Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 by Jennifer Roberson Read Free Book Online

opening salvo in the interests of saving time, except I'd nearly lost myself in
    Meteiera and would never hide from my name again. I merely stared down at him.
    Expressive eyes challenged me. "Will you dance? Will you step into the circle?"
    I opened my mouth to explain I couldn't dance, not the way he so clearly wanted, with a circle
    drawn in sand and all the honor codes. Instead I said, "Not today," and jammed heels into the stud's ribs.
    Startled, he jumped forward. The young man, equally startled, lost his grip on the rein. With agile
    alacrity he leaped aside so as not to be ridden over, and I heard his fading curses as I struck a crisp
    long-trot to the end of the street.
    Del waited there atop her quiet gelding. The stud took one look at him, considered spooking again,
    but was convinced otherwise when I cracked the long reins across his broad rump. There was no further
    dissent as Del fell in beside us.
    "So," she said calmly, "the secret of your return is out."
    "Yes and no."
    She frowned. "Why do you say that?"
    "He isn't a sword-dancer. Just a kid trying to make a reputation."
    "How do you know?"
    "He invited me to dance. A sword-dancer won't. They all know what elaii-ali-ma means: that there
    is no dance, no circle, merely a fight to the death. There's a huge difference."
    "And every sword-dancer in the South will know this?"
    "Everyone sworn to the honor codes, yes."
    "But he recognized you."
    "That," I said, "is likely more a result of the swordsmith spreading gossip."
    "You think he recognized you?"
    "Probably not. As I said, Haziz isn't a place many sword-dances go, unless specifically hired. But as
    you pointed out before, we don't exactly fit in with the rest of the crowd. All it would take is a
    description, and anyone who'd seen or heard about us would know."
    "So. It begins."
    "It begins." I glanced sideways at the long equine face with its black-painted eye circles, the wine
    girl's dangling golden fringe—I wondered briefly if Del had told her what she intended to do with it—and
    mournful blue eyes. "That horse is a disgrace to his kind."
    Del put up her brows. "Just because your horse is afraid of him is no cause to insult him."
    "He looks ridiculous!"
    "No more than yours did when he stood rooted to the ground, trembling like a leaf."
    Probably not. Scowling, I said, "Let's go, bascha. It's a long ride to Julah—"
    "—and we're burning daylight."
    Well. We were.
    Del and I stopped burning daylight when the sun went down. Then it lost itself in its own
    conflagration, a panoply of color so vivid as to nearly blind you. Desert orange, blazing red, yellow,
    vermillion, raisin purple, lavender, the faint burnished shadow of blue fading to silver-gilt. Out here
    twilight dies gently, shading slowly into darkness.
    We were beyond the last oasis between Haziz and Julah, so there was no place in particular we
    wanted to bed down. We ended up settling for a series of conjoined hummocks carpeted in a fibrous,
    red-throated groundcover bearing tiny white blossoms, and the threadbare shelter of a thin grove of low,
    scrubby trees boasting a bouquet of woody limbs bearing dusty green leaves. Within weeks the leaves
    would dry out, curl up, and drop off, when summer seared them to death, but for now there was yet
    enough moisture in the mornings for the leaves to remain turgid. Mixed in with the groundcover were
    taller-growing desert grasses with frizzy, curled topknots.
    "This'll do," I said, reining in even as Del dismounted.
    Since the stud was not always trustworthy when picketed close to other horses, I led him to a tree
    eight paces away and had a brief discussion about staying put as I hobbled him. Del and I busied
    ourselves with untacking and grooming both mounts, swapping out bridles and bits for halters, pouring
    water into the squashable, flat-bottomed oiled canvas bags doubling as buckets, and offering them grain
    as a complement to the grasses. It wasn't particularly good grazing, but it would