Swordheart Page 6

  He did not at all appreciate learning that said woman was looking for a way to kill herself to escape said vindictive relations and had picked his blade to do it with. The world had few enough good women in it, it needed to keep hold of the ones it had.

  Halla wasn’t a bad looking woman, either. A solid armful, with pale blonde hair and large, expressive gray eyes. You’d didn’t see many women with hair that color in the Weeping Lands, but she had the sort of generous figure he’d always favored. More curves than the River Scythe, as the saying went.

  But the questions she’d asked! Great god give him strength! He could either snatch an unwilling bride from under the noses of her vile relatives, or he could be interrogated about the size of dragons. Both at once was asking too much. Was she completely daft?

  Still, they’d gotten out with minimal trouble. And she hadn’t had hysterics over the blood or fallen down in a faint, which was good. You never knew what civilians, men or women, were going to be like. Sometimes they sailed through like hardened campaigners, and sometimes they fell all to pieces.

  Halla, for all that she looked soft and kind and wide-eyed, had stepped over the guardsman’s groaning body without a second glance. He couldn’t very well ask for more than that.

  He was fairly sure he’d offended her just now, though. Decadent, damnable civilization. Too many gods and they treated their women like cattle, but mention that their high horse was more like a donkey on stilts and they became furious with you.

  Well, it wouldn’t be the first wielder who had disliked him. Some of them simply forbade him to talk.

  Occasionally, he even obeyed.

  There had been the one who cut his tongue out. Sarkis had a bad few weeks until the man had sheathed the sword in a fit of pique and he discovered that even that would heal inside the blade.

  The downside to that was that he’d had his tongue cut out three more times over the course of the next year, but it had only been pain. He’d known it wasn’t going to be permanent.

  That particular wielder had ended up with so many crossbow bolts in him that he looked like a porcupine turned inside out. Sarkis had been forced to defend him—the sword’s magic left him no choice—but he hadn’t been able to defend against a dozen archers at once. His failure, in that case, had been remarkably gratifying. He’d actually been able to pick the sword up and hand it to the next wielder, who’d been carrying one of the crossbows.

  He leaned over and spat. He always had to do that when he thought about having his tongue cut out, he couldn’t help it.

  Halla did not look like she would order anyone’s tongue cut out. Sarkis was really quite happy with that. There came a point in an enchanted sword’s life where even temporary dismemberment really started to wear on you.

  Mind you, if she kept asking him questions about the relative size of dragons, he might start to remember the old days fondly. Perhaps she was just nervous. Many people talked too much when they were nervous.

  He stifled a sigh, thinking that if being a fugitive made one nervous, Halla would probably not quiet down any time soon.

  Well. It’s hardly the worst way to wake up. At least you’ve only had one person come at you with a sword so far today…

  Chapter 8

  They traveled in silence for some time, and then Sarkis’s head snapped up.

  “Horsemen.” He caught Halla’s arm and tugged her toward the ditch.

  We’ve got to have a talk about all this dragging me about, thought Halla wearily. A simple ‘follow me’ would suffice.

  She suffered Sarkis to pull her down into the weed-choked ditch. There was a thin trickle of icy water at the bottom, and the cattails were shedding thick sprays of down into the grass.

  “Further back,” he whispered. “Into the brambles.”

  Halla pulled her hood down as close over her face as she could, and crawled on her hands and knees into the blackberry. Thorns stabbed at her cloak and hair. She could hear hoofbeats now.

  “Further,” he whispered behind her.

  “I’m not a rabbit!” she hissed. “There are stems here thicker than my wrist. Unless you’ve got an axe, this is as far as I go.”

  He peered over her shoulder, then grunted acknowledgment. “Fair enough.”

  The hoofbeats were getting loud. Sarkis flattened down even farther into the shadow of the thorns. Halla reached out and found Sarkis’s gloved hand, and was grateful when he gripped hers back.

  Don’t let them find us. I don’t even know what they’d do, but please don’t let us find out.

  The horse’s hooves rang like metal on the cold earth as they passed. Halla closed her eyes. Her breathing was so loud that it seemed like anyone should be able to hear her, like Aunt Malva could hear her back in the town.

  The hoofbeats clattered by and were gone.

  They lay in the ditch for some time, until finally Sarkis squeezed her hand and let go, then climbed out and looked over the edge.

  “Clear,” he reported. “They may yet come back this way, though. Be ready to duck.”

  They kept going. Twice more, they had to dive into the ditch. By the third time, Halla was no longer frightened so much as exasperated. Why are you still looking along this road? This is ridiculous. Go bother someone else.

  After the second one passed, she glared at Sarkis and said, “You could just say, ‘Get in the ditch now.’ You’ll have my arm out of the socket if you keep this up.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I am capable of following simple orders, you know.”

  “Without having to have a lengthy discussion about them, you mean?”

  Halla narrowed her eyes.

  “…that’s what I thought.”

  The moon began to sink.

  It was cold. Their brief run had left her sweating, and now the sweat chilled her. She shivered violently whenever the wind blew past, despite the weight of her cloak. Her legs ached from walking.

