Sword-Dancer Read online

  That’ll do nicely, thank you.

  Two

  Osmoon the Trader was not happy to see me. He glared at me from his little black pig-eyes and didn’t even offer me a drink, which told me precisely how angry he was. I waved away the smoke of sandalwood incense drifting between us (wishing he’d widen the vent in the poled top of his saffron-colored hyort), and outwaited him.

  Breath hissed between his gold teeth. “You send me a bascha like that, Tiger, and then say to keep her for you? Why did you bother to send her to me in the first place if you wanted her for yourself?”

  I smiled at him placatingly. It doesn’t do to rile past and potential allies, even if you are the Sandtiger. “This one requires special handling.”

  He swore to the god of slavers; an improbable series of names for a deity I’d never had the necessity of calling on, myself. Frankly, I think Old Moon made it up. “Special handling!” he spat out. “Special taming, you mean. Do you know what she did?”

  Since there was no way I could know, short of having him tell me, I waited again. And he told me.

  “She nearly sliced off what remains of the manhood of my best eunuch!” Moon’s affronted stare invited abject apologies; I merely continued waiting, promising nothing. “The poor thing ran screaming out of the hyort and I couldn’t pry him from the neck of his boy-lover until I promised to beat the girl.”

  That deserved a response. I glared at him. “You beat her?”

  Moon stared at me in some alarm and smiled weakly, showing the wealth of gold shining in his mouth. I realized my hand had crept to the knife at my belt. I decided to leave it there, if only for effect.

  “I didn’t beat her.” Moon eyed my knife. He knows how deadly I can be with it, and how fast, even though it isn’t my best weapon. That sort of reputation comes in handy. “I couldn’t—I mean, she’s a Northerner. You know what those women are. Those—those Northern women.”

  I ignored the latter part of the explanation. “What did you do to her?” I looked at him sharply. “You do still have her—”

  “Yes!” His teeth glinted. “Ai, Tiger, do you think I am a forgetful man, to lose such things?” Offended again, he scowled. “Yes, I have her. I had to tie her up like a sacrificial goat, but I have her. You may take her off my hands, Tiger. The sooner the better.”

  I was mildly concerned by his willingness to lose so valuable a commodity. “Is she hurt? Is that why you don’t want her?” I glared at him. “I know you, Moon. You’d try a doublecross if the stakes were high enough. Even on me.” I glared harder. “What have you done to her?”

  He waved be-ringed hands in denial. “Nothing! Nothing! Ai, Tiger, the woman is unblemished.” The hands stopped waving and the voice altered. “Wellll … almost unblemished. I had to knock her on the head. It was the only way I could keep her from slicing my manhood off—or casting some spell at me.”

  “Who was stupid enough to let her get her hands on a knife?” I was unimpressed by Moon’s avowals of her witchcraft or the picture of the slaver losing the portion of his anatomy he so willingly ordered removed from his property, to improve temperament and price. “And anyway, a knife in the hands of a woman shouldn’t pose much of a threat to Osmoon the Trader.”

  “Knife!” he cried, enraged. “Knife? The woman had a sword as long as yours!”

  That stopped me cold. “Sword?”

  “Sword.” Moon glared back at me. “It’s very sharp, Tiger, and it’s bewitched … and she knows how to use it.”

  I sighed. “Where is it?”

  Moon grumbled to himself and got up, shuffling across layered rugs to a wooden chest bound with brass. He lives well but not ostentatiously, not wishing to call excess attention to himself. The local tanzeers know all about his business, and because they get a healthy cut of the profits, they don’t bother him much. But then they don’t know just how healthy the business is. If they knew, undoubtedly they’d all demand a bigger cut. Possibly even his head.

  Moon lifted back the lid of his chest and stood over it, hands on hips. He stared down into the contents, but didn’t reach down to pick anything out. He just stared, and then I saw how his hands rubbed themselves on the the fabric of his burnous, brown palms against heavy yellow silk, until I got impatient and told him to hurry it up.

  He turned to face me. “It’s—it’s in here.”

  I waited.

  He gestured. “Here. Do you want it?”

  “I said I did.”

