Sword-Maker(157)

Del swung up on the roan and gathered in her reins, staring down at me. “Are you coming, then?”

I took the pointed hint. Sheathed my sword. Dragged myself up on the stud, who stomped and pawed and snorted. I clung muzzily to the saddle. “Which way is out?”

“This way,” Del said, pointing, as Alric slapped the stud’s rump.

“What about me?” Bellin called. “Aren’t I supposed to come? I found Ajani for you!”

I held the stud up a moment. “I can think of better ways of becoming famous than riding with the woman who killed the new jhihadi. Certainly safer ones; it’s no good being a panjandrum if you’re not alive to enjoy it.”

“True,” Bellin agreed. “So I guess I can still be your son. You look old enough.”

I called him a foul name and sent the stud after Del.

We clattered through the ruined city with no respect for its inhabitants. Garrod was absolutely right: now that I’d banished the sandstorm and Del and I were gone, there was nothing to prevent the crowd from solidifying its deadly intention. No matter what I’d shouted about Ajani being a false jhihadi, he was still the only one they knew, thanks to planted rumors and Jamail’s misinterpreted gesture. The crowd, fired by bloodlust, wouldn’t listen to the truth no matter who gave it to them. Not even the Oracle.

Through the city and out, then bursting through colored hyorts huddled together on the plateau. And over the rim and off, swarming down the trail. Behind us, as we fled, the shouting slowly died, shredded by canyons and distance. And Iskandar was gone.

We rode as long and hard as we could, knowing we needed the distance. Del eventually called a halt as we traded border canyons for border foothills, and scrubby, tree-clad ridges carved out of Southron soil. I wasn’t so certain it was a good idea to stop yet, but she said I looked like I’d fall off if the stud so much as sneezed.

I held my head very still. “If he so much as blinks.”

“Can you follow me?” she asked.

“As long as you don’t go fast.”

Del took us off the trail and over a snaky line of ridges and foothills closer to Harquhal than Iskandar. Trees were low and twisted and scrubby, but plentiful, providing decent cover. Behind a sloping, tree-screened hillside well off the new-beaten trail, Del dismounted her roan.

She reached out to catch the stud. “Do you need help?”

With great care, I dismounted, clinging to the stirrup. “Help doing what?”

She just shook her head. “Go sit down somewhere. I’ll tend the horses.”

I did. She did. And eventually came back, carrying saddle-pouches, bedrolls, botas.

In the hollow of the hill, we ate, drank, stretched out. Thought about what had happened. Thought about what we’d done.

Del was close beside me. I could hear her breathing.

“Well,” I said, “it’s done.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You sang the song for your kinfolk, the one you swore to sing, and collected the blood-debt he owed for murdering everyone.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“Your song is over, bascha. You sang it very well.”

She drew in a lengthy, noisy breath.

“You said I should ask you after Ajani was dead.” I waited a moment. “What will you do now?”

Del’s smile was sad. “Ask me in the morning.”

“Bascha—”

“Ask,” she said softly. “And then ask me the next morning, and the next …” She rubbed at eyes undoubtedly as tired and gritty as mine. “If you ask me enough times, maybe one of these days I’ll know. And by then it won’t matter, because years will have passed, and I’ll have forgotten why I never knew what I would do once Ajani was dead. I will have simply done it.”

It was, I thought, convoluted reasoning. But at that particular moment it didn’t really matter.

I released a sigh. It felt so good just to stop. “Busy day,” I observed.

Del only grunted.

The sun dipped low in the west. “Who won the dance?”

Next to me, Del shifted. “Nobody won the dance. The dance was never finished.”

I attempted to summon outrage. “Do you mean to tell me you threw away my chance at a domain? My chance to be a tanzeer?”

Unimpressed, Del shrugged. “You’d be a bad tanzeer.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

My turn to grunt. “You’re probably right.”

“I’d make a better tanzeer.”

“You’re a woman, bascha.”

“So?”

“So we’re South, remember?”

“Aladar’s daughter is a tanzeer.”

“That will never last.”