  “We’ve come a few miles,” said Sarkis. “We need shelter soon, I think.”

  He must be colder than I am. He’s wearing less. Unless magic swords don’t get cold. I wonder if he’ll get mad if I ask. He seems rather short-tempered.

  Halla realized that he was expecting her to have suggestions. Of course. He’s never been here before. She stopped, arms wrapped tightly around herself, stamping her feet to warm them.

  “Left,” she said, and nodded in that direction. “Into the stones. The shepherds keep summer houses up there sometimes, for when the lambs are out. I don’t know that we’d want to light a fire, but it’ll keep the wind off if we can find one.”

  Sarkis nodded.

  The hills were worse going than the road had been. It reminded her of the churchyard, uneven with hidden stones that rolled and dropped away underfoot. When Halla finally stopped and looked behind her, the road was right there, as if she had barely moved at all.

  She had been frightened before, but the unmoving road felt like despair.

  Sarkis took her arm without asking and helped her keep going.

  “Only a little farther, lady,” he said.

  “I’m not a lady,” she said wearily.

  “Gentleman, then?”

  “No, I mean…” She nearly stepped in a hole and had to grab his arm for support. “Ladies are noble. I’m not.”

  He shrugged. “Nobility is handed out arbitrarily at best.”

  Halla thought of the Squire that had owned her mother’s land, and grunted agreement.

  After what seemed like hours, they had toiled around the edge of the hillside. She was willing to collapse anywhere, between two rocks if it meant they were out of the wind, but Sarkis pointed.

  The shepherd’s building was roughly circular, made of stones piled together and bound with clay. The roof was thatch, dry and cold and partly fallen in. Half the stones had collapsed in the back and brushwood had been dragged in to fill the gap, but clearly no one had felt the need to effect repairs. />
  To Halla, it looked like a palace.

  Sarkis had her stay well back as he entered the building, but soon turned and gestured to her. “Nothing,” he said. “Owls, maybe, but they’ll be out hunting now.”

  “I don’t think owls are dangerous.”

  “Perhaps not the southern ones.”

  “Are northern owls dangerous?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Which kind? What do they do? Do they eat p-p-people?” Her teeth were chattering.

  “You’re cold,” said Sarkis.

  “So are you.”

  He looked down at his arms, which were covered in gooseflesh. “Fair enough.”

  “Do you want to go back in the sword?”

  “That won’t do much to warm you.”

  “No sense in both of us being miserable.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not fleeing back to a hunk of metal and letting you freeze. I am your guard, lady, as long as you wield the sword.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, and managed a chuckle. “And supposing someone takes it away from me?”

  “No,” said Sarkis. “It’s your sword, until you sell it or give it away, or die. And I am your servant until you sell me or give me to another.”

  “Or die.”

  He inclined his head.

  “So you’re stuck with me?”

  “Yes.” The way he drew the word out into a sigh made Halla think that he was probably contemplating that fact right now.

  “How do you know? If I’ve given the sword away or if someone’s stolen it?”

  Sarkis shrugged. “I’d know.”

  “Is that what happened last time? Someone sold the sword to Silas? Or gave it away?”

  “I don’t know. No one drew the sword for a long time. I was killed, and the man I protected died very shortly after.”

  Halla’s eyes went wide.

  “The sword wouldn’t draw for a few days after that, while I recovered,” he explained. “Likely they thought it was rusted into the sheath and useless. From there, I suppose, it was spoils of war. I had no wielder until you drew the blade.”

  “Great-Uncle Silas found many things in the market in Anuket City,” said Halla. “I’m surprised he never tried to draw it.” She frowned, remembering the manticore skull. “Although given the way he enjoyed leaving strange things around the house, perhaps he didn’t think of it. He wasn’t any sort of warrior. He just liked odd things.”

  Sarkis looked over at her and frowned suddenly. “I’m lighting a fire,” he said. “As small as I can manage, but I’ll be a poor guardsman if I let my charge freeze our first night out.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “No.”

  He went out of the hut and left Halla shivering.

  She was exhausted. The flood of adrenaline from their wild escape had finally faded, leaving her bone-weary and filled with the sense that she had committed some terrible crime.

  No. I’ve done nothing wrong.

  So why were you running? And chased by constables like a criminal?

  She burrowed deeper in her cloak, seeking warmth. It had all made so much sense at the time, one thing leading inevitably to another, and now here she was, hiding in a shepherd’s hut, her only ally a man who had come out of an enchanted sword.

  If you say it like that, even inside your head, it sounds very strange.

  She roused briefly at the sound of Sarkis returning.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, as he laid out bits of broken brushwood in the corner and built up stones around them. “I am very dull and stupid right now. I should be helping you.”

  She expected another sardonic response, but Sarkis surprised her.

  “It was a long night we had,” he said. “And I have been in a sword for a long time, but you, unless I miss my guess, have been nursing a sick man for some days before tonight.”

  Halla gave a short, choking laugh. “It’s not many men who appreciate the work that goes into that.”

