Free Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 by Jennifer Roberson Page B

straightened, scraping at my mouth with the sleeve of my burnous. When I turned to hike
    back up to the stud, I found Del holding his reins. Silent no longer.
    "Are you cut?" she asked.
    "No."
    "Are you sure?"
    "Yes."
    "Have you looked?"
    Sighing, I inspected my arms, then ran my hands down the front of burnous and harness, checking
    for complaints of the flesh, though I was fairly certain Khashi had not broken my guard. I was spattered
    with blood, but none of it appeared to be mine. And nothing hurt beyond the edges of my palms where
    the fingers were missing.
    "I'm fine." I climbed to the stud, took the reins from her, then pulled one of the botas free and filled
    my mouth with water. I rinsed, spat, scrubbed again at my mouth, then released a noisy breath from the
    environs of my toes. "Butchery," I muttered hoarsely, throat burned by bile.
    "It was necessary."
    "I've killed men, beheaded men, cut men into collops before. Borjuni. Bandits. Thieves. It never
    bothered me; it was survival, no more. But this—" I shook my head.
    "It was necessary," she repeated. "How better to warn other sword-dancers you will not be easy
    prey?"
    That was precisely why I had done it, knowing the tale would be told. Embellished into legend. But
    the aftermath was far more difficult to deal with than I had anticipated.
    "Tiger," Del said quietly, "you spent many years learning all the rituals of the sword-dance. The
    requirements of the circle. It was your escape, your freedom, but also a way of life woven of rules, rites,
    codes. The formal sword-dance is not about killing but about the honor of the dance and victory. What
    you did today was the antithesis of everything you learned, all that you embraced, when you swore the
    oaths of a sword-dancer before your shodo at Alimat."
    "I've been in death-dances before." They were rare, as most sword-dances were a relatively
    peaceful way of settling disputes for our employers, but they did occur.
    "Still formalized," she observed. "It's an elegant way to die. An honorable way to die."
    Killing Khashi had been neither. But necessary, yes.
    "On another day, you and he would have danced a proper dance. One of you would have won. And
    then likely afterwards you'd have gone to a cantina together and gotten gloriously drunk. It is different,
    Tiger, what was done today."
    "You can't know, bascha—"
    "I can. I do. I killed Bron."
    It took me a moment. Then I remembered. Del had killed a friend, a training partner, who otherwise
    would have kept her from returning to the Northern island known as Staal-Ysta, where her daughter
    lived.
    But still.
    I squirted more water into my mouth, spat again, then drank. Stared hard across the landscape,
    remembering the stink of severed bowels, the expression on his face as his life ran out, the weight of the
    blade as I opened his abdomen.
    Butchery.
    "Would you feel better if you had died?"
    For the first time since the fight I looked directly at her. Felt the tug of a wry smile at my mouth. Trust
    Delilah to put it in perspective.
    "You don't have to like it," she said. "If you did, if you began to, I would not share your bed. But
    this, too, is survival, and in its rawest, most primitive form. There will be others. Kill them quickly, Tiger,
    and ruthlessly. Show them no mercy. Because they will surely show none to you."
    What she didn't say, what she didn't need to say, was that some of those others would be better than
    Khashi.
    SIX
    DELwas initially resistent to going after my jivatma. She truly saw no sense in it, since very likely
    the sword was buried under tons of rock, and we had new blades. I still hadn't told her about the dreams
    of the woman commanding me to take up the sword, because I couldn't find words that didn't make me
    sound like a sandsick fool. Instead, I relied on Del's own respect for the Northern blades and on the loss
    of Boreal. As I had by declaring elaii-ali-ma, she had made the only choice possible in breaking the
    sword, but that