Sword-Sworn

by Jennifer Roberson

  Swearing, I dropped the bota and pulled her upright, then bent her slightly forward over my right arm. I let her head hang loose, chin hooked over my wrist. With a spread left hand, I pressed sharply against her spine several times, compressing her lungs. In a moment the choking turned to coughing. When that faded, I eased her down again, smoothing sweat-damp strands of hair away from her face.

  “I’m here,” I told her. “I left you in Staal-Ysta, when I thought you would die—when I thought I had killed you… I’ll never leave you again. I’m here, bascha.”

  The claw stripes above her breasts were oozing blood again. I dampened more cloth, cleaned the wounds, then pressed a folded pad against them, tucking it under the shredded ruins of her tunic.

  The last of the roof branches I’d cut down no longer flamed. Light was fading. Outside the lean-to, the white gelding pawed at sand and soil. In a brief break from tending Del I’d watered him, given him grain, but he wanted grazing. Though he’d proven his willingness to stay put, I couldn’t risk losing him as well as the stud. He was tied to the lean-to. If the gods were merciful, he wouldn’t pull it down on top of us.

  My own bedding, still on the stud, was gone. But the gelding’s saddle, set next to the shelter, had borne a rolled-up Vashni blanket. I tugged it over, threw it across rocky soil, set my rump upon it. I ached in every muscle, and my eyes were burning with exhaustion. I rubbed them, swore at the gritty dryness that stung unremittingly, then slumped against the boulder forming the back wall of the lean-to.

  Sharp pain forced a grunt of surprise out of me. I sat forward again, reaching over the top of my right shoulder. Stung? But the boulder had no cracks, no crevices to host anything, being nothing more than a giant, rounded bulwark at the bottom of the modest mountain.

  I brought my fingers around, tipped them toward firelight, rubbed my thumb against sticky residue, then sniffed fingers.

  Blood.

  I felt again behind my right shoulder, sliding my hand beneath the tattered remains of my burnous. Found two curving gouges there the length of palm and fingers, bleeding sluggishly.

  I shut my eyes. Oh, hoolies… when I’d slung the spitted sandtiger over my right shoulder—

  In my rage and fear, I’d felt nothing at all.

  I tore the burnous off my torso, grabbed up the Vashni bota, squirted liquor down my back, aiming for claw marks I couldn’t see. A burning so painful it brought tears to my eyes told me I’d found the target. I hissed a complex, unflagging string of Desert invective, breathed noisily, nearly bit my bottom lip in two.

  When I could speak again, I looked at Del, whom I had liberally drenched. “Sorry, bascha—” I croaked. “—I had no idea it would burn so much!”

  The world revolved again. Now I knew why. Knees drawn up, I leaned my head into them as a stiff-fingered hand scrubbed distractedly at the back of my skull, scraping through short hair. Before, in ignorance, all my thoughts on Del, it had been a simple matter to ignore the signs. But now, knowing, feeling, they were manifest.

  “Not now,” I muttered. “Not now—”

  Not yet.

  We had only once been injured or sick at the same time. And then it had been on Staal-Ysta, forced into a dance that had nearly killed us both. Northerners had cared for her in one dwelling, while others cared for me. When I was healed enough to ride, knowing Del would surely die and that I could not bear to witness it, I left.

  I wouldn’t leave her again. I’d sworn it. But this time, now, there was no one to care for either of us.

  I licked my lips. “All right,” I told myself hoarsely, “you’ve been clawed before. Neither time killed you. You have some immunity.”

  Some. But enough? That I didn’t know.

  I traced the curve of my skull, growing less distinct as my hair lengthened. Beneath it there were elaborate designs tattooed into my skin, visible now only at the hairline above my forehead. They marked me a mage. IoSkandic. A madman of Meteiera.

  I wiped sweat from my face with a trembling hand. Could magery overcome sandtiger poison? Could magery heal?

  I knew it could kill.

  Del made a sound, an almost inaudible release of breath coupled with the faintest of moans. I tried to move toward her, but my limbs were sluggish. Cursing my weakness, I made myself move. I nearly toppled over her, but a stiff arm jammed against the bedding kept me upright.

