Dawn of Swords (40 page)

The old man offered him some wine and a towel, items Patrick accepted without hesitation. As Patrick nursed the wineskin, flexing his sore hands, he watched a pair of young militiamen spar at the base of the hill. They were like leaping rabbits as they poked and prodded each other with their thin steel blades. It was a thing of beauty to see, a coordinated dance of skill and grace, and it made Patrick feel clumsy and slow by comparison.

The old sellsword caught him watching the duelists and chuckled.

“There are many different ways to swing a sword,” he said. “All of them works of art. View them as dances, if you will. There is the water dance, the air dance, the dance of cloaks, the moonrise dance, and many others known to the elves that they will not share. No one way is greater than the other, and each has its advantages. But one must learn the style meant for his or her body, and you, Patrick, were meant to be a bull dancer. Your dance is one of power, of always moving forward and never turning back.”

He pointed to the duelists.

“Those men have more skill than you, but they’ve also had more practice. And they’re more graceful, something no amount of practice will fix for you. But do you know what matters most? With not much improvement on your part, you’d annihilate them.
A single swing of your sword would shatter theirs and spill their guts across the dirt.”

“A lovely image,” whispered Patrick, remembering how he had done much the same thing to one of the bandits when he and Nessa had first stepped foot on the delta’s moist soil. Ever since that moment he’d been able to relive the memory with painful clarity. He remembered the blood, the odd smell of copper, the look of disbelief and fear shining in the eyes of the dying man. It should have been horrible, but something about it intrigued Patrick. Even as he thought of the blood, he remembered the exhilaration.

The words of Ashhur popped into his head, his god preaching about the sin of violence and the virtue of forgiveness:
If a man strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other.
Patrick hung his head.

“You should go now,” he told Corton. “You have other students to tend to.”

“Of course,” replied the old man. “Will you be heading back to the manse?”

“No, I think I’ll stay here for a while. Watch a little. Perhaps learn a little too.”

“Very well.”

Corton left to care for the rest of his charges, and a stillness overcame Patrick in his absence. He removed his sweat-soaked top, ringing it out, and then rolled his shoulders.
It will be wonderful to get back to Deacon’s and relax in the bath
, he thought. He’d been staying at the Lord of Haven’s manse while he trained, just outside the township itself, which was hidden by the thin section of forest a few hundred yards behind him. Slogging all the way to the Gemcroft estate, where Nessa was staying with Moira, was just too long a journey for his body to suffer through after the hours of training.

He heard a
pop
when he stretched his neck to the side, and that old familiar pain shot up his spine. Cringing and feeling a bit dizzy, he lowered himself to the ground and lounged in the grass, staring at the billowing clouds that floated across the sun-drenched
afternoon sky. The heat was intense and the air humid, as it had been every day since he’d arrived—so different from Mordeina, with its four distinct seasons and often-dreary skies. From what he’d heard, the weather in Haven was measured by degrees of brutality: it was oppressive in the winter and like the burning fires of the underworld in the summer.

It made Patrick very happy it was autumn.

He rolled onto his side and his neck popped again, sending yet another shooting pain across his back. He lay there, watching the two duelists continue their endless dance, the
clang
and
clink
of their meeting swords sounding so far away they could have been on a different continent. For a moment he thought he saw a dark blur dash across his vision, down by a distant line of trees, but he excused it as an apparition brought about by the heat. His mind once more drifted to his memory of killing that man. The fact that Corton, who now acted as his mentor, had been one of his saviors that day only added to the unreal quality of his recollections. He thought of the violence, the life lost, and wondered if he could force himself to forget it all. Would the experience disappear from his mind like his injuries had disappeared from his body? With that contemplation came a pang of regret. Though he was glad Antar had healed him of all his wounds, in a way he wished the old Kerrian had left a tiny bit of nagging hurt. It would have done him well, would have made the fright he felt and the blood he spilled seem more real. To walk away unscathed seemed disrespectful, not only to the soul of the dead man but to the souls of all who had suffered a tragic end.

“Stop it, Patrick,” he muttered. “Think of better things.”

He did. He thought of his first few days in the delta, which had been spent at the Gemcroft estate; of mead, warm meals, and hot baths drawn by the house servants. Servants…now wasn’t
that
a noble idea! People there to serve you, bring you whatever you wanted, cater to your every whim as if it were the most important moment of their day. The closest comparison in Paradise was
the stewards who cared for the needs of the elders and religious leaders, but that was an act of servitude and kindness, not a result of affluence.

Life was easy on the estate, and Patrick was glad to see Nessa smiling like never before. Despite the threatened attack from the east, which cast a pall over the manor, a strange calmness surrounded the estate grounds, which Patrick found wholly satisfying. He credited it to the ladies of the house, as Rachida and Moira seemed to be constantly wrapped in a bubble of lightness and joy. And they truly were happy with each other, however strange it was for him to comprehend their relationship. He had never seen that kind of adoration between women before. A part of him found it unnatural, while a wholly different part thought it beautiful.

Truth be told, he was more than a little jealous of Moira, she who was on the receiving end of Rachida’s gentle pecks and adoring embraces, she who disappeared into Rachida’s bedroom each evening. He wondered what they did in there, and if Peytr Gemcroft, the absent man of the house, knew that his wife was taking a woman to bed while he was away. Patrick was so focused on Rachida that he had resumed searching for gray hairs with renewed vigor. If
he’d
been lucky enough to marry such a precious creature, he would never let her lie in bed with another, no matter how innocent it might be.

