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  DAW titles by JENNIFER ROBERSON

  THE SWORD-DANCER SAGA

  SWORD-DANCER

  SWORD-SINGER

  SWORD-MAKER

  SWORD-BREAKER

  SWORD-BORN

  SWORD-SWORN

  SWORD-BOUND

  SWORD-BEARER*

  (THE SWORD-DANCER SAGA is also available in the

  NOVELS OF TIGER AND DEL omnibus editions.)

  CHRONICLES OF THE CHEYSULI

  SHAPECHANGERS

  THE SONG OF HOMANA

  LEGACY OF THE SWORD

  TRACK OF THE WHITE WOLF

  A PRIDE OF PRINCES

  DAUGHTER OF THE LION

  FLIGHT OF THE RAVEN

  A TAPESTRY OF LIONS

  CHEYSULI OMNIBUS EDITIONS

  SHAPECHANGER’S SONG

  (Books One and Two)

  LEGACY OF THE WOLF

  (Books Three and Four)

  CHILDREN OF THE LION

  (Books Five and Six)

  THE LION THRONE

  (Books Seven and Eight)

  THE KARAVANS UNIVERSE

  KARAVANS

  DEEPWOOD

  THE WILD ROAD

  DRAGON MOON*

  THE GOLDEN KEY

  (with Melanie Rawn and Kate Elliott)

  ANTHOLOGIES

  (as editor)

  RETURN TO AVALON

  HIGHWAYMEN: ROBBERS AND ROGUES

  *Coming soon from DAW Books

  SWORD-BOUND

  A Novel of Tiger and Del

  JENNIFER ROBERSON

  DAW BOOKS, INC.

  DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

  SHEILA E. GILBERT

  PUBLISHERS

  www.dawbooks.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Roberson.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Jacket art by Todd Lockwood.

  DAW Books Collector’s No. 1612.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-62581-1

  All characters in the book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  For the readers

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Prologue

  “DOMESTICITY,” my son announced, “has blunted you.”

  He stumbled back from me, nearly stepping outside of the circle. Like me, he wore leather dhoti, no tunic, no sandals; we were dressed for sword-dancing. His skin was tanned, like mine, and, remarkably, clean of scars. Unlike mine. Well, that would change.

  Overhead, the sun burned. In the Punja—the most deadly of deserts—it would drive a sane man to seek the nearest shade, to carry plenty of water, to cover his body with a hooded burnous of nubby silk. But this was not the Punja. This was a place of water, of grass, of high canyon walls that blocked the sun, except when it was directly overhead.

  It was directly overhead now, and it was hot.

  My son, my opponent, stood upright, breathing hard; sweat ran down his dark hair, dripped onto his shoulders. He had grounded his sword in the sand, resting his palm on the pommel, fingers loose. I stared at him, momentarily speechless.

  Domesticity.

  I stood up straight as well, also breathing hard, but did not ground my sword. In fact, I waved it at him, right wrist flexing, supported by musculature developed over decades of practice. Sunlight flashed off the blade.

  “Sharp enough to take you,” I pointed out. “Three dances, three wins, and I’ve just about got this one. Or had this one, before you decided to distract yourself from that fact by opening a topic about which you know nothing.” I waved the sword again. “Blunted, am I?”

  “Your sword isn’t,” he clarified, wary of the exceedingly sharp point. “You are.”

  “I am.”

  “You are.”

  I wasn’t certain we’d make any progress this way. I squinted at him. “Domesticity?”

  “Yes.”

  I said something short and sharp, and it elicited a snicker. “In what way am I blunted?”

  “You used to have adventures,” he said. “Now you stay at home and teach sword-dancing, instead of doing it yourself.”

  It stunned me. “You think I’m not dancing anymore? I do it every day, Neesha! I teach you, even, and I don’t notice you’ve left to go off on any adventures.”

  “I’m thinking about it,” he said, “and I thought you could come with me. Father and son. You know. Bonding.”

  “Bonding,” I muttered between my teeth. Bonding. Bonding? What in hoolies did that mean?

  “Maybe even Del could go.”

  I blinked. “Del?”

  “Sure. The three of us together.”

  I frowned. “Del’s got Sula to look after. She’s only two.”

  Neesha smiled. “Do-mes-ti-city.”

  “And she teaches, too,” I pointed out, meaning Del, not Sula. “When’s the last time you danced with her? Afraid she’ll defeat you?”

  He grinned widely, white teeth flashing in a tanned, handsome face. (I had to admit I’d sired a good-looking kid.) “I’m sure she’d defeat me. But that’s not what I mean. Why not dance for real again? You could leave Sula here with Lena and Alric. They’ve got so many kids now running around like chickens that they wouldn’t even notice another. Besides, Sula stays over there while you and Del are teaching. You know they’d be happy to do it.” He shrugged. “Alric’s domesticated, too, but he seems happy that way. I don’t think you are, and I know Del isn’t.”

