Sword-Singer Read online

  She opened her mouth promptly to protest the last part of my comments. Del dislikes me to make fun of women, or otherwise discount them because of their gender. Now, mostly, I do it out of a desire to bait her, hoping for verbal combat; once I did it because, in the South, women count for little. Del had changed much of my attitude, but so had slavery. A man raised a slave suffers his own humiliation, and quickly learns not to judge others as he is judged.

  But Del, after a moment, did not rise to the bait at all. She merely clamped her mouth closed. Her expression was grim. “It is a thing I have to do.”

  “I know that. I just said that.”

  “I will be fair,” Del told me. “It will be a sword-dance.”

  I nearly laughed; trimmed it to a smile when I saw that however I responded would matter greatly to her. “If he’s a sword-dancer, it’ll be fair,” I agreed. “If he’s not, it’ll be a joke.”

  Pale brows knitted. “Tiger—” But she stopped short, locking away whatever words she had meant to say, and left me looking into the face of torment.

  “Go,” I said gently. “I’ll be there, bascha.”

  We tied the horses and left them, pulling aside the same vermilion curtain we had pulled aside the night before. Huva stink clung to the cantina, but the smoke was barely visible. It was early yet for the place to fill with men seeking dreams in liquor, smoke, women.

  But not too early for the man Del sought.

  At last he saw her coming. I knew him only by that; by the surprise in his eyes, the admiration; the slow flame of desire. He was clearly Southron, dark of hair and skin, with deep-set, pale brown eyes. The age I could not say, save to mark that he had spent his years in the desert, for the sun had taken its toll. His teeth flashed white against the swarthiness of his face.

  Del ignored the others at his table. She merely stepped to the edge, leaned forward a little, to make certain he heard her words, and invited him into the circle.

  And the man was clearly astonished. “Circle?” he echoed blankly, in patent disbelief. And then he recovered himself, and laughed. “Bascha, I will gladly meet you in bed, but never in a circle.” He waited out the snickers and laughter, smiling blandly, but I saw the faintest line of puzzled consternation mar the flesh between dark brows.

  Fluidly, Del pulled Boreal free of her sheath in a brief, hissing slide, then brought the sword down to rest crosswise in front of her breasts, hilt at waist, wrists cocked; the tip reached at least five inches above Del’s head. It was a diagonal slash of steel that focused every eye upon blade and woman. The move was flawlessly executed, obviously well-practiced; the posture—and its intent—was dramatically dominant, and eloquently underscored by Del’s gender. Not a man in the cantina was blind to the implications.

  One might say it is no great thing to draw a sword from its sheath. But Del, as I, went in harness, with the sheath strapped diagonally across her back. It is far more comfortable when seeking an even distribution of weight, far more balanced than dangling heavy steel to bang against one leg, but the ease of sheathing or unsheathing is reduced immeasurably. It is a mark of pride (or vanity—call it what you will) that a true sword-dancer, thoroughly trained in the art of the dance, always goes in harness.

  But it was a sword, and this was the South, and Del was clearly a woman.

  He laughed, the Southroner. And then stopped, as the others stopped, abruptly, in shock, as she set the salmon-silver tip against the flesh of his throat.

  Easily, in silence, she parted the fabric of his burnous. I saw something move in her face, something almost indefinable, except I had seen the expression once before. When Del had first seen Jamail—and what had been done to him—five years after his disappearance.

  She nodded once, but I thought it was mostly to herself. As if it signaled a hardening of her resolve. “Step into the circle.”

  I nearly mouthed them with her, so familiar were the words. The eternal challenge of a sword-dancer, to spar, to fight, to dance. For the fun or to the death.

  Desire was augmented by irritation. The Southroner’s nostrils pinched. “Woman,” he said, “go home. Go home and tend your man.”

  Del’s tone was very calm. “You are my man,” she told him. “I will tend you in the circle.”

  He had been dicing with companions. Now supple hands scattered dice and coin and cups, as, in anger, he swept the table clean.

  Boreal nicked his throat.

  He cursed. Del smiled, but only a little. “Dance with me,” she invited, in the siren song of the circle.

