Sword Born

ONE

We left the North because Del agreed to go, if only because I forced her hand by winning a dance in the circle according to Northern rites. But I’d forced their hands, too, those blond and bitter people who’d sooner see Delilah dead even by deception because of broken oaths; once healed, once reunited, once free of Staal-Ysta and Dragon Mountain with its demon-made hounds of hoolies, we had eventually headed South — where within a year I’d broken the oaths I’d sworn to my people.

Now both of us were nameless, homeless, lacking songs and honor, abandoning our pasts in the search for a new present, but one linked uncannily to a past older than either of us knew: a baby’s begetting, a boy’s birth. The woman who had whelped me there on the Punja’s crystal sands, and the man who had sired me far away in foreign lands.

Skandi. Or so we thought. So Del thought, and declared; I was less certain. She said it was only because I was a self-made man and didn’t want to know the truth of my presence in the world, for fear I was lesser or greater than what I’d become.

Me, I said little enough about it. Mild curiosity and the dictates of the moment — the need to retreat, rethink, escape — had been diluted beneath the uncertainties of sailing, of odd, misplaced regrets, and something akin to confusion. Even homesickness. Except it was all very complicated, that. Because the South maybe wasn’t my home at all. My birthplace, yes. That much I knew. Southron-born, Southron-reared. But not, we now believed, Southron-begotten. Which is one of the reasons we were on this thrice-cursed boat, sailing to a place where I could have been conceived.

Or not.

Someone might have told me, once. Sula. A woman of the tribes, of the Salset, who’d done more than any to make me a man in all the ways one can be. While the rest of the Salset ridiculed me as a chula, a slave, as an over-tall, long-limbed, big-boned boy awkward in body, in mind, wholly ignorant of grace, Sula had valued me. In her bed, to start with. Later, in her heart.

Mother. Sister. Lover. Wife. Yet neither bound by blood, rites, or ritual beyond the one we made at night, when I was allowed to sleep somewhere other than on a filthy, odorous goatskin flung down upon Punja sand. But Sula was dead of a demon in her breast, and there was no one to tell me now.

We left, too, because I was, well, a messiah. Or so some people believed. Others, of course, didn’t buy any of it. People are funny that way. Some believe because of faith, needing no evidence; others have faith only in evidence — and I had not, apparently, offered any of worth.

At least, not the kind they believed in. After all, turning the sand to grass — or so the legendary prophecy went — was not the kind of imagery that really grabs a man, especially Southroners. It was a little too, I don’t know, pastoral for them, who suckled sand with their mother’s milk.

Whether I was the messiah, called jhihadi, and whether I had turned the sand to grass (or at least begun the process), was open to debate. Both were possible, I’d decided in a fit of self-aggrandizement fostered by too much aqivi and too little of, well, Del’s admiration and affection one night beneath the moon, if one took the magic out of it and depended on a literal faith.

That’s always a problem, dealing with religion. People take imagery literally. Or when the truth is presented as something unutterably tedious — such as digging canals and ditches to channel water from places with it to places without it — no one wants to listen. It’s not flowery enough. Not magical enough.

Hoolies, but I hate magic. Even when I work it myself.

Having established once again that my bunk was not a particularly promising location for assignations of admiration and affection — I nearly smacked my head again, while Del cracked an elbow hard enough to provoke a string of hissed and dramatic invective (in uplander, which saved my tender ears) — we eventually wandered up onto the deck to greet the morning with something less than enthusiasm, and to placate discontented bellies with the sailor’s bounty the crew called hardtack. Hard it was; anyone lacking teeth would starve to death. Fortunately neither Del nor I did, so we managed to gag it down with a few swallows of tepid water (Del) or a belly-burning liquor called rhuum (me). Then we stood at the rail and stared in morosely thoughtful silence at the wind-rumpled water, wondering when (or if) we’d ever see land again. It had been two days since we’d left behind a string of small islands where we’d stopped long enough to take on fresh water and fruit.

"Maybe it’s not a real place," I observed, only half-serious, which, as usual with Del, provoked a literal response.

"What — Skandi? Of course it’s a real place. Or they wouldn’t have taken us on as passengers."

I slanted her a glance. Del couldn’t possibly be any part of serious. "Are you any part of serious?"

