Sword Sworn [Vows EBOOK_TITLE Honor series]

by Mercedes Lackey

  It came from the East, and was filled with the scent of fresh flowers. It encircled her, and seemed to blow right through her very soul. It was soon joined by a second breeze, out of the West; a robust and strong little wind carrying the scent of ripening grain. As the first had blown through her, emptying her of pain, the second filled her with strength. Then it, too, was joined; a bitterly cold wind from the north, sharp with snow-scent. At the touch of this third wind her eyes opened, though she remained swathed in darkness born of the dark of her own spirit. The wind chilled her, numbed the memories until they began to seem remote; froze her heart with an icy armor that made the loneliness bearable. She felt now as if her soul were swathed in endless layers of soft, protecting bandages. Now she saw through eyes withdrawn to view a world that had receded just out of reach.

  The center of a whirlwind now, she stood unmoving while the physical winds whipped her hair and clothing about and the spiritual ones worked their magics within.

  But the southern wind, the Warrior's Wind, was not one of them.

  Suddenly the winds died to nothing. A voice that held nothing of humanity, echoing, sharp-edged as a fine blade yet ringing with melody, spoke one word. Her name.

  Tarma obediently turned slowly to her right. Before the altar in the south stood a woman.

  She was raven-haired and tawny-skinned, and the lines of her face were thin and strong, like all the Shin'a'in. She was arrayed in black, from her boots to the headband that held her shoulder-length tresses out of her eyes. Even the chainmail hauberk she wore was black, as were the sword she wore slung across her back and the daggers in her belt. She raised her eyes to meet Tarma's, and they had no whites, irises or pupils; her eyes were reflections of a cloudless night sky, black and star-strewn.

  The Goddess had chosen to answer as the Warrior, and in Her own person.

  When Tarma stepped through the tent-flap there was a collective sigh. Her hair was shorn just short of shoulder length; the clansfolk would find the discarded locks on the Warrior's altar. Tarma had carried nothing into the tent, there was nothing within the shrine that she would have been able to use to cut it. Tarma's Oath had been accepted. There was an icy calm about her that was unmistakable, and completely nonhuman.

  No one in this clan had been Sword-Sworn within living memory, but all knew what tradition demanded of them. No longer would the Sworn One wear garments bright with the colors the Shin'a'in loved; from out of a chest in the Wise One's tent, carefully husbanded against such a time, came clothing of dark brown and deepest black. The brown was for later, should Tarma survive her quest. The black was for now, for ritual combat, or for one pursuing blood-feud.

  They clothed her, weaponed her, provisioned her. She stood before them when they had done, looking much as the Warrior herself had, her weapons about her, her provisions at her feet. The light of the dying sun turned the sky to blood as they brought the youngest child of the Clan Liha'irden to receive her blessing, a toddler barely ten months old. She placed her hands on his soft cap of baby hair without really seeing him—but this child had a special significance. The herds and properties of the Hawk's Children would be tended and preserved for her, either until Tarma returned, or until this youngest child in the Clan of the Racing Deer was old enough to take his own sword. If by then she had not returned, they would revert to their caretakers.

  Tarma rode out into the dawn. Tradition forbade anyone to watch her departure. To her own senses it seemed as though she rode still drugged with one of the healer's potions. All things came to her as if filtered through a gauze veil; even her memories seemed secondhand—like a tale told to her by some gray-haired ancient.

  She rode back to the scene of the slaughter; the pitiful burial mound aroused nothing in her. Some outside force showed her eyes where to catch the scant signs of the already cold trail. No attempt had been made to conceal it. She rode until the fading light made tracking impossible, and made a cold camp, concealing herself and her horse in the lee of a pile of boulders. Enough moisture collected on them each night to support some meager grasses, which Kessira tore at eagerly. Tarma made a sketchy meal of dried meat and fruit, still wrapped in that strange calmness, then rolled herself into her blanket.

  She was awakened before midnight.

  A touch on her shoulder sent her scrambling out of her blanket, dagger in hand. Before her stood a figure, seemingly a man of the Shin'a'in, clothed as one Sword-Sworn. Unlike her, his face was veiled.

  "Arm yourself. Sworn One.” he said, his voice having an odd quality of distance to it, as though he were speaking from the bottom of a well.

  She did not pause to question or argue. It was well that she did not, for as soon as she had donned her arms and light chain shirt, he attacked her.

  The fight was not a long one; he had the advantage of surprise, and he was a much better fighter than she. Tarma could see the killing blow coming, but was unable to do anything to prevent it from falling. She cried out in agony as the stranger's sword all but cut her in half.

  She woke, staring up at the stars. The stranger interposed himself between her eyes and the sky. “You are better than I thought—” he said, with grim humor. “But you are still clumsy as a horse in a pottery shed. Get up and try again."

  He killed her three more times—with the same non-fatal result. After the third, she woke to find the sun rising, herself curled in her blanket and feeling completely rested. For one moment, she wondered if the strange combat had all been a nightmare—but then she saw her arms and armor stacked neatly to hand. As if to mock her doubts, they were laid in a different pattern than she had left them.

  Once again she rode in a dream. Something controlled her actions as deftly as she managed Kessira, keeping the raw edges of her mind carefully swathed and anesthetized. When she lost the trail, her controller found it again, making her body pause long enough for her to identify how it had been done.

  She camped, and again she was awakened before midnight.

  Pain is a rapid teacher; she was able to prolong the bouts this night enough that he only killed her twice.

  It was a strange existence, tracking by day, training by night. When her track ended at a village, she found herself questioning the inhabitants shrewdly. When her provisions ran out, she discovered coin in the pouch that had held dried fruit—not a great deal, but enough to pay for more of the same. When, in other villages, her questions were met with evasions, her hand stole of itself to that same pouch, to find coin enough to loosen the tongues of those she faced. Always when she needed something, she either woke with it to hand, or discovered more of the magical coins appearing to pay for it; always just enough, and no more. Her nights seemed clearer and less dreamlike than her days, perhaps because the controls were thinner then, and the skill she fought with was all her own. Finally one night she “killed” her instructor.

  He collapsed exactly as she would have expected a man run through the heart to collapse. He lay unmoving—

  "A good attack, but your guard was sloppy.” said a familiar voice behind her. She whirled, her sword ready.

  He stood before her, his own sword sheathed. She risked a glance to her rear; the body was gone.

  "Truce. You have earned a respite and a reward,” he said. “Ask me what you will, I am sure you have many questions. I know I did."

  "Who are you?” she cried eagerly. “What are you?"

  "I cannot give you my name, Sworn One. I am only one of many servants of the Warrior; I am the first of your teachers—and I am what you will become if you should die while still under Oath. Does that disturb you? The Warrior will release you at any time you wish to be freed. She does not want the unwilling. Of course, if you are freed, you must relinquish the blood-feud."

  Tarma shook her head.

  "Then ready yourself, Sworn One, and look to that sloppy guard."

  There came a time when their combats always ended draws or with his “death". When that had happened three nights running, she woke the four
th night to face a new opponent—a woman, armed with daggers.

  Meanwhile she tracked her quarry, by rumor, by the depredations left in their wake. It seemed that what she tracked was a roving band of freebooters, and her clan was not the only group made victims. They chose their quarry carefully, never picking anyone the authorities might avenge, nor anyone with friends in power.

  When she had mastered sword, dagger, bow, and staff, her trainers appeared severally rather than singly; she learned the arts of the single combatant against many.

  Every time she gained a victory, they instructed her further in what her Oath meant.

  One of those things was that her body no longer felt the least stirrings of sexual desire. The Sword-Sworn were as devoid of concupiscence as their weapons.

  "The gain outweighs the loss,” the first of them told her. After being taught the disciplines and rewards of the meditative trance they called “The Moonpaths,” she agreed. After that, she spent at least part of every night walking those paths, surrounded by a curious kind of ecstasy, renewing her strength and her bond with her Goddess.

  Inexorably, she began to catch up with her quarry. She had begun this quest months behind them; now she was only days. The closer she drew, the more intensely did her spirit-trainers drill her.

  Then one night, they did not come. She woke on her own and waited, waited until well past midnight, waited until she was certain they were not coming at all. She dozed off for a moment, when she felt a presence. She rose with one swift motion, pulling her sword from the scabbard on her back.

  The first of her trainers held out empty hands. “It has been a year, Sworn One. Are you ready? Your foes lair in the town not two hours’ ride from here, and the town is truly their lair for they have made it their own."

  So near as that? His words came as a shock, ripping the protective magics that veiled her mind and heart, sending her to her knees with the shrilling pain and raging anger she had felt before the winds of the Goddess answered her prayers. No longer was she protected against her own emotions; the wounds were as raw as they had ever been.

  He regarded her thoughtfully, his eyes pitying above the veil. “No, you are not ready. Your hate will undo you, your hurt will disarm you. But you have little choice, Sworn One. This task is one you bound yourself to, you cannot free yourself. Will you heed advice, or will you throw yourself uselessly into the arms of Death?"

  "What advice?” she asked dully.

  "When you are offered aid unlocked for, do not cast it aside,” he said, and vanished.

  She could not sleep; she set out at first light for the town, and hovered about outside the walls until just before the gates were closed for the night. She soothed the ruffled feathers of the guard with a coin, offered as “payment” for directions to the inn.

  The inn was noisy, hot and crowded. She wrinkled her nose at the unaccustomed stench of old cooking smells, spilled wine, and unwashed bodies. Another small coin bought her a jug of sour wine and a seat in a dark corner, from which she could hear nearly everything said in the room. It did not take long to determine from chance-dropped comments that the brigand-troupe made their headquarters in the long-abandoned mansion of a merchant who had lost everything he had including his life to their depredations. Their presence was unwelcome. They regarded the townsfolk as their lawful prey; having been freed from their attentions for the past year, their “chattels” were not pleased with their return.

  Tarma burned with scorn for these soft townsmen. Surely there were enough able-bodied adults in the place to outnumber the bandit crew several times over. By sheer numbers the townsmen could defeat them, if they'd try.

  She turned her mind toward her own quest, to develop a plan that would enable her to take as many of the enemy into death as she could manage. She was under no illusion that she could survive this. The kind of frontal assault she planned would leave her no path of escape.

  A shadow came between Tarma and the fire.

  She looked up, startled that the other had managed to come so close without her being aware of it. The silhouette was that of a woman, wearing the calf-length, cowled brown robe of a wandering sorceress. There was one alarming anomaly about this woman—unlike any other magic-worker Tarma had ever seen, this one wore a sword belted at her waist.

  She reached up and laid the cowl of her robe back, but Tarma still was unable to make out her features; the firelight behind her hair made a glowing nimbus of amber around her face.

  "It won't work, you know.” the stranger said very softly, in a pleasant, musical alto. “You won't gain anything by a frontal assault but your own death."

  Fear laid an icy hand on Tarma's throat; to cover her fear she snarled, “How do you know what I plan? Who are you?"

  "Lower your voice. Sworn One.” the sorceress took a seat next to Tarma, uninvited. “Anyone with the Talent and the wish to do so can read your thoughts. Your foes number among them a sorcerer; I know he is responsible for the deaths of many a sentry that would have warned their victims in time to defend themselves. Rest assured that if I can read your intentions, he will be able to do the same, should he cast his mind in this direction. I want to help you. My name is Kethry."

  "Why help me?” Tarma asked bluntly, knowing that by giving her name the sorceress had given Tarma a measure of power over her.

  Kethry stirred, bringing her face fully into the light of the fire. Tarma saw then that the woman was younger than she had first judged; they were almost of an age. The sorceress was almost doll-like in her prettiness. But Tarma had also seen the way she moved, like a wary predator; and the too-wise expression in those emerald eyes sat ill with the softness of the face. Her robe was worn to shabbiness, and though clean, was travel-stained. Whatever else this woman was, she was not overly concerned with material wealth. That in itself was a good sign to Tarma—since the only real wealth in this town was to be had by serving with the brigands.

  But why did she wear a sword?

  "I have an interest in dealing with these robbers myself,” she said. “And I'd rather that they weren't set on guard. And I have another reason as well—"

  "So?"

  She laughed deprecatingly. “I am under a geas, one that binds me to help women in need. I am bound to help you, whether or not either of us is pleased with the fact. Will you have that help unforced?"

  Tarma's initial reaction had been to bristle with hostility—then, unbidden, into her mind came the odd, otherworldly voice of her trainer, warning her not to cast away unlooked-for aid.

  "As you will,” she replied curtly.

  The other did not seem to be the least bit discomfited by her antagonism. “Then let us leave this place,” she said, standing without haste. “There are too many ears here."

  She waited while Tarma retrieved her horse, and led her down tangled streets to a dead-end alley lit by red lanterns. She unlocked a gate on the left side and waved Tarma and Kessira through it. Tarma waited as she relocked the gate, finding herself in a cobbled courtyard that was bordered on one side by an old but well-kept stable. On the other side was a house, windows ablaze with lights, festooned with the red lanterns. From the house came the sound of music, laughter, and the voices of many women. Tarma sniffed; the air was redolent of cheap perfume and an animal muskiness.

  "Is this place what I think it is?” she asked, finding it difficult to match the picture she'd built in her mind of the sorceress with the house she'd led Tarma to.

  "If you think it's a brothel, you're right.” Kethry replied. “Welcome to the House of Scarlet Joys, Sworn One. Can you think of a less likely place to house two such as we?"

  "No.” Tarma almost smiled.

  "The better to hide us. The mistress of this place and her charges would rejoice greatly at the conquering of our mutual enemies. Nevertheless, the most these women will do for us is house and feed us. The rest is in our four hands. Let's get your weary beast stabled, and we'll adjourn to my rooms. We have a great deal of planning to do."
>
  Two days after Tarma1 s arrival in the town of Brother's Crossroads, one of the brigands (drunk with liquor and drugs far past his capacity) fell into a horsetrough, and drowned trying to get out. His death signaled the beginning of a streak of calamities that thinned the ranks of the bandits as persistently as a plague.

  One by one they died, victims of weird accidents, overdoses of drugs, or ambushes by clever thieves. No two deaths were alike—with one exception. He who failed to shake out his boots of a morning seldom survived the day, thanks to the scorpions that had taken to invading the place. Some even died at each other's hands, goaded into fights.

  "I mislike this skulking in corners,” Tarma growled, sharpening her swordblade. “It's hardly satisfactory, killing these dogs at a distance with poison and witchery."

  "Be patient, my friend.” Kethry said without rancor. “We're thinning them down before we engage them at sword's point. There will be time enough for that later."

  When the deaths were obviously at the hands of enemies, there were no clues. Those arrow-slain were found pierced by several makes; those dead by blades seemed to have had their own used on them.

  Tarma found herself coming to admire the sorceress more with every passing day. Their arrangement was a partnership in every sense of the word, for when Kethry ran short of magical ploys she turned without pride to Tarma and her expertise in weaponry. Even so, the necessary restrictions that limited them to the ambush and the skills of the assassin chafed at her.

  "Not much longer,” Kethry counseled. “They'll come to the conclusion soon enough that this has been no series of coincidences. Then will be the time for frontal attack."

  The leader, so it was said, ordered that no man go out alone, and all must wear talismans against sorcery.

  "See?” Kethry said. “I told you you'd have your chance."

  A pair of swaggering bullies swilled ale, unpaid for, in the inn. None dared speak in their presence; they'd already beaten one farmer senseless who'd given some imagined insult. They were spoiling for a fight and the sheeplike timidity of the people trapped with them in the inn was not to their liking. So when a slender young man, black-clad and wearing a sword slung across his back entered the door, their eyes lit with savage glee.