Sword-Maker, page 6
“Just do it—” I blurted.
And then the beast was lunging away, evading the blade yet again. It left me in the darkness and fled away into the trees.
I lay sprawled on my back, one hand at my throat busily digging through woolen wrappings to see if I was whole. To feel if my flesh was bleeding. I yanked wool away with some violence, then heaved a sigh of relief as nothing but skin met my fingers. No blood or torn flesh at all; only whole, unbitten skin.
Meanwhile, Del ignored me entirely and stepped across my body to follow the spoor of the beast. Just in case it might double back. Just in case it might have companions. Not a bad idea, but she might have thought of me. After all, for all she knew I could be bleeding to death right there on the ground, dwindling bit by bit—or bucket by bucket—before her eyes.
Except she wasn’t looking. Which sort of ruined the effect.
I felt the thong at my neck, heard the rattle of claws, felt relief wash quickly through me. Which meant I was perfectly entitled to be testy, since there was nothing wrong with me.
I let Del get four steps. “Don’t bother,” I said. “It got what it came for.”
She swung back, sword aglint. “What do you mean, ‘what it came for’?”
I sat up slowly, still massaging the flesh of my throat. It felt bruised; no surprise. “The whistle,” I told her hoarsely. “The Cantéada ward-whistle. That’s what it wanted.” Not my claws after all, though I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t think she’d understand why I’d worried about it at all.
Del glanced back into the shadows. I knew the beast was gone; the stink of it had faded. But she waited, sword at the ready, until her own suspicions died. And then she came to me.
“Let me see,” she said.
Finally. But I shrugged negligence as she knelt down, setting Boreal close at hand. “I’m all right. It didn’t even break the skin.”
Del’s hands were insistent. She peeled back wrappings, shoved my hand aside, carefully examined flesh in the thin light of the moon.
It was odd having her so close to me after so long a separation. I smelled her familiar scent, felt her familiar touch, saw her familiar face; the faint frown between her brows. At moments like this it was hard to recall just what had come between us.
And then there were other moments when I remembered all too well.
Ah, hoolies, bascha … too much sand blown out of the desert.
If Del was aware of my scrutiny, she made no sign of it. She simply examined my throat carefully, nodded slightly, then took her hands away. “So,” she said, “they have learned. And we are back where we started.”
“Not quite,” I muttered. “Too much sand blown out of the desert.”
Del frowned. “What?”
For some reason, I was irritated. “We’re not back where we started because too many things have changed.” I shifted position, felt the pull of newly stretched scar tissue, tried to hide the discomfort from her. Just as she hid her own from me. “Go back to sleep, Del. I’ll take first watch.”
“You’re in no shape for that.”
“Neither of us are, but we’ll each of us have to do it. I just thought I might as well start.”
She considered protesting, but didn’t. She knew better; I was right. And so she went back to her bedding on the other side of the cairn and wrapped herself in pelts. All I could see of her was the dim pale glow of her hair.
I sorted out my own tumbled bedding and made sense of it again. And then I settled carefully, snugging deep into cloak and pelts, and prepared to wait through the night. I wanted to give her till dawn; she’d done the same for me.
Trouble was, I couldn’t.
It didn’t take much. Just a glance at Del on the far side of the cairn, all bound up in pelts and blankets. The glow of the moon in her hair. The sound of her even breathing. And all the feelings recalled.
I sat there rigidly, half sick. Joints ached, my wound throbbed, the flesh of my throat complained. Even my head hurt. Because I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw threatened to crack.
Just tell her, you fool. Tell her the truth.
Across the cairn, she settled. Hurting at least as much as I, inside and out.
Deep in my belly, something tightened. Not desire. Something more powerful yet: humiliation. And more than a little discomfort. Of the spirit as well as the flesh.
Oh, hoolies, fool, just tell her the truth.
Just open your mouth and talk; it’s never been very hard.
You made Del ask for atonement. She’s at least due an explanation.