"I didn’t ask about Skandi in particular." She dismissed without rancor my unspoken suggestion that someone, somewhere, had done the impossible and taken advantage of Delilah. "I asked where the ships were going. Nothing more. So no, I did not play us into someone’s greedy hands by planting the idea we’d go anywhere so long as we thought it was Skandi. They told me this one was going there, without prompting."

I vividly recalled the day she’d have scoured and scaled me with tongue and temper for even hinting someone had gotten the best of her. But the bascha had settled somewhat in the past three years, thanks to my benign influence. Now she explained.

Grinning, I settled once again against the rail. It creaked and gave. I moved off it again, promptly, scowling at damp, stained, salt-crusted wood. The ocean troughs were deepening, smacking unruly waves against the prow. So much water out there… and so little of anything else. Like — land. "You know, I just can’t see how a pregnant woman would sail all the way to the South from a place so far away just to have a baby."

"Maybe she didn’t."

"Didn’t?"

"Well, maybe she didn’t leave Skandi to have her baby in the South. Maybe she got pregnant on the voyage. Or maybe she got pregnant after she reached the South." Del eyed me assessively. "After all, half of you could be Southron. You look like a Borderer."

I’d heard that before, from others. I wasn’t right for pure Southron blood, because the desert men were small, neat, and trim, dark-eyed, and swarthier than I. By the same token, I was too dark for a Northerner, who were routinely much fairer of hair than my bronze-brown. I was somewhere in the middle: tall and big-boned as Del’s people, but much darker in skin and hair; too big, but not dark enough for a Southroner, and green-eyed to boot. Borderers, however, were halfbreeds, born primarily to folk who lived either side of the border between the North and the South. It made perfect sense that I was a Borderer. Which meant I wasn’t Skandic at all, and this entire voyage of discovery was sheer folly.

But a man in Julah, where Del and I had stopped before going over-mountain to Haziz-by-the-ocean-sea, had thought I was of his people. Had spoken to me in his tongue. And he was Skandic. Or so he seemed, and so Del believed; she’d sworn he looked enough like me to be my brother. Which was possible — if I was Skandic, and he was — if not probable when considering the odds. Still, it was better odds than I’d been offered before beyond a dance in the circle — which I couldn’t do anymore, thanks to me breaking the oaths and codes of Alimat. And departing the South altogether. It was as good an excuse as any to leave a place where men who’d trained as I had, where men as good as I was, were hunting my head.

So. Here we were on a ship bound for Skandi. Where maybe I was from. Or not.

"Scared?" Del asked, following my thoughts.

Yes. "No."

She smiled slightly. Still following. "You are."

"Scared of what, bascha? I’ve fought I don’t know how many men in the circle, killed a dozen or more fools outside of it; ridden to a standstill a stud-horse who kills other fools, fought off hounds of hoolies, an evil sorcerer who wanted to steal my body and my soul — or maybe just my body; we’ve argued enough about whether I have a soul — survived numerous deadly simooms bad enough to strip the flesh from my bones, withstood afreets and loki, sandtigers and cumfa, not to mention various tribes wanting to sacrifice me to some god or another; escaped murderous women and angry husbands… and I share your bed. Regularly." I paused. "What’s to be scared of, after all that?"

"Knowing," she said. "Or — not."

Oh. That.

She waited, wind stripping unbound hair from her flawless face. Such blue eyes, had Delilah.

I spread legs, bent knees, set my balance to ride the lalloping sway of the boat and crossed arms against my chest. Tightly. Somehow, this mattered. "I suppose you wouldn’t be. Scared. Of knowing. Or — not."

"I am scared of many things," she said simply, "and not the least of them is of losing you."

That shut me up in a hurry. After a moment I even managed to close my mouth.

Del, strangely satisfied, merely glanced sidelong at me, smiling, then looked across the bow again. "Ship," she said lightly.

So there was. With blue-painted sails. Behind us, above us, the crew of our own ship noticed the other also.

Well, it wasn’t land, but it was better than empty ocean. At least, until the crew swarmed like sandstingers over all the sails and ropes and timber. Next I knew, we were turning. Hard.

