Sword-Sworn Read online

  Del concentrated on drinking more water so as not to give away her bemusement. Such are the dynamics of negotiation. Even if you aren’t truly negotiating but merely informing.

  Fouad did not believe. His tone was incredulous. “You want to be a cantina keeper? Here? But—but you’re a sword-dancer!”

  “I’d have been a dead man, had Sabra succeeded,” I said bluntly. “But I am very much alive, and prepared to leave you that way… should we reach an equitable agreement.” I cut him off before he could speak again. “And no, I am not proposing that I play host, or tell you what kind of curtains to put in your windows, or that Del be a wine-girl.” I could imagine what she’d say to that image later. “I was thinking we’d be silent partners.”

  “I do all the work, you take two-thirds of the profits,” Fouad said glumly.

  “I’m glad you grasp the pertinent details.”

  “For how long?” he asked.

  “How long?”

  “For how long do I have to put up with you?”

  “What, are you already planning to hire Abbu or some such soul to knock me off?”

  Fouad was stunned. “I would never do such a thing!” Whereupon he recalled that while he hadn’t done precisely that, he had indeed contributed to the trap that could very well have ended in my death.

  “Two-thirds,” Del said crisply. “Payable four times a year.”

  I nodded with grave dignity. Fouad screwed up his face.

  “And I may just have an idea for those curtains,” she added.

  I suspect a knife in the gut might have proven less painful to him. But he eventually agreed, with much moroseness of expression.

  “Good,” I said. “As for how long, it’s a lifetime arrangement. If I die, Del gets my one-third. If she dies, I get her one-third.”

  I’d given Fouad an opening. “And if you both die? You are sword-dancers, after all. Sword-dancers die.”

  I drank down the rest of my aqivi, then scratched idly at the claw marks in my face. “I plan to live forever.”

  Fouad looked. He saw. His lips parted. “Your finger,” he said hoarsely.

  I displayed both hands. “Fingers,” I enunciated. “As I said, I’ve lived a full life.”

  He was stunned. “Sabra did that?”

  “This? No.” I didn’t elaborate, which left him nonplussed.

  “But—can you dance?”

  I felt Del’s look, but I did not return it. “Try me.”

  Fouad was perversely fascinated by the missing fingers. I saw him turn it over in his head, applying his knowledge of my past, my reputation, to the present sitting before him and all the implications. He more closely noted the shorn hair, doubled earrings—and whatever else you might see if you looked upon me now.

  “I heard—” He paused and cleared his throat. “I heard a rumor that you’d survived Sabra. That you’d declared…”

  “Elaii-ali-ma,” I supplied, when he faltered. “You’ve been selling drink and women to sword-dancers for years. You know very well what elaii-ali-ma means.”

  He did. “Forsworn.”

  “And subject to any punishment a sword-dancer—one who’s still true to his oaths, mind you—cares to give me.” I shrugged. “So you might get to keep my one-third of the profits, if it comes to that. One of these days.”

  “They’ll kill you, Tiger.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “Maybe not.”

  His gaze was on my mutilated hands, which I did not trouble to hide. “This is worse,” Fouad said hollowly. “Worse than anything Sabra might have done.”

  “Possibly. But that does not absolve you of your responsibility.” He had the grace to wince. “She intended me to die, Fouad. This way, fingers or no fingers, I have some say in the matter.”

  Fouad was not convinced. “They’ll kill you.”

  I gave him my friendliest grin. “Or die trying.”

  “Why?” Del demanded later in the inn’s tiny room high under the eaves. An equally tiny window—a lopsided square chopped into thick mudbrick—tinted the room a sallow sepia as the sun went down, glinting off the brass buckles of our belongings.

  I knew better than to ask to what she referred. “Financial security.” I stripped out of my burnous.

  Stretched out on the rope-and-wood bed atop its thin pallet and even thinner blanket, she watched as I, dhoti-clad, began to methodically undertake the forms I found beneficial to my strength, flexibility, and endurance. For most of my life I’d depended on a natural wellspring of sheer physical strength, power, and speed, with no need to work at keeping any of them. They simply were. Now I needed more.