  One plump hand waved fingers at the chest. “Well—here it is. You can come get it.”

  “Moon … hoolies, man, will you bring me the woman’s sword? What’s so hard about that?”

  He was decidedly unhappy. But after a moment he muttered a prayer to some other unpronounceable god and plunged his hands into the chest.

  He came up with a scabbarded sword. Quickly he turned and rushed back across the hyort, then dumped the sheathed sword down in front of me as if relieved to let go of it. I stared up at him in surprise. And again, brown palms rubbed against yellow silk.

  “There,” he said breathlessly, “there.”

  I frowned. Moon is a sharp, shrewd man, born of the South and all of its ways. His “trading” network reaches into all portions of the Punja, and I’d never known him to exhibit anything akin to fear… unless, of course, circumstances warranted a performance including the emotion. But this was no act. This was insecurity and apprehension and nervousness, all tied up into one big ball of blatant fear.

  “What’s your problem?” I inquired mildly.

  Moon opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “She’s a Northerner,” he muttered. “So’s that thing.”

  He pointed to the scabbarded sword, and at last I understood. “Ah. You think the sword’s been bewitched. Northern witch, Northern sorcery.” I nodded benignly. “Moon—how many times have I told you magic is something used by tricksters who want to con other people? Half the time I don’t think there is any magic—but what there is, is little more than a game for gullible fools.”

  His clenched jaw challenged me. On this subject, Moon was never an ally.

  “Trickery,” I told him. “Nonsense. Mostly illusion, Moon. And those things you’ve heard about Northern sorcery and witches are just a bunch of tales made up by Southron mothers to tell their children at bedtime. Do you really think this woman is a witch?”

  He was patently convinced she was. “Call me a fool, Tiger. But I say you are one for being so blind to the truth.” One hand stabbed out to indicate the sword he’d dumped in my lap. “Look at that, Tiger. Touch it, Tiger. Look at those runes and shapes, and tell me it isn’t the weapon of a witch.”

  I scowled at him, but for once he was neither intimidated or impressed. He just went back to his carpet on the other side of the incense brazier and settled his rump upon it, lower lip pushed out in indignation. Moon was offended: I doubted him. Only an apology would restore his good will. (Except I don’t see much sense in offering an apology for something that makes no sense.)

  I touched the sheath, running appreciative fingers over the hard leather. Plain, unadorned leather, similar to my own; a harness, not a swordbelt, which surprised me a little. But then, hearing Moon name this sword the girl’s weapon surprised me even more.

  The hilt was silver, chased by skilled hands into twisted knotwork and bizarre, fluid shapes. Staring at those shapes, I tried to make them out; tried to make sense of the design. But it all melted together into a single twisted line that tangled the eyes and turned them inward upon themselves.

  I blinked, squinting a little, and put my hand on the hilt to slide the blade free of the sheath—

  —and felt the cold, burning tingle run across my palms to settle into my wrists.

  I let go of the hilt at once.

  Moon’s grunt, eloquent in its simplicity, was one of smug satisfaction.

  I scowled at him, then at the sword. And this time when I put my hand on the hilt, I did it quickly, gritting my teeth
. I jerked the blade from the sheath.

  My right hand, curled around the silver hilt, spasmed. Almost convulsively, it closed more tightly on the hilt. I thought for a moment my flesh had fused itself to the metal, was made one with the twisting shapes, but almost immediately my skin leaped back. As my fingers unlocked and jerked away from the hilt, I felt the old, cold breath of death put a finger on my soul.

  Tap. Tap. Nail against soul. Tiger, are you there?

  Hoolies, yes! I was there. And intended to remain there, alive and well, regardless of that touch; that imperious, questioning tone.

  But almost at once I let go of the hilt altogether, and the sword—now free—fell across my lap.

  Cold, cold blade, searing the flesh of my thighs.

  I pushed it out of my lap to the rug at once. I wanted to scramble away from it entirely, leaping up to put even more room between the sword and my flesh—

  And then I thought about how stupid it would be—am I not a sword-dancer, who deals with death every time I enter the circle?—and didn’t. I just sat there, defying the unexpected response of my own body and glaring down at the sword. I felt the coldness of its flesh as if it still touched mine. Ignored it, when I could.

