Sword-Maker(6)

The stud blinked a baleful eye.

I relented. “Tell you what, old son—I’ll give you extra grain. That ought to make you feel better.”

I dug into one of the pouches and pulled out a fistful of grain, moving within striking range to offer it. But the stud wasn’t hungry. He lipped listlessly at the grain, spilling most of it between slack lips. He didn’t even want sweetgrass, which was beginning to show signs of life now that most of the snow was going.

Something pinched again inside my belly. “Better not sicken on me,” I warned, “after all that amnit I wasted.” While thinking instead of the sword.

But the stud made no answer.

It came swift and clear and sharp: If he up and dies on me—

No. I cut it off. No sense in borrowing grief.

The stud shifted restlessly, knocking stone against stone. I didn’t want to leave him just yet, so I leaned against his tree and squirted amnit into my throat.

“You’ve just been out of the South too long, old man … like me. Just like me; you’re a sandtiger drug out of his desert, swallowing snow instead of sand … best get yourself right back home before the cold stiffens all your joints.”

Well, it already had stiffened some of mine. In the North, bones age faster. In the South, skin does.

Which means, I guess, I’m growing old inside and out.

Gack. What a thought.

I moved off the tree and rubbed a hand down the stud’s backbone, smoothing coarse, thick hair. He quivered, expecting amnit; I soothed him with a few words. Over his rump I stared at the cat with its alien steel tongue.

I recalled the emotions I’d felt. The need to quench the sword; how it had sung its private song. How I, too easily seduced in my moment of fear for the stud, had turned my back on self-made wards and let the song commence. Giving the blade its freedom.

For the stud.

Worth it? Maybe. For that moment. For that particular moment.

But what was I to do now? I didn’t need it. I didn’t want it. Not now. Not ever. I’d tasted too much of its power.

“Leave it,” I said aloud. “You can get another sword.”

Well, so I could. Somewhere. Someday. Meanwhile, I needed a weapon.

“Leave it,” I repeated.

Hoolies, I wish I could.





Three




A small, soft song. A private, intimate song. Powerful in its promise, weakened by neglect.

Deep in sleep, I muttered.

A small, sad song; a trace of desire only hinted at, too shy to speak of need.

Memories of both.

The stud, stirring, woke me. I sat up, stared hard into darkness, oriented myself. Got up and went to the stud, who pawed listlessly at turf.

His head drooped, hanging heavily on the end of a slackened neck. He shifted from hoof to hoof. When I touched him, he barely took note.

I was, abruptly, afraid.

Singlestroke and this horse were all I’d ever had. And Singlestroke was gone.

A small, soft, seductive song, promising me companionship such as no one had ever known.

Companionship—and power.

Beneath my hand, he stiffened. I felt the tension in his body; heard it in his rattling snort, in the crunching of gravel beneath shod hooves. His ears lanced erect, then slapped back against his head.

“Hey—” But abruptly I shut it off.

I hadn’t felt it for weeks. At first it was so alien I didn’t recognize it, and then the strangeness slid away and familiarity took its place. A man doesn’t forget what it’s like to be sick.

Not sick sick. I’ve been that before, from wound fever or the Northern malady called a “cold.” And not sick from too much liquor; I’ve been that, too, more often than I care to recall. No. This sickness wasn’t of the body but of the soul, all wrapped up like a nameday gift in a sash called fear.

And even that was different.

All the hair stood up on my arms. Tickled the back of my neck. Tightened scalp against skull. I shivered involuntarily, cursing myself for a fool, then felt nausea knot my belly.

Don’t ask me what it is. Del called it an affinity for magic. Kem, the sword-maker, said I was sensitive to the essence of it, whatever that means. All I know is it makes me sick and uncomfortable, and very sour in my outlook. Being a conspicuously lighthearted, good-humored soul—or at least one lacking in personal demons—I don’t much like having my sensibilities mangled by something as dark and erratic as magic.

If it just didn’t make me feel sick.

Maybe it was the cat. I’d eaten too much cat. Too much Northern cat stuffed into a Southroner’s belly.

But the stud hadn’t had any, and he wasn’t happy, either.

Or, more likely, the sword. Trust it to make my life miserable in more ways than one.

Then again—

“Ah, hoolies,” I muttered, as I smelled the stink of the hounds.