  “Bascha?”

  Nothing. Sweat ran from her flesh, giving off the stale metallic tang of sandtiger venom. I tasted the same in my own mouth.

  Time was running out. Hastily, clumsily, I snagged the water bota, soaked the still-damp cloth, draped it across her forehead. Droplets rolled down into the hollows of closed eyes, filling the creases of her lids, then dribbled from the outer corners of her eyes, mimicking the tears Del never wept.

  I tucked the bota under her right hand, being careful not to jar the bound forearm. I curled slack fingers loosely around the neck. I checked bandages for fresh blood. Found none. Felt a stab of relief like a knife in the belly.

  “Hold on,” I murmured. “Just hold on, bascha. You can make it through this.”

  The gelding whickered softly. I glanced out. There were, I realized, three fire rings in front of the lean-to, overlapping one another, merging, then springing apart again. I scowled, narrowing my eyes, trying to focus vision. Nothing helped.

  I swore, then grabbed a corner of the Vashni blanket. Tugged it toward Del. Managed to pull it atop her, cover most of her body save head and sandaled feet.

  “I know it’s warm,” I told her, “especially with a fever. But you need to sweat it out. Get rid of as much as you can.” I stroked roughened knuckles against one fever-blotched cheek. “When I can, I’ll go to Julah. Fouad can find us a healer. Then—”

  I broke it off. When. Then. Who was I fooling?

  If Del were conscious, she’d insist on the truth.

  On Meteiera, near the Stone Forest where the new mage was whelped atop a rocky spire, I had conjured magic. I had dreamed and made the substance of dream real. Set scars lifted by magery back into my flesh. Formed a seaworthy boat out of little more than stormwrack and wishing.

  Now I wished Del to live.

  I bore tattoos under my hair and lacked two fingers, souvenirs of Meteiera, where mages and madmen lived and died. I had been then, and could be now, what I needed to be.

  Del’s life was at stake.

  “All right, bascha, I’ll try.” I drew in a deep breath, sealed my eyes closed. “If I’m a mage,” I said hoarsely, “if I’m truly a mage, let me find the way…”

  I had done it in Meteiera, knowing nothing of power beyond that it existed. Blue-headed Nihko had told me those of us—us!—with magery in our blood had to use it, had to find a way to bleed off the power, lest it destroy us. But I had escaped the Stone Forest before learning much beyond a few simple rituals and prayers and the discipline of the priests; I was but an infant to the ways of the mages of Meteiera.

  Discipline.

  It claimed its own power.

  I gathered myself there beside Delilah, body and soul, flesh and spirit, and tried to find the part of me that had been born atop a stone spire in far-off ioSkandi. I knew nothing of the doing but that I had done it. Once, twice, thrice. Since then I had locked the awareness away, concentrating only on the physical, the retraining of a body lacking two fingers.

  A shiver wracked me. Something slammed into my body, buffeting awareness like a wind snuffing out candle-flame. Weakness swam in. I meant to move aside; I tried to move aside, to find and lean against the wall of stone regardless of claw gouges, needing the support. But my limbs got tangled. I could not tell what part of me were legs, which were arms, or if I even retained my head atop my shoulders.

  Power eluded me. What strength was left diminished like sand running out of a glass.

  Fear for Del surged up. “No—” I murmured, “—wait—” But all the strength poured out of my body. I slumped sideways, vision doubled; foug
ht it, attempted to push myself upright; went suddenly down onto my back on hardpacked soil and sand. “—wait—”

  An outflung arm landed against unsheathed blades propped against the sidewall. I felt one of them, in toppling, fall across my elbow. It was the flat, not the edge—but by then I didn’t care.

  I was dimly aware of a flicker of stunned outrage, and a voice in my head. Not like this—

  In the circle, yes. If a man had to die. But not from the last wayward scratch of a dying sandtiger.

  “Bascha—” I murmured.

  But the world was gone.

  NINE

  BONES. Bones and sand. Bones and sand and sun. And heat.