  A Northern sword. And the North is a place of snow and ice.

  The first shock had worn off. My skin, acclimated to the nearness of the alien metal, no longer shrank upon my bones. I took a deep breath to settle the galloping in my guts, then took a closer look at the sword. But I didn’t touch it.

  The blade was a pale, pearly salmon-pink with a tinge of blued steel—except it didn’t look much like steel. Iridescent runes spilled down from the gnarled crosspiece. Runes I couldn’t read.

  I resorted to my profession in order to restore my equilibrium. I jerked a dark brown hair from my head and dragged it across the edge. The hair separated without a snag. The edge of the odd-colored blade was at least as sharp as Singlestroke’s plain blued-steel, which didn’t please me much.

  I gave myself no time for considereation. Gritting my teeth, I plucked the sword off the rug and slid it back into its scabbard with numb, tingling hands—and felt the coldness melt away.

  For a moment, I just stared at the sword. Sheathed, it was a sword. Just—a sword.

  After a moment. I looked at Moon. “How good is she?”

  The question surprised him a little; it surprised me a lot. Her skill might have impressed Moon (who is more accustomed to women throwing themselves at his chubby feet and begging for release, rather than trying to slice into his fat flesh), but I know better than to think of a sword in a woman’s hands. Women don’t use swords in the South; as far as I know, they don’t use them in the North, either. The sword is a man’s weapon.

  Moon scowled at me sourly. “Good enough to give you a second thought. She unleashed that thing in here and it was all I could do to get a rope on her.”

  “How did you catch her, then?” I asked suspiciously.

  He picked briefly at gold teeth with a red-lacquered fingernail and shrugged. “I hit her on the head.” Sighed as I scowled at him. “I waited until she was busy trying to eviscerate the eunuch. But even then, she nearly stuck me through the belly.” One spread hand guarded a portion of the soft belly swathed in silk. “I was lucky she didn’t kill me.”

  I grunted absently and rose, holding the Northern sword by its plain leather scabbard. “Which hyort is she in?”

  “The red one,” he said immediately. My, but he did want to get rid of her, which suited me just fine. “And you ought to thank me for keeping her, Tiger. Someone else came looking for her.”

  I stopped short of the doorflap. “Someone else?”

  He picked at his teeth again. “A man. He didn’t give his name. Tall, dark-haired—very much like you. Sounded like a Northerner, but he spoke good Desert.” Moon shrugged. “He said he was hunting a Northern girl … one who wore a sword.”

  I frowned. “You didn’t give her away—?”

  Offended again, Moon drew himself up. “You sent her with your words, and I honored those words.”

  “Sorry.” Absently, I scowled at the slaver. “He went on?”

  “He spent a night and rode on. He never saw the girl.”

  I grunted. Then I went out of the hyort.

  Moon was right: he’d trussed her up like a sacrificial goat, wrists tied to ankles so that she bowed in half, but at least he’d made certain her back bent the proper way. He doesn’t, always.

  She was conscious. I didn’t exactly approve of Moon’s methods (or his business, when it came down to it), but at least he still had her. He might have given her over to whoever it was who was hunting her.

  “The Sandtiger plays for keeps,” I said lightly, and she twisted her head so she could look at me.

  All her glorious hair was spread about her shoulders and the blue rug on which she lay. Osmoon had stripped the white burnous from her (wanting to see what he wouldn’t get, I suppose) but hadn’t removed the thigh-length, belted leather tunic she wore under it. It left her arms and most of her legs bare, and I saw that every inch of her was smooth and tautly muscled. Sinews slid and twisted beneath that pale skin as she shifted on the rug, and I realized the sword probably did belong to her after all, improbable as it seemed. She had the body and the hands for it.

  “Is it because of you I’m being held like this?” she demanded.

  Sunlight burned its way through the crimson fabric of the hyort. It bathed her in an eerie carnelian glow and purpled the blue rug into the color of darkest wine; the color of ancient blood.

