Дженнифер Роберсон - Sword-Born(English)

That stripped the smirk from Prima's face. She glanced sharply at her first mate. "Nihko, go."

I spun in place, blocked his way, jammed a rigid elbow deeply into his abdomen just below the short ribs. As he began to bend over in helpless response, I brought the heel of my right hand up hard against the underside of his chin. Teeth clicked together, eyes glazed over, and he staggered backward.

It was beginning as much as ending. Prima was a small woman, no match for a man as big as me, but she knew it. Which is why she did not attempt to threaten me with her knife. She simply stabbed me with it, cutting into the back of my thigh.

I yelped, swore, started to swing on her-but by this time Nihko was upright again. He caught me before I could so much as see Prima's expression. I was slammed hard into the rail and bent backward over it. One broad, long-fingered hand was on my throat.

He did not squeeze. He did not crush. He did not in any way attempt to strike or overpower me. He simply put his hand on the flesh of my throat, and it began to burn.

I heard Prima say something about throwing a rope down. I heard her shout to Del, something about rejoining us if she knew what was good for me. Briefly I thought Del should just swim for it, but I doubted she would; and anyway, I had more on my mind than whether Prima would fish Del out of the water or if Del would condescend to be fished. My teeth were melting.

I thought my head might burst. Not from lack of air, because I had plenty of it. But from heat, and a pressure on the inside of my skull that made me sweat with it, gasping at the pain. It was if someone had set a red-hot metal collar around my neck.

Nihko murmured something. I didn't have the first idea what he said, because it was a language I didn't speak. Something muttered, something chanted. Something said.

Then he took his hand away, the heat died out of my head, and I fell down upon my knees.

"lo," he said.

I put one trembling, tentative hand to my neck, expecting to feel blood, fluids, charring, and curled, crusted flesh. But all I felt were the sandtiger claws upon their leather thong, and healthy flesh beneath.

"lo," he repeated, in satisfaction commingled with anticipation.

"Go to hoolies," I responded, though the voice was hoarse and tight.

"You go," Nihko suggested.

I recalled the rash around my wrist, triggered by his touch. And now the heat in my head, the blazing of my flesh. "What are you?"

The rings in his eyebrows glinted. "loSkandic."

"And what precisely does that mean?"

He displayed white teeth. "Secret."

I got my legs under me and wobbled to my feet. "The word means secret, or it is a secret?"

"Nihko," Prima said, and he turned from me.

A rope hung over the side, taut against the rail. The captain glanced at me, then at Nihko; he leaned over, grasped the rope, pulled it up even as Del herself clambered over the rail. Fair hair was slick against her skull, trailing down her back in a soaked sheet. The ivory-colored leather tunic, equally soaked, stuck to her body and emphasized every muscle, every curve.

Prima Rhannet stared. Nihko Blue-head did not. That more than anything convinced me the captain had not lied: the first mate was not, as men are measured, a man anymore. And the woman was more than a little attracted to the woman who slept with me.

I had seen it in men before. With someone who looks like Delilah, it's a daily event. But I had never seen the reaction in a woman before. Generally the women of the South are shocked and appalled by Del's sword, her freedom of manner and dress, her predilection for saying what she thinks no matter how it sounds. Some of the younger women were vastly fascinated, even if they had to be subtle about it lest they alert or alarm their men. Or they are intensely jealous. But no woman I'd ever seen had looked at Del the way a man looks at Del.

Until now.

And I hadn't the faintest idea how to feel about it.

There were jokes about it, of course. Crude, vulgar, male jokes, men painting lurid pictures with words, suggesting activities for women with women designed to titillate. And of course there were men who preferred men, or boys, who also prompted jokes. But seeing a woman react to a woman the way a man reacts to a woman was-odd.

Should I be jealous? Angry? Insulted? Upset? Should I say something? Do something?

Did Del recognize it?

Maybe. Maybe not. I couldn't tell. She was wearing her blandest expression, even sheened with water. And would a woman be aware of another's interest? Did Del even know such things existed?

For that matter, did Del have any idea what kind of reaction she provoked in men? I mean, she knew they reacted; how could she not? Most men aren't very subtle about it when everything in them-and on them-seizes up at the sight of a beautiful woman of immense physical appeal. There'd been enough comments made about and to Del that she couldn't be oblivious. On the whole she ignored it, which didn't hurt my reputation any: the gorgeous Northern bascha was so well-served by the Sand-tiger that she neither noticed nor looked at another man.

But then, for a long time I hadn't known she'd even notice or look at me.

The way Prima Rhannet was looking at her.

"Well," I said brightly, trying to sound casual, "just what did you have in mind, then? You and I are to go ashore and go visit this old lady?"

Prima blinked, then looked at me. "No. I will stay here, aboard ship. It is best that Nihko goes as my representative. Him the metri will see. And once she understands what I have to offer, she will see me as well."

"And why will this-metri?-see him, but not you?"

Prima smiled faintly. "I have told you what I am. The ungrateful, unnatural, outcast daughter of a slaver. I am not of the proper family for the Stessa metri."

"But she'll see him?" I jerked a thumb at Nihko. "He's an ugly son of a goat with rings in his eyebrows and a hairless head painted blue. That's not unnatural?"

Nihko bared his teeth in an insincere smile. The captain looked amused. "She will see him because of what he is."

I prodded. "Which is?"

The first mate grinned in genuine amusement. "Secret."

I turned on my heel and stalked away, though it was somewhat ruined by the limp; the wound in the back of my thigh hurt. I couldn't go very far-we were on a ship, after all-but it made my point nonetheless.

Prima raised her voice. "Get dressed."

"In what?" I flung back over a shoulder. "All I've got in this whole gods-forsaken world is what I'm wearing!" Which wasn't much, being merely a leather dhoti and the string of claws. And blood trickling down my leg.

The captain shrugged elaborate dismissal. "Nihko will have something."

Nihko wasn't wearing a whole lot more than I was at the moment. But I shut my teeth together and followed him below, wanting very much to warn Del against-whatever.

EIGHT

"WAIT," Del said crossly. "Let me look first."

Accordingly, I waited, swaths of lurid crimson silk and linen clutched in one hand. Having shed the dhoti, I wore absolutely nothing. Except my string of claws.

I arched brows and tilted my head in elaborate invitation. "You have something in mind?"

She flapped a hand at me. "Turn around."

"You prefer the back view?" I paused. "Or perhaps I should say, the backside view?"

Del whacked me across the portion of my anatomy under discussion. "Stop being uncouth. I'm trying to see that stab wound."

"Well, that's not any fun." I winced. "It'll do a lot better if you keep your ringers out of it."

"I've seen worse," she said after close inspection, "but it needs bandaging. Or you'll bleed all over your clothes."

"Not my clothes. Nihko's clothes. Do you really think I'd be caught dead in these things?"