  Parched lips. Burned flesh. Swollen tongue. Blood yet running, smearing her thighs. Except there are no thighs. No lips, no flesh, no tongue. All has been consumed.

  From a distance, the bones are thread against sparkling silk. But closer, ever closer, pushed down from air to earth like a raptor stooping, thread takes on substance, sections itself into skull, into arms, and legs. Silk is sand. Crystalline Punja sand.

  Scoured clean of flesh, ivory bone gleams. Delicate toes are scattered. Fingers are nonexistent. Ribs have collapsed into a tangled riddle. The skull lies on its side, teeth bared in a rictus, sockets empty of eyes.

  I am pulled into them, lips brought to dentition, live teeth clicking on dead. Against my mouth bone moves. “Find me,” she says.

  I want nothing to do with her. With it. With what the bones had been.

  “Find me,” she says. “Take up the sword.”

  * * *

  The hand captured my head. For a moment I feared it was sand, and sun, and death. But the hand cupped my head, lifted it, set bota against my lips. Living lips, not bone. Water trickled into my mouth.

  It was enough to rouse me to something akin to panic. I lifted both arms, grasped with trembling hands, closed on leather waterskin. Squeezed.

  “Not so much,” he chided.

  He. Not she. The dead woman was gone.

  I drank. Swallow after swallow. Then he pulled it away.

  “Not so much,” he repeated.

  I wanted all of it.

  “Del,” I croaked. Swollen lips split and bled. Swollen eyes wouldn’t open. “Del…”

  “She’s alive.” Damp cloth bathed my face. “I swear it.”

  “Poison,” I said. “Sandtiger—”

  “I know. I recognize the wounds. Here. A little more.”

  More water. I drank, wanting to drown. “Del?”

  “Alive.”

  “Poison…”

  “Yes.”

  Dread was a blade in the vitals. “She’s dying…”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  Del’s bones in the sand?

  “Don’t let her die.”

  “It wants a healer,” he said. “I need to go back to Julah.”

  Julah. “Fouad’s,” I told him. “Cantina.”

  “Later,” he replied. “I’ll stay awhile yet.”

  “I won’t die,” I said. “Not from a sandtiger.”

  I heard a breath of laughter. “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Del?”

  “Alive,” he repeated.

  “You swore.”

  “Yes. I’m not lying. She might die, but she’s not dead yet.”

  It was something.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  But before he could answer, the world winked out.

  When next I roused, the weakness was less. I still lay on hardpan, itching from sand, but a light blanket was thrown over me and another, still rolled, pillowed my head. A bota lay at hand, as I had left one for Del. I shut fingers on it, brought to my mouth, drank and drank and drank.

  “Del?”

  No answer.

  I opened my eyes. I had no idea what hour it was, or day. Merely that I was alive despite the best efforts of my body to die.

  “Bascha?” My voice was hoarse.

  No answer.

  I collected strength. Hoarded it. Hitched myself up on an elbow. Saw the colorful Vashni blanket and the body beneath.

  Shadow fell across me. I glanced up, staring blearily at the opening and the man squatting there. “You?” I croaked.

  Stubble emphasized the hollows and angles of his face. He was dark as a Southroner, but with the faintest tint of copper to his tan. And those honey-brown eyes, liquid and melting, fringed in black lashes Del would claim too lush for a man, and infinitely unfair when women would kill for such.

  “Me,” he agreed.

  I slumped back onto the ground, wanting to groan. Didn’t, since we had company. “If you’ve come to challenge me—again—you picked a bad time.”

  “So I see. And no, I haven’t. I’ve learned a little since you killed that sword-dancer in Julah.”

  When was that? I didn’t remember. A day ago. A month. “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I am,” he said, with grave dignity entirely undermined by a glint of irony in his eyes, “looking after a man who has repudiated his honor. And the infamous Northern bascha who should be lacking in such, being merely a woman, but who appears to have it regardless. Or so some say.” He crawled into the lean-to, sat down beside me. “I couldn’t ask a dead man what elaii-ali-ma meant,” he said, “but I asked another sword-dancer when he came into town.”

