Sword Bound

Chapter 3

IN MY YEARS, in my myriad travels, I’d seen numerous towns and settlements established throughout the South. The guiding force was not geography so much as it was water. The deadly Punja desert was pocked by oases and domains claimed by various tanzeers, yet welcome settlements sprang up on the edges of the Punja, surcease from the remorseless sun and crystal sands. First water was always welcome; after crossing the Punja many were afraid to stray far from water ever again, and so towns slowly appeared as people remained. Wells were dug. Fields were claimed out of scrubby brush and tough desert grasses. Seed was planted. Streets were not so much built as shaped by frequent use, pathways carved out of dirt. Julah was an old town, well-settled. Trade caravans, guided strings of wagons carrying people on their way elsewhere, came through as well as lone travelers. Occasionally people stayed on, adding to the population.

Julah now boasted more than one road as entry and exit. But the ruts mingled with the hoof prints laid down by occasional wagons traveling to and from the canyon and Beit al’Shahar—my version of a training school similar to Alimat, where I had learned—made the track difficult to see unless you were familiar with it. Now and then travelers turned the wrong way and ended up at the dwellings of Mehmet’s aketni. They watered their mounts and teams, sometimes spent the night, but departed the next morning with Mehmet’s directions to Julah. No one new, it seemed, wished to listen to Mehmet preach. Those who had accompanied him across the Punja, however, were devoted to him, their unwavering faith bound to his conviction that I was a kind of messiah. Had I not turned the sand to grass?

Well, no. Magic had done that, when it brought the high, circular tower of stone tumbling down and split the earth asunder, forming a canyon. With grass.

With me.

But nothing was ever said of our canyon, the hidden extension of Mehmet’s, except when young men arrived who wished to learn or to refine the sword-dance. Mehmet and his people had come to recognize and welcome them. To them, Mehmet and his aketni provided directions: Follow the wide stream to the stone shoulder on the right, where it tilts down from the canyon’s rim, and enter a second canyon. Smaller, steeper, surrounded by high walls, save for the narrow entrance. And so they came upon us, looking for learning. Looking for me.

For some time, I drove up and down the narrow byways of Julah: Street of Weavers, Street of Dyers, Tinsmiths, Apothecaries, Renderers, many others, and of course plenty of cantinas. Now and again I stopped, inspected items, bought bags of flour, beans, onions, tubers, sugar, salt, and other foodstuffs. I bought medicaments and herbs, canvas and twine, colorful nubby silk and thread, new-made botas for water, leather saddle pouches, dried meats. I even threw in sweets for Sula.

By the time I was done, I’d been noted by several young men wearing harness and sword. All but one watched me incuriously; they lounged outside cantinas, filled benches, drank spirits, talked among themselves, challenged one another just to pass the time, wagered on the outcomes. When I pulled up in front of Fouad’s, wagon rattling, bits and chains chiming, I became an object of attention. A few horses were tied to the hitching post Fouad had built, but no other wagons. Mine was the only one.

I jumped down, ground-tied the team with a weighted length of leather thong, headed toward the door. There, I paused a moment as if undecided about whether I should go in. A simple matter of delay, allowing bored sword-dancers to see the sword rising from my shoulder. The set of the blade told its own story: a man, though in harness, was buying supplies as if he were a farmer. No self-respecting sword-dancer did such a thing. It made no sense. Perhaps it was arrogance, a farmer attempting to make more of himself than he was. Perhaps he deserved to be taught a lesson.

Young men, all. I heard the snickers, the muttered comments, a few scattered jests, the disdain of healthy, physically gifted young men who fancied themselves above the common man. They could dance. They served tanzeers, hired on as outriders with caravans, challenged one another to keep fit and fast and judge each other’s skills. They did not drive wagons.

Fouad’s was the first stop. It would be most convenient if Neesha’s challenger were here; otherwise I’d be going into every cantina in Julah to down at least one drink. And if I were challenged at the last cantina, it would be a half-drunk Sandtiger he’d face.

But only half.

Fouad was in the midst of serving customers a light midday meal. Most didn’t order food; they were there to drink. But Fouad felt it a courtesy—and a source of income—to make food available, and Del and I, now having the majority say in such things, concurred. Besides, before Del entered my life I’d spent many a day in Fouad’s drinking aqivi, passing the time with cantina girls, and eating his food.