  Four

  I saw the blood at his throat. A few drops only, crimson against browned flesh. Fresh blood, and free of ice; Del had not keyed the sword.

  He spat onto the blade. “I do not fight women.”

  The tip shifted. Rose. Pressed the underside of his chin, lifting, lifting, so that to escape the promised cut he had to tip the back of his skull against his shoulders.

  “No?” Del asked. “But you fought me, nearly six years ago.” Her eyes narrowed. “Fight me again, Southron. Now that I know how.”

  His friends muttered angrily, obviously unimpressed by Del’s attitude. To forestall any efforts on their parts, I moved closer to Del and deliberately fixed them with the stare I knew was disconcerting, for it mimicked the feral stare of a stalking sandtiger, green eyes and all. I made it very plain, if silently, that the fight was to remain between the woman and the man; otherwise, they personally, each of them, would have me to contend with. Now, or later; their choice.

  It worked. It works often. I practiced it carefully, when the similarity had first been pointed out to me, knowing better than to ignore an advantage, in or out of the circle.

  Del’s opponent glared past her at me, made aware that there would be no rescue, none at all. That he was not a sword-dancer, I knew. We are often strangers to one another, but there are ways a man can tell. Certainly with him it was easy; his sword was sheathed at his side.

  So, it was to be a joke. Not a sword-dancer. Not Northern. But clearly an enemy. And one she had claimed for nearly six years, which meant he was undoubtedly one of the raiders who had destroyed her family.

  I blew out a slow breath of comprehension and compassion. Revenge I understand.

  Pale brown eyes flicked from side to side, judging the intent of his companions, the tenor of the room. No one laughed now. No one smiled. Neither did anyone look away.

  A Southroner myself, I knew what he was feeling. And I knew avoiding the fight would do as much damage to his pride as the thing itself. Del was a woman.

  His lips writhed against his teeth. “Yes,” he said, “yes.”

  “Outside,” Del said coolly, and turned her back on him to exit the cantina.

  In any city or settlement, it takes little time for word of a sword-dance to pass through the populace. In a border town like Harquhal, full to bursting with cutthroats, thieves, raiders and the like, word spills through even faster. And so as the Southroner prepared to face the Northern woman, the others came to watch. From shops and shade and gambling games like sandslugs from under a stone.

  Calmly, Del slipped out of her burnous. She dropped the silk to the sand, ignoring the ribald comments. Bare-armed, bare-legged, she was naked in their eyes.

  Hardly that, to me. But I’ve grown accustomed to the soft leather tunic snugged so firmly about her waist. Fitted so tautly at breasts and shoulders because of the harness straps. But seeing her through their eyes I saw merely the woman again. Not Del. Not the sword-dancer. Only the Northern bascha.

  And in that moment, for only a moment, I forgot all the truths we had shared and thought only of myself.

  But very briefly. And then Del was Del again.

  She unhooked her harness, set it atop the silk, slanted me an enigmatic glance. “Sandtiger, will you draw the circle?”

  A nice way of letting all the observers know who I was; plainly, they recognized the name, most of them. Certainly those I was most interested in. The Southron
er’s friends looked at me sharply, muttered among themselves, observed the sword hilt poking above my shoulder and the scars on my face. And did not look very happy.

  I smiled a little and made a slight gesture with my head, acknowledging their unintended tribute. But mostly, I singled them out: one, two, three, four. Perhaps raiders, perhaps not: perhaps merely men who had fallen in with Del’s opponent for the dicing in the cantina. But it did not matter. I marked them out. Then I turned my attention back to Del’s request.

  In the code of the true dance, the invitation was an honor. But this was little more than a travesty.

  I put my hand on the hilt of the Northern sword and heard an echo of eerie laughter. Theron’s, maybe. Maybe even the soul of the man in whom he had quenched the blade so long ago.

  The sword hissed free of the sheath and gleamed in the sunlight. A second hiss followed on its heels: indrawn breaths from everyone gathered to watch the sword-dance. I set tip against earth and saw the umber-hued sand curl away as if I divided flesh. Another hiss, and murmurs of sorcery. Well, maybe so. The circle was made of itself; I was only the instrument.

