I remained bent over, coughing and spitting when the residual retching stopped, and heard the chink of hoof on stone. It might be the stud. But in case it was Del, I thrust out a splayed hand that told her to stay away.
I didn’t need an audience. I’d had one already, in Julah.
Finally I straightened, scraping at my mouth with the sleeve of my burnous. When I turned to hike back up to the stud, I found Del holding his reins. Silent no longer.
"Are you cut?" she asked.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Have you looked?"
Sighing, I inspected my arms, then ran my hands down the front of burnous and harness, checking for complaints of the flesh, though I was fairly certain Khashi had not broken my guard. I was spattered with blood, but none of it appeared to be mine. And nothing hurt beyond the edges of my palms where the fingers were missing.
"I’m fine." I climbed to the stud, took the reins from her, then pulled one of the botas free and filled my mouth with water. I rinsed, spat, scrubbed again at my mouth, then released a noisy breath from the environs of my toes. "Butchery," I muttered hoarsely, throat burned by bile.
"It was necessary."
"I’ve killed men, beheaded men, cut men into collops before. Borjuni. Bandits. Thieves. It never bothered me; it was survival, no more. But this —" I shook my head.
"It was necessary," she repeated. "How better to warn other sword-dancers you will not be easy prey?"
That was precisely why I had done it, knowing the tale would be told. Embellished into legend. But the aftermath was far more difficult to deal with than I had anticipated.
"Tiger," Del said quietly, "you spent many years learning all the rituals of the sword-dance. The requirements of the circle. It was your escape, your freedom, but also a way of life woven of rules, rites, codes. The formal sword-dance is not about killing but about the honor of the dance and victory. What you did today was the antithesis of everything you learned, all that you embraced, when you swore the oaths of a sword-dancer before your shodo at Alimat."
"I’ve been in death-dances before." They were rare, as most sword-dances were a relatively peaceful way of settling disputes for our employers, but they did occur.
"Still formalized," she observed. "It’s an elegant way to die. An honorable way to die."
Killing Khashi had been neither. But necessary, yes.
"On another day, you and he would have danced a proper dance. One of you would have won. And then likely afterwards you’d have gone to a cantina together and gotten gloriously drunk. It is different, Tiger, what was done today."
"You can’t know, bascha —"
"I can. I do. I killed Bron."
It took me a moment. Then I remembered. Del had killed a friend, a training partner, who otherwise would have kept her from returning to the Northern island known as Staal-Ysta, where her daughter lived.
But still.
I squirted more water into my mouth, spat again, then drank. Stared hard across the landscape, remembering the stink of severed bowels, the expression on his face as his life ran out, the weight of the blade as I opened his abdomen.
Butchery.
"Would you feel better if you had died?"
For the first time since the fight I looked directly at her. Felt the tug of a wry smile at my mouth. Trust Delilah to put it in perspective.
"You don’t have to like it," she said. "If you did, if you began to, I would not share your bed. But this, too, is survival, and in its rawest, most primitive form. There will be others. Kill them quickly, Tiger, and ruthlessly. Show them no mercy. Because they will surely show none to you."
What she didn’t say, what she didn’t need to say, was that some of those others would be better than Khashi.
SIX
Del was initially resistent to going after my jivatma. She truly saw no sense in it, since very likely the sword was buried under tons of rock, and we had new blades. I still hadn’t told her about the dreams of the woman commanding me to take up the sword, because I couldn’t find words that didn’t make me sound like a sandsick fool. Instead, I relied on Del’s own respect for the Northern blades and on the loss of Boreal. As I had by declaring elaii-ali-ma, she had made the only choice possible in breaking the sword, but that didn’t mean she was immune to regret. Eventually she gave in.