He saw me come in and opened his mouth to speak, but shut it when I gave him the tiniest shake of my head. He went back to serving men at tables, but he was clearly curious about why I did not wish my name spoken in front of the others. As for the wine-girls, there was no need for any of them to address me by name; besides, if they took their attention from the men with whom they shared drink and food, they might well make the men jealous enough to dismiss them.

Eight tables. And a plank bar. Walls built of mud, a slurry of mortar, and tough desert grasses were six feet thick to beat back the sun. Window sills were deep enough that one might sit in them, and often the girls did if between men. Sometimes men did. I had. Shutters were folded open, as no simoom or rain threatened. A small beehive-shaped fireplace built into one corner warmed winter evenings, though it was empty of wood now. Behind the plank bar was a thin lath wall, hiding the oven; a narrow hallway led from the common room through the kitchen and to the small back rooms barely large enough to contain a bed and a clothing trunk. Fouad had kindly knocked out the wall separating the last two rooms so that Del and I, when in town overnight, had more space. He kept himself to one of the small rooms, which left five for the girls.

I slouched up to the bar and leaned there on one crooked elbow waiting for Fouad to return. He did so, dropping the tray onto the divoted wood. His rising eyebrows asked the question. “Aqivi,” I said. Then, as he poured a quarter mug as I indicated, I very quietly asked if Neesha had been in the day before.

As quietly, Fouad said, “He was, yes.”

“And you know he was challenged.”

Fouad put the pitcher away, mouth crimping at one end. “Yes.”

“Here?”

“Yes. But the man isn’t here now, if you’ve come to kill him.”

“I did not come to—” But broke off as my voice rose. I tamped it, muttered between my teeth, “I didn’t come to kill anybody. Hoolies, Fouad, you know better than that.”

He narrowed dark eyes at me, drawing himself up. “I know nothing of the sort. You have done so before. How am I to know what mood you may be in?”

Well, it was true. I had indeed killed in Julah; hoolies, I’d eviscerated a man. Hadn’t been planned, but circumstances demanded it. Now and again, you couldn’t escape that. At least, I couldn’t. “I’m not in a mood.” I filled my mouth with aqivi, felt its familiar bite, swallowed. In fact, I felt it all the way down; it had been a while since I’d had any, and my innards knew it. I cleared my throat. “And I didn’t come to town to kill anyone. I came for supplies.”

“Then you’ve got the wagon.”

“I do.”

“Ah,” Fouad said in dry wisdom. He took up a rough sacking towel and began to wipe down the bar.

I opened my mouth to defend my son, who had lost the dance, and got cut in the process, but I closed it before speaking. Neesha’s battles should be his alone. I had no place interfering; the gods knew that, when I first left Alimat and my shodo, no one had ever attempted to defend me or to punish someone for cutting me. It was foolish. The desire to punish was perhaps natural, but such things should be curbed when a young man was learning his way.

All I had to do was climb into the wagon and go back home. I need not seek out anyone to pay him back for what he’d done to my son.

And so I didn’t, drinking down aqivi. The man sought me. And found me.

He was not alone. Two young men flanked him. Sword-dancers all, in harness and dhotis, unencumbered by burnouses probably left with their horses, wherever hitched or stabled. Typical Southroners, dark of skin and eyes, shorter and lighter than me, but undoubtedly quick. I’d learned to respect the quickness of Southroners, and in the meantime, my fellow students had learned that I was not to be underestimated because of my greater mass. Six-foot four, two-hundred and twenty pounds, much taller, and broader through the shoulders than Southroners. But I, too, was quick.

The one in the middle, of course. The one striding into the cantina a step ahead of the others. The one who dominated his companions merely by his arrogance. He saw me, smiled; a slight sideways twitch of his head indicated the other two should find places along the wall. They did so. He glanced over the interior, marking the men and their positions. No one was eating, no one was drinking. All they did was stare, first at the young sword-dancer, then at me.

Fouad sighed loudly in resignation, making sure I heard it.

“When we get to the dance,” I said quietly, “you can hold the wagers.”

“I always do,” he muttered. Then he raised his voice. “Welcome, Khalid. What are you and your friends drinking?”

The bully had clearly spent several days here if Fouad knew his name. I didn’t recognize it, but I couldn’t know every sword-dancer in the South, especially as so many young ones had sprung up in the last few years, while I wasn’t looking. This one was young but no innocent. There was confidence in his eyes and posture, not bluster; confidence that came from success. He’d won dances. Neesha was only his latest opponent not his first, nor, probably, even his tenth.