  Del stepped into the circle and waited.

  Ordinarily, there are rituals to be observed. Requirements of the dance to satisfy the honor of the teachings handed down. It didn’t matter that she was Northern-born and trained, and he a Southroner; the learning is much the same, with similar rituals. But this was no true sword-dance. The chosen opponent knew little, if anything, of the dance itself, knowing only that he had to fight a woman to salve pride and to save his life.

  Reason enough, I knew, to make him dangerous.

  He swore a vile Southron oath and stripped out of his burnous. Beneath it he wore the thin baggy jodhpurs and silk-sashed tunic of a desert man, not the brief chamois dhoti of a dancer. Raider he might be, but there was nothing in clothing or appearance that proclaimed him one, unlike a professional sword-dancer.

  Del waited. He unbelted his sword, unsheathed it, threw the leather down on top of his burnous. He said something quietly to his four companions; immediately they looked at me, giving themselves away, and I knew he had told them to kill the woman—and me—if he died. Although it was plain he did not expect to die.

  He stepped into the circle—

  —and lunged.

  She is so quick, so very fast, is Del. Feet sluffed through the warm sand with the soft, seductive sibilance of bare flesh against fine-grained dust. Wisps rose, drifted; layered our bodies in dull, gritty shrouds: pale umber, ocher-bronze, taupe-gray.

  But the shrouds, I thought, were applicable; the woman could kill us all.

  I watched her move. I watched the others watch her move. All men. No women, here, at this moment, under such circumstances; never.

  Except for Del.

  I watched her move: detached appreciation. Admiration, as always. And pride. Two-edged pride. One: that the woman brought honor to the ritual of the dance within the circle, and two: that she was my right hand, my left hand; companion, swordmate, bedmate.

  Edged? Of course. Pride is always a two-edged blade. With Del, the second edge is the sharpest of all, for me, because for the Sandtiger to speak of pride in Del is to speak also of possessiveness. She’d told me once that a man proud of a woman is too often prouder of his possession of her, and not of the woman for being herself.

  I saw her point, but…wellll, Del and I don’t always agree. But then if we did, life would be truly boring.

  I watched Del and the men who watched her as a matter of course, but I also watched the man she faced in the circle. I saw the untutored pattern of his sword flashing in the sunlight: dip here, feint there, slash, lunge, cut, thrust…and always trying to throw the flashes and glints of sunlight into her eyes. He knew enough to know that; ordinarily, a shrewd ploy. Another opponent might have winced or squinted against the blinding light, giving over the advantage; Del didn’t. But then, Del was accustomed to conjuring her own light with Boreal; the Southron sword the man used was hardly a match for her own.

  I knew she would kill him. But he didn’t. He hadn’t realized it yet.

  Few men do realize it when they enter the circle with Del. They only see her, and hardly notice the sword in her hands. Instead, they smile. They feel tolerant and magnanimous because they must face a woman, and a beautiful woman. But because she is beautiful, they will give her anything, if only to share a moment of her time, and so they give her their lives.

  She danced. Long legs, long arms, bared to the Southron sun. Step. Step. Slide. Skip. Miniscule shifting of balance from one hip to the other. Sinews sliding beneath the firm flesh of her arms as she parried and riposted. All in the wrists, with Del. A delicate tracery of blade tip against the brassy afternoon sky, blocking her opponent’s weapon with a latticework of steel.

  Del never set out to be a killer. Even now she isn’t, quite; she’s a sword-dancer, like me. But in this line of work, more often than not, the dance—a ritualized exhibition of highly-trained sword-skill—becomes serious, and people die.

  I sighed a little, watching her. She didn’t play with him, precisely, being too well-trained for such arrogance within the circle, but I could see she had judged and acknowledged her opponent’s skill as less than her own. It wouldn’t make her smile; not Del. It wouldn’t make her careless. But it would make her examine the limits of his talent with the unlimited repertoire of her own, and show him what it meant to step into the circle with someone of her caliber.

  Regardless of her gender.