There was not a road where we wanted to go, because no one else, apparently, had ever wanted to go there. Del and I made our own way, recalling the direction from our visit to Shaka Obre’s domain nearly a year before. We left behind the flat but relatively lush desert of Julah and traded it for foothills, the precursors of the mountain where we had encountered strong magic, where Chosa Dei, living in my sword, had vacated it first to fill — and kill — Sabra, then to encounter his brother. They hadn’t been living beings, Chosa Dei and Shaka Obre, merely power incarnate, but that was enough. What was left of them battled fiercely within the hollowed rock formation that shaped, inside a huge chimney of stone, a circle. And Del and Chosa Dei, using my sword, my body, had danced.
Here there was rock in place of soil, intermixed with hardpan and seasonings of sand. Drifts of stone were like the bones of the earth peeping through the flesh, but there were tumbled piles of it as well as that beneath the dirt. Brownish, porous smokerock, the variegations of slate, sharply faceted shale, the milky glow of quartz, the glitter of mica coupled with glinting splashes of false gold. The Punja, with its crystalline sands, was yet miles away. This was a land of rock swelling like boils into looming stone formations crowning ragged foothills, merging slowly into mountains. Not the high, huge ranges of Del’s North, shaped of wind and snow and ice, but the whimsy of Southron nature in sudden bubbles of burst rock, scattered remnants of wholeness and order, abrupt, towering upthrustings of striated stone shoved loose from the desert floor.
Movement against the uneven horizon of foothills and rock formations caught my eye. I looked, saw, and reined in sharply. Del, not watching me as she and her gelding picked their way through, nearly allowed her gelding to walk into the back of the stud. There was a moment of tension in the body beneath me, but he, too, knew what lay before us was far more threatening than what was behind.
"What —" Del began; but then she, like me, held her silence, and waited.
I had half expected it. We were in the land of the Vashni. No one knew where the borders were, or even if there were borders, but there was always the awareness of risk when one traveled here.
Four warriors. Vashni are not large, nor are their horses. But size wasn’t what mattered. It was the willingness to kill, and the way in which they did it.
Four warriors, kilted in leather, wearing wreaths of fingerbone pectorals against oiled chests. Black hair was also oiled, worn in single, fur-wrapped plaits. Bone-handled knives and swords decorated their persons.
Del’s voice was a breath of sound. "Could these be the same four who met us when we had Sabra?"
I answered as quietly. "I don’t know. Maybe. No one sees the Vashni often enough to recognize individuals." At least, no one lived long enough to recognize individuals.
The warriors eased their small, dark horses into motion. They rode down from the rocky hilltop and approached, marking our faces, harnesses, swords. I felt the first tickle of sweat springing up on my skin.
Is it possible to fight a Vashni? Of course. I imagine it has happened. But no one, no one has ever survived the battle. They are killed, then boiled. When the bones are free of flesh, the Vashni make jewelry and weapons of it. The flesh is fed to dogs.
The only reason I know this is the Vashni don’t kill children. It is their ’mercy’ to take children into their villages, to feed them, have them watch what becomes of their parents, then deliver them to a road where they will be found by others.
If they are found. Some of them have been.
Del and I had been in a Vashni village once, when searching for her brother. They had treated us with hon
or; Jamail was considered a holy man, and she was his sister. Jamail, castrated, mute, had not wanted to leave the people who gave him a twisted sort of kindness after years of slavery elsewhere. Later — known by then as the Oracle — he had been killed, but it hadn’t been Vashni doing. They revered his memory.
"Del," I said quietly, "come up beside me so they can see you better."
She didn’t question it; possibly she also realized safety might lie in her resemblence to the Oracle, her brother. She moved the gelding out from behind the stud, guided him next to me, and reined in. Again, we waited.
That triggered a response in the Vashni. One of them stayed back, but three others rode down. One stationed himself in front of me, approximately three paces away; the other two took up positions on either side of us.
The fourth rode down then. When he was close enough, I saw his eyes were lighter than the others, the shape of his face somewhat different. I’d never heard of Vashni breeding with other tribes, but anything was possible. They had taken a Northerner into their midst. Del’s brother, by the time we found him, had become one of them.
The warrior pulled up near Del. This close, we could smell them. Apparently rancid oil was considered perfume in Vashni circles.