But that she hadn’t asked for one made me feel even worse.
Something inside of me quailed. Guilt. Regret. Remorse. Enough to break a man.
But the woman was due the words.
I stared hard out into the darkness. The night was quiet, save for its normal song. It was cold—colder in bed alone—but spring promised warmer nights. Already the color was different.
You’re avoiding the truth, old man.
The woman is due the words. The least you can do is say them out loud where she can hear them, instead of inside your head.
Easier thought than said.
I looked at Del again. And knew all too well that even though she was—and had been—wrong, I shared the responsibility of putting things to rights. Of admitting my own faults. Because when things have gone awry, it takes two to straighten them out.
I drew in a deep breath, so deep it made me lightheaded, then blew it out again. And finally opened my mouth. This time the words would be spoken instead of locked away.
“I was afraid,” I told her. “I was scared to death. I was everything you accused me of earlier. And it was why I left Staal-Ysta.”
I knew she was still awake. But Del said nothing.
“I left on purpose,” I continued stolidly. “I wasn’t driven out, or invited out, or even asked to leave; I was a kaidin, according to all the customs, and they had no right to ask it. I could have stayed. They would have let me stay, to see if you lived or died … but I couldn’t. I saw you lying there in the circle, cut open by my sword, and I left you behind on purpose.”
Del was very still.
I scraped a tongue across too-dry lips. “They put you in Telek’s lodge—in Telek’s!—because it was the closest. Because they thought you would die, and that your daughter deserved to watch. To hear the funeral songs.”
Her breath rasped faintly.
“They stitched me back together—you carved me up pretty good—and gave me the gifts bestowed upon a new kaidin. I had, they said, conducted myself honorably, and was therefore due the tribute as well as the rank. They patched me up, gave me gifts, rowed me across the lake.” I swallowed painfully; it was much harder than I’d imagined. “I knew you were alive. When I left. I knew. But I thought you would die. I thought you would die. I thought—I did—I just … and I couldn’t—I just couldn’t—” I let it trail off. The emptiness was incredible. “Oh, hoolies, Del … of all the lives I’ve taken, I couldn’t face taking yours.”
Silence. It hadn’t come out the way I’d wanted it to. I hadn’t said everything that needed saying, that I wanted to say; I couldn’t. How could I explain what I’d experienced when I’d felt my own sword cut into her body? How could I tell her what it was to see her lying on hardpacked dirt like a puppeteer’s broken toy, bisected by my sword? How could I tell her how frightened I had been, how sickened I had been? How much in that moment I had wished myself in her place?
How could I tell her I was absolutely certain she would die—and I couldn’t bear to watch it?
And so I had left her. While she lived. So I could remember her alive.
For me, it was very important. It was necessary. It was required, as so many things have been required of me. Required by myself.
Silence, while I sat there waiting for her to say something about my cowardice. My lack of empathy. My willingness to leave her on Staal-Ysta before her fate was known. I’d made her ask my forgiveness; now I needed hers.
And then, at last, a response. But her tone was oddly detached. “You should have killed me. You should have finished it. Blooding and Keying in me would have made you invincible.” Del sighed a little. “The magic of the North and all the power of the South. Invincibility, Sandtiger. A man to be reckoned with.”
I drew in a steadying breath. The worst, for me, was over. I think. “I’m already that,” I said dryly. “I’m everything I want to be right now, this minute, here. I don’t need magic for that. Certainly not the kind of magic that comes from killing people.”
Del tightened wrappings, locking the cold away. Locking herself inside, as she did so very often. “You should have killed me,” she said. “Now I have no name. A blade without a name.”
There was grief. Anguish. Bitterness. The painful yearning of an exile for a land no longer hers. For a world forever denied, except in memories.
I stared blindly into the dark. “And a song that never ends?”
Clearly, it stung. “I will end it,” she declared. “I will end my song. Ajani will die by my hand.”
I let a moment go by. “What then, Delilah?”
