Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (15 page)

of her jaw cut the air like a blade. I saw her lips part; she said something to

herself, mouthing it in silence, and I wondered what was in her mind. Ajani?

Delay?

Or maybe a Southron sword-dancer who taxed her dwindling supply of patience.

Hoolies, she didn't have to stay. I wasn't forcing her to. She could turn around

with Halvar and ride back down the mountain to Ysaa-den. Or ride clear to the South. To Harquhal and beyond, maybe even to Julah; or to the Vashni, who had her brother; hoolies, there was no place in the world Del couldn't go if she put

her mind to it.

Except Staal-Ysta.

Del slid a leg over her saddle and stepped down carefully, sparing her midriff

as much as she could. It would be days, possibly even weeks, before either of us

could move freely again, without awareness of stiffness and pain. It was possible neither of us would ever fully recover fluidity of motion, since respective sword blades had cut muscle as well as flesh.

Then again, it was possible only I wouldn't; Del was twenty-one. The young heal

faster, neater, better.

And maybe she needed it more.

I unpinned my cloak, rolled it, fastened it onto my saddle. No doubt come night

I would regret leaving it behind, but its weight and muffling folds would hinder

me during the climb. Hopefully the task could be accomplished before it got cold

enough for me to need the warmth of its weight.

Hopefully.

Well, one can always hope.

Del tied off the roan--outside of the stud's reach--and chatted briefly with Halvar. Like me, she shed her cloak and put it away. Sunlight glinted off the hilt of her jivatma; I saw Halvar stare at it in something akin to reverence.

No

doubt any village full of people who believed in dragons also told bedtime stories about Northern blooding-blades and the men who bore them. Now they could

add a whole new raft of tales about the pale-haired woman who summoned a banshee-storm with only a name and a song.

"Let's go," I said irritably. "We're burning daylight."

"So is the dragon," Del observed, as smoke issued from "mouth" and

"nostrils."

This time sound came with it: a low-pitched, hissing rumble, as if the dragon belched.

"Beware the fire," Halvar said, clearly enough for me.

I looked up the mountain. "If there's fire," I pointed out, "someone has to tend

it. Which means there's more up there than rock and hounds... likely a man as well.'"

Halvar looked at me strangely.

"It makes sense," I said defensively; I hate it when I'm doubted. "Do you really

think there's a dragon up there, fire-breathing and all?"

Still Halvar stared. And then he looked at Del as if hoping she could explain.

"No," Del said quietly, "he thinks no such thing... Tiger, I am sorry you have

been so left out of the conversation--I didn't realize it was so hard for you to

understand. No one in Ysaa-den believes there's a real dragon up there--no one

is so foolish as to believe in a mythical creature--but a sorcerer. A specific

one, in fact: Chosa Dei."

"Who?"

"Chosa Dei," she repeated. "He is a legendary sorcerer, Tiger; surely you must

have heard of him, even in the South."

"No." Emphatically. "Del--"

"He has not been seen for hundreds of years, ever since a fight with his brother, Shaka Obre--who is also a sorcerer--but Halvar tells me Ysaa-den has lain in his shadow for nearly ninety years. They believe it is Chosa Dei who troubles them now, awakening; he is the 'dragon,' not this pile of stone."

"Have you heard of this sorcerer?"

"Of course." Del was dead serious. "He was one of my favorite stories when I was

a child. I know all about Chosa Dei... and all his fights with his brother, and

how they spent all their magic trying to kill one another--"

"Are you completely sandsick?" I gaped at her inelegantly. "You're standing here

telling me you believe a man out of childhood stories is living in that mountain, blowing smoke out stone tunnels just to pass the time?"

Del smiled. "No," she said in Southron. "But it would be rude to tell Halvar so,

and ruin the history of his village."

I blinked. "Then why are we here?"

She slipped a thumb beneath a harness strap and resettled her sword. "Because a

newly-named kaidin made a promise he's sworn to keep."

I opened my mouth to respond. Rudely, of course; she was throwing things I'd said back in my own face. But before I could say a word something interrupted.

A keening, rising howl, echoing eerily. And a gout of malodorous smoke, fanned

by heated wind.