The warrior’s eyes were a dark gray. He looked hard at Del, then at me. Something moved in those eyes. He raised a hand to his face and touched one cheek, mimicking my scars.
I took it as invitation. "Sandtiger," I said.
Now he looked at Del. Now the hand rose to his hair, then indicated his eyes.
Blue-eyed, fair-haired Del said, "The Oracle’s sister."
The Vashni closed in. We followed — or were made to understand it was wise to follow — the man with gray eyes.
It was a camp, not a village. A tiny clearing surrounded by boulders, a grove of twisted, many-limbed trees, a fire ring set in the middle with blankets thrown down around it. The stink of blood and entrails as well as the piles of hides told us the Vashni were a hunting party, as did the skinned carcasses hanging from the trees. Likely the village was a day’s ride. Perhaps it was even the one where Jamail had been held.
Once in camp, Del and I were motioned off our horses. We dismounted, and one of the warriors led the stud and gelding away to tie them to a tree lacking the ornamentation of meat. The stud was not happy, but he didn’t protest. Del’s black-painted, fringe-bedecked gelding went placidly and stood where he was tied, lowering his head to forage in thatches of webby green grass spreading beneath the tree. The Vashni mounts were turned loose once their bridles were slipped; apparently even they knew better than to test a warrior’s mood.
Gravely the gray-eyed man unsheathed knife and sword and set them down upon a woven blanket. The other warriors followed suit. Then it was our turn.
Unarming before anyone was not something I enjoyed. Doing it before Vashni set a knot into my guts. But a single misstep could get us killed. And they seemed to be peaceable enough — for the moment.
Del and I added our weapons to the pile. The gray-eyed man, whom I took to be the leader, sat down, motioning us to be seated on the blanket across from him, on the other side of the fire ring. We did so. It was a comfortable spot out of the sun’s glare, shaded by trees. If we’d been with anyone besides Vashni, it might have been a nice little respite.
Then, surprisingly, the grey-eyed man placed a hand on his chest and identified himself: "Oziri." Botas were brought out and passed around. We were, they made it clear, to drink first, even before Oziri.
Peaceable indeed. Courteous, even. I unstoppered the bota, smelled the pungent bite of liquor, took a surreptitous deep breath, then squirted a goodly amount into my mouth. Even as I swallowed liquid fire, clamping my mouth shut so as not to gasp aloud, I passed the bota to Del. Without hesitation she drank down a generous swallow. Then tears welled up in her eyes, and she went into a spasm of coughing.
It might have been insult. Instead, the Vashni found it amusing. Grins broke out. Heads nodded. One warrior brought out a leather bag, dug inside, then tossed out sizeable chunks of meat to his companions. I was thrown a chunk big enough for two; Del, they clearly judged, was still too incapacitated to catch her own.
"If you die," I told her, "they’ll likely take your body back to the village and boil the flesh off your bones."
Her voice was thin and choked. "I’m not dying."
"Here." I divided and passed her some meat. "Maybe this will help."
She cleared her throat repeatedly, then accepted the meat even as she thrust the bota back at me. "What is it?"
"Don’t ask. Just eat." I sucked down more liquor. It was unlike anything I’d had before. Already my brain tingled.
Knowing Vashni eyes were on her, Del lifted the meat to her mouth and found a promising edge. She bit into it, froze a moment, then began to gnaw at it. Eventually she pulled the bite free and began to chew. Her expression, despite her attempt to mask it, spoke of a flavor not particularly pleasing to her palate.
Now that Del was eating, it was my turn. No more excuses. I bit into my portion, tore off a chunk, tasted the sharp, gamy flavor, and began the lengthy process of chewing it into something that might be swallowed. The warriors, I noted, had no problems. But then, they likely had been given tough and mostly raw meat from the day their teeth came in.
Del’s words were distorted around the bite she was clearly reluctant to swallow. "Wha’ i’ it?"
I grinned as I risked it — one big swallow to get it all down at once — and tossed the bota back. "Like I said, don’t ask. Just eat. Wash it down with that."
