Sword-Singer Page 21

  He came at once, peering up at the hole I’d found. “Too high,” he said.

  “The whole point,” I agreed. “Here—I’ll give you a boost. Come on.”

  Garrod dismounted and conducted his own search, motioning Cipriana and her mother to dismount and join him. It didn’t take long for him to discover a ledge just large enough for two. He boosted the girl up, then Adara, and told them both to stay put.

  “What about you?” Cipriana asked. Her voice echoed in the canyon.

  He was clearly pleased, though he answered calmly enough. “I will stay down with the horses.”

  “But—if those things break through—”

  “I will stay with the horses,” he repeated, with a strange dignity. “They will be frightened also. I can make them feel better.”

  I shot him a sardonic glance as I led the stud to the wall and looped his reins over an outcrop. “By talking to them, Garrod?”

  He was unoffended. “I’ve heard you talk to your stud.”

  “That’s different,” I pointed out. “That’s just talking. He doesn’t really understand me.”

  Garrod grunted. “Do you want me to find out?”

  I thought about it. If he could talk to the stud—no, never mind. “Nah,” I told him. “He and I do fine.”

  Del stood by her “throat.” She frowned a little, intently studying the interior of the canyon, the narrow entranceway, the bulging lobes of stone on either side. And then abruptly made a decision; she turned and walked swiftly straight to Garrod, who stood talking quietly to his horses.

  “I need one,” she said.

  Interrupted, he looked at her with an oddly unfocused stare. “What?”

  “I need one.” Del repeated, gesturing to his horses. “Now.”

  Garrod frowned. “Why? Do you mean to ride back? I thought Tiger said this was the best place to turn them.”

  “It is,” she agreed evenly, “but we need something to block the entrance, like a stopper in a bottle.”

  I understood instantly, admiring her plan, as well as her courage in asking Garrod to make such a sacrifice. Watching the interplay, I scratched thoughtfully at my scars; Garrod wouldn’t like it at all, once he understood exactly what she meant.

  For now, he didn’t. Braid beads rattled as he shook his head. “When the beasts come, the horse will never stand. He’ll try to run, and you’ll lose your stopper.”

  “Not if he can’t run.” Del’s hand was more imperative. “Give me a horse, Garrod. I can ride double with Tiger.”

  Abruptly, he understood. Pale eyes widened in astonished disbelief, then narrowed angrily. I don’t know exactly what he said, since he said it in uplander dialect, but clearly it wasn’t polite. It also wasn’t agreement.

  The yapping intensified. Del ignored Garrod’s diatribe and reached out to catch the reins to the nearest horse. It was the sorrel she had ridden.

  He is fast, the Northerner. He had his knife out before I could reach him, but I swept aside the angry attempt and carried him back against the wall.

  “No,” I said calmly, squeezing the knife from his hand.

  He didn’t even glance at me, though I held him pressed against the cliff. Instead he stared past me at Del, who led the sorrel to the opening. His fair-skinned face was blotched with anger. “She can’t kill him—she can’t kill him—”

  “She can,” I said quietly. “It’s to save our lives, Garrod.”

  “How can she kill a horse?”

  Del positioned the sorrel so that he stood sideways in the throat, blocking the opening.

  Garrod lunged off the wall, set me back two steps, tried to twist free. He nearly did it, too; I only just managed to swing him back around and smash him against the wall. “We don’t have time for this, Garrod—”

  He swore viciously, cutting me off, and spat out something in uplander slang. Something, I think, about an old man and a nanny goat.

  I leaned on him a little, smiling. “If you like, we can use you to block the gate.”

  Garrod struggled fruitlessly. “You don’t understand—”

  “All I need to understand is that when it comes down to it, our survival is more important than that of any horse. You’d agree, if you had any brains.”

  “I’m a horse-speaker, you fool! Don’t you know what that means? Don’t you understand?” He strained against me. “I feel what they feel—sense what they sense—”

  In the canyon, coming closer, I heard the howling of the hounds. “Right now I don’t care if it means you’re ready to drop a foal yourself,” I told him. “Del’s trying to save our lives.”

  He spat out another angry oath in Northern. This time Del was the target.

