Sword-Maker, page 4
—Delilah is alive—
Sweat bathed me. I leaned against the tree and shut my eyes, shivering, releasing the air I’d finally gulped. Sucking it back in even more loudly. Nearly choking. Ignoring the knot in my belly, the cramping of my guts, the trembling in my hands.
Trying to understand.
Relief. Shock. Amazement. An overwhelming joy. But also compelling guilt and an odd, swelling fear. A deep and abiding despair.
Delilah is alive.
Gods of valhail, help me.
Colors poured out of the sky like layers of ruffled silks: rose, red, violet, emerald, a hint of Southron yellow, traces of amber-gold. The blush of burnished orange. The richness of blue on black and all the shadings in between.
I scrubbed sweat off my face. Took pains to steady my breathing. Then silently followed the brightness down and stepped out of a tree-striped, hollow darkness into frost and fog and rainbow, where a sword held dominance. Alien, rune-wrought steel, naked in Del’s bare hands.
Delilah was alive.
She stood as I have seen her stand before, paying homage to the North, or to the sword herself. With legs spread, braced; with arms stretched wide above her head, balancing blade across flattened palms. Three feet of deadly steel, shining whitely in the night; a foot of knotted silver twisted carefully into a hilt. Ornate and yet oddly plain, with a magnificent symmetry. Simplistic in promised power, lethal in promises kept.
All in white, Delilah. Tunic, trews, hair. And the stark, ravaged face, devoid of all save desperation.
Thin fog purled down from the blade. Streamers licked Del’s hands, face, clothing, frothed around her ankles, spilled out across the ground. Drops of moisture glistened, reflecting sword-born rainbows. All in white, Delilah; uncompromising white. A blank, stark canvas. Behind her was the night; uncompromising black. But arrayed above us both were the colors of the world, summoned by rune-wrought steel.
White on black, and light. A brilliant, blinding light that made me want to squint.
Ghost, I thought; wraith. A spirit made of shadows, lent light by a playful demon. Nothing more than a fetch, or a trick of imagination. It wasn’t really Del. It couldn’t really be Del.
Gods, let it be Del—
I felt the touch of wind. It blew softly across the clearing, shredding sword-born fog, and gently touched my face. The testing fingers of a blind man; the subtle caress of a lover’s touch. A cold, winter wind, bordering on banshee. Letting me taste its strength. Letting me sense its power.
Believe, it told me plainly. I am born of Boreal, and only one commands her. Only one can summon her power. To key it, and control it. To make me substance out of nothing; to give me life out of proper season.
Winter was in the clearing. It numbed my ears, my nose; stiffened aging joints. Lifted the hem and folds of my cloak and snapped it away from my body, stripping hair out of my face. Threatening beard with frost-rime and my lungs with frigid breath.
Del sang on. A small, soft song. A song of infinite power.
She had traded her soul for that song. As well as humanity.
I turned my back on her. I turned my back on her power. On winter and on the wind, fixing my eyes on spring. Thinking of things to come, not on what had passed.
Walked out of her light into darkness. Into things I could understand.
Thinking: Del is alive.
Which meant I could be angry.
And so I was, when at last she came riding into my camp. Hoolies, six weeks. And all that time: alive.
Me thinking her dead.
Me thinking I’d killed her.
All those days and nights.
Delilah is alive.
I squatted by the fire cairn and warmed hands over the coals. I didn’t really need to, since Del’s sword-summoned winter was banished, but at least it was something to do. It gave me something to look at instead of staring at her.
Oh, I looked. I looked—and swallowed hard. Glanced away again in forced, false negligence, staring blindly at hands that tried repeatedly to tremble; they didn’t because I wouldn’t let them. It took all the strength I had.
She rode a dark dappled horse; roan, I thought, blue, though in the darkness it was hard to tell. A tall dark-eyed gelding stepping daintily through storm-strewn rubble.
The stud, less concerned with pride and appearances, peeled back his lip and squealed. He’d teach the gelding his place or know the reason why.
