Not if she could avoid it. “What for?”
“I need a place with lots of dry wood that’s not too far away, but where nobody will notice a fire. You know where to find one and I don’t.” The kid tugged her closer to the bakery. “Besides, they’re your weapons. You have to be there.”
“Weaver’s blood.” The fraying kid made such a big deal of everything. Lorel shook back her hair and shrugged her shoulders. “Today?”
“I’m ready.”
“Trader’s Inn at midday.” That would give her a little time to go hunting for the missing gangs.
The kid nodded, serious as a stone judge. What a frayed thread. Did she really believe he could carve a sword? Maybe she was the frayed thread.
She flicked her fingers at the bakery door. “Here comes the boss.”
The noodle grinned like he’d won a huge bet on treble bones, but tried to wipe his face clean. The limp thread was forever making silly faces at Faye. When would the boss get tired of him? Never. At least, she’d never say nothing. The boss was too nice.
But Lorel wasn’t nice. Didn’t want to be nice. She’d’ve yelled at the kid by now. Still, it wasn’t her problem. And the kid was so fraying helpless, it felt like kicking a puppy when she was mean to him.
Besides, she couldn’t say nothing mean until she saw them swords. Anybody who made any kind of sword deserved respect.
If the kid gave her Loom lint after all his talk, she’d never trust him again. Never listen to him again. Never speak to him again.
But if the kid gave her real swords, she’d protect him forever. Follow him to the ends of the world if she had to, just to pay him back.
˜™
Carrying a bag of sharpened bone through the crowded streets was considerably harder than Viper expected. Especially since the bag was nearly as long as he was tall. He’d planned to keep to the back streets, but one glimpse of Jorjan’s gang convinced him to stay on the main roads.
Now, bumped and jostled, and more than a bit out of breath, he prayed Jorjan hadn’t seen him, or at least hadn’t bothered to follow him. That sand lizard could ruin all their plans.
Lorel stood in front of the Trader’s Inn, her arms crossed as if she’d been waiting for hours. A small hatchet hung from a loop on her belt, only half hidden by her cloak. Was she trying to catch lightning?
“Quit frowning, kid. It’s registered. I borrowed it from the Foresters, and got permission to cut deadwood. Don’t fret yourself.” She glared down her nose. “You took your time.”
“I didn’t want Jorjan to snare me.” He shifted the heavy bag to his other shoulder. “Let’s get out of here before somebody sees us.”
She took the canvas bag and slung it over her shoulder as if it were full of balsawood slats instead of heavy bone. “Yeah. I saw him a ways down Outland Ter. He’s gone now.”
His stomach sank. Jorjan had followed him. “We’ve got to go back. Go inside the inn. Go anywhere! If he follows us, he’ll ruin everything.”
“That coward won’t follow us.” She led him down a dirt path behind the Trader’s Inn. “He don’t never leave the paved roads. He ain’t got the guts to rat on us, either.”
He hoped she was right.
“Even if he figured out what we’re up to.” She snorted. “I don’t know what we’re up to.” She lengthened her stride and marched under the trees.
The forest here seemed almost civilized, with the trees growing in straight rows with an equal distance between them. He didn’t feel as smothered as he had in the forest Gandar’s caravan had camped in.
He trotted behind the long-legged turybird, three steps to each one of hers. He started panting before they’d climbed the first hill, but he fought to breathe quietly so she wouldn’t notice. The blasted girl was sure to make fun of him.
Sweat dripped down his face, even though the day was chilly. “How much farther?”
“A ways yet, if you’re lighting a fire. Somebody’ll notice us this close to town. Especially inside the fraying orchard.”
He shrugged out of Trevor’s coat and slung it over his back.
They left the orchard, crossed a grassy area, and entered an oak forest. Lorel strolled down an alarmingly faint trail. Would she get him lost? The sandblasted trees loomed over him like they wanted to grab him. Eat him. Thunderer, he hated trees.
Still following the faint path, they climbed up another hill, down the other side. His breathing grew ragged. When had he become so weak?
How much farther would she take him? Was this her idea of a trick? The girl wasn’t even perspiring yet.
