Jennifer Roberson: Sword Born

Before I could blurt out a word, before I could get my feet under me, the stud lurched off whatever we stood on. He was in the water again, swimming as strongly as before. Beyond him I saw a rim of land, a line of skinny, tall, spike-headed trees. He’d make it, I realized. He was but ten horselengths away. I, on the other hand, well…

I managed to stand up. It was reef, not land. Water slapped at my knees. Most of me was out of it now. I was in absolutely no danger of drowning — so long as I stayed on the reef.

A body floated by. My heart seized up as I saw the blond hair, then realized it was one of the sailors. I turned, trying to look beyond, trying to see anything that might be Del. Then a floating piece of wood banged into me and knocked me right off the reef.

Ah, hoolies —

Timber.

Floating.

I snatched at it, caught it, hung on with everything I had. Kicked my way closer, tried to pull myself up on it enough to get part of me out of the water. It rolled, bobbed; I got a mouthful of seawater for my trouble. Finally I just locked my hands into a strand of rope and hung on, floating belly-down. So long as I kept a death-grip on the timber, I wouldn’t sink, wouldn’t drown. Of course I had no idea where it or I might wind up. For all I knew it would float back out to sea… so, I applied myself to working out the magic it took to aim and steer the timber, which I thought might be part of the mast. If I kicked just so; if I pointed the wood in a specific way, and then kicked… hey. Maybe this is how you learn to swim — ?

Not likely.

However, it did result in the mast and me ending up closer to land than to open sea, and I let out a long string of breathless invective as at last I felt sand beneath me, not reef.

Water sucked it out from under me almost as quickly as I found it. I staggered, caught my balance, lurched forward. The wind had stirred up the water enough to make footing and balance treacherous. I dragged myself out of it, feeling sand sliding beneath bare feet. Eventually I got free of waves and managed to escape the ocean altogether, staggering up onto the packed, wet sand of the beach.

I turned back, looked for Del, for the remains of our ship: saw a ship, all right, but not ours. And people clambering over the sides, dropping down into a smaller boat. Several gestured toward the broken-up remains. Toward land. Toward me.

Throw the dice, Tiger. Let them pick you up, put you on board a fast, sleek ship, give you food, rhuum; or run like hoolies.

I ran.

At some point, after I had stopped running, I fell asleep. Or passed out. Or something. I only woke up when a hand closed on my shoulder.

I lurched upright from the ground, then finished the movement by springing — creakily — to my feet. I had no weapon, but I could be one.

Except I didn’t need to. "It’s me," Del said.

So it was. Alive and in one piece. Which gave me latitude to be outraged. "Where in hoolies have you been?"

"Looking for you." She paused. "Apparently harder than you were looking for me."

"Now, wait a minute," I protested. "I didn’t exactly plan to fall asleep. It was after I escaped those renegadas"— and threw up half an ocean, but I didn’t tell her that —"and I figured I’d better lay low for a while, then go looking for you." I sat down again, wincing; actually, I’d been so exhausted by the fight to reach land I hadn’t the strength to do anything but collapse. "Are you all right? — no. You’re not." I frowned. "What did you do to yourself, bascha?"

She shifted her left arm away from me as I reached out. "It’s just a scrape."

The scrape ran the length of her arm from shoulder to wrist. The elbow was particularly nasty, like a piece of offal left for scavenger birds. "Reef?"

"Reef," she confirmed. "I think we both left skin back there."

Now that she mentioned it, I was aware of the sting of salt in various cuts, scrapes, and scratches. I was stiff and sore and disinclined to move, and yet move was exactly what we needed to do. "Water," I said succinctly. " Fresh water. We need to clean off the salt, get a drink." My feet were a mess. I suspected hers were as well. "Have you seen any of the renegadas?"

"Not since I got back here in the trees and brush." Del’s hair hung in salt-stiffened, drying ribbons. There was a shallow cut over one eyebrow, and her lower lip was swollen. "I don’t think they ever saw me. They saw the stud, saw you… I made like a floater in the water, hoping they’d miss me. Once they headed off after you and the captain, I got ashore."

"The captain’s alive?"

"He was when I saw him." Del shaded her eyes and peered back the way I’d come. Seaward. "We could wait until after sundown."

I gritted my teeth. "We could. Of course, I might go crazy from the salt by then."

"Or get so stiff neither of us can move," she agreed, then eyed me sidelong. "There is one cure for that, though. And now that there’s room —"

I grinned. "Hoolies, bascha, you do pick the worst times to get cuddly!"

Del sniffed. "I am not ’cuddly.’ I am too tall for ’cuddly.’ "

I reached out and very gently touched the scrape on her arm. Del hissed and withdrew the arm sharply. "And too raw," I suggested. "Sand on top of salt? No thanks."

I moved, wished I hadn’t; got my legs under me. "Which way did the stud go?"

"That way." She jerked her head to my left. "He’s not exactly a boat, Tiger. He can’t very well swim us to Skandi."

"But he might take us to a boat." I stood up very slowly and couldn’t bite back a blurt of pain. "Ouch."

"You’re all sticky," she observed. "Is that blood? Tiger —"

"I got pretty intimate with the reef. With several of them." I worked my shoulders, waggled sore fingers. "Nothing but cuts and scrapes, bascha." I put out a hand. "Come on."

Del gripped it, used it. She set her jaw against any commentary on discomfort, but I saw it well enough in the extreme stillness of her face. Like me, she was sticky with oozing blood, fluids, salt, crusted with creamy sand.

I said it for her. "Ouch."

Del was looking at me. "Your poor face."

"My face? Why?" I put a hand to it. "What’s wrong with my face?"

"First the sandtiger slices grooves in one cheek, and then you get a splinter through the other."

I’d forgotten that. No wonder my cheek and mouth were sore. I fingered the wound gingerly, tongued it from inside. "Well, it’s just more for the legend," I said offhandedly. "The man who survives sandtiger attacks and shipwrecks."

Blandly, "But of course the jhihadi would."

I gifted her with a very black look.

Satisfied, Del smiled. "So, shall we hunt your misbegotten horse?"

"You mean the misbegotten horse who got me — nearly — to land, thereby saving my hide? That horse?"

"I’m only repeating what you’ve called him."

"I suspect he’s called us much worse."

"’Us’? I don’t ride him."

"Me."

"Better." Del tucked a hank of sand-crusted hair behind an ear. "Water, or horse. Which one first?"

"Horse. He’ll probably lead us to water." Rhetorically she asked, "But will he drink?" With much gritting of teeth but no verbal complaints, we moved slowly, quietly, carefully — and painfully — through the vegetation in the direction Del had seen the stud go.

Found the stud. We found water. We found the wherewithal to clean off as best we could, stripping out of clothes to soak away salt from both fabric and skin, shivering and muttering and hissing and swearing vilely as we discovered various gooey scrapes, cuts, and gouges, and the promise of many bruises in places too numerous to mention. I put my leather dhoti back on, but nothing else was salvageable after introductions to the reef; I was barefoot and shirtless. Del’s long ivory-colored leather tunic was scoured white in places, but remained serviceable. She wasn’t as battered as I because she’d been able to swim over the reef — well, over most of it — but she had some nasty scrapes on her legs, and the one down her arm.