Page 12 of Swordheart #1

They set out. The sky was gray instead of black and there was frost on the ground instead of dew. The trail they left looked stark against the shining silver grass. Halla knew that it would melt a little after sunrise, but it still made her feel exposed.

They drank from a tiny rill at the bottom of the hill. It was icy cold and set her shivering again.

There were still blackberries clinging to the brambles. She pulled them off as they walked along the side of the ditch, offering a handful to Sarkis.

“Do you eat?”

“I do, if I stay outside the sword for long enough.” He took one politely. “These are safe, then? They look like berries in my part of the world, but one is never sure.”

“Quite safe. What do the berries in your part of the world do?”

“The ones like this? Nothing. Smaller ones, with a green bloom, that darken from red? You begin to sweat, then you convulse, and then your heart races until it fails.”

Halla paused momentarily, a berry on the way to her mouth. “That sounds unpleasant.”

“It is over quickly.”

“Well, there’s that.” She examined the berry, then shrugged and ate it. “These don’t do that.”

“I gathered.”

There were purple stains on her fingers by the time she was through, but between the water and the food, Halla felt a little better.

Sarkis was making a wide circle around Rutger’s Howe, through fields that did not overlook the road.

There were a number of hedgerows, which was good.

The direct path ran through much more densely planted farmland, and Halla suspected that she’d get pulled into so many ditches that her shoulder joints might never recover.

“How did you learn my language?” she asked, as they walked.

“I didn’t,” said Sarkis.

She gave him a sidelong look. “We’re talking right now, though.”

“Yes, but not because I am inherently familiar with the tongue of the decadent south. The magic of the sword allows me to speak the language of the wielder, that’s all.”

“That’s handy.”

“It’s essential.” Sarkis shook his head. “It’s a real problem to be drawn on the battlefield and have to be shouting, ‘What? Say again? Do you speak any other languages?’ while the enemy is charging at you.”

Halla laughed.

“There is also the difficulty that our great-great-grandmothers spoke differently than we did. If I slept for too long in the sword, I might not even comprehend the tongue of the Weeping Lands. So the sorcerer-smith corrected for that problem early on, she said.”

“You mean there’re other swords?” said Halla.

Sarkis nodded. “At least two others that I know of,” he said. “My friends. The Dervish and Angharad Shieldborn. More before us, but no one I knew. Presumably some afterward as well.”

Halla stared at him, her mouth falling open. “But why ? Why would you choose to get put in a sword?”

“Sometimes all the choices are bad ones,” he said, in a tone that did not invite further comment.

“Yes, but—”

“You are not good at taking hints, are you, my lady?”

“Was that a hint?”

He started counting in his own language again. Halla waited.

After reaching thirty-two, he said, “I was a commander. There was a war. It did not go well.”

“Ohhh…” Halla nodded. “You sacrificed yourself to become a weapon, didn’t you?”

He didn’t look at her. “Something like that.”

“That’s very noble.”

He grunted.

“Did it work?”

“We lost the war.”

“Oh.”

Halla bit her lip. Was he one of those people who wanted their heroism acknowledged, or one of those who would gnaw their own arm off before admitting they had done anything heroic? She was getting the impression that it was the latter.

Still, if agreeing to be stuffed into a sword to become an unkillable weapon wasn’t heroic, what was?

She settled on the truth. “I’m sorry that it went so badly. But I’m very glad you’re here now.”

Sarkis looked over at her, his expression briefly unreadable, then dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I’m glad that I’m able to help, lady.”

It was another day before Sarkis was willing to return to a road, and only then because he knew that his charge could not take much more.

She hadn’t complained. Great god help him, she was cheerful the entire time, and he knew that she had to be exhausted. Her hair was full of dead leaves and the handprint where that foul old shrew had slapped her was still faintly visible across the side of her face.

He could also hear her stomach growling every few minutes.

Despite all this, she didn’t snap, she didn’t demand that he do something to fix this. She… just… kept… asking… questions.

“So how far can you go from the sword itself? Do you have to come back?”

“A quarter mile, perhaps a bit more.”

“What happens if you go farther than that?”

“I disintegrate.”

“Does it hurt? It sounds like it would hurt.”

“No.”

“What does it feel like?”

“Like disintegrating.”

“Yes, but what does that feel like?”

“Cold.”