No matter who it was, someone--something--was killing people. And I was here to

stop it.

"Come on," I said curtly.

Del fell in behind me.

Conditioning is important to a sword-dancer. Because if you lack stamina, speed

and wind, you risk losing the dance. And, much of the time, if you risk losing

the dance, you also risk losing your life.

Which means a sword-dancer worth his salt always stays in condition.

Unless he's been recently wounded, which changes things altogether.

I suppose two months isn't recent. But it felt like it, It felt like yesterday

every step I took--no, let's make it today. Like maybe a moment ago. All I know

is, it hurt to climb the mountain.

I knew I was a fool to go charging up a rockpile where there wasn't any air to

breathe and I had no lungs to breathe it. I knew I was a fool to even consider

taking on anything with my sword, be it human or animal. And certainly I was a

fool to be doing it with Del, who was in no better shape than I. It's nice to have backup--it's great to have backup--but only if they're healthy.

We huffed and puffed and coughed and swore and muttered all the way up the mountain. We also slid, staggered, fell down, gagged on the stink of the dragon's breath. And wished we were somewhere else, doing something else; Del no

doubt thought of Ajani, while I dreamed of a cantina. A cantina in the South, where the days are warm and bright. And there are no mountains to climb.

The dragon snorted smoke. A rumble accompanied it. And then a relentless hiss spitting wind into our faces. It ripped the hair from my eyes and inserted hot

fingers into the weave of my heavy wool tunic.

I slipped, slid, climbed. Threw a question over my shoulder toward the woman who

climbed behind me. "Who is this man again?"

"What man?--oh." Del was breathing hard. She spoke in brief, clipped sentences,

sparing no breath for more. "Chosa Dei. Sorcerer. Supposed to be very powerful--till he lost an argument."

"With his brother."

"Shaka Obre." Del sucked in a breath. "There are stories about both of them...

tales of great and powerful magic... also ambition. Chosa Dei is the example parents put up before greedy children. 'Look, oh look, beware of wanting too much, or you will become like Chosa Dei, who dwells in Dragon Mountain. ' "

It

faded into a cough.

"So now everyone in Ysaa-den thinks their mountain is Dragon Mountain, and that

Chosa Dei dwells in it."

"Yes."

"Sounds like they're taking after the old man and his taste for ambition. I mean, saying their village lies in the dragon's shadow is an attempt to claim some fame, isn't it? Just like Bellin the Cat."

It was Del's turn. "Who?"

"Bellin the Cat," I repeated. "You know, that silly boy back in Harquhal who wants to be a panjandrum. Who wants to make a name." I sucked more air. "The kid

with all the axes."

That, Del remembered. "Oh. Him."

"So, it seems to me Ysaa-den's a little like him--" I bit off a curse as a foot

slipped and nearly deposited me on my face. "I mean, isn't it a little silly to

adopt a story as truth just to gain a little fame?" I brushed dirt from my clothes and went on.

"If you lived in Ysaa-den, what would you do?"

I thought it over. "True."

Del slid, caught at rock, climbed upward again. "After all, what does it hurt?

No one really knows where Dragon Mountain lies--there are countless maps with countless mountains called after Chosa Dei's prison--and no one really knows if

Chosa Dei ever existed. He's a legend, Tiger. Some believe it, some don't."

"Which are you, Delilah?"

Del laughed once. "I told you, stories about Chosa Dei and his battles with Shaka Obre were favorites when I was young. Of course I want to believe. But it

doesn't mean I do."

I wondered, not for the first time, what childhood for Del had been like. I knew

bits and pieces only, because that was all she'd shared, but it wasn't hard to

put a few of them together.

I imagined a pretty but strong-minded girl who preferred boys' doings to girls'.

And who, as the only daughter, was allowed the freedom to be a boy, even symbolically, because it was probably easier for father and uncles and brothers.

Easier for a mother who knew she was outnumbered. No skirts and dolls for Del;

she'd been handed a sword in place of a cooking spoon.