  It was a stab in the gut. “Del isn’t?”

  “She adores Sula,” he said, “and she loves you. You stay here, so will she. I’m just saying it would do both of you good to get away for awhile. Accept challenges. Guard a caravan. Get away.” He watched me avidly, then grinned. “Ah-hah! I saw that look on your face. It appeals. You hid it fast enough, but oh, it appeals.”

  Maybe it did. I wouldn’t admit it to him. “I have students.”

  “Right now you have me. Everyone else has gone off to see families or whatever, remember?”

  This was true. Apparently all seven students had gotten itchy feet at the same time—or else the challenges of my discipline had chased them away. Some would come back. I’d left my shodo three times before I finally committed to sticking it out.

  Neesha grinned. “What harm would it do for the great Sandtiger to go out and pract
ice again what he teaches? You would add luster to the legend.”

  Luster to the legend. Like my legend needed any.

  He shrugged. “You’d probably attract more students.”

  Probably. But. “Del and I have enough.”

  “Have more.”

  I sighed. “Neesha, you can go any time you like. Neither I nor Del would suggest you stay here. You’ve learned a great deal in two years.”

  He nodded, but his eyes, as they met mine, were intent. “What level?”

  I shrugged. “Third.”

  He shook his head, lips compressed, tips of damp dark hair brushing his shoulders. “Third’s not good enough.”

  “It takes seven,” I reminded him. “And usually a minimum of ten years.”

  “But of course you did it in seven. Seven levels in seven years.”

  “So I did. But you came here with some skills, and third level in two years is not what I’d call slow.” Now I grounded my sword and, as he did, rested my palm on the pommel with fingers loose. “Go. Leave. Make and accept some challenges, Neesha. Sort out what you want, then come back for more teaching.”

  His eyes met mine and did not waver. “Come with me.”

  I lifted my sword, set the flat of it across one shoulder, turned my back on him, and began to walk away.

  “Think about it,” he called. “And ask Del!”

  I didn’t need to ask her. I knew what she’d say.

  Chapter 1

  “YES,” Del said.

  Pretty much what I expected. Still, “Did he tell you he planned to suggest it?”

  “No.”

  She sat on a bench outside of our little mudbrick house. Scattered nearby was a litter of kittens and their indulgent mother, slitty-eyed in the sun; a handful of chickens pecking for bugs; Alric’s moth-eaten old yellow dog, yipping in his sleep. And our two-year-old daughter, seated in the middle of it all, picking up dirt and flinging it into the air.

  I sighed and sat down next to Del, leaning the sword against the wall. Sula was too busy making a mess to notice the blade. I had learned, once she began to walk—well, more or less walk—that she was worse than a puppy at getting into things. I had eventually trained myself to put the sword and harness up high on pegs pounded into the hand-smoothed wall. For now, I kept one eye on her.

  Which reminded me…“He says I’m domesticated.”

  “Yes.”

  I turned my head with a snap. “You’re saying it, too? And do you plan to say anything in words of more than one syllable?”

  Del smiled. “Maybe.”

  I scowled.

  “Two syllables,” she said, lifting one shoulder in a slight shrug.

  I sighed deeply and set the back of my skull against the mudbrick. “Maybe he’s right.”

  “The Sandtiger is not domesticated, regardless of what his son says. The Sandtiger is teaching what he knows, which is substantial. That’s an honorable thing, Tiger. When Neesha’s older, he’ll recognize that.” She patted me on one thigh. “You’re older, now, yes. You need not go traipsing all across the Punja looking for jobs.”

  I suppose she meant that in a positive way. I was older. So was Del, but we’d met when she was twenty, so she wasn’t exactly old. But I didn’t require being reminded, necessarily, of what I was told each morning when I arose. Creaking bones were noisy. “He says you should go, too.”

  She didn’t respond, merely watched our daughter now attempting to sneak up on Alric’s dog. On hands and knees, and filthier than ever.

  “He says you could leave Sula with Lena and Alric,” I observed idly. “And he’s right: She’s over there half the time.” ‘Over there’ constituted a mudbrick house very like our own, though larger, approximately two hundred long paces away from ours. Alric and Lena had a litter of kids to go along with the litter of kittens.

  “He says I could add luster to the legend. Not that it needs luster, I don’t think.” I paused, waiting for a reply. When it didn’t come, I asked, somewhat aggrieved, “Do you think it needs luster?”

  “I think,” she said finally, “that a shodo could—and perhaps should—venture forth to refine his skills so he can best teach his students what new techniques there may be.”

  “‘Refine his skills’,” I echoed with no intonation that might be interpreted as my being upset.

  Del said, “You’re upset.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  “If you want to.”

  “Is that a roundabout way of saying you’d like to go?”

  “It’s a way of saying I’d go if you want to.”

  “Gah,” I declared, thudding my head against the wall.

  “The same thing applies to me, Tiger.”