“There is Ajani. Only Ajani.”
She was cold, hard, relentless. Focused on her task. Her sword had answered her plea.
But how much of it was the sword? How much merely Del? How responsible are any of us for what we do to survive, to make our way in the world?
How hard do we make ourselves to accomplish the hardest goal?
Quietly, I said, “I’m not going South.”
Huddled in bedding, Del was little more than an indistinguishable lump of shadow against the ground. But now she sat up.
The moonlight set her aglow as blankets fell back from her shoulders: pristine white against dappled darkness. Her hair, unbraided, was tousled, tumbling over her shoulders. Curtaining the sides of her face.
She stared at me, frowning. “I did wonder why they told me you were going to Ysaa-den. I thought at first perhaps they lied, merely to trouble me—it was far out of my way, and yours, if I was to go to the South—but then I found your tracks, and it was true.” She shook her head. “But I don’t understand why. You’ve been complaining about the snow and the cold ever since we crossed the border.”
I listened to her tone, hearing echoes and nuances; her fight to maintain balance. “I don’t like it,” I agreed. “I didn’t like it before we crossed the border. But there’s something I have to do.”
I also didn’t like the look of her. The intensity. She was too thin, too drawn, too obsessed with Ajani. The sword had cut her flesh, but the man had hurt her more.
Del’s tone was carefully modulated so as not to show too much. All the same, it showed enough. “I thought you’d go south at once.”
“No. Not this time.”
“I thought the Sandtiger roamed wherever he wanted, unbound by other desires.” She paused. “At least, he used to.”
I shut my eyes, waited a beat, answered her quietly. “It won’t work, Del. You’ve pushed me this way and that way like an oracle bone for months, now. No more. There are things I have to do.”
“I have to go south.”
“Who’s stopping you? Weren’t you the one who spent five years apprenticing on Staal-Ysta just so you could go south all by yourself? Weren’t you the one who went hunting the Sandtiger with only a storm-born sword for companionship? Weren’t you—”
“Enough, Tiger. Yes, I did all those things. And I have done this thing: I have come to you asking your help in making me fit again. But if you are unwilling to give it—”
“I’ll give it,” I interrupted. “I said that already, after you did your little ritual. But I can’t go south right away, which means if you really want my help, you’ll have to come along.”
“Something has happened,” she said suspiciously. “Did Telek and Stigand force you to swear oaths? Did they give you a task? Did you make promises to the voca in exchange for tending me?”
“No. I have every intention of going home as soon as I’ve tracked them to their lair. It has nothing to do with oaths to Telek and Stigand, or promises to the voca. It’s just something I want to do.” I paused. “And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to come.”
“Tracked who—?” She broke it off. “Those beasts? The hounds? Oh, Tiger, you don’t mean—”
“I made a promise, Del. To myself. I intend to keep it.”
Wide-eyed, she stared at me, which didn’t make me feel any better. No man likes having it thrown in his face that he’s lacked responsibility throughout much of his life; me making this promise exhibited a new side of the Sandtiger. Del didn’t exactly say anything, but then she didn’t have to. All she had to do was stare at me in exactly the way she was.
“Tiger—”
“It’s why I’m out here in the middle of a Northern nowhere, Del; why else? I’m tracking those hounds. To Ysaa-den or wherever. To whoever—I intend to find the sorcerer who set them loose.”
“And kill him,” she clarified.
“I imagine so,” I agreed. “Unless, of course, he’s polite enough to stop on my say-so.”
She hooked hair behind her ears. “So. You’re tracking the hounds in order to kill their master, and I’m tracking Ajani with much the same end in mind. What is the difference, Tiger? Why are you right and I’m wrong?”
“I don’t want to argue about this—”
“I’m not arguing. I’m asking.”
“My reasons are a bit different from yours,” I said testily. “Aside from hounding us for more months than I care to remember, those beasts have also killed people. And some were children.”