Lorel left the path and struck out though the brush. She was trying to lose him. What had he done to annoy her? He’d never find his way back if she abandoned him.
Stop whining and worrying. Concentrate on catching up. She was so far ahead only her dark hair showed above the bushes. He broke into a run, ducking under branches and hopping over fallen logs until he caught up with her.
She glanced back and grinned at him. “You sound like my oldest brother when Mom makes him climb the steps to the seawall. Huff and puff and blow the house down.”
He was suffocating, and she made fun of him? Well, not suffocating, but breathless. Too winded to even cuss at her. It took all his strength just to keep up.
Lorel finally stopped in a rocky clearing and glared around. “This’ll do.”
Viper collapsed next to a boulder and wheezed, “Praise – the – Thunderer.”
“You’re such a limp thread, kid. Sit up and pay attention.” She dropped the sack at his feet. “There’s more in there than a couple of swords.”
He forced himself to sit up. “I made some combs for Faye and a pair of saikeris from the extra bones.” Creating the combs out of bone fragments and the box from the vertebra had been easy. Carving saikeris out of the shoulder blade had been awful. He should have admitted he’d finished her swords days ago. “We wouldn’t get away with making a bonfire twice, and I want to dedicate the saikeris, too.”
“We’ll be lucky if we get away with it once. What’s a saikeris?” She paced around the edge of the clearing. Was she measuring it?
“It’s an old-fashioned weapon, not much favored anymore.” Putting it mildly. No warrior he’d ever met considered saikeris a real weapon. Bless the bone carver for teaching him to use them. “I’m too short to be any good with a sword, but I can hold my own with saikeris. Each has a handle and three prongs, two the length of your longest finger, and the middle one is twice the length of your hand.”
“So what do you do with it?” Lorel chuckled and waved her fist. “Besides forking somebody with it.”
“If he’s good enough, a warrior can kill a swordsman.”
“You’re joking.” Lorel stopped pacing and looked back at him, her gray eyes as wide as an abuelo snake’s maw.
“Not at all.” He tried to look roguish, but decided he’d failed. Hard to look like a scoundrel while sitting in the dirt fighting to catch his breath. “It takes some careful timing, but you’d be amazed at the damage three sharp prongs can manage. I can hold off a decent swordsman with a pair of saikeris. Jorjan and his followers will think twice, next time they run into me.”
“Forget it, kid.” Lorel started walking again, even faster than before. “They’ll beat you up, then they’ll call the guard. Else they’ll call the guard and let them beat you up. If it’s a weapon, it’s outlawed, even if nobody never heard of it before.”
“Those worm-tongued jackals.” How was he supposed to protect himself? Every idea he had turned out to be illegal. He jumped to his feet and trotted after her. “I’ll save them for when I go traveling.” Between the saikeris and his sister’s knife, he’d be able to ward off all his enemies.
Lorel spun to face him, narrowly avoiding a collision. “You really plan to leave Zedista?”
Viper hopped backwards and nodded. Someday he would. Trevor wouldn’t live forever, and he couldn’t live in the house without the old man.
“Take me with you. Let me go with you as your bodyguard or something. Promise you’ll give me the chance.”
“I promise.” He stared down at the rocky ground. Trevor wasn’t all that old. Travel wasn’t likely anytime soon. “But it won’t be for a long time yet.” He kicked at last autumn’s dead leaves. “You might leave without me first.”
“Ain’t likely.” Lorel turned and marched to the edge of the clearing. “I wouldn’t know where to go. I don’t know nothing about the world except Zedista.”
“You could learn.”
“I wanna see it firsthand.”
He hesitated when she stomped into the forest. He’d had enough firsthand acquaintance with trees for the moment.
She pulled the hatchet from her belt and glanced over her shoulder. “You got a special kind of wood in mind?”
“Manzanita is best.”
“That garbage? You’ve got to be kidding.” Lorel strolled back to him and waved her free arm. “We got a whole forest to choose from. You can do better than that crap. It’s trash wood.”