  “It’s because of me you’re being held like this,” I agreed, “because otherwise Moon would’ve sold you off by now.” I bent down, sliding my knife free, and sliced her bonds. She winced as stiffened muscles protested, so I set down her sword and massaged the long, firm calves and shoulders subtly corded with toughened muscle.

  “You have my sword!” In her surprise, she ignored my hands altogether.

  I thought about allowing those hands to drift a little southward of her shoulders, then decided against it. She might be stiff after a few days of captivity, but if she had the reflexes I thought she did, I’d be asking for trouble. No sense pushing my luck so soon.

  “If it is your sword,” I said.

  “It’s mine.” She pushed my hands away and rose, stifling a groan. The leather tunic hit her mid-thigh and I saw the odd runic glyphs stitching a border around the hem and neck in blue thread that matched her eyes. “Did you unsheathe it?” she demanded, and there was something in her tone that gave me pause.

  “No.” I said, after a moment of heavy silence.

  Visibly, she relaxed. Her hand caressed the odd silver hilt without showing any indication she felt the same icy numbness I’d experienced. She almost touched it as a lover welcoming back a long-missed sweetheart.

  “Who are you?” I asked suddenly, assailed by a rather odd sensation. Runes on the sword blade, runes on the tunic. Those twisted, dizzying shapes worked into the hilt. The sensation of death when I touched it. What if she were some sort of familiar sent by the gods to determine if my time had come, and whether I was worthy of valhail or hoolies for a place of eternal rest—or torment?

  And then I felt disgustingly ludicrous, which was just as well, because I’d never thought much about my end before. Sword-dancers simply fight until someone kills them; we don’t spend our time worrying over trivial details like our ultimate destination. I certainly don’t.

  She wore sandals like mine, cross-gartered to her knees. The laces were gold-colored and only emphasized the length of her legs, which almost put her on a level with me. I stared at her in astonishment as she rose, for her head came to my chin, and very few men reach that high.

  She frowned a little. “I thought Southroners were short.”

  “Most are. I’m not. But then—I’m not your average Southroner.” Blandly, I smiled.

  She raised pale brows. “And do average Southroners send women into a trap?”


  “To keep you out of a greater one, I sent you into a small one.” I grinned. “It was a trick, I agree, and maybe a trifle uncomfortable, but it kept you out of the clutches of a lustful tanzeer, didn’t it? When you told Moon ‘the Sandtiger plays for keeps,’ he knew enough to hang onto you until I got here, instead of selling you to the highest bidder. Since you were so insistent on seeing him without my personal assistance, I had to do something.”

  A momentary glint in her eyes. Appraisal. “Then it was for my—protection.”

  “In a backhanded sort of way.”

  She slanted a sharp, considering glance at me, then smiled a little. She got busy slipping her arms into the sword harness, buckling it and arranging it so the hilt reared over the top of her left shoulder, just as Singlestroke rode mine. Her movements were quick and lithe, and I didn’t doubt for a moment she could nearly emasculate a eunuch who had very little left to lose anyway.

  My palms tingled as I recalled the visceral response of my body to the touch of the Northern sword. “Why don’t you tell me what business it is you have with Old Moon, and maybe I can help,” I said abruptly, wanting to banish the sensation and recollection.

  “You can’t help.” One hand tucked hair behind an ear as she settled the leather harness.

  “Why not?”

  “You just can’t.” She swung out of the hyort and marched across the sand to Moon’s tent.

  I caught up. But before I could stop her she had drawn the silver-hilted sword and sliced the doorflap clear off his hyort. Then she was inside, and as I jumped in behind her I saw her put the deadly tip of the shining blade into the hollow of Moon’s brown throat.

  “In my land I could kill you for what you did to me.” But she said it coolly, without heat; an impartial observation, lacking passion, and yet somehow it made her threat a lot more real. “In my land, if I didn’t kill you, I’d be named coward. Not an-ishtoya, or even a plain ishtoya. But I’m a stranger here and without knowledge of your customs, so I’ll let you live.” A trickle of blood crept from beneath the tip pressing into Moon’s flesh. “You are a foolish little man. It’s hard to believe you had a part in disposing of my brother.”