Oziri said, "Sandtiger."
I looked at him. "Yes?"
Something very like a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. He pointed to the meat. "Sandtiger. For the Sandtiger."
Oh. Oh.
Hoolies — I was eating my namesake!
Del stopped chewing. She stared at the hunk of meat in her hand, plainly trying to decide if she would be forgiven for spitting out what was in her mouth, or possibly killed for it. As I expected, she took the safer road. She swallowed with effort, then squirted more liquor into her mouth. This time she didn’t cough, but a hand flew to her mouth. Droplets fell from her chin.
Sandtiger meat. No wonder it was so tough. They weren’t exactly known as a food source. Usually we were theirs.
I bit off another chunk and began to chew before it could chew back. It was impossible to relax, but the Vashni, eating and drinking companionably, gave every indication we were guests, not quarry bound for the cookpot.
Of course, it could just be the last meal prior to the cookpot.
I didn’t say that to Del. Just watched her struggle to chew and choke down the meat, leavening it with liquor. Eventually I took the bota back and did the same.
"Sandtiger," Oziri said.
I waited politely, wondering if he were addressing me or identifying my meal.
"The Oracle’s sister took you into Beit al’Shahar and freed you of Chosa Dei."
Either that had become legend in his tribe, or this man had been one of the warriors who’d told Del where to find Shaka Obre, after she’d hit me over the head with a rock. Or perhaps he was one of the warriors who’d taken Jamail to the chimney formation where he somehow managed to learn how to speak again despite lacking a tongue.
"Yes," I confirmed.
"You are free now?"
"Yes."
He ran a forefinger along his hairline. "Chosa Dei did that?"
He meant the rim of tattoos at the top of my forehead, not yet hidden by hair. "No. This was done in Skandi. An island far away."
He didn’t care about Skandi. "Did Chosa steal your mind?"
I smiled. "He tried. But no. I’m truly free of him." If I weren’t, they’d likely boil me. "Thanks to the Oracle’s sister."
He nodded once, glancing at Del. "We honor you, Oracle’s sister."
Del was startled. But she retained enough courtesy to give him thanks for that, for his meat, for his l
iquor.
Oziri smiled. "You will be drunk."
Her face was rosy. "I think," she said, "I am."
He nodded once. "Good."
"Good?" she asked faintly.
"Good, yes." He glanced it me. "You, it will take longer."
"Oh, I don’t know — I’m already feeling it."
"Drink more. There are tales to be told."
So I drank more, while the Vashni told us tales of the Oracle’s prophecies of a man who would change the sand to grass, thus changing the future of the desert. I kept my face free of reaction, but I couldn’t help wondering if that kind of future was anathema to them. Yet the warriors seemed merely to accept what their Oracle had prophesied, as if it hadn’t occured to them to question what might come. Blind faith, sitting before me.
"Jhihadi," Oziri said, and the others murmured something.
I flicked a sharp glance at him.
"The Oracle said he will change the sand to grass."
I chewed thoughtfully at a final bite of meat, recalling the suggestions I had made to a young man called Mehmet about digging new wells and using cisterns linked to channels to bring the water to areas without. The suggestion had seemed quite logical to me, infinitely practical. So obvious, in fact, I found it amazing no one else had ever thought of it.
And for that suggestion, Mehmet had named me jhihadi.
A man could own a dwelling and a plot of land and call himself a king. A man could have an idea that suited a prophecy, and call himself a messiah.
And there were times when that kind of label could be valuable.
I swallowed the meat, then leaned forward, dug a shallow depression in the dirt, drew a line leading out of it, then poured liquor into the depression. After a moment, it flowed into the finger-wide channel. I reached out, plucked a sprig of grass, and set it at the end of the channel as the liquor arrived.
"Sand," I said, "is grass."
The Vashni stared at my little demonstration. Dark faces paled. Four pairs of eyes fastened themselves on my face, staring in astonishment. Clearly they were shaken.
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