  And I watched the man. The Southron fighter who had so carelessly undervalued the Northern woman. I saw the slack wetness of sweat-soaked black hair hanging lankly against his neck, no longer moving as he moved. I watched the telltale flush of frustration commingled with futile effort darken his features. And I saw the negligent arrogance of the man alter itself in brown eyes into belated acknowledgment; he knew. At last, he knew; knew also there was nothing he could do.

  Except die.

  Del stripped the blade from him instantly with a subtle flick of her own, slicing fingers before he could blink, and then, as he sucked in a breath to bellow, cut open the naked palms that no longer grasped a sword. In shock, he gaped at her.

  She balanced lightly on both feet, clearly poised to strike again. But she did not, at once. She watched him only, and I saw the odd glint in her eyes. “Have you stolen so many Northern women that you cannot remember this one?” Her tone was deceptively mild. “So many Northern baschas?”

  “Afreet!” he cried. “Jinni!”

  “Human,” she mocked, “and woman. Or does that foolish masculine pride forbid you from acknowledging the truth?”

  “Del,” I said quietly, “that is not the issue.”

  I saw the subtle start of surprise, the realization in her eyes. No, it was not the issue. Color touched her face; the line of her mouth hardened. “I want Ajani,” she said.

  Brown eyes widened in patent astonishment, then narrowed as he frowned. “Ajani,” he echoed. “Why?”

  “For much the same reason,” she told him. “I intend to kill him.”

  He laughed harshly. “Men have tried that, bascha. And still Ajani thrives.”

  “Temporarily.” She flicked her sword and the blade sliced air, neatly nicking the tip of his nose. “Ajani,” she said softly.

  He stepped out of the circle at once. But this was not a sword-dance; Del followed smoothly. He halted against the confines of the larger, human circle, was pressed back against his friends, who sought to hold him up—and knew the fight was lost. “North,” he said sullenly.

  “But you are here, Southron.”

  He spat to the side. “I no longer ride with Ajani.”

  “No?” Pale brows rose. “Did it begin to pall at last, this wealth earned by stealing children?”

  Nostrils flared. “And did I steal you?”

  I thought she might kill him then. But her control was firmly in place. “You tried, Southron. But luck and the gods pre
served me.”

  “Then why hound me now?” He spread bleeding hands. “You are free, bascha. What sense is there in this?”

  “None at all,” she said gently. “This is merely collection of a blood-debt I am owed.”

  It was Del’s fight, not mine. But I wished she would finish it.

  “Blood-debt—”

  “Ajani,” she said, “and you go free.”

  Hope flared, was extinguished almost at once. I knew what he was thinking. His life was precious, but so was his pride, especially before friends; spared by a woman, he kept the former and lost the latter. “I am a loyal man.”

  Del lifted an eloquent shoulder. “Loyal men die as easily as others.” She gestured with a jerk of her head. “Step back into the circle. Pick up the sword. I will give you that much; more than you and the others gave me.”

  Clearly, he wanted to refuse. But he was bound by his own pride and the silence of the others; slowly, he stepped back into the circle and retrieved the sword with bleeding hands. He turned to face the woman, clearly unafraid. If anything, he was angry. Not that he would lose his life, but that a woman would be the instrument of it.

  Del smiled. I saw her lips stretch thin, then part, and then the thread of a sound issued forth. Only a little song, but enough to enrage the man.

  Enough. No excess. Just the Northern woman stepping to the flaccid curtain of steel, who parted it effortlessly to slide three feet of salmon-silver blade into sweaty, heaving flesh.

  They deny it, each and every one of them, even as their blood flows from their bodies to stain the Southron sand. Even when they cannot speak, they mouth the words, denying her the victory as their bodies tell them differently. Bloodied, bitten lips, wet faces powdered with sand, widened eyes full of wonder, dismay, despair.

  And always the denial.

  She turned away from the sprawled body and looked at me. The Northern sword, blood-painted, hung loosely in her hand. Alien blade, with equally alien runes, dripped a string of wet rubies into umber sand, drop by drop by drop, until the delicate, deadly necklet lost its shape and became nothing more than a puddle of blood sucked quickly down into the dust.