anywhere else. And then, of course, there was the slave trade—
I broke off the thought. “Maybe so,” I agreed. “And maybe, by then, it was what he wanted.”
Del stopped honing. “But what happens?” she asked. “What happens when the old man is dead? Does Jamail become the slave of a new chieftain? Does he then serve the new man as he served the old?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “Short of going back down there to find out, we never can know.”
“No,” she said sharply. Then, more quietly, “No. You are right: he made his choice. Just as I made mine with Kalle.”
I expected something more. But she gave me nothing save the muted ring of whetstone on steel. Another kind of song.
One I understood.
We had privacy until sundown. And then the headman and several other villagers came into the lodge and very politely invited us to dinner. Since Del and I had nothing better to do—and both of us were hungry—we accepted.
Given a choice, I’d have preferred the meal inside a lodge; as a matter of fact, it was sort of what I’d expected. But apparently the Northerners took the first breath of spring as a promise of temperate nights as well as days; when dinner proved to be a village-wide gathering under the naked sky, seated on pelt-covered ground, I wrapped myself so close in my cloak it was next to impossible to move, though I left enough room for my eating arm to do its work.
One thing I’m good at is eating. And you never spit on a gift meal unless it’s served by an enemy.
The headman, whose name was Halvar, was very aware of the honor our presence did Ysaa-den; he was also very aware of his own responsibilities in hosting us properly. While Del and I chewed roast pork, bread, tubers, and swallowed mugs of ale, Halvar entertained us with the history of the village. I didn’t pay much attention, since I had trouble following his accent, and since I kept hearing references to the dragon, which told me mythology ran rampant in Ysaa-den. And I’ve never cared much for mythology. Just give me a clean sword made of true-honed steel—
“Tiger.”
It was Del; no surprise. I glanced over, picking a string of pork rind from between my teeth. “What?”
Briefly, she frowned. Then made a graceful one-handed gesture that somehow managed to indicate the entire gathering. “Because we go tomorrow to face the dragon, the village of Ysaa-den would like to make a song in our honor.”
“I don’t sing,” I answered promptly.
“They don’t want to hear you sing, Tiger. They want to sing for us.”
I swallowed the freed bit of pork and washed it down with ale. Shrugged a single shoulder. “If they want to. You know I’m not big on music.”
Del changed languages adroitly, switching to accented Southron and smiling insincerely for Halvar’s benefit. “It’s considered an honor. And if you have any manners at all—or good sense—you will tell them how honored we are.”
“They can sing us to sleep, for all I care.” I swallowed more ale.
Del’s smile fell away. “Why are you being so rude? These people believe in you, Tiger … these people are trying to tell you how much it means to them that you’ve come to save the village. You are the Sandtiger—someone out of Southron legends. Now perhaps you can become the man of Northern legends as well. Someone who cares for the troubles of others, who tends the helpless and weak—”
I had to interrupt before she got in any deeper. “Appealing to my pride won’t work.”
“It has before.”
I ignored that. “Maybe because I just can’t understand why a village full of adults persists in telling stories instead of discussing things rationally.” I gestured with my head toward the looming mountain. “It’s a heap of stone, Del; nothing more. If the hounds are up there, I’ll go—but why keep telling me there’s a dragon?”
Del sighed and set down her own mug. All around us the people stared; we spoke in Southron, not Northern, but undoubtedly the tenor of our discussion was obvious, even if the words weren’t.
“Tiger, weren’t you listening to anything Halvar told us about how Ysaa-den came to be?”
“I heard it, yes … but I didn’t catch one word in ten, bascha. His uplander is all twisty, and I don’t speak it that well anyway.”
Del frowned a little. “Mountain dialect; yes, it might be difficult for you. But that doesn’t excuse your rudeness—”
“—in not taking his story literally?” I shook my head. “I’m not here to waste my time on a storyteller’s fancy, Del. They’re all a bunch of liars anyway, if you ask me—spinning tales for coin when they should be spending their time doing real work. I mean, how hard is it to make up stories? And then to be paid for it—”
“Tiger.” Del’s tone cut me short. “We are not discussing skjalds, who hold high honor in the North—and how would you know if being a skjald is difficult or easy? What does a man who kills other men know of telling stories?”
I slanted her a glance. “Last time I looked, you carried your own share of death-dealing, Delilah.”
It shut her up for a moment. And then she looked at Halvar, who waited patiently, and managed a weak smile. But there was nothing weak about her tone of voice. “This man and his village have offered to pay us high honor, Sandtiger. You will listen to the song, and you will wait quietly for its conclusion, and then you will thank Halvar and everyone of Ysaa-den for their kindness and graciousness. Do you hear?”
“Of course,” I said, affronted. “What do you think I am, anyway? Some fool who fell off the goat wagon this morning?”
“No,” Del said coolly. “Some fool who fell off one thirty-eight or thirty-nine years ago and landed on his head.”
“Thirty-six!” I retorted, stung. And swore as she smiled sweetly and informed Halvar we would be very honored by the song.
At least, I think that’s what she said. You never can be too sure with uplander. It’s hilly as the North itself. But whatever it was she said pleased Halvar mightily; he called out something unintelligible—to me—and people scattered to lodges, returning moments later with skin drums, pipes, tambors, finger-bells, wooden sticks, and other things I didn’t recognize.
Musicians, obviously. The rest, who had only their voices, gathered children into laps or lovers into arms and prepared to make us a song.
The sun was gone, swallowed by the mountains. The dragon smoked sullenly in the dusk, emitting a faint red glow from deep in its “throat.” I scowled up at it, noting that darkness did not entirely alter its shape into a more sanguine beast, as expected—if anything, it looked more dragonlike than ever—and realized the odd smell remained. Much of it was covered by other aromas—roast pork, sour ale, unwashed bodies, babies who needed clean wrappings, animals too closely confined—but it remained underneath it all, drifting down from the dragon-shaped mountain to shroud Ysaa-den in a musty, malodorous pall.
Not woodsmoke. Woodsmoke has a clean, sweet scent, depending on the wood. And not dung smoke, either, goat, cow or otherwise—I have reason to know, having gathered dung in my days as a slave—which has a pungency all its own. This was different.
“Hounds,” I said sharply.
Halvar broke off his introduction to the song. Del looked at me crossly.
“Hounds,” I repeated, before she could say anything, or call me names again. “That’s what it smells like. Or, better yet, that’s what they smell like.” I lifted my chin in the mountain’s direction. “The smoke.”
