Page 16 of Swordheart #1

The sword struck her across the back, knocking the wind out of her. Please, gods, she thought, as the man loomed over her, please, please don’t get knocked back in the sheath—

“Stop there,” said Sarkis softly. The edge of his sword lay across the back of her attacker’s neck.

The man froze.

“Step back,” said Sarkis. “And you, madam, you may think you’re being very sneaky with that knife, but I’ll have his head off if you take another step. Halla, are you hurt?”

“Fine,” squeaked Halla. She had no idea if she was hurt or not. She very much wanted all of this to not be happening.

“Please don’t kill me,” said the man with the sword against his neck. “I wasn’t gonna do anything. I swear. I’ll go.”

“Where the hell did you come from?” hissed Mina.

“Don’t care,” said the man with the knife, staring straight ahead. “Don’t care. I’ll leave. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“Drop the knife,” said Sarkis. “At your feet, not on her.”

The man’s fingers opened and the knife landed in the leaves with a crunch.

“I’m doing it,” he said. “Not going to fight you. Mina, don’t do anything stupid.”

“That is excellent advice,” said Sarkis. “I suggest you listen to him. Drop your knife as well.”

“But—”

“Mina, ” said her partner, in pained tones.

She tossed down the knife, grumbling.

Sarkis lifted the sword a half inch away from the man’s neck. “Now would be an excellent time to back away,” he said.

“Yes. I’m going. Sorry.” The man kept his hands in front, where Sarkis could see them, without even being told. He began backing into the woods.

“Madam, I suggest you go with him. If I have to deal with either of you again, my patience will be exhausted.”

Mina, lips thin and arms folded, joined the man at the edge of the woods.

“You may run now,” said Sarkis pleasantly.

They ran.

The pair did not exactly melt into the trees—there was too much loud crashing and stomping and cursing for that—but they vanished in very short order. Sarkis stood over Halla, sword held at the ready, then leaned down and helped her to her feet.

“Are you sure you’re unhurt?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” said Halla. “I’m fine. Completely fine.”

Don’t embarrass yourself in front of the magic sword.

She nodded firmly to show him how fine she was, and then promptly, humiliatingly, burst into tears.

Sarkis was not in the least surprised. Halla had held up surprisingly well, but two attacks in three days was simply a bridge too far.

He swapped the sword to his off hand and sheathed it awkwardly. With his free hand, he pulled her close.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Shhh. It’s okay. They’re gone.”

She sobbed into his shoulder, fingers locked around the edge of his surcoat. He wrapped his arms around her and waited.

It was not the first time that he’d held someone who was crying their heart out.

His mother had done it when his father died.

And his troops… well. Fisher was notoriously tenderhearted for a man who put crossbow bolts into people for a living.

He bawled after every single battle. Nobody said anything about it because Fisher had saved all their lives twice over.

You just patted his back and said, “There, there,” until he was okay again.

Angharad had done it once—and only once—when the man she loved had turned out to be worthless. That had been awkward, since she was a head taller than Sarkis and also he had been battling his desire to take a fast horse after the man and gut him like a hog.

He wouldn’t have minded gutting Halla’s attackers like hogs as well, but he suspected that would have upset her even more. So he contented himself with chasing them off and now with holding Halla while she soaked the front of his surcoat with tears.

She kept saying something over and over again. It took him a few minutes to make out the words through the sobs.

“But I didn’t do anything to them!”

Sarkis sighed. “I know. I know.”

And that was the problem right there. There was something terribly kind and trusting about Halla. Wherever these people had come from, their impersonal malice had clearly astonished her. She just wasn’t used to evil or desperate people turning up out of nowhere.

Well, when you think about it, the greatest threat was people she knew. And she went off with you, trusting as a lamb, without any more proof of goodwill than that you were clearly enchanted. Why are you surprised that she has no proper fear of strangers?

Yes, but that’s different. I was getting her away from a bad situation, he argued. I was clearly the lesser of two evils.

Sure. When are you going to tell her what the blade says, then?

Sometimes Sarkis hated arguing with himself. He kept being right.

Halla snuffled against him, hiccupped, and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“I shouldn’t have… I mean, she was at the inn…

she talked about how hard it was to travel alone and asked if I’d walk her a little way, just so the men didn’t see her leaving alone and that made sense, it really did, and I thought of course she was scared, I would be, too, so I’d wait to draw you, and then… ”

“It’s all right. You couldn’t have known.”

“I was so stupid.”

“No,” he said. “Just kind. It’s all right. It will be all right. I’m here. You’re safe now. No harm done.”

She looked up at him with her water-gray eyes, now rimmed with red. Her cheeks and nose were swollen from crying.

The urge flared again to go after the people who had done this and kill them. Or possibly just burn the entire world that was so unkind to people like Halla.

A fine thing for a former mercenary to be thinking. You’ll be running off righting wrongs like a swordsaint if this keeps up.

Not that he could run off anywhere. He was anchored to the sword and the wielder, whether they were as malicious as a devil or as kind as Halla.

She drew away. He found that he was reluctant to let her go. She still looked miserable, and now she looked embarrassed, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

He kissed her forehead. “You don’t have to be. They’re the ones who did wrong, not you.”

Now why in the great god’s name did I just do that?

He didn’t know. He hadn’t even thought before he kissed her.

It doesn’t mean anything. He’d only brushed his lips across her forehead, like a brother might. It didn’t have to be anything more than that.

Good. Don’t let it be anything more than that. Getting involved with a wielder is asking for trouble that would take a great deal more than one lifetime to sort out.

He knew this was true, and yet the desire to kiss her again was much stronger than it should have been.

Stop. You will fail her as you fail all the others who wield you, in time.

“Oh gods,” she said, sounding exhausted. “Does that mean we can’t stop at an inn tonight?”

Despite the darkness of his thoughts, he had to laugh at that. “We’ll stop. We’ll just go in together.”

“What if they’ve heard of us and try to stop us?”

Sarkis shrugged. “They can try.”