Page 29 of Swordheart #1

She was sitting on a bench near the front of the library, leaning back against the wall. She was obviously napping, so he sat down beside her and waited for her to wake up.

“I’m not asleep,” she said thickly.

“Of course not.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I did. More than I expected to find.” He had also learned the fate of the Leopard’s valley, and though it was a tiny thing to set against nearly five hundred years of failure, he took a small comfort from it.

They had known peace there for many years, and even now, absorbed into a larger empire, it was a prosperous place.

The Leopard’s daughter had not drawn the blade because she had had no need to do so.

“And did you learn how long…?”

He told her.

Halla’s eyes went round, and the last traces of sleep fled her face. “Four hundred and fifty years!”

“Yes. And I would not have known where to look, if you had not thought of such a clever way to ask.” He reached out and took her hand. “That was well thought of.”

“Oh,” said Halla. “I didn’t… well, I mean, you and Morag did all the work. I just thought how I’d do it, without explaining about the sword, and… you know.” Sarkis saw that she was blushing again.

He had a strong urge to kiss her again, but the taste of centuries spent in a sword lay on his tongue, and he knew it would be a mistake. “Come on,” he said instead, tugging her to her feet. “We should get back to the hostel before it gets too dark.”

It was already late evening. There were lamps lit around the courtyard, but the shadows were very thick. Sarkis saw several women leaning against walls, in a pose that hadn’t changed much in five hundred years.

“Halla? Mistress Halla?”

Sarkis heard the voice from an alley and turned, putting one hand on his sword. Who could be calling Halla’s name here? Did she have friends in the city she hadn’t mentioned?

Halla looked as puzzled as he did. “Yes?” she said.

The speaker stepped forward. He had been standing at the corner of a building that faced onto the courtyard outside the library. He was tall and pale, with a seamed face and a short shock of red hair. “Most recently of Rutger’s Howe?”

“Do I know you?”

“I’ve been sent with a message,” he said, beckoning to them.

“Oh!” Halla stepped forward. “Did the Temple send you?”

“Indeed. It’s a somewhat sensitive matter, so if we could… ah…” He glanced at the open courtyard, then back at Halla, raising his eyebrows.

Sarkis’s danger senses twinged. There was something suspicious about the situation, but Halla was already walking toward the redheaded man.

He seems respectably dressed, but what do I know of clothing in this land? And fine clothes may still conceal a blade.

“Is something wrong?” asked Halla.

The red-haired man took a few steps back. “Yes, but this isn’t the place to discuss it.”

The space between the buildings was barely more than a glorified alley. It was much darker. Sarkis put out a hand to catch Halla’s arm, while his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

That pause saved him a great deal of trouble.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw that there were two more men in the alley, including one that was trying to lurk behind a chunk of the decorative facade. Unlike the redhead, these men did not look particularly respectable, and they also had weapons in their hands.

“… um,” said Halla, her eyes growing wide. “What exactly is the problem?”

The redhead tried, Sarkis would give him that. “I’ll be happy to discuss it once we’re somewhere more private.”

“I think we’ll discuss it now,” said Sarkis, drawing his sword and pushing Halla behind him.

The redhead sighed. “Dammit,” he muttered, to no one in particular. And then, “Mistress Halla, please hand over the sword and you won’t be harmed.”

“Err… why don’t you leave instead?” said Halla. “And then neither of us will be harmed?”

“I’ve no desire to shed blood,” he said.

Sarkis rather suspected that the men with him did not feel the same way. There was a fourth coming from the end of the alleyway now.

“Oh good,” said Halla. “Because I don’t want bloodshed, either. So if you leave, we could both get what we want.”

That’s a novel negotiating tactic, I’ll give her that …

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Hand over the sword and we can be done here.”

Sarkis decided that negotiations had gone on long enough and simply threw himself at the redhead, shouting, “Halla, run !”

He was half-afraid that she’d stay to discuss the problem of running, where exactly to run, and perhaps relate an anecdote about a cousin who had run somewhere and dropped dead of running-related causes, but Halla bolted like a hare. Thank the great god for that.

The redhead cursed and backpedaled. His men started forward, then stopped, because there was a rather large quasi-immortal warrior in the way.

The narrowness of the alley worked to Sarkis’s advantage. None of the men could get past him without risking a foot of steel in the belly. None of them seemed particularly inclined to do so.

“Go after her, you idiots!” snapped the redhead. This order was robbed of some of its effectiveness because he was trying to get away from Sarkis as he said it.

One footpad backed away from Sarkis, then turned and ran. “On it, boss!” he called over his shoulder. Sarkis wondered idly if that was to prevent the redhead from thinking he was simply running from the fight. Not that it matters, since I’ll have to kill him anyway if he’s going after Halla …

Two footpads left was easier to deal with. Sarkis didn’t bother with finesse. Finesse was overrated. He simply swung forward, giving the men the option to block, duck, or get out the way.

The first one had a long knife, and sensibly chose to duck.

The second one was not expecting his ally to duck, and was a bit too slow in reacting to the sword that was suddenly coming at him.