Moonbleached hair was white, scraped back from a too-pale face showing keen edges of too-sharp bone. The skull, now strongly visible, was flawless in its beauty, but I preferred more flesh on it. She had lost too much to the circle, and to its aftermath.
The fire was gone from the sky like so much wine spilled from a cup. The blade rode her back in its customary harness, slanting left to right. From the downward curve of ornate quillons to the carefully crafted pommel knot, nearly a foot of shining steel rose beside her head.
Boreal: jivatma. A sword-singer’s blooding-blade.
With it, she’d killed the man who had taught her how to fight. With mine, I’d nearly killed her.
Delilah is alive.
The stud stomped, pawed, squealed, arching neck and raising tail. I was relieved to see it, because even though, for him, it was muted, the show of dominance nonetheless meant he was feeling better. Maybe I’d worried for naught.
About the stud and Del; here she was before me.
With customary prudence, Del reined in her gelding at the edge of the cairn’s sphere of meager light. Not far enough to calm the stud, but enough to tell him the gelding offered no threat to his dominance.
Or did she do it to tell me the same?
Hoolies, that was done with. The circle had made its choice.
All in white, Delilah: in the South, the color of mourning; in the North, I didn’t know. Belted tunic, baggy trousers. Heavy cloak, free of all adornment, save for the moonwashed silver of fur gaiters cross-gartered around her shins, and brown leather bracers warding most of her forearms. They shone with silver bosses, as did her belt; silver brooches clasped the cloak. Loose hair tumbled over her shoulders.
I thought: I can’t do this.
And knew somehow I would.
“Well,” I said lightly, “what do you offer a wraith?”
“Amnit,” she said, “if you have it.”
There was nothing in her tone except familiar quietude. No trace of emotion; I hoped mine showed the same.
“Oh, a bota or two.” I pulled one up from the ground, let it dangle from my hand. The leather bag twisted on its thong, then unwound in the other direction in a slow, predictable spiral.
She sat silently in her saddle, watching the bota spin. In the poor light her eyes were black. Too black in a too-white face.
Oh, hoolies, bascha. What do we do now?
She watched the bota spin.
Wondering what to say?
No, not Del. She hones words as well as weapons, but uses them less often.
She finally looked at me. “I came because I need you.”
Deep in my gut, something spasmed.
Del’s voice was steady; she gives little away in speech. “No one will dance with me.”
Of course. That. Nothing else, for her. Her needs are different from mine.
The wound ached afresh. I set the bota down, carefully exhaling. “Oh?”
“No one,” she repeated. This time I heard it clearly: pain, anguish, grief. In Del, always muted. Nearly always hidden. Often not present at all.
Anger stirred. I suppressed it instantly, idly rubbing a bearded chin. “But you think I will.”
The gelding stomped. Del sat it out, hands only loosely holding reins across the pommel of her saddle. Her eyes were very steady. “You are the Sandtiger. Southron, not Northern. My dishonor means nothing to you.” For only a moment, she paused. “After all, you were the victor.”
I made no answer at first, letting the words settle. Victor, was I? In a way; I had won the dance, and therefore won my freedom. But winning is often losing; the taste of victory, in this case, was decidedly bittersweet.
I stared hard at the glow of the cairn. Coals and color ran together, filling up my eyes. Quietly, I said, “I very nearly died.”
Softly, when she could, “I traveled farther than you.”
I looked at her sharply. The residue of fireglow overlay her face, hiding expression from me. And then it faded, slowly, and I saw the expression. Saw the determination.
I wanted to laugh. Here we were arguing over which of us had come closer to dying, and each of us responsible for the other’s circumstances.
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. And then both emotions spilled away. In their place was anger. “I nearly killed you, Del. I stepped into that circle hoping only to beat you, to stop you, and yet I nearly killed you.” I shook my head. “It’s different now. Nothing can be the same.”
“Sameness remains,” she countered quietly. “There are still things I must do before my song is sung.”
“Like what?” I demanded. “Hunt down Ajani and kill him?”
“Yes,” Del answered simply.