“I’ll drink after,” Khalid answered, not looking away from me. “Mere moments, only.”

I wouldn’t give him meek. I wouldn’t give him arrogant, though certainly there had been a time when I would have. And I wouldn’t give him the poised expectation of a dance; I gave him a man minding his own business, glancing at the latest customer without much interest before turning back to his drink.

“Am I to believe you’re a sword-dancer?” Khalid asked, weighting a raised voice with the right amount of disdainful wonder. “Or just a man who wishes to be one? Wishes others to believe he is one?”

Ignoring him was not an option, precisely as he intended. I turned toward him slightly, brows raised, one hand on my mug as if not expecting to move away from the bar. “Me?”

“You.” He made a gesture indicating the sword jutting up from behind my shoulder. “There’s a harness and sheath underneath that burnous.”

I nodded agreement. No meekness. No arrogance. Merely matter-of-fact concurrence.

He very nearly sneered. “I don’t know a sword-dancer alive who rides into town in a wagon.”

It amused me that he relied on such a flimsy excuse to begin a dance. First Neesha, now me. Why not a straightforward challenge?

“Well,” I said, “now you know me.”

Not what he had expected. After a moment of consideration, he said, “You’re a farmer aping our ways. You dishonor our codes, our oaths. You demean us.”

I looked at his two friends, then back at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”

This was not going the way Khalid expected. Brows knitted briefly.

I raised my mug. “Aqivi? It’s better than most. I’ll even buy.”

“Prove it,” he said, not meaning aqivi. “Come into the street and prove it.”

Still holding my mug in the air, I let him see only a confused and slow understanding. “Oh. Is this a challenge?” I set the mug down on the bar. “I’d thought to head back home after I finished my aqivi.”

“Don’t worry,” Khalid said. “You’ll be on your way soon enough.”

I watched them file out, the three young men who believed themselves invincible. I looked at Fouad, who was shaking his head and muttering, “Foolish, foolish, foolish.”

“It’s how they learn.” I smiled. “I’ll finish off the aqivi when I’m done with the boy.”

“Foolish.”

I walked outside to discover Khalid’s two friends digging through my wagon. Already they’d cut open the flour sack and spilled the contents into the street. Beans littered dirt as well. It was added provocation, of course, though unnecessary. I’d give Khalid his dance even if the supplies were untouched.

“Wasteful,” I commented, then stepped out into the center of the street where Khalid waited. Already, onlookers gathered. Sword-dances are always entertaining; something to break up the day.

I unbelted, unhooked my burnous from the sword, pulled it off, bundled the cloth, and tossed it aside. I unlaced my sandals and tossed them aside as well, followed by the empty harness. Now it was just me, my dhoti, my sword.

Khalid had drawn the circle. I inspected it, then grinned at him. “No. Over there. Away from the puddle of horse piss.” Probably one very like it had tripped up Neesha.

But Khalid didn’t look at the circle or the puddle. He stared at the cavity in my side, a fleshed-over chasm carved out by Del; at the claw marks in my face. He raised his eyes to mine. I looked back cheerfully.

While he watched, I occupied myself drawing a new circle, one lacking in horse piss or dung, or anything that might affect our footing. Upon completion I placed my blade in the very center, then walked back to the line, stepped over it. I turned to face him.

He didn’t move. I read the thoughts passing through his eyes. He was young, but I was indeed a legend, as Neesha reminded me that morning. Khalid thought he knew me. He thought I might well be that man.

Onlookers murmured. Many, just passing through town, didn’t know me; certainly the residents did, but as a teacher, a shodo, not an active sword-dancer. I hadn’t danced in Julah for more than two years.

I watched Khalid arrive at the conclusion that I was indeed the Sandtiger. He calculated his skill against the legend and came up lacking. Acknowledgement was bitter. Then again, I was older now. Undoubtedly slower. Not what I once was, probably. He looked at my hands, mentally counted the fingers. The first realization, the first waning of confidence, dissipated. Older, slower, that terrible wound in my chest and side that undoubtedly bothered me now, at my advanced age; and only three fingers on each hand.

Khalid smiled. Khalid bared his teeth. Khalid walked to the center of the circle, halted, as if to set down his sword next to mine. But he did not. “You’re not a sword-dancer,” he said. “Not anymore. And I don’t have to obey any codes, or dance any dances. I just have to kill.”

And then he came at me.

Of course.