  “I led a small band of warriors,” said Sarkis, taking out the tinderbox she had packed. “Before I am…what I am now. In the early days, if one of us was injured, it fell upon the rest of us to nurse him. It was grim duty, particularly if you didn’t expect them to live.”

  She glanced over at him. He had removed his gauntlets to use the tinderbox. His hands were hard-looking, scarred and callused. It was difficult to imagine those hands tending to the injured or doing any work of kindness.

  “I hated it,” she admitted. “I know, we’re supposed to be…I don’t know. Ministering angels. But I’m dreadful at it. I’ve no patience. I wanted to strangle Silas after half a day. And I love him.”

  Fire flared up beneath Sarkis’s hands. “Well,” he said. “The dead aren’t saints, merely because they’re dead.”

  “No,” said Halla. “And he’s a spiteful old beast when he feels thwarted. Which is all the time when he’s sick.”

  She rubbed her hands together to warm them, and then thought, Was. Not is. He’s dead. The last few days really happened, even if they don’t seem like it.

  Sarkis didn’t seem to have noticed the lapse, or if he had, he did not comment on it.

  Toward the end, Silas had been less spiteful and more tired. He would sleep for most of the day, waking only to drink a little and grumble. She’d sat by the bed because that was what you did with the dying, though she doubted he much cared.

  “I’ve always thought,” she said, a bit dryly, “that if I were dying, the last thing I’d want was people fussing over me. I’d just want them to go away and let me get on with it.”

  Sarkis actually laughed. “I have died,” he said. “Many times now. But usually quickly, so I’m not sure it’s the same thing.”

  She looked at him, puzzled. He’d mentioned being killed, but somehow she hadn’t put that together with the fact he was still here. “You’ve died?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Is it really dying? I mean, you’re still here.”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Pain, and then a long silver sleep with dreams. Then I wake up inside the sword again.”

  “Are you awake inside the sword? You know what’s happening?”

  “I can be. Usually not for long, though. There is only a faint sense of time passing. I fall asleep after a time, and then wake when someone draws the blade. Sometimes I’ll rouse a little, if something is happening outside, but I have no real way of telling what it is.”

  “And you heal inside the blade…” It reminded her suddenly of his injury. If he wouldn’t go back in the sword, it needed treating, didn’t it?

  “Let me bind your arm,” she said, summoning the last of her energy.

  He seemed genuinely surprised, but offered her his arm. The skin was heavily tattooed, the black faded to dark blue, in patterns of stylized rams, stags, horses. There were scars there, too, cutting starkly across the lines of ink. A stag with curling horns ran across his left bicep, its throat sliced open with silver.

  It must be the light, she thought, or perhaps the sword heals him with metal instead of flesh.

  She’d brought a kerchief with her, but sacrificed it now. The blood had dried black across his tattoos, and she wished that she could clean it. Did enchanted swords worry about infection?

  Regardless, she folded the cloth neatly and tied it around his upper arm. His skin was human temperature, but the muscle underneath was hard as iron. If she’d banged her knuckles on it, it would probably have rung like metal.

  And I am growing fanciful in my old age, or I am very tired, or both.

  The fire was putting out a tiny bit of heat now. Halla huddled close to it, barely able to tell if it was warmer or not. Sarkis knelt beside her, feeding twigs to the flame.

  She wasn’t sure if she slept. It seemed more like she stopped thinking and her eyelids closed.

  He never did explain about the owls…

  And then it was nearly dawn and the fire was out and Sarkis was shaking her aw
ake.

  Chapter 9

  Sarkis spent the hours while Halla slept wondering what the hell to do next.

  It was one thing to remove a woman from a house she very much did not wish to be in. It was another to become a fugitive in a strange land within an hour of meeting.

  Possibly I could have planned that better.

  If only she’d had some kin to come ride to her rescue. Still, he couldn’t very well leave her to get married off to a man who would drop her down the stairs to save his own skin.

  He’d been reasonably optimistic until he’d actually climbed the hillside to the top and looked out over the landscape.

  Rutger’s Howe was tucked into a half-circle of hills. North, the land was flat farmland. South were rolling, stony hills, suitable for sheep and not much else. The lich road meandered between the two, where the main road ran east to west. Obviously if one wanted to move quickly, one would head north.

  Unfortunately, the land to the north was well-farmed, well-tended, obviously not at all wild, and that made it difficult for two people to vanish into. There were a few patches of woodland that might be promising, but that was all.

  He would have been fine in a wilderness. Sarkis was excellent with wilderness. The south had nothing to compare to a winter in the Weeping Lands anyway.

  But where you had farms and roads, you got people and people asked questions. Questions like, “Hey, are you the pair that vanished from that town after killing that guard?”

  Halla had, he would admit, handled the young man at the lich-gate well. He had been afraid he’d have to kill him too, and Sarkis disliked killing priests, even priests of soft southern gods. There were stories that a priest’s blood would etch a blade that drew it and curse it to never take an edge, and Sarkis wasn’t sure how far that curse would extend. It would be damnably inconvenient to be trapped for eternity in a dull sword.

  Without a handy wilderness to vanish into, they would probably need a city. Cities were basically wildernesses with too many witnesses anyway.