  “You just didn’t want to kill him.”

  She sounded so disgusted a brief gust of laughter was expelled as I bent from one side to the other. “Fouad’s a friend.”

  “A friend who betrayed you.”

  “At Sabra’s insistence.” I felt the joints of my spine stretch and pop. “She was a little hard to turn down when she got a bug up her butt. Hoolies, even I was going to do what she wanted.” Die in the circle, facing Abbu Bensir.

  “But you had a choice.”

  I clasped hands behind my head and pushed it forward against resistance. “Sure I did. I forswore all my oaths as a seventh-level sword-dancer. I don’t think cantina keepers have any oaths. Though I suppose there could be some secret society dedicated to all the arcane secrets of selling liquor and hiring wine-girls.”

  Del had been leaning on one elbow. Now she shoved herself upright. “Speaking of wine-girls, you made reference to me—”

  I cut her off before we could take that route. “Certainly not.”

  “Certainly, yes,” she said dryly. “You also mentioned something about Fouad selling wine-girls to sword-dancers.”

  “Well, I suppose ‘rented’ would be a more accurate term.”

  “And I assume you ‘rented’ your share?”

  “Nah,” I replied off-handedly. “None of them ever charged me.”

  After a moment of stunned silence, Del said something highly explicit in uplander.

  I changed the subject hastily. “Do you really want to kill Fouad?”

  “No. But I do want to know why you’ve encumbered us with a two-thirds ownership of a cantina.” She paused, considering. “Unless you figure it entitles you to free aqivi.”

  “Well, it does. Might save me a little money.” I shrugged prodigiously, repeatedly, loosening the muscles running from neck to shoulders. “It’s not an encumbrance, bascha. All we have to do is drop in four times a year and pick up our share of the profits.” Fortunately Fouad had been prevailed upon to give us an advance, since, having arranged for horse boarding, human lodging, and some food, we now needed money to pay for it all.

  “But why, Tiger? You’ve never indicated any interest in owning property before. A cantina?”

  “I like cantinas.”

  “Well, yes; you spend enough time in them… but why own one?”

  “I told you. Financial security.” I stopped loosening up and faced her. “I doubt I’ll be taking on any jobs as a sword-dancer any time soon. I’m kind of proscribed from that.”

  Del was perplexed. “You told me you wanted to rebuild your shodo’s place. Alimat. And take on students.”

  “I do. But that presupposes there will be students to teach and that they’ll have money to pay me. We need to buy things, bascha. Fouad’s cantina will at least cover expenses.” I gave her a quizzical look. “Isn’t that the responsible thing to do?”

  “Of course it’s the responsible thing to do,” she agreed. “It’s just very unlike you to be responsible.”

  I scowled. “Short of killing him, and he wouldn’t be around to suffer or feel remorse if I did that, it’s also about the direst punishment I could think of for Fouad. He’s a pinch-coin.”

  “Is there anyone else you want to punish? Are we likely to wind up owning a weaver’s shop, a vegetable plot, or a flower cart?”

  “I doubt it. None of those peo
ple has ever drugged my wine and set me up to be taken by a spoiled, bloodthirsty, murderous little bitch bent on seeing me killed in the circle.” I rolled my neck, feeling tension loosen. “What color of curtains were you thinking, bascha?”

  Del made a sound of derision. “As if any cantina would boast curtains in the windows. Likely some drunkard would set them on fire the first fight he got into. And we, now partners with your faithful friend Fouad, would have to bear two-thirds of the cost of damages.”

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  “I knew it,” Del said in deep disgust. “Men. All they ever think about are the profits. Not about all the work that goes into such things.”

  Well, no. “That’s why we have Fouad,” I said brightly. “He’ll take care of all that.”

  Del scowled. “I still say it was foolish to go to Fouad’s. Word will be out by morning, just like in Haziz.”

  “It won’t be Fouad who spreads it.”

  “Of course it will be Fouad—”

  “No.”

  “Why, because you’re his partner now?”

  “Because we really were friends, bascha. And because he feels guilty.”

  “As well he should!”