  “What applies to you?”

  “I teach, also. I could—and perhaps should—venture forth to refine my skills.”

  I eyed her sidelong. Her white-blonde hair was loose and curtained part of her profile. I couldn’t see her expression. “Are you sure Neesha didn’t address this with you?”

  “Neesha has been muttering about wanting to go for awhile. It started when everyone else left.”

  “I told him he could go!”

  “He didn’t suggest anything to me about you going. Or me.”

  “Oh, he suggested to me that we both go with him.”

  “And so we are back at the beginning,” Del said. “And you had best put up the sword, because Sula is on her way.”

  So she was, still on hands and knees in the dirt but crawling in our direction. Apparently, for the moment, she found it easier than toddling. I picked up the sword and held it high over my head. This technique resulted in my daughter standing up against my knee, clutching flesh, reaching as high as she could in pursuit of the sword.

  “There’s no question,” I observed, “what she will be when she’s grown.”

  “A wooden sword,” Del suggested, “and the blade perhaps padded so when she whacks you on the shin, you won’t come whining to me.”

  I gently but with determination directed Sula aside with a hand cupped over her skull, and stood, once again resting the flat of the sword against my shoulder. I headed for the door. “I think she’s due for a bath.”

  Del said, “Your turn.”

  I paused in the doorway and glanced back. Our daughter, deprived of my sword, was once again sitting in the dirt, stirring up dust. “All right,” I growled. “We’ll go with Neesha.”

  Del smiled serenely. “I thought we might.”

  Sword safely in harness on pegs against the interior wall, I gathered up the bag of lumpy soap, washing cloth, and the folded length of sacking we used for drying our daughter. Went back outside. Scooped up Sula and headed down past the multiple circles pegged out in the earth—as well as multiple footing surfaces for sword-dancing: sand, dirt, grass, gravel, a mix—and took her to the natural pool in the wide stream that ran through the canyon. Alric and I had, over the last two years, built up the edges with mudbrick and rocks, mortaring all into something akin to a fire ring surround, except much larger, and its contents were water, not flame. Everyone at this end of the canyon used it for bathing but also for fishing. On hot days, the dog used it for swimming. It was a very accommodating pool.

  Despite the warmth of the day, the brightness of the sun directly overhead, the water was cool. I stepped over the surround and into the shallow-edged pool carefully, still barefoot and therefore attempting to miss rocks beneath the surface. I planted my butt just on the edge of the bank, lowered Sula, and tolerated the usual squeaks and shrieks as her lower legs made contact with cool water. One big hand clamped onto a small arm, I dumped the bag of soap and fabric out onto the bank, then stripped off Sula’s tunic. This occasioned more squeaks and shrieks, and vehement protestations involving a squirming, naked body.

  She was lovely, my little girl, if loud. Prior to her arrival, I had never spent time examining small children. Or infants, or even older children. Children were—other beings. Eventually they became men
and women, but for years they were simply—other beings.

  Sula, of course, was not and never had been an other being. She was mine. Del’s. Ours. Oh, Neesha was mine as well, but he had arrived in my life a young but fully grown man. No soiled loin wrappings. He could even bathe himself.

  I sluiced handfuls of water over my protesting daughter, top to bottom. She did have a vocabulary—two languages, no less; Southron and Northern—but it was relatively limited as yet and often consisted of “No,” if in two languages.

  “Yes,” I said. In one.

  She was a blend of us both. Not as dark as I, nor as Neesha; eyes were blue, hair was blonde but not as pale as Del’s. Del said it would likely darken as she grew. Del also said it had my wave, and tended to stick out in bizarre sculptural shapes after naps.

  Suds. Wash. Sluice.

  Domesticated.

  Yes.

  I swore. Then told Sula she shouldn’t swear and inwardly swore again that I had done so outwardly. Dammit.

  The Sandtiger, the celebrated seventh-level Sandtiger, infamous throughout the South, sat on his butt on the damp bank of a stream soaping up, scrubbing down, and rinsing off a two-year-old girl.

  I swore again. But very quietly.

  And Sula was shrieking anyway, much too loud to hear me.

  “Of course,” Southron-born Lena said, as she squashed dough on a flat wooden square Alric had adzed and rubbed smooth for her. The kitchen consisted of a small mudbrick fireplace, rounded like a beehive but boasting a gaping mouth that allowed access to the turnspit; cleverly, a narrow chimney forced smoke out of the daub-and-wattle roof. There was also a barrel of water and a narrow plank workspace snugged up against one wall. Alric was somewhat handier than I, and he had built something identical for Del and me in our smaller house.

  “Of course,” Northern-born Alric said, watching his wife work. The children were, as usual, tearing in and out of the house. I’d given up trying to count them.

  “Go,” Lena said.

  Alric nodded. “Go.”

  “No trouble,” she told me comfortably, flour to her elbows.

  “None,” Alric agreed, flour on his nose.