Page 6 of Swordheart #1

It did not take Halla long to pack. She had few enough possessions…

at least, not possessions that she felt were hers and not Silas’s.

Most of those she abandoned without a qualm.

The jewelry that her husband had given her she dutifully packed, feeling that it was the sort of thing a widow ought to keep.

I suppose I could sell it if I have to. It’s not worth much, but it might … oh, damn, I’m doing this wrong. I should be very upset that I have to sell my jewelry, shouldn’t I?

It’s just that I’m fairly certain his mother picked it out. Or he picked it out thinking it was something his mother would wear.

Her late mother-in-law had been cut from the same cloth as her sister Malva. Halla had tried to love her and then had tried to like her, and then had tried to be dutiful and compliant, and finally had settled for not being too obviously relieved when the woman had dropped dead.

All her possessions and a spare change of clothes, the tiny tinderbox she kept for lighting candles, and a few coins piled together. It made a pitifully small bundle.

She thought about trying to find more to pack, then heard her mother’s voice in her head: No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves. Very well. She tied it all up, started to heft it, and Sarkis took it and slung it over his shoulder.

He had turned his back earlier while she changed into sturdier clothes for travel. She’d had no idea that an enchanted sword would have such a strong sense of propriety.

Well, perhaps it’s different where he’s from. The Weeping Lands? I’ve never heard of them, but I suppose that doesn’t mean much.

She’d slithered hastily into a long woolen habit with somber sleeves. The material was fine enough, but the dark color and lack of ornamentation marked her as either mourning, eccentric, or on her way to a convent.

And I might be all three, for all I know. A convent might be the best place for me. Except that I ask too many odd questions and I don’t think you’re supposed to do that in a convent, are you?

Well, it probably depends on the god.

“Do you know if there’s any god that doesn’t mind lots of questions?” she asked.

Sarkis looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “What?”

“Questions. I ask a lot of them, you see.”

“I had noticed, yes.”

“Gods don’t like that.”

He shrugged. “Your decadent southern gods might not.”

This gave her pause. “You have a less decadent god?”

“The great god is not decadent.”

“How does he feel about questions?”

“I don’t know the mind of the god.”

“Yes, but if I ran away to join a convent, you see, I’d want to pick the correct sort of convent or else they might throw me out and I’d be right back where I started.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Is this the best time to discuss theology, lady?”

“Err… no?”

“No.”

“All right then.”

For all his claims of not being a lady’s maid, Sarkis helped her put on her cloak and then arrange the sword slung across her back, which might otherwise have taken all night and ended with Halla cutting her own head off.

They wrapped the cords of her dressing gown around the hilt of the sword and the opening in the scabbard so that the sword was held in place with an inch of steel still drawn.

“How many people are in this house?” he said, adjusting the buckles that held the scabbard in place.

“Eight. Me, Cousin Alver, Aunt Malva, her maid, her sister, and two cousins. And Roderick.”

“Are any of the cousins warriors? Are they armed?”

“Uh… I mean, Aunt Sayvil’s got a pretty wicked pinch. And I suppose they have… err… needles? Oh! And embroidery hooks!”

“Embroidery hooks.”

“Yes. Do they have them where you’re from? They’re sort of—err—pointy—” She tried to explain with hand gestures.

Sarkis began muttering savagely under his breath. He didn’t look at her while he did it.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“I’m counting,” he said, with marvelous patience.

“Why?”

“So I don’t scream at you. My lady.”

“Oh. Silas used to do that, too.”

“I am not in the least surprised.”

When he had reached a sufficiently high number—Halla noted with interest that Sarkis seemed to count by eights instead of tens—he said, “The woman’s sister? Is she a shieldmaid?”

“She’s seventy-three.”

“I would fear a trained shieldmaid if she were a hundred and three.”

“Oh. No, she’s not. I mean, she can be annoying asking for her tea to be brought to her at exactly the right temperature, but that’s about it.” She frowned. “Are we going to have to go through all those people? Err—are you sure you can?”

“Are you asking me if I think I can fight one guard and a group of elderly women with embroidery hooks?”

“… yes?”

“My lady Halla, I have fought dragons on multiple occasions.”

Halla considered this. “Did you win, though?”

Sarkis coughed, looking suddenly embarrassed. “Well, one time.”

“What about the others?”

“It was more of a draw. The point is that they were dragons, not your cousins.”

Halla folded her arms. “How big is a dragon, anyway?”

“What?”

“I’ve never seen one. Are they rabbit-sized? Cow-sized?”

“They’re dragon -sized!” he started to roar, caught himself, and continued in an angry whisper, “They’re the size of a house!”

“All right, but a big house or a small—”

Sarkis turned around and began to beat his forehead very gently against the wall. “The great god is punishing me,” he said softly, “for my crimes. I cannot go to his hell, and so he has sent a woman to torment me.”

“Hey! You could just chop my head off and we’d be done here!”

“I will not chop your head off. I will, in fact, defend you to my dying breath. It is what a servant of the sword does.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He didn’t sound as if this made him very happy. “And after, for that matter. If I am mortally wounded, I will return to the blade,” he said. “Should that happen tonight, get away as swiftly as you can and draw it in a fortnight’s time.”

“You’re not going to be mortally wounded,” said Halla. The whole evening had assumed a desperately surreal quality. A man in a magic sword? Really? Probably she was having a dream.

Would that be so bad? Maybe I’ll wake up and Silas will be alive and everything will be back to normal …

“It is highly unlikely, but if I must fight this Roderick to ensure your escape, then there are no guarantees.”

Halla gazed at Sarkis in frank disbelief.

He might be shorter than Roderick, but he was at least as broad across the shoulders.

His armor was stained and scarred with use and his gloved hand rested on his sword hilt with the ease of long familiarity.

His bare arms were as thick around as her thighs, and Halla was not a small woman.

She compared him in her head to her aunt’s guardsman and couldn’t even fit them into the same mental picture.

It would be like a wolf fighting an overfed bulldog.

“What?” he said.

“One of us is very confused,” she said. “I won’t swear that it’s not me. Is this really happening?”

Sarkis frowned at her. “Of course.”

“That’s what you’d say if you were a hallucination, too.”

He held out his gloved fingers impatiently. “I am not made of dream flesh, lady.”

She took his hand. It certainly felt solid.

There were machines in Anuket City that the artificers made that felt almost real as well, though. She’d gone to the market there with Silas once and shaken hands with a contraption that had wooden fingers inside a glove.

And would that be more or less strange than a man enchanted into a sword?

“How did you come to inhabit a sword, anyway?”

“The usual way.”

“I have no idea what that might be.”

“Sorcerer-smith,” he said, dropping her hand. “Forge the sword, quench the steel in the blood of the one you wish to bind.”

“Really! How much blood does that take? Do you have to use leeches?”

Sarkis stared at the ceiling, his lips moving silently. “I was stabbed through the heart, actually.”

“Dear gods! Didn’t that hurt?”

“A great deal. Are we ready to leave this accursed house?”

“It’s not that accursed. I mean, the fireplace draws very badly, but you get used to it.”

Sarkis gazed up to heaven again, perhaps looking for strength.

“How are we getting out, anyway?” asked Halla. If I am having a dream or a hallucination or if devils are sending me visions to torment me, it is likely best just to go along with what is happening. And on the remote chance that this is, indeed, happening, I will at least be away from Cousin Alver.

“Through the door. Climbing down from the window will take too much time.”

“But it’s locked—” she started to say, and then Sarkis kicked the door down.