Page 48 of Swordheart
Sarkis had taken comfort in that judgment. The Leopard had been his friend, but he had also been a good man. Certainly a better one than Sarkis.
Halla was nothing like the Leopard. The man would have died laughing at her babbling about his virtue.
But dammit, Sarkis liked her.
She was as earnest as a new recruit and she was trying so damn hard. And every now and then, she’d come out with a sly remark and startle him into laughing. There were so few people who kept a sense of humor when they were miserable, you learned to appreciate it. The Young Leopard had been like that. Probably that was why he was thinking of the man now.
Sarkis stifled a sigh. Had he failed the Leopard?
Not quite. Even I can’t be expected to guard a wielder against age.His old friend’s heart had given out, a few months after that conversation, and his daughter had drawn the sword long enough to inform Sarkis, so that he could attend the funeral. It had been a kindness. He hadn’t forgotