Sword-Maker(118)

“Shaka Obre’s wards. Chosa Dei tripped them.”

“—and after hundreds of years the brothers would be freed to contest for the land again … to make whole the broken halves—”

“Sula,” I said sharply, “is the jhihadi Shaka Obre?”

Her lips were barely moving. “—only a small favor—a single small favor …”

“Sula—”

“Let me die free of pain.”

“Sula—” I bent over her. “Sula, please—tell me the truth … did the Salset find me? Or did they steal me?”

Pain-graved brow creased. “Steal you?”

“I was told—they always said—” I stopped short and tried again. “It would mean something to me to know how I came to the Salset.”

Tears rolled free of her eyes. “I heard what they told you. The children. How they taunted you.”

“Sula, was it true? Was I abandoned in the Punja? Exposed and left to die?”

Her hand closed on mine. The voice was but a thread. “Oh, Tiger … I wish I knew …”

It was all she had left to give. Having given it, she died.

I sat there and held her hand.

Mother. Sister. Bedmate. Wife.

All and none of those things.





Seven




The man stepped out in front of me. I checked, moved aside; he blocked me yet again.

Not a man: a Vashni.

“Not now,” I said clearly, couching it in Desert.

Dark eyes glittered. He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t say a word, made no indication he intended to step aside.

Three others came up behind me; this wasn’t coincidence.

The day was gray. Dull, sullen sunlight gave way to heavy clouds. Rain stained the ground.

Vashni wear very little. Brief leather kilts with belts. No boots, no sandals. Jewelry made out of bone, claimed from enemies’ skeletons. In the rain, bare torsos were slick, smooth as oiled bronze. Black hair was plaited back from fierce desert faces in a single long braid, hanging clear to belted waists in sheaths of gartered fur.

Bone pectoral plates chinked and tinkled as they breathed.

I wore a knife and a sword. I touched neither of them.

Oddly, I felt tired. Too weary to deal with this on the heels of Sula’s death. “If it’s foreigners you’re killing, why start with me? There’s a whole city full of them all of ten paces from here.”

The warrior facing me smiled, if a Vashni can do such a thing. Mostly he bared his teeth, very white in a dark face. His Desert was quick and fluent. “Your time will come, Southron … for now your life is spared.”

“Generous,” I applauded. “So what is it you’re after?”

“The sword,” he answered calmly. Behind me, the others breathed.

Hoolies, how had word of Samiel gotten around already? I hadn’t killed anyone. Hadn’t displayed his magic. Only Del and I knew of the broken sword and its blackened, discolored half. And the Vashni, as far as I knew, weren’t partial to any weapon other than their own, with its wicked, curving blade and human thighbone hilt.

Slowly I shook my head. “The sword is mine.”

Color stained his face and set black eyes aglitter. “No one but a Vashni carries a Vashni sword.”

A Vashni—oh, a Vashni sword … like the one hanging from my harness.

Vashni aren’t quite like anyone else, and they don’t judge outsiders by anything but their own customs. They don’t engage in socially unacceptable behavior like the Hanjii, who eat people, and they don’t condone outright murder. But they do have a habit of provoking hostilities so the death meted out to an enemy is considered an honorable one.

And then they strip away flesh, muscle, viscera and distribute the still-damp skeleton in a lengthy celebration.

Right about now an engagement of hostilities might be what I needed, but I was angry. Too angry to think straight: this Vashni had no right to interfere with my life out of a perverse tribal whim, regardless of the cause.

Not right after Sula—

I cut it off. Knew better than to protest, or to say anything he might interpret as rude. I had no intention of becoming anyone’s pectoral. “Take it,” I said flatly.

He flicked a finger. I stood very still. I felt the touch of a hand on the hilt, the snap of a blade sliding free. Weight lessened across my back; all I wore now was the harness.

The Vashni’s black eyes showed only the slightest hint of contempt. “A Vashni warrior also never gives up his weapon.”

I clenched teeth together. “We’ve already established I’m not Vashni. And I don’t see the point in trying to protect—or in dying over—a sword that was only borrowed.”

Eyes narrowed. “Borrowed.”