Rising so abruptly pulled the new skin around my wound. But it didn’t stop me. It didn’t stop me at all. I took the shortest route: straight across the fire cairn directly to her gelding, where I reached up and caught Del’s left wrist before she could react.
It isn’t easy to take Del unaware. She knows me well enough to predict much of what I will do, but not so well as to predict everything I will do. And this time, she couldn’t.
I heard her blurt of shock as I jerked her down out of the saddle. Heard my grunt of effort mingled with her sound.
It was awkward. It was painful. She is tall and strong and quick, but now weakened by her own wound. She came free in a tangle of stirrups, cloak, harness and sword, arms and legs awry. I knew it would hurt; I meant it to hurt. But at least it hurt us both.
She came down hard. The gelding snorted and sidled away, leaving us room as he avoided further hostilities. I grunted again as my half-healed wound protested. Sweat broke out afresh.
Hoolies, this hurts.
But I didn’t regret it at all.
The pommel knot of her sword knocked me in the chin, though not hard enough to do damage. Not hard enough to loosen my grip. Not hard enough to stop me as I dumped her on the ground.
Breathing hard, I stood over her, tucking down toward the right a little to ward the wound from more pain. “You stupid, sandsick, selfish little fool, haven’t you learned anything?”
Del was sprawled on her back with the sword trapped under her. Instead she went for her knife.
“Uh-uh, bascha—I don’t think so.” I slammed her wrist down with my foot and put some weight on it. Enough to hold it still. The knife glinted in moonlight but a handspan away. “What—are you going to kill me because I insulted you? Because I called you a fool? Or selfish?” I laughed at her expression. “You are a fool, bascha … a silly, selfish, sandsick girl feeding off dreams of revenge.”
Fair hair slipped free of her throat. I saw fragile flesh move as she swallowed heavily. Tendons stood out tautly.
“Oh, no,” I said sharply, and bent to snatch her from the ground.
It aborted her efforts entirely, if without any grace. Having felt the results of her brothers’ teaching before, I wasn’t about to allow her the chance again. I pivoted hips aside and took the kick she meant for my groin on the shin instead, which hurt, but not as much as it might have. Then I filled my hands with cloak, tunic and harness leather and yanked her up from the ground, half-dragging, half-carrying her thirty or forty feet, where I pressed her back against one of the tumbled boulders. I restrained her the only way I knew how, which was with all of my weight. Caught between me and stone, Del had nowhere to go.
No knife. No sword. Now all she had was words.
“You’re scared,” she accused. “Swear at me if you like—call me all the names you can think of, if it makes you feel better. It doesn’t change a thing. I see it in your face, in your eyes … I feel it in your hands. You’re scared to death, Tiger. Scared because of me.”
It was not what I expected.
“Scared.” Less vehemence, but no less certainty. “I know you, Tiger—you’ve spent the last six weeks punishing yourself for what you did … I know you, Tiger—you’ve spent every day and every night of the past six weeks scared I was dead, and scared I was alive. Because if I was dead, you couldn’t live with it—with killing your Northern bascha?” Only once, she shook her head. “Oh, no, not you … not the Sandtiger, who is not quite the uncaring, unfeeling killer he likes people to think he is. So you prayed—yes you, just in case—you prayed I was alive so you wouldn’t have to hate yourself, and yet the whole time you’ve been scared I was alive. Because if I was, and we ever came face-to-face again, you’d have to explain why. You’d have to tell me why. You’d have to find a way to justify what you did.”
I took my weight from her. Turned. Took two disjointed steps away from her. And stopped.
Oh, hoolies, bascha. Why does it always hurt so?
Her voice was unrelenting. “So, Tiger … we are face-to-face. There is time now for the explaining, the telling, for the justifying—”
I cut her off curtly. “Is that why you came?”
She sounded a little breathless, if no less definite. “I told you why I came. No one will dance with me. Not in Staal-Ysta, certainly … and I think nowhere else, as well. Women are freer in the North than in the South, but few men will dance against a woman, even in practice bouts. And I need it. Badly. I have lost strength, speed, fitness … I need you to dance with me. If I am to kill Ajani, I must be strong enough to do it.”