  I sighed and forcibly shut his mouth. “Any time, bascha.”

  Garrod mumbled urgently against my hand, then went perfectly rigid. I didn’t watch Del dispatch the horse, since my attention was on Garrod, but I heard the familiar wailing whistle of an unkeyed jivatma in use. The horse fell heavily; Garrod’s eyes squeezed shut. Then he sagged against the cliff.

  Del swung stiffly from the dead horse. Her face was oddly tight. “When you have seen Ajani kill your family, killing a horse is nothing.”

  Garrod’s eyes snapped open.

  Del’s tone didn’t waver. “When we are free of here, I have questions to ask of you. Questions about Ajani.”

  Garrod said nothing at all, still struck dumb by the death of his horse. Del turned away.

  After a moment, certain Garrod now would do nothing, I went over to her. “I’ll be with you, bascha.”

  Her voice was slightly unsteady. “You might do well to get up high.”

  “I might,” I agreed, “but I have no intention of hiding.”

  Lashes flickered minutely. “Because Garrod’s staying down?”

  I didn’t feel like biting. “Because I want to stay here with you.”

  Her eyes searched my own. Wavered. Then lips tightened slightly. “I don’t need company to die.”

  “Neither do I, Del. But I have no intention of dying.” I glanced through the throat and to the cut beyond. Heard the yapping of the approaching flood. Took my place behind her. If they got past Boreal, they’d still have an enemy. “The hounds are coming, bascha. You’d better sing your song.”

  Del turned. She positioned herself just behind the dead horse, warded by towering stone. Such a fragile, delicate gate, made of flesh and bone. But I thought it might be enough, because she also was Boreal.

  Del lifted the sword and held her angled from shoulder to hip. I knew, underneath the soft-combed wool cross-wrapped from wrist to elbow, Del’s arms were flexed and firm. Her legs were spread and set, knees only slightly bent. She held her stance and waited.

  She is tall. She is strong. She is completely unrelenting. Not a soft woman, as Cipriana had needlessly pointed out. What Del was, I knew: a dedicated soldier in the service of her oath.

  My sword hissed as I unsheathed it. But the music of the steel was lost in the song of Delilah’s making.

  The canyon disgorged six hounds. The vanguard had arrived.

  Hoolies, bascha, do it—

  Twenty-two

  Something flickered at the corner of my eye. Something high, up in the cliff wall, and not where Garrod and I had cached any of the others. Which meant maybe the hounds had found another way in, and the vanguard was only a decoy.

  Quickly I glanced at Del, who began to sing her sword alive. She was, for the moment, untroubled by the hounds, who merely crouched against the canyon floor, creeping forward to show her their teeth. I glanced up at the wall again, saw the blob of a face in one of the holes, knew it was man instead of beast.

  I sheathed, crossed the trap-canyon in two leaps, caught the convenient handholes. Toeholes as well; I clambered up easily, chinned myself on the ledge some forty feet above the floor, pulled myself up with caution. I wasn’t much interested in having my eyes poked out.

  No danger of that. The hole was empty, but it wasn’t
entirely a hole. It was a tunnel in the rock, smoothed by wind, water and time. Feeble light blushed it pink and apricot, which meant the tunnel gave out beyond the trap-canyon, providing a means of escape.

  “Garrod!” I shouted. “Garrod, get the others down. Bring them over here. I’ve found a way out.” I swung myself down, around, clung a moment to the lip of the ledge, caught toes in convenient holes, began the awkward descent.

  I was down, jumping the last five feet, as Garrod helped the women down from their ledge. I retrieved Massou and steered him to the crude ladder in the wall. I’d found the hand- and toeholes spaced ridiculously close together, carved more for a boy of Massou’s size than a man’s. But there was no time to wonder about it; it simply meant Massou would find the going easy. He was quick and agile, and more than willing.

  Adara, however, was not. “Up there?” she asked, aghast.

  “Straight up,” I agreed. “There’s a solid ledge, once you get up, and a tunnel.”

  “But you don’t know where it goes!”

  “Out of here,” I said firmly, and caught her around the waist. “Hike up those skirts and climb.”