  “You don’t know you wouldn’t have done what he did, faced with Sabra.”

  After a moment, Del declared, “I find that observation incredibly offensive.”

  I grinned at her, continuing to work out the tension in my body; going to Fouad’s had kept me on edge, regardless of what I admitted. “You didn’t face Sabra.” Not in the same way, at any rate. By the time Del and Sabra were in close proximity, Sabra was unconscious and tied to a saddle.

  “I’d have killed her,” Del said shortly.

  A sudden and very intriguing image rose before my eyes: Del and Sabra. One small and dark, one tall and fair. Two dangerous, deadly women. Except Del was far more honest when she killed: she did it herself.

  “Word will get out,” I said, “but it won’t be Fouad.”

  “Such a trustworthy soul,” Del said dryly.

  “Let me see your wrist.”

  Obligingly, Del extended an arm. I shut my hand upon the wrist and squeezed. Tightly. Very tightly.

  After a moment, she asked, “Are you purposely attempting to break my wrist?” She wiggled fingers. “Let go, Tiger.”

  Smiling, I let go.

  Del sighed. “Point taken.”

  “I should hope so.”

  “But it will still be different,” she cautioned. “More difficult.”

  “I agree, bascha.”

  And it was very likely, I knew, I’d discover how different tomorrow. Because word was bound to get out.

  The Sandtiger is back.

  Yes. He was.

  FIVE

  DEL and I were only just crawling out of bed in the morning when a scratching sounded at the door. I might have said vermin, except it was too repetitive. I dragged on dhoti and unsheathed my sword even as Del hastily swirled a blanket around her nudity.

  The scratching came again, coupled with a woman’s soft voice asking if the sword-dancer and the Northern woman were in there. No names. Interesting.

  A glance across my shoulder confirmed a well wrapped Del was prepared with sword in hand. She nodded. I unlocked the door and opened it, blade at the ready. It wasn’t impossible someone might use a woman as a beard. Such things as courtesy and honorable discourse were no longer required.

  The woman in the narrow corridor winced away from the glint of sharp steel. She displayed the palms of her hands in a warding gesture, displaying innocent intent. I blinked. It was Silk, the wine-girl from Fouad’s cantina, swathed in robes and a head covering when ordinarily she wore very little.

  “I’m alone,” she blurted. “I swear it.”

  Her nerves were strung tight as wire. I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing here when I saw her gaze go beyond me to Del. She registered that Del was nude under the thin blanket, with white-blond hair in tumbled disarray, and something flared briefly in Silk’s dark eyes, something akin, I thought, to recognition and acknowledgment of another woman’s beauty. Her mouth hooked briefly. Not jealousy, though. Oddly enough, regret. Resignation. Silk was attractive, in a cheap sort of way, but infinitely Southron; Del, in all her splendid Northern glory, was simply incomparable. She wasn’t to every Southroner’s taste—too tall, too fair-skinned, too blonde for some of them, and most definitely too independent—but no one, looking at her, could be blind to what she was.

  Ah, yes. That’s my bascha.

  “Fouad sent me,” Silk said nervously. I gestured her in, but she shook her head. “I must go back. He wanted me to tell you someone recognized you, and word is already out of your presence here. He fears you may be challenged before you can leave.”

  I nodded, unsurprised, already thinking ahead to how it might occur.

  “Thank you for this,” Del said.

  Silk resettled her headcovering, pulling it forward to shield part of her face. “I didn’t do it for you.”

  After a moment of stillness, Del smiled faintly. “No. But we both want him to survive.”

  Silk cut me a glance out of wide, grieving eyes. I was startled to see tears there. I opened my mouth to speak, but she turned sharply and walked away, a small dark woman in pale, voluminous fabric.

  “Door,” Del said crisply.

  I shut and latched it even as she shed the blanket and grabbed smallclothes and tunic. Without further conversation we donned burnouses and sandals, packed and gathered up belongings, reestablished the fit of our harnesses and that swords were properly seated in their sheaths.

  The horses were stabled just out back in the tiny livery. So long as no one knew we were here at this particular inn, it was possible we might get them tacked out, our gear loaded, and our butts in the saddles before we were discovered.

