"03 - Sword Dancer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

circle with a sword in my hands, and I dance. For pay, for show, for honor--for
all those things most men are afraid to name, for fear of showing too much...
well, I'm not afraid, Del--all I know is you left me no choice but to cut you,
coming at me like that with that magicked sword of yours--what did you expect? I
did what I had to. What was needed, for both of us, if for different reasons." I
scratched angrily at the scars in my right cheek: four deep-scored claw marks,
now white with age, cutting through the beard. "I tried like hoolies to make you
quit, to make you leave that thrice-cursed island before it came to something
we'd both regret, but you left me no choice. You stepped into that circle all on
your own, Del... and you paid the price. You found out just how good the
Sandtiger is after all, didn't you?"
No answer. Of course not; she still thought she was better. But I had proven
which of us was superior in the most eloquent fashion of all.
Swearing at the cold, I resettled the wool cloak I wore, wrapping it more
closely around shoulders. Brown hair uncut for far too long blew into my eyes,
stinging, and my mouth. It also caught on my short-cropped beard repeatedly, no
matter how many times I stripped it back. Even the hood didn't help; the wind
tore it from my head again and again and again, until I gave up and left it
puddled on my shoulders.
"You and that butcher's blade," I muttered.
Still Del said nothing.
Wearily I scrubbed at brows, eyes, face. I was tired, too tired; the wound in my
abdomen ached unremittingly, reminding me with each twinge I'd departed
Staal-Ysta far sooner than was wise, in view of the sword thrust I'd taken. The
healing was only half done, but I'd departed regardless. There was nothing left
for me in Staal-Ysta. Nothing at all, and no one.
Deep in the cairn, flame whipped. Smoke eddied, tangled, shredded on the air.
Wind carried it away, bearing word of my presence to the beasts somewhere
northeast of me in darkness. The hounds of hoolies, I called them; it fit as
well as any other.
I waited for her to speak, even to accuse, but she made no sound at all. Just
sat there looking at me, staring at me, holding the jivatma across
wool-trousered thighs. The blade was naked in the darkness, scribed with runes I
couldn't--wasn't meant to--read, speaking of blood and forbidden power too
strong for anyone else to key, or to control, with flesh, will, voice.
Del could control it. It was part of her personal magic; the trappings of a
sword-singer.
Sword-singer. More than sword-dancer, my own personal trade. Something that made
her different. That made her alien.
Whose name was Boreal.
"Hoolies," I muttered aloud in disgust, and raised the leather bota yet again to
squirt Northern amnit deep into my throat. I sucked it down, gulp after gulp,
pleased by the burning in my belly and the blurring of my senses. And waited for
her to say something about drink curing nothing. About how a drinking man is
nothing more than a puppet to the bota. About how dangerous it is for a
sword-dancer, a man who lives by selling sword and skill, to piss away his edge
when he pisses liquor in the morning.
But Del said none of those things.
I wiped amnit from my mouth with the back of a hand. Glared at her blearily
across the guttering fire. "Not my fault," I told her. "Do you think I wanted to