“It burns hottest.” Must she argue about everything? “Hotter than oak and longer than pine. My people go to a lot of trouble to get manzanita for blade dedication. The hotter the fire, the better the weapon. My teacher always said I did strong dedication magic.”
“Magic? Weaver’s blood. So we do it your way.” She stopped and glared around the clearing. “I’m thinking there’ll be all sorts of dead wood here, including manzanita. Don’t touch the live stuff. The glassmakers got all kinds of rules protecting wood.”
“Fine. Only dry wood will do.” He inspected the center of the clearing. “I need a fire pit here. Do you want to dig or to collect wood?”
“You put a shovel in the sack? No? I’ll get the wood.” Lorel dumped her cloak at the edge the clearing and disappeared into the forest.
Viper smiled, draped Trevor’s coat over a boulder, and started rearranging rocks. He’d collected all the wood for the last dedication ceremony he’d helped with. And dug the pit. He’d far rather dig than haul prickly branches.
An hour later, Lorel staggered back into the clearing, weighed down by more wood than any sane person should try to carry. What was wrong with the girl? Didn’t she know she’d have more strength if she made a couple of extra trips? The manzanita stand couldn’t be that far away. He’d heard her hatchet banging quite clearly.
She paused and stared at the long, narrow pit embedded in a mound of fresh dirt. “How’d you dig that so quick? It’s deep enough to be your grave.”
“Thanks a lot.” It was barely five feet deep, and four or five feet across. He’d been lucky and stepped into a rotted stump hidden just below the surface, ten feet from where he’d planned to dig, and so decayed it was easy to scrape out. No need to tell her about any of that.
“I simply moved a few stones and used a flat rock for a shovel. You were gone forever.” He heaved another armful of dry leaves into the pit.
“Was not.” Lorel dumped her load of wood into the hole. “Come help me carry. You can mess with them leaves later. Shuttle bust your thread for picking manzanita, kid. I ain’t never cut nothing that hard before. Can’t we use pine instead? Or oak, even?”
“No oak, no pine. And go get it yourself.” He slid into the pit and chucked branches over his head, back to the surface. “You can’t toss fuel into a hole and expect it to burn like magic. I need to rearrange this mess.” Hadn’t the turybird ever laid a fire?
Lorel moaned, but tromped away. Hatchet blows soon echoed through the forest.
Viper left a few branches inside the pit to serve as a ladder. He’d had enough trouble climbing out the last time, after the stairs he’d tried to create had crumbled into sand.
Another layer of dead leaves and the remains of the rotted stump served as tinder. He layered small branches above the kindling, dense for heat, but with air vents throughout. Larger branches he dragged across the pit and deftly levered down. He’d done this part of the ceremony so many times he could stack the wood without thinking, but he was careful to concentrate on each dry twig, each graying branch. Every bit of fuel would be important.
Lorel moaned melodramatically each time she carried a load and dumped it in the clearing. He tried not to laugh at her. Not aloud, at least.
In between her journeys, he trotted to the bag she’d left near a boulder at the edge of the clearing. He unwrapped the rags he’d used to cushion the blades and examined each sword, making a last check for hidden flaws. The ivory and beige dappled bone was sanded flawlessly smooth, each edge sharp as only bahtdor bone can be.
He rewrapped the blades so each had a loose rag sheath. The turybird wasn’t taking the ceremony seriously. He needed to try a magician trick to impress her a little. Not magic, since Trevor hadn’t taught him any. Just sleight of hand. The old bone carver had been skilled at that. He should be able to pull off something simple.
The sun hovered halfway between noon and the treetops. They didn’t have much time. Was there was enough wood in the pit for the ceremonial bonfire?
Lorel crashed through the underbrush and dumped more wood at his feet. “Manzanita, every stick. Kid…”
“Yes, that’s enough.” It had to be enough. The tingle under his skin said they were running out of time. The ceremony must begin. Soon.
As quickly as he dared, he stacked the new wood on top of the old.
“What’s taking so long?” Lorel hopped from foot to foot, exactly like a turybird dancing for her mate.