"Hey —" I grabbed the rail and latched on, not happy to hear it creak again ominously, but even less happy to feel the accompanying protests of the boards beneath my feet. Sandals slid, scraping on dampness and salt. The shift in wind filled my mouth with hair; I spat and stripped it out, then tucked it behind my ear, which did no good at all. Swearing inwardly, I resolved to have Del cut it as soon as possible. Or to hack it off myself.

Del also grabbed at the rail as we swung heavily through the choppy waves, grasping wood firmly. Even as she opened her mouth to make a comment or ask a question, a babble of shouting behind us pretty much answered it. I knew fear when I heard it. The whole crew suddenly stank of it.

"Trouble," I observed, wiping the slick of foamy spray off my face. Salt stung in my eyes.

The crewman nearest us looked away from the blue sails long enough to gesture urgently. "Below," he said. "Below. Below."

"Trouble," Del agreed.

Of course, the last place I wanted to be was immured in a tiny cabin near the waterline as the ship wallowed and bucked. I hung onto the creaking rail, maintaining a now-precarious balance against the violent undulance, and scowled at the sailor.

"I’ll go," she said.

Startled, I stared at her. "Wouldn’t you rather stay on deck and see what we’re facing?"

"And I’d rather have swords to face it with," she declared. "That’s where they are. Below."

Ah. So they were. "Bring mine, bascha."

"I had planned on it."

The sailor saw her go, looked relieved, then noticed I remained at the bow. His eyes bulged as the ship continued its wallowing, graceless turn. "Below!"

No, not below, thank you… but as we swung around, the blue-sailed ship fell out of line of sight from my spot at the bow. I let the sailor believe I was following his suggestion; instead I made my way aft, moving so as to keep my eye on the other ship even as I clutched the rail, cursing in disgust as I caught a toe against a coil of prickly rope and nearly fell. This thrice-cursed boat, in rough seas, was harder to ride than the stud when he pitched a fit.

Still, I considered it curious that our captain would turn around rather than sailing on, especially as we were two days away from the last island, which meant there was no safe harbor within reach; but we’d been heading into the wind, which slowed us down. Now we moved with it. The sails bellied, cracking against the sky as the crew worked rapidly. Wind shoved us along the way we had come, but more swiftly than before. The question now was whether the blue-sailed ship truly wanted us enough to chase us — and, if it did, was it faster?

Well, yes. The latter was obvious by the time Del came up beside me at the stern. She’d braided her hair back into a pale rope hanging down her spine. Naked now of everything save intent, her face and expression were clean and lethal as a new-honed blade. I took the hilt she offered, felt better for having a sword in my hand. "Our captain seems to place no faith in the fighting abilities of his crew."

"You’ve sailed with them for two weeks," she said, squinting against spray-laden wind. "Would you?"

They spent more time drinking, dicing, and swapping lies than anything else. Point taken. "Well, he might have faith in us." I paused. "You did tell him we hire out for this sort of thing, didn’t you?"

"He’s seen you smack your head or trip over ropes and nets about nine times a day, Tiger. Why should he have any faith in you?"

This sounded suspiciously as if our captain viewed me pretty much the way I viewed his crew. I was stung into a retort — especially as I had acquired any number of scrapes and bruises since coming aboard. "I’m taller than he is!"

"And clumsier, he seems to think. Although I don’t believe it." She patted my arm briefly, absently, as if comforting a child — which of course was exactly how she wanted me to feel. "It’s catching up."

She meant the pursuing ship. "I wasn’t made for water," I said aggrievedly, "or boats. Ships," I amended, before she could correct me; the crew had been explicit. "I’m too big, or they’re too small —"

"The world," she said gently, "is too small for you."

That stopped me cold. I eyed her, examined her expression closely, tried to figure out what in hoolies she was talking about.

Del burst out laughing. "Don’t look so worried, Tiger! I only meant that you are large in all the ways so many men are small —"

"Thank you very much. Many men?"

"In all ways," she repeated, smiling peculiarly — and offering no answer. "Now, what were you saying?"

What was I saying — ? "Well, look, bascha… I only mean I need land, something solid, something that stays put when I plant my feet —"

"Like the stud?"

Who was below, and not privy to this conversation. "Now that you mention it, I’d like to see what our esteemed captain, who thinks I’m so clumsy, would do on the stud…"

"Poor odds. No odds."