  “But—”

  “Climb, woman! Or would you rather be eaten?”

  Hastily she gathered skirts, kilted them up into her tunic belt to display blue woolen leggings, turned to face the wall. I boosted. Awkwardly she thrust hands and feet into holes.

  Beyond Del’s throat and the dead horse gate, more hounds gathered. Ugly hounds they were, dappled silver against dull gray, with low-slung heads and prominent jaws, displaying awesome teeth. They had raggedy, wolfish ears, except the ears lacked hair, being leathery, grayish things that now stood firmly upright, fixed upon the song. Hindquarters were slight in comparison to heavy shoulders made heavier by tangled manes. Brushy tails hugged genitals, curled tightly against lean bellies.

  In the faint glow of dawn, slanting eyes were colorless. By night, I knew, they were white, throwing back the light.

  Del sang. I felt the temperature drop. Down and down, until my breath plumed the air. I knew it was only backlash; the winding conduit in front of Del would suffer the worst of the storm. But it still made me shiver, although I wasn’t certain if the response was born of cold or superstition.

  The hounds, too, felt it; felt something. As Del loosed the sword, each of them tilted back an ugly head and howled to the skies.

  I shook my head, staring. It resembled nothing so much as some uncanny form of obeisance. To Del? Or to the sword? Or maybe to the magic?

  Hoolies, I hate magic. There’s nothing clean about it.

  “Come on,” I told Cipriana brusquely as her mother reached halfway. “Your turn.”

  Her skirts were already kilted. She turned to face the wall, then abruptly swung back. She caught my neck, hugged hard, kissed me before I could say a word. And was climbing the ladder of holes, laughing to herself.

  Oh, hoolies. What possesses some women?

  Massou’s expression was one of embarrassed disgust. Garrod’s one of startled speculation. Then he frowned. “Do you have a harem, Southron?”

  “She’s young,” I muttered, reaching to scoop up Massou. “She doesn’t know what she wants.” I put the boy against the wall, steadied him, sent him up behind his sister. As I’d expected, he took to the climb with ease.

  Garrod’s breath wreathed his face. “What about the horses? Do we take them back through the canyon?”

  I sighed. “You don’t learn too quickly, do you? No, Garrod, we don’t take them back through the canyon. We leave them here.”

  “Leave them—” He stopped short. “You hope the beasts will be satisfied with them instead of with us.”

  “I’m not counting on it.” I jerked a thumb upward. “Your turn, horse-speaker.”

  “What of your stud?”

  It took all I had to shrug unconcernedly. “He doesn’t have wings, does he? So I guess he stays with your horses.”

  Garrod glanced back. Four Northern horses stood huddled together against the far wall; the fifth lay dead in the entrance to the canyon. I saw his face go stiff, and then he was climbing the ladder.

  It left me. And Del.

  Del’s song faltered. Then stopped. I might have told her to keep singing in order to hold the hounds, but clearly Boreal’s power was not what kept them from attacking. Maybe some form of geas?

  It didn’t sit well. I was not at all fond of the idea that the beasts were more than predators, but under a kind of guidance.

  Del voiced similar thoughts. “They’re creeping closer,” she said as I joined her. “See? Right now they’re watching me, judging me…they’re thinking out the attack.” She shivered slightly. “They have intelligence, Tiger. As much as you or I.”

  I looked out at the hounds. Dozens of them crouched down in front of the dead horse, tongues lolling in apparent idleness, but it was belied by the alertness in pale eyes. Del was right; they were judging her.

  I wet my lips. “It may not be intelligence,” I said. “It may only be direction.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They cut us out of the kymri and herded us out onto the plain. They lost us briefly in the canyon, but now they’ve got us pinned. And yet they don’t attack.” I shrugged. “I still think it’s sorcery…and I think they’ve been bewitched.”

  “If that’s true—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted. “There’s a way out, Del. The others are free—it leaves only us.” I gestured. “There, bascha—up the wall and out. There’s a tunnel.”

  Del stared at the ladder of holes. The swordsong had taken all of her concentration, making her deaf and blind to the rest of us. I saw her surprise transform itself into relief, and then she frowned, glancing at the horses.