“Yes,” Del agreed, “as Ajani killed my kin … including all the babies.”
“Oh, hoolies, Del—” I shifted position, wished I hadn’t. “What you’re after is revenge, pure and simple. I’m not saying it’s wrong—what Ajani did was horrible—but I think you’ve lost sight of reality. What’s driving you now is misplaced pride and utter obsession—and that’s not healthy for anyone.”
“You think I’d be better off in some man’s bed, or in some man’s house, bearing him fourteen sons.”
I blinked. “Fourteen might be a bit much. Hard on the woman, I’d think.”
Del bit back a retort. “Tiger, do you deny it? Wouldn’t you rather see me in some man’s bed instead of in the circle?” She paused delicately. “In your bed, maybe, instead of in your circle?”
“You’ve been in my bed,” I answered bluntly, “and you’ve been in my circle. I don’t know what the first one got you, but the second nearly killed you.”
That she hurt was obvious; that I’d cut too deep equally so. “So it did,” she sighed finally. “Yes, so it did. As for the first? I don’t know. I don’t know what it got me. I don’t know what it should have—do we put a price on bedding?”
“I’m going north,” I told her. “Or wherever it is the hounds go. You can come, or not. It’s up to you. But if you do, we’ll put a price on nothing. No bedding, Del. Will that make you happy?”
She stared back at me. “I thought that would be your price.”
“For sparring with you?” I shook my head. “Once, yes. Back when we first met, and you promised me a bedding in place of coin you didn’t have. And you paid, bascha. You paid very nicely, eventually … except by that time I wasn’t exactly counting. Neither, I think, were you—so that debt we’ll call forgiven.” I shrugged. “If you want to come along with me now to get your practice in so you can face Ajani, that’s fine with me. But things can’t be the same, not after all that’s happened.”
“You won’t last,” she predicted. “This could take weeks, and you don’t do days very well.”
“Bet me,” I said.
Slowly Del smiled. “I know you, Tiger. This isn’t a fair wager. Not for you. I know you.”
“Do you? Really? Then let me tell you why it is a fair wager.” I held her eyes with my own. “When a man’s been made a fool of, he doesn’t much feel like going to bed with the woman who did it. When a man has been used—without his permission or knowledge—he doesn’t much feel like going to bed with the woman who did the using.” With effort, I kept my tone uninflected. “And when that woman, faced with the truth of what she did, adamantly refuses to admit she was wrong, he doesn’t really care about the bedding any more. Because what he likes in that woman is more than just her body and what it can do for him in bed. What he likes in that woman is her loyalty and honesty and honor.”
Del said nothing. I don’t think she could.
“But then you’ve sort of set aside all those useless attributes in the last year, haven’t you, Delilah? So I guess what I feel doesn’t matter so much any more.”
Del’s face was colorless. “Tiger—”
“Think about it,” I said. “And think about me for a change, instead of your oaths of honor. Instead of your obsession.”
Shock receded slowly. I’d struck a number of chords within her, but clearly she was unprepared to deal with what I’d said. And so she returned to the original topic. “I still say—I still say—the bet is a waste of time.”
I shrugged. “So let’s test it.”
Her eyes were assessive. “How much are you willing to wager?”
I stared hard at her for a moment. Then pulled my sword from its sheath.
It felt right. Warm and good and right, like a woman hugging your neck.
Like a fully quenched jivatma making promises to protect you.
All the hairs stood up on my arms. It took all the strength I had to put the sword down. In fitful, tarnished moonlight, the new-made jivatma gleamed.
Color drained from her face. I nodded confirmation of the question she wouldn’t ask. “Now you know how serious I am.”
“But—you can’t. You can’t wager your sword.”
“I just did.”
She stared at the weapon lying mutely in front of my knees. “What would I do with it?”
“If you won—and you won’t—anything you want. He’d be your sword.”
“I have a sword.” Her left hand went out to touch the harness and sheath lying at her side. “I have a sword, Tiger.”