  “Oh, good.” I managed my own irony despite the hoarse voice. “Then you know. You don’t have to challenge me to a dance, because there can be no dance. But you can kill me if you want to.” I paused. “If you can.”

  The faintest of smiles twitched one corner of his mouth. “Well, that would at the moment be a simple thing.”

  “And where’s the honor in that?”

  “So I asked myself.” He placed a hand against my forehead. “The worst of the fever has passed, I think, but you’re far from well.”

  I knew that without being told. “Who are you?”

  “My mother named me Nayyib.”

  “This isn’t the road from Julah. What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a road from Julah,” he clarified, “now. And I came looking for you. Fortunate thing, yes?”

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to challenge me.”

  “I’m not. At least, not in that way.”

  That sounded suspicious. “In what way, then?”

  “I wish to become a sword-dancer.”

  I grunted. “I figured that.”

  “I wish you to teach me.”

  “What, you just decided this?”

  “I decided this in Julah, after you killed that sword-dancer.”

  “Khashi.”

  “After you killed Khashi.”

  “Why? Didn’t you originally want to kill me?”

  “No. I wanted to dance against you. I didn’t know anything about this elaii-ali-ma. You were just—you. After I saw what happened to Khashi and learned what had happened to you, I decided to follow you.”

  I attempted to frown, which isn’t easy when you’re sick. “You followed us to Julah.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And at that point you still wanted to challenge me.”

  “I did. At that point I thought I was good with a sword.”

  “You don’t anymore?”

  His mouth twitched. “Not good enough.”

  “So now you want to be taught by a man who has no honor?”

  “A man who once was the greatest in all the South.”

  Once was. Once. What in hoolies was I now?

  Well, sick. That’s what.

  “So you figure if you look after us while we’re sick, you’ll earn some lessons.”

  His tone was exquisitely bland. “I should think saving your lives might be worth one or two.”

  I shut my eyes. “You’re a fool.”

  “Undoubtedly.” He placed the bota under my hand again. “I’ve tended her, got more water down her, wet the cloth again. And I’ve watered your horse. Grained him. Tied him under a tree f
or what little shade there is, and the few blades of grass.”

  “Busy boy,” I muttered.

  He ignored that. “But he’ll need more water later. So will she. Can you manage it?”

  “I’ll manage it.” How, I didn’t know. But I wouldn’t admit it to a kid. Especially not this kid, who had a mouth on him.

  He seemed to know it anyway. “I’ll go to Fouad’s and ask him for help. I’ll bring a healer, food, and more water. There isn’t much left. Ration it, if you want to live. I put wood by the fire.”

  He had indeed been a busy boy—and it just might save us. “Wait.” I levered myself up on an elbow. “You say there’s a road to Julah from here?”

  “Such as it is. Paired ruts, nothing more.”

  “We didn’t come that way.”

  “I crossed your tracks.”

  But Del and I had spent the night with the Vashni, and the kid—Nayyib—had only just reached us. “There’s a shorter way. Follow our tracks back to the streambed, and go from there.”

  Black brows drew together. “Vashni territory. Or is that your way of getting me killed?”

  “Oh, I’d do that myself. No—here.” With a trembling hand—hoolies, I hate being weak!—I pulled the Vashni necklet over my head, fingerbones clacking. “Wear this. It’s safe passage.”

  He stared at the necklet, then flicked a glance back at me. “You’re sure?”

  “Well, I suppose they might kill you for sheer hard-headedness, but it ought to get you safely through.”

  He took the necklet, eyed it in distaste, then hooked it over his head. My elbow gave out and I thumped back to the ground. Shut my eyes. “Do it for Del,” I said wearily, “not for me.”

  Against my lids his shadow shifted. Retreated. “I will try,” he told me, “to make certain she doesn’t die.”

  When I opened my eyes, the sun was down. And he was gone.

  Wind blows. Sand shifts. It creeps upon the bones, begins to swallow them. Legs. Arms. The collapsed cage of ribs. The jewels that are spine. All that is left is skull. And the sword.