He sucked in a breath, but squelched his first words. Did he curse or laugh at her? Curse. She’d punch him if he laughed.
“Lightning strike you, turybird.” Viper pointed at the bag. “Bring that, but don’t you dare open it.”
“Hurry up, kid. If this thing burns high after dark we’ll have the whole city up here with us.”
“I’m ready.” As ready as he could be. Something didn’t feel right. “Bring the swords.”
Lorel’s face lit up like she’d finally figured out why she’d chopped all that wood. She dashed to the edge of the clearing, grabbed the bag, and ran back to place it at his feet.
Show time. Could he pull it off? He knelt, reached inside the bag, and took a firm hold on the first hilt. With a theatrical flourish, he withdrew the long, slightly curved sword as he stood up. He swung it over his head so quickly the tip blurred. The blade whistled as he sliced to each side. Finally he held it in front of him, emphasizing how tall it was.
Lorel gasped.
“This is the Daito,” he whispered. “The long sword, the warrior’s sword. Bear it in strength.” He laid the elegant blade the west side of the fire pit.
Lorel’s gaze followed it, lingered on the sharp edges.
Viper drew out the second blade. “This is the Tanto, the short sword, the honor sword. Bear it with pride.”
He paused for a moment. Should he explain the use of the honor sword? The worshipful look on her face made him decide to tell her some other time. She wasn’t likely to kill herself to defend her honor anyway. From what he’d seen of her, the turybird held only a vague, instinctive notion of honor, and no understanding of shame.
Still holding the bag, he walked to the east side of the pit and reverently placed the Tanto on the soft earth.
He inhaled slowly before reaching deep into the bag. “This is the Kozuka, the dagger, the war knife. Bear it with humility.”
His eyes misted over. As he laid the knife at the north end of the fire pit, he bowed his head to hide tears. How it tore him to say that fragment of the Knife Ceremony for Lorel when the honor was forever forbidden to him. Surely she was worthy of the Knife, but why was he unacceptable? Ah, to have been born in Lorel’s body.
He wiped his face on his sleeve and glanced at her. Praise the Thunderer. She hadn’t noticed his moment of weakness.
“Together, the Daito and the Tanto are called the Dai-sho, the warrior swords. The Kozuka will rest in a pocket of the Tanto’s scabba
rd.”
He paused, caught his breath, and bowed his head again.
Ay, Thunderer, I dedicate these swords to you. These, the best blades I have ever carved, the most flawless swords I have ever seen, these swords I dedicate to you.
May she carry them proudly, this odd girl who will someday be a warrior. May she bring you honor in her use of them, whether she knows she bears them in your name or not.
He snorted. Even if she knew she wouldn’t consider it an honor. At least she would honor her swords. He could promise that just from the look on her face.
But he wasn’t done yet. He fished at the bottom of the bag and unwrapped the rag coverings. “Here are Faye’s combs and a little box to keep them in.”
Lorel glanced at his hands. “That box already done come apart.” Her eyes snapped back to the swords.
“No, it needs the bottom glued on and a copper pin in the hinges. I didn’t have time for all that, but I wanted to show them to you.” He couldn’t remember why it seemed so important that the turybird see them, even if he was proud of the carved roses on each base. He should have left them at home. He trotted to his coat and placed the combs and box inside the right pocket. Trinkets didn’t rate a dedication ceremony, not even a gift for Faye. He dug into the sack again pulled out the pair of saikeris.
Lorel leaned forward and examined the odd weapons. “Wicked looking thingies. Awful little to hold off a sword, though.”
Little weapons for a little would-be warrior, but perfectly adapted for the job they were intended to do. Viper smiled and laid the weapons at the south end of the pit. He didn’t know a dedication adage for them. Well, he’d simply make one up. “These are the saikeris, the blade trappers. Bear them in …” In what?
“In defiance, kid. You’ll need guts to face a swordsman with them little things.”
Defiance was as good an attribute as any. The Thunderer might approve. He peered into the sky, searching for thunderdrums. Did that little cloud count?
Lorel turned away to stare at her swords. “Now what?”
Illusion's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 1) Page 13