  “The stud…” She let it trail off, looking at my face. “Oh, Tiger—”

  “Climb,” I said evenly. “I can be as hardhearted as you.”

  I’d meant it as a joke. It came out otherwise. But it was too late to apologize; Del was heading for the cliff.

  The hounds moved to follow.

  Oh, hoolies. It was Del they wanted.

  “Up!” I shouted. “Get up!”

  She turned back, saw the hounds coming over the horse.

  “Climb!” I shouted, unsheathing. “It’s you they want, bascha. Get up that wall—get above them—get out of their reach.”

  “Tiger—”

  “Just do it, bascha—I can hold them off.”

  Well, I could try.

  Del was halfway up the wall as the hounds poured over the horse into the trap-canyon, making it their own. I felt their hot breaths, the scrape of claws on leather boots, the thrust of shoulders and chests against my legs. I stood knee—deep in a river of beasts.

  They snapped, slashed, clawed, tried to thrust me aside. Most bit only halfheartedly, out of reflex. It wasn’t me they wanted, but if I got in the way they’d take pains to put me out of it.

  Well, I intended to get in the way. And let them know it, leveling my sword like a scythe. I took heads, severed spines, opened gaping holes in chests and ribs. I made myself soundly disliked.

  Del was gone. Accordingly, they turned from the wall to me, pressing me back, forcing me across the canyon. Behind me, Garrod’s horses were restless; the stud stomped uneasily.

  The stud. Hoolies. Why do this on foot?

  I pulled free of the spangled river, caught the stud, swung up onto his back. “Well, old son, let’s say we try this one together.” I gathered reins in one hand, hefted the sword with the other. “Let’s stomp some dogs, old man.”

  Most of the hounds seemed distracted by Del’s disappearance. Others melted back, licking at the ones I’d killed or wounded. But a few came for us. They snapped at pasterns, hocks, knees. Slashed at belly, genitals, flanks. Tried to pull him down, to shred him, to turn him back from flight. But the stud was angry and frightened, doing his best to run, and when a horse as single-minded as my old man decides he wants t
o run, nothing gets in his way.

  Not even the man on his back.

  There is something exhilarating about fighting the odds while astride a very good horse. Some elemental emotion that strips bare the so-called civilization we’ve undergone in order to live in settlements and cities, or to travel the sands in a caravan. Somehow I was not just a man anymore, but a man in tandem with the horse. It made me strong and proud and oddly content, all at once, with a powerful surge of emotion that translated itself into an intensity that, to my altered perceptions, slowed the attacking beasts to a crawl. And it made it easy to kill them.

  It was a strange detachment. I felt the bunching of the stud’s muscles beneath my buttocks, sensed the powerful anger, heard the snorts and squeals of rage. He struck unerringly with iron-shod hooves; together, we were invincible.

  I smelled blood and urine and excrement. The stink of fresh-spilled entrails. Mostly, I smelled power, and the stench of sorcery.

  “Sorry,” I said aloud, “but I am not impressed.”

  I knew better than to give the hounds a chance to pull us down. They still outnumbered us badly, and the stud and I couldn’t hold them off forever. I waited until the flood paused to reconsider, jammed heels into the stud’s heaving sides, took him through the snarling hounds.

  There was, I knew, a chance he might refuse to jump the dead horse. In which case we were fairly trapped, because he couldn’t hold out much longer. On foot, I stood little chance. So I aimed him at the opening, fed him rein, slapped the flat of my borrowed blade across his blood-flecked rump.

  He jumped, my game old man, and cleared the body easily, landing with a clatter of iron on stone beyond. And, since he had momentum in his favor, I didn’t bother trying to stop him. I merely gave him a second slap and bent down over his spike-maned neck.

  “Now’s your chance!” I shouted.

  Obligingly, the stud ran away with me.

  Twenty-three

  We were noisy, the stud and I. Hooves clopped and clattered against hard stone, scraping grit, crushing small rocks, scattering bits and pieces against the looming walls. It was easier to see now that the sun was up, but I was still a stranger to the canyon even though I’d ridden through it only the night before.