I'd asked her once what she would be if she hadn't become a sword-dancer. And she had said probably married. Probably bearing babies. But it was impossible for me to think of Del in those terms, to even imagine her tending a lodge, a man, a child; not because I didn't think she could, but because I'd never seen

it. All I had ever seen was a woman with a sword, tending to men in the circle.

For six long years, it was all Delilah had been. But I wondered. Even if she didn't, I did. I couldn't help myself.

What would become of Del once Ajani was dead?

Yet more importantly: what would Del become once Ajani was dead?

"Tiger--look."

I looked. Was too out of breath to speak.

"Almost there," Del gasped, nearly as winded as I. "Can't you feel the heat?"

Heat, yes, if you're a Northerner. To a Southroner, it was merely a gentle warming, like the breeze of a spring day. What I noticed was, it stank.

"Hoolies," I muttered, "if this man's that powerful a sorcerer, why can't he live in a place that smells better?"

"No choice," Del croaked. "It was a spell put on him by Shaka Obre."

"Ah. Of course. I forgot." I topped off the last bit of mountain and arrived at

the dragon's lip. Heat and stench rolled out to bathe me in dragonish breath.

"Hoolies, this place stinks!"

Del came over the edge and paused to catch her breath. I saw her expression of

distaste as the odor engulfed her as well. It's hard enough trying to suck wind

back into laboring lungs, but when it smells this bad the task is that much harder.

Smoke rolled out of the "mouth." I steeled myself and went over for a closer look.

From below, it looked like a dragon. The shape of earth and rock, the arrangement of the same--from below, it looked dragonish. But from up top, from

the opening in the rock, it was only a large odoriferous cave extending back into the mountain. The spires of rock forming "teeth" were nothing more than stone columns shaped by ancient rain and the wind moaning incessantly through the cavern's entrance, bearing the stench of rotting bodies and a trace of something more.

Does magic have a smell?

"No hounds," Del observed.

No hounds. No dragon. No Chosa Dei.

"Wait a moment," I muttered, frowning down at the ground. I bent, squatted, looked more closely at turfy ground and the tracks pressed into it.

"Pawprints,"

I said, "going straight into the cave."

Del took an involuntary step back, one hand drifting up toward the hilt riding

above her left shoulder. "It couldn't be their den--" But she let it trail off.

"Leave her sheathed," I suggested, thinking of Halvar's warning, "and yes, I think it could be... if I believed they were really hounds. It's what I've called them--the Hounds of Hoolies--for lack of a better name, but I never believed they were. And I don't think beasts live in dens." I shrugged.

"Although I suppose they could."

We stared at one another, not liking the idea. Not liking the vision I'd painted. I thought it pretty disgusting; Del didn't say anything.

She edged closer to the entrance. She didn't draw Boreal, but her right hand hooked in her harness as if to stay close just in case. And I didn't really blame her.

"Tiger, do you think--"

But I didn't hear her finish. A blast of malodorous wind came roaring out of the

cavern; with it came an overwhelming presentiment of power.

I itched, because all my hairs stood up on my arms, my thighs, the back of my neck. Even my bones tingled; my belly climbed up my throat. It was all I could

do not to vomit. "Del--oh, hoolies--Del--"

"What is it? Tiger, what is it?"

I staggered back from the opening, trying not to retch. I also tried to wave Del

off, but she followed anyway. "Don't, bascha--wait--can't you feel it?"

Maybe. Maybe not. But Del unsheathed Boreal.

It drove me to my knees. "I said wait--oh, hoolies, bascha--I think I'm going to

be sick."

But I wasn't. I couldn't be. There wasn't time for it.

I got up, staggered a step or two, swung back around toward the cavern. "In there," I gasped. "I swear, it's in there--"

"What is, Tiger?"

"The thing we've been chasing. Sorcerer. Demon. Thing; I don't know! I just know

it's in there. It's got to be--and that's where we have to go."

Del looked at the cavern. Looked back at me.

"I know," I said testily. "Do you think I like the idea?"

Del's jivatma gleamed: pale salmon-silver. In answer, the dragon roared.

At least, it sounded that way; it was wind keening through the cavern, whining

in cracks and crannies, then whooshing out of the opening to splatter our faces