“Right, but—”

He realized that she was not going to give up and wracked his brain for a description that would satisfy her. “Like a dream where you are falling and jerk awake again. Except that I awaken closer to the sword.”

It wasn’t all about being a sword, either. It was about everything.

“So you have sheep in the Weeping Lands?”

“They have sheep everywhere, lady.”

“But what are yours like? Are they the same color?”

“They are brown. And very short.”

He helped her across a patch of rough ground, where something, probably pigs, had torn up the earth and then it had frozen into a stiff, treacherous landscape.

It was only when he reached down to take her hand that he noticed the deep blue smudges under her eyes, and saw that she was favoring her right foot.

I’m an idiot. She’s asking questions to distract herself from how uncomfortable she is.

His men had done the same thing, in various forms; not questions, per se, but endless talking.

Vetch had told the very worst jokes. Not even dirty jokes, just interminable puns.

And Bo, who had a bard’s tongue, would spin out impossibly long stories about everything from the enemy to last night’s dinner, until a simple overcooked bit of venison became a three-thousand-year-old victim of a god’s curse, slain at last and sent to its final resting place in the stomach of a dozen mercenaries.

Fisher, the crossbowman, had made up his own songs, but the less said about that, the better.

Apparently, Halla asked questions.

He should have realized that Halla was doing something of the sort. His only defense was that she was a civilian, and you didn’t expect them to cope with things like a normal person.

You’re her commander, or close enough in this situation. Do your job. Help keep up morale.

I’m not her commander, he argued with himself. Quite the opposite. I serve whoever wields the sword.

He glanced back at her. Halla’s eyes were on her feet, picking her way through the cold ground.

Her cheerful expression had faded. Her shoulders slumped and the corners of her mouth sagged with weariness. Her large gray eyes were half-closed, fine lines radiating from the corners.

As soon as she looked up and saw that he was watching, she straightened and forced a smile, like… like…

Like every recruit you’ve ever had who was determined to die before they complained about anything.

Angharad Shieldborn had been like that. You could chop off her feet and she’d grit her teeth and march on the stumps.

He’d been Angharad’s commander. He had to tell her when she was too damn tired, because she’d never admit it. Sometimes the Dervish had done it for him, which was why the two of them had worked well together.

His men were long gone now. He had not seen his two captains since the day that swords had been thrust through their hearts. Presumably they hated him now, which was their right. He had failed them all.

Halla, however, was right here. And if he wasn’t her commander, exactly, he was damned close. Which meant that there was only one thing left to do.

Sarkis tried to think of something to say about sheep.

He’d never thought about the animals much. Thinking of the Dervish reminded him, though. “One of my captains came from a land where they bred sheep with thick tails that drag the ground.”

“Really!” Halla’s eyes lit up with genuine interest. “That sounds like they’d have a lot of problems, though. Sheep get into enough trouble with their regular tails.”

“I can’t say, I’ve never seen one. But the fat of the sheep’s tail was a delicacy, he said.”

“On my husband’s farm, we had goats,” said Halla. She frowned. “I can’t say I miss them.”

“I’ve never kept goats,” said Sarkis, doggedly determined to keep up his end of the conversation.

“No one really keeps goats, do they? They just have goats. Like having in-laws, if your in-laws climbed on the roof and kicked.”

“I have had in-laws that did both those things.”

“What, really?”

“Primarily when drunk.”

She laughed. Her stomach growled loudly in counterpoint and she thumped herself. “Quiet, you.”

After a moment, she said, “My in-laws just seem to want to marry me off. Are you married?”

“I was, once.”

Halla stilled. He glanced back and saw her eyes were filled with sudden sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I did not leave her behind when I went into the sword. She decided years before that she did not want to be wed to a man who might be gone for years at a time, and she cut the ties. It was for the best.”

“Oh,” said Halla. And then, “I’m still sorry. That must have been hard.”

He shrugged. “She was strong. Strong enough to know what she did and did not want. And there were no children to bind us.”

Strong enough to cut the tie and say to my face that love was not enough.

And a good thing, too, in the end. Enough people paid the price for my mistakes without a wife to suffer as well, or great god forbid, children.

No, when he died at last, if he was ever allowed to truly die, the world would forget the name of Sarkis of the Weeping Lands. He had neither son or daughter to carry on his line.

And thank the great god for that.