  But maybe not.

  Del’s eyes met mine. Her face was expressionless. She was once again the Northern sword-singer, a woman warrior capable not only of meeting a man on equal footing but of defeating him.

  Shodo-trained sword-dancers wouldn’t want to fight or harm her. It was me they were after; they’d let her go. But Del would take that convention and turn it upside down.

  One of us might die today. Or neither. Or both. And we each of us knew it.

  She opened the door and walked out.

  Del and I made an honest effort to take every back alley in the tangled skein that made up the poorer sections of Julah. For a moment I thought we might actually get out of town without me being challenged, but I should have known better. Whoever the sword-dancer was who’d recognized me, he was smart enough to know he couldn’t be everywhere; he’d need to make a financial investment in order to track me down. He’d hired gods know how many boys to stake out the streets and intersections, and eventually the alleys merged with them. It didn’t take long for word to be carried that the Sandtiger and his Northern bascha were crossing the Street of Weavers and heading for the Street of Potters, which in turn gave into the Street of Tinsmiths.

  And it was there, in front of one of the more prosperous shops catering to the tin trade, that the sword-dancer found us.

  Mounted, he’d halted his dun-colored horse in the middle of the street. Del and I had the option of turning around and going back the way we’d come, but it was one thing to attempt to avoid your enemy, and another to turn tail and run once you actually came face to face with him.

  Fueled by the overexcited boys and the promise of a sword-dance, rumor had quickly spread. The Street of Tinsmiths was not the main drag through town, but the entire merchants’ quarter was always thronged with people, and today was market day. The buzz of recognition and comment began as Del and I reined in, and rose in anticipation, much like startled bees, as we sat at ease atop our horses, saying nothing, letting my opponent take the lead.

  “Sandtiger.” He raised his voice, though our mounts stood approximately fifteen paces apart. “Do you remember me?”
>
  The street fell silent. I was aware of staring faces, expectant eyes. The sun glinted off samples of tinware hanging on display on both sides of the narrow thoroughfare. I smelled forges, coals, the acrid tang of worked metal.

  I looked at him. Southron through and through, and all sword-dancer, torso buckled into harness and the hilt of his sword riding above his left shoulder. Yes, I remembered him. Khashi. He was ten or twelve years younger than I. He’d been taken on at Alimat about the time I left to make my own way. I’d witnessed enough of his training before I departed to know he was talented and had heard rumors over the years that he was good, but we’d never crossed paths on business, and I hadn’t seen him since then.

  “You know why,” he said.

  I didn’t reply. The faintest of breezes ruffled our burnouses, the robes and headcloths of spectators, and set dangling tinware clanking against one another. A child’s plaintive voice rose, and was hushed.

  Khashi’s thin lips curled. Disdain was manifest. “What’s more, I heard you played the coward in Haziz and refused to accept a challenge.”

  I shook my head. “He wasn’t a sword-dancer. Just a stupid kid looking for glory.”

  Brown eyes narrowed. “And what do you say of me?”

  “Nothing.” I shrugged. “That’s all you’re worth.”

  We weren’t close enough for me to see the color burning in his face, but I could tell I’d gotten to him. His body stiffened, hands tightening on the reins. His horse shifted nervously and joggled his head, trying to ease the pressure on his mouth. Metal bit shanks and rings clinked.

  “And what are you worth?” he asked sharply. “You declared elaii-ali-ma.”

  “Oh, I am lower than the lowest of the low,” I replied. “I am foulness incarnate. I am dishonor embodied. You’ll soil your blade with my blood.”

  He grinned, showing white teeth against a dark face. “But blood washes off. Righteousness does not.” Abruptly he raised his voice, addressing the crowd. “Hear me!” he shouted. “This man is the Sandtiger, who once was a seventh-level sword-dancer sworn to uphold the honor codes and sacred traditions of Alimat. But he repudiated them, his shodo, and all of his brethren. It is our right to punish him for this, and today I willingly accept the honor of this task. I call on every man here to witness the death of an oath-breaker!”