Sword-Maker(14)

I steadied my voice with effort. “I won my freedom—and my name—through desperation and sheer dumb luck, Del, not to mention pain both physical and emotional … and yet you were willing to throw it all away again just to buy yourself some time. Is that what I was to you? A means to an end? The coin to buy your daughter? A body to barter away? Is that what I was, Delilah?”

She was strung so taut she twitched. And then, jerkily, she bent. Set down bedding and gear. Shuddered once, deeply, then caught the hilt of her sword in both hands and whipped it out of the sheath.

For a moment, for one incredulous, painful moment, I thought she meant to kill me. That I’d gone too far, though I’d barely gone far enough.

The moment passed. Del cradled Boreal. Vertically, and carefully, pressing blade between breasts. Briefly, oh so briefly, she closed her eyes, murmured something, then slowly, painfully lowered herself to one knee. Then brought down the other.

Del knelt before me in the dirt. She bent, placed Boreal flat on the ground, then crossed her arms across her chest, making fists of her hands. In deep obeisance, she bowed, resting forehead against the blade.

She held herself in perfect stillness for a moment of rigid silence, then raised herself again. Her eyes were black in the cairnglow, empty of all save the knowledge of need. Hers as well as my own.

With frequent checks and taut swallows, she spoke to me in Northern. It was a dialect I didn’t know, probably born of Staal-Ysta and precise, required rituals meant to enhance the mystery of the jivatma. I’ve never been much impressed with the trappings of such things, preferring straightforward, unadorned talk, but I made no move to stop her. Clearly she needed it.

Eventually she stopped. Bowed again. Then straightened to look at me, and repeated it all in Southron so I could understand.

Appalled, I cut her off almost immediately. “That’s not necessary.”

She waited. Swallowed. Began again.

I spat out an oath. “I said—”

She raised her voice and overrode me.

“Hoolies, Del, do you think this is what I want? Abasement? Atonement? I’m not asking any such thing, you fool … I just want you to understand what it is you did. I just want you to realize—” But I broke it off in disgust because she wasn’t listening.

She ran down eventually. All the forms were followed, the requirements satisfied. She was a true daughter of Staal-Ysta, no matter what anyone said; no matter that she was exiled. She completed the ritual.

She bowed over Boreal once again. Then picked up her sword, rose, turned awkwardly from me and walked toward the roan. Stumbling a little. Catching herself with effort. All of her grace was banished, yet none of her dignity.

She had thrown away her pride. Now both of us were even.





Six




She broke through, thrust, cut into me, just above the wide belt. I felt the brief tickle of cold steel separate fabric and flesh, sliding through both with ease, then catch briefly on a rib, rub by, cut deeper, pricking viscera. There was no pain at all, consumed by shock and ice, and then the cold ran through my bones and ate into every muscle.

Deep in sleep, I twitched.

I lunged backward, running myself off the blade. The wound itself wasn’t painful, too numb to interfere, but the storm was inside my body. The blood I bled was ice.

I drew a knee up toward my belly, trying to ward the wound. Trying to turn the blade that had already pierced my flesh.

“Yield!” she shouted. “Yield!” Shock and residual anger made her tone strident.

I wanted to. But I couldn’t. Something was in me, in my sword; something crept into blood and bones and sinew and the new, bright steel. Something that spoke of need. That spoke of ways to win. That sang of ways to blood—

I woke up sweating, breathing like a bellows; like the stud run too hard. The fire was reduced to coals with only the moon for light, and it offered little enough. I looked for Del in the darkness. Saw nothing but deeper shadows.

Hoolies, did I dream it? Did I dream the whole thing?

I sat up rigidly and immediately wished I hadn’t. Deep inside, I ached. I’d twisted in my sleep and the half-healed wound protested.

My sword was screaming for blood.

Did I dream the whole thing? Or only part of it?

A twig snapped. Movement. Maybe I didn’t dream it.

Hoolies, make it real.

I stared into darkness. So hard my eyes burned, trying to define the narrow line between dream and reality.

“I’ll make you,” she gasped. “Somehow—” And she was coming at me, at me, breaking through my weakened guard and showing me three feet of deadly jivatma. “Yield!” she cried again.

My sword was screaming for blood.

Del was gone. That I was certain of, hating it. Hating myself for the wash of fear, of anguish; the uprush of painful guilt. What I’d said to her needed saying. I didn’t regret a word of it. But none of what I’d told her was intended to chase her away.