I swung, intending to say something, but let it die as I saw how she clung to the boulder. There was no color in her face, none at all, even in her lips. She pressed one arm across her abdomen, as if to hold in her guts. She sagged against the stone.
Oh, hoolies, bascha.
“Don’t touch me,” she said sharply.
I stopped short of her and waited.
She drew in a noisy breath. “Say you will dance with me.”
I spread my hands. “And if I don’t, you won’t let me touch you—is that it? You won’t let me pick you up from the ground—which is where you’ll be in a moment—and carry you to the fire, where there’s food and amnit—”
“Say it,” she said, “and we won’t have to find out that you can’t carry me, which would hurt your pride past repairing.”
“Del, this is ridiculous—”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But we’ve both been that before.”
“If you think I’m going to step into a circle with you after what happened the last time—”
“Just say it!” she cried, and something at last broke. She crossed both arms against her ribs and hugged herself hard, standing only by dint of braced legs and sheer determination. “If I don’t go after him—if I don’t kill Ajani—if I don’t honor my oath …” She grimaced, loosened hair hanging, obscuring much of her face but not the ragged tone in her voice. “I have to, I have to … there is nothing left for me … nothing at all left for me … no parents, no brothers, no aunts and uncles and cousins … not even Kalle is mine—not even my daughter is mine—” She sucked in a painful whooping breath. “Ajani is all I have. His death is all I have. It’s all the honor that’s left.”
I wondered briefly who she was talking to: me or to herself? But I let it go, thinking of something else. “There’s more to honor than that.” I intended to explain thoroughly, but broke it off to catch her as her legs buckled and she slid down the boulder to huddle against cold stone. And discovered she was right: I couldn’t pick her up. So the two of us sat there, cursing private pain, hiding it from one another behind sweaty, muttered curses and denials to half-gasped questions.
“Dance with me,” she said. “Do you want me to beg?”
I gritted it out through tight-shut teeth. “I don’t want you to beg. I don’t want you to dance. I don’t want you to do anything but heal.”
Del curled one hand into a fist and thumped herself weakly in the chest. “It’s all I have—it’s all I am … if I don’t kill Ajani—”
I turned toward her awkwardly, trying not to twist sore flesh. “We’ll talk about that later.”
Her voice was startled. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to peel back some of your layers so I can get a look at your wound.”
“Leave it,” she said, “leave it. It is healing without your help. Do you think they would have let me go if I was in danger of dying?”
“Yes,” I answered bluntly. “Telek and Stigand? And all the rest of the voca? Stupid question, bascha … I’m surprised they didn’t kick you out before this. I’m surprised they didn’t kick you out the day I left.”
“To do that would have dishonored Staal-Ysta,” she said faintly. “I was the chosen champion—”
“—who was meant to die in the circle, dancing with me,” I finished. “Telek and Stigand threw you to the sandtigers, bascha—no joke intended—and they had no intention of you surviving the dance. Your death would have satisfied the honor of Staal-Ysta, and my victory bought me out of the year you pledged me to. In the South we call it two goat kids for a single breeding … it’s what the voca wanted. You dead and me gone. As it is, we’re both gone.”
“And Kalle stays behind.” Her tone was bitter as she twisted away from me and sat up very straight, easing the layers of rucked up wool binding her sore ribs. “So, they got what they wanted. I have lost a daughter, who was perhaps not meant to be mine … but there is still her father. And Ajani I will kill.”
“Which means we’re back where we started.” I drew in a deep breath, caught it sharply on a twinge, let it out slowly again. “What I started to say earlier—”
“I did not come for your advice.” Del pushed herself up awkwardly, straightened with infinite care, walked very slowly toward the roan.
The abruptness of it stunned me. “What?”
She caught the gelding’s reins, led him to a tree safely distant from the stud, tied him. “I did not come for advice. Only for your dancing.”