He felt so captivated by her face, it seemed as though he could hear her voice while he stared at the crystal-blue sky.

“Patrick?” she said, the memory of her voice filling his head like rum sweetened with orange slices. “Patrick, are you deaf?”

He started and turned quickly from where he lay in the grass, wrenching his neck in the process. He rubbed the sore spot and stared with wide eyes at the vision that approached him in a flowing yellow dress. Rachida’s dark, curly hair bounced with each step she took, and Patrick noticed a few peculiar strands of silver woven within. Her green eyes, deep as the ocean depths, stared intently at
him. A moment of panic hit him when he realized he’d taken off his sweaty tunic when he finished sparring, and he reached for it so that he might hide his wretched body.

“I was told I could find you here,” Rachida said, not batting an eye at his modesty, or his abnormality. “Antar had a…gift of sorts prepared for me by my request. I expected you back at Deacon’s manse sooner.”

“Er…sorry?” he replied, uncertain.

“What’s the matter? Why do you cover yourself so?”

“I’m, uh…cold.”

Rachida cast those dazzling green eyes of her skyward. “Cold? It’s sweltering outside. This shift is thin as parchment, but still it feels too heavy.”

Rachida reached down and yanked the discarded tunic out of his hands. She didn’t seem to mind that it was damp and probably stank horribly. She held it up, looked at the grass stains dappling the beige material, and frowned.

“This is no good,” she said. “Do you have another?”

Patrick froze, trying to get his mind to start working again. He pointed to the rucksack that sat beside Winterbone.

“I have a change of clothes in there,” he said.

“Good,” replied Rachida. “You need to get changed now.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re coming with me. I have something wonderful to show you.”

“We’re going here?” Patrick asked, staring at the huge wall of granite before him. It was the only safe place he could look, for he found it quite difficult to tear his eyes away from the scantily clad women who were exiting the gates of the Temple of the Flesh, breasts swaying, faces flushed, skin shining, gaits wobbly.

Rachida laughed beside him.

“You’re not afraid, are you?” she asked, nudging him.

Patrick grinned at her, and just like every time before, he found himself lost in the beautiful woman’s eyes, as if she were the only person alive in the universe. The rumors of Rachida Mori’s beauty had been legendary even in Ashhur’s Paradise, thanks to Jacob’s stories. To see that the woman not only matched the legend but exceeded it filled him with wonder.

“I must say, your change is quite an improvement,” she said. “You look…well, dashing.”

Patrick felt heat rush into his face. He didn’t think he looked all that special. He had on another plain, cream-colored tunic, leather breeches, and the boots his mother had specially made for him to accommodate his disproportionate legs. Yet what he thought right then was irrelevant. Hearing such a compliment from Rachida made his heart skip beats.

“Oh, it’s nothing special,” he said. “Just rags I’ve owned for years.”

Rachida tilted her head forward to whisper.

“It is not your clothing, Patrick, but your poise. You are carrying yourself like a man of honor, a man of strength. Like I said—dashing.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. However, you best not shrink from praise next time, or I will clobber you.”

Patrick chortled loudly. “Yes,
Mother
.”

Rachida laughed as well, and grabbed hold of his arm.

“You make me laugh. I like that. An important quality for a man to have…and a rare one.”

“Well, I’m a rare specimen.”

“That you are, indeed.”

They drew nearer to the temple, and now Patrick could see that there were armored men standing just inside the open gates,
carefully checking over any who entered. They wore a combination of chainmail and platemail, all of which seemed finely crafted—though in reality that was nothing but a guess, for Patrick had only
seen
a suit of armor a very few times in his life. He recalled Corton Ender telling him how all the weapons and armor in Haven had come from raiding shipments that had been sent down the Rigon, headed for someplace called Omnmount. Again Patrick felt that same lingering sense of unease, as the need for such protective measures was completely alien to him. That these peoples’ lives were at stake because of the structure they were now approaching made it all even harder to understand. But even if he couldn’t understand, the danger was certainly real. The bridge that crossed into the eastern realm of Neldar was within sight of the place where he stood.

“So this is what all the fuss is about, eh?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“It is,” Rachida replied.

They entered the gates, and a pair of women walked toward them. Their gazes turned to Patrick, and their expressions momentarily soured. One whispered in the other’s ear, and they both steered wide of him, giggling and pointing. The lightness Patrick felt at being by Rachida’s side quickly vanished.

“Pay no attention to them,” Rachida whispered. “They aren’t important.”

The guards at the gate, thankfully, were all business, patting Patrick down in search of weapons they wouldn’t find. The only weapon he had was Winterbone, and he’d left the greatsword with Corton at the practice fields. When the search was over, Rachida took him by the arm and led him through the circular path inside the wall. The path was wide, almost fifty feet, and it circled the center structure of the temple, a tower of red brick that rose like an erection but was hidden by the high walls. The temple inside was an imposing monument, with many doors lining its curved stone foundation.
On multiple occasions Patrick saw a door open and a couple skulk out, looking sweaty and relaxed, eyes half-lidded. The place was teeming with people from all walks of life—young and old, men and women, unattractive and striking. Unlike in the village surrounding the Gemcroft estate, however, there was no apprehension in the air, no fear of a god’s wrath. In fact, the air tingled with a current of excited energy racing across time and space, connecting one person to another and locking them together even if their bodies never touched.

“What
is
this place?” asked Patrick, feeling anxious and awed.

“It is a place of worship and intimacy. It is here that we celebrate the forms we have been given.”