Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 Read Free

thinking, would it?"
    Del blinked. "What?"
    "There are fifteen-plus years between us, after all. Maybe if I didn't look so much older—"
    "Oh, Tiger, don't be ridiculous! I've told you I don't care about that."
    I dropped into a squat. The knees didn't pop. I bounced up again. Still no complaints.
    Del frowned. "What was that about?"
    "Feeling younger." I grinned crookedly. "Or maybe it's just my wishful thinking."
    Del bent and picked up her stick. "Then let's go again."
    "What, you want to try and wear down the old man? Make him yield on the basis of sheer
    exhaustion?"
    "You never yield to exhaustion," she pointed out, "in anything you do."
    "I yielded to your point of view about women having worth in other areas besides bed."
    "Because I was right."
    As usual, with us, the banter covered more intense emotions. I didn't really blame Del for being
    concerned. Here we were on our way back to the South, where I had been born and lost; where I had
    been raised a slave; where I had eventually found my calling as a sword-dancer, hired to fight battles for
    other men as a means of settling disputes—but also where I had eventually voluntarily cut myself off from
    all the rites, rituals, and honor of the Alimat-trained sword-dancer's closely prescribed system.
    I had done it in a way some might describe as cowardly, but at the time it was the right choice. The
    only choice. I'd made it without thinking twice about it, because I didn't have to; I knew very well what
    the cost would be. I was an outcast now, a blade without a name. I had declared elaii-ali-ma, rejecting
    my status as a seventh-level sword-dancer, which meant I was fair game to any honor-bound
    sword-dancer who wanted to challenge me.
    Of course, that challenge wouldn't necessarily come in a circle, where victory is not achieved by
    killing your opponent—well, usually; there are always exceptions—but by simply winning. By being
    better.
    For years I had been better than everyone else in the South, though a few held out for Abbu Bensir
    (including Abbu Bensir), but I couldn't claim that any longer. I wasn't a sword-dancer. I was just a man a
    lot of other men wanted to kill.
    And Del figured it would be a whole lot easier to kill me now than before.
    She was probably right, too.
    So here I was aboard a ship bound for the South, going home, Accompanied by a stubborn
    stud-horse and an equally stubborn woman, sailing toward what more romantic types, privy to my
    dream, might describe as my destiny. Me, I just knew it was time, dream or no dream. We'd gone off
    chasing some cockamamie idea of me being Skandic, a child of an island two week's sail from the South,
    but that was done now. I was, by all appearances—literally as well as figuratively—Skandic, a child of
    that island, but things hadn't worked out. Sure, it was the stuff of fantasy to discover I was the long-lost
    grandson of the island's wealthiest, most powerful matriarch, but this fantasy didn't have a happy ending.
    It had cost me two fingers, for starters. And nearly erased altogether the man known as the Sandtiger
    without even killing him.
    Meteiera. The Stone Forest. Where Skandic men with a surfeit of magics so vast that much was
    mostly undiscovered, cloistered themselves upon tall stone spires ostensibly to serve the gods but also,
    they claimed, to protect their loved ones by turning away from them. Because the magic that made them
    powerful also made them mad.
    Now, anyone who knows me will say I don't—or didn't— think much of magic. In fact, I don't—
    didn't—really believe in it. But I'll admit something strange was going on in Meteiera, because I had
    cause to know. I can't swear the priest-mages worked magic on me, as Del suggested, but once there I
    wasn't precisely me anymore. And I witnessed too many strange things.
    Hoolies, I did strange things.
    I shied away from that like a spooked horse. But the knowledge, the awareness, crept back. Despite
    all the outward physical