He threw his forearm up to protect his head, and the blade sank into it with a wet, meaty sound, and quite a lot of screaming from the owner of the forearm.

The first footpad decided to stab Sarkis while his sword was bound up in the second man’s arm. Sarkis kicked him very hard in the knee, and then in the head when he went down.

There was an unpleasant moment where both Sarkis and the second footpad were united in their desire to get Sarkis’s sword out of the man’s arm but had very different ideas how to go about it.

The blade had gotten hung up in the bone, and Sarkis very much wanted it back, so he grabbed the man’s shoulder and shoved hard, while hauling backward on the sword.

The man screamed a bit more. The first footpad, on the ground, tried to stab Sarkis in the ankles, which Sarkis did not approve of, so he stomped on the man’s wrist a few times to make his disapproval known.

And then, as so often happened, the fight was mostly over. The first footpad rolled out of the way, clutching his wrist, and the second one had turned gray and was holding his slashed arm, and the redhead looked at them, looked at Sarkis, and said, “So sorry for the trouble.”

Sarkis watched him turn tail and bolt down the alleyway, and wished for a crossbow or a throwing knife or something. For a moment he thought about charging after the man, catching him, and beating him until he spat out who had hired him.

But he had bigger fish to fry. Halla was out there somewhere with the third footpad still after her, and the great god only knew what trouble she would get into.

Sarkis backed out of the alley, sheathed his sword, and went to go see if any of the ladies of the evening had noticed which way she’d gone.

The ladies of the evening proved… less than forthcoming.

“Did a woman run by here?” asked Sarkis. “About yea tall, with pale blonde hair and big gray eyes? Wearing a green bodice and dark brown skirts?”

The prostitute he was speaking to gave him a sour look and turned her back.

Sarkis was a trifle surprised by this. He tried the woman across the street from her.

“No,” she said, before he even opened his mouth. “I didn’t see her.”

Sarkis looked around the courtyard. If Halla had come charging out of the alley, it was hard to imagine how anyone had missed her. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

The woman spoke with obvious dislike. Sarkis wondered if she thought that Halla was another prostitute, and was annoyed at her for taking business.

“She might be in danger from—”

The woman held up her hand. “ No, ” she said. “I have not seen her. I will not have seen her. And you can ask every woman here and none of us will have seen her. Understand?”

“No,” said Sarkis, after a long moment. “I suppose I don’t.”

She shook her head in disgust. She was a pretty woman, certainly younger than Sarkis— particularly given that I am now nearly five hundred —but for a moment Sarkis felt like a callow youth being lectured by a wisewoman.

“Do you think that there’s any woman here who hasn’t run from a man with blood on his hands?”

Sarkis looked down at his hands. The footpad’s blood had spattered across him, even run down his chest in a few places. He stared at the red streaks. He’d already forgotten they were there.

I am barely a man, only a weapon.

“I see,” he said. “And if I told you that I was her guardsman, that I only wanted to keep her safe?”

The woman folded her arms. “Then I’d say that’s all very nice, but I don’t know you and I don’t trust you and I won’t hand over a woman just on your say-so.”

Sarkis lifted his hand, unthinking, to rub his face, and the woman flinched back, almost imperceptibly.

She expects to pay a price for her silence. And she’s standing up to a man with bloody hands and a bloody sword nevertheless.

He was not impressed with the warriors of this decadent southern land, but their women were tearing the heart out of him with their courage. And their compassion.

Sarkis bowed to her and said, “I respect your reasons.” And then, hoping that Halla would have the good sense to make for the hostel, he moved past her and began to jog.

He was four streets over when he caught sight of the footpad. The man did not see him, at least at first.

Sarkis put his arm around the man’s neck, held his sword against the man’s throat, and gently suggested that perhaps he wished to consider a different line of work. The footpad agreed that this was a very good idea and that he would very much like to get started on that immediately.

Sarkis released him. The former footpad ran off, presumably to start a new life somewhere far away.

He was standing in the alley, listening to receding footsteps, when Halla said, “Sarkis?”

“ Where have you —” Sarkis roared, then heard himself and clamped down his voice hard, so that “— been?! ” came out in a strangled whisper.

Halla goggled at him. “Are you all right?”

Great god, what was wrong with him? He was yelling like she was the one at fault. Had he been that afraid for her?

Of course you were. If you can’t find her, you can’t protect her. Perfectly reasonable.

Perfectly.

“I’m fine,” he said. That came out more clipped than she deserved, so he tried again. “Sorry. On edge.”

“Being attacked would set anyone on edge,” said Halla, putting her hand on his arm. “It’s all right.”

She thinks I’m upset because I got in a fight. Great god have mercy. He patted her hand because he had no idea what else to do. “Where did you go?”

“Oh! I ran back to the library and hid there. I thought they wouldn’t come after me with all those witnesses.”

“Sensible.” Too sensible. He hadn’t even thought to look there.

“Then the nice woman on the corner told me which way you’d gone,” Halla continued cheerfully. She beamed at him.

“Of course she did,” said Sarkis, through gritted teeth.