I scratched briefly at the salt-rimed scars in my face, four long clawmarks that scored me from cheekbone to jaw beneath a week’s worth of stubble. "And anyway, the question now is not whether I’m clumsy on board a creaking hunk of flattened trees, but whether those fine folks would have come after us if we’d held our course —"

"The captain seems to think so."

"— or if we made ourselves look more attractive than we are because we turned tail and ran."

"The captain must have believed we had a chance at outrunning them."

"Or else he’s just running scared."

"As well he might," Del observed as the blue sails swelled against the horizon. "We’re losing the race."

I squinted across the narrowing gulf. "Maybe I should have a word with the captain about the benefits of standing your ground…"

"Unfortunately, as you’ve pointed out, there isn’t any ground to stand on."

I spat hair out of my mouth again. "Well, I’d rather decide when there’s to be a sword-dance than let the other man choose it," I reminded her. "There’s merit to a good offense."

"Let me go," she suggested. "He’s not much impressed by you. Me, he’s impressed by; he comes up on deck to watch every morning when I loosen up."

"So do I, bascha — but watching you has nothing to do with fighting!" Well, I suppose it did; but so far no one had challenged me. Even if I did crack my head on timber and trip over nets and ropes. "And maybe it’s time I loosened up, too, out on deck where everyone can see me."

"Why?" Her voice was deceptively guileless. "Do you want men to watch you?"

I slanted her a sour glance. "I just meant it might be best if they don’t assume I’m a pushover."

"A fall-over, maybe." Del smiled sunnily. "Well?"

I flapped a hand. "Go. Maybe you can find out who our friends are, and what they want."

Del left, was gone briefly, returned. She wore an odd expression. "They aren’t friends."

"Well, no."

"They are, he says, renegadas."

"What the hoolies is that?"

"I believe he means borjuni. Of the sea."

That I understood. "What have we got that they want?"

"The captain did not trouble himself to tell me."

"Did you smile at him?" That earned me a scorching glance. "Well, no, I suppose not, not you — why smile at a man when a knife in his gut will work? — but did he at least trouble himself to say what we can expect once they get here?"

Matter-of-factly she explained, "They catch the ship, board it, steal everything on board. Or steal the ship itself."

"Herself. They call the ship ’she.’ And what about the crew and the passengers?" All two of the latter; this ship generally carried goods, not people. We’d been lucky to claim some room. Although just at this moment, luck did not appear to be an applicable word.

Del shrugged. "They’ll do what borjuni usually do."

I grunted. "Figures." Although not all borjuni and Border raiders killed their victims. Some of them were just after whatever they perceived as wealth, be it coin, trade goods, or livestock. (Or, in the occasional circumstance, people, such as Del and her brother.) Still, it was enough to make you skittish about leaving such things to chance.

Del frowned thoughtfully, marking how swiftly the other ship sailed. It didn’t wallow like ours but sleeked across the water like a cat through shadows. "He wasn’t much impressed when I said we could help them fight them. In fact, he said they wouldn’t fight them at all."

"Did you offer to fight for him?" I asked. "For a fee, of course. Passage, at the very least."

"He says if they catch us, we’ll all die anyway, so why should they bother to fight?"

"Did you explain we hadn’t died yet?"

"At that point he told me he had no use for a woman except in bed," Del explained. "I decided I’d better come back here with you before I invited him into a circle."

"Well, we know there’s no point in trying to change any man’s mind about that," I agreed. "We’re contrary beasts."

"Among other things." Del, with a sword in her hand and action in the offing, was uncannily content. "But I did manage to change your mind. Eventually."

I begged to differ. "I beg to differ," I said. "I just learned to shut up about it. I still think the best place for a woman is in bed." I paused. "Especially after a good, nasty, nose-smashing, lip-splitting, teeth-cracking fight in which she shows all the foolish men she’s every bit as good as they are with a sword. Or any other weapon, for that matter — including her knee."

"Kind of you," she observed. "Generous, even."

"Merely honest, bascha."

She smiled into the wind. "Among other things."

"And now that we’ve settled the way of the world again as we know it, what do you propose we do when those — those —"

"Renegadas."

"— reach us?" I finished.

Del hitched a shoulder. "Not enough room to carve a circle in the deck. A dance wouldn’t be particularly effective."

"Nope," I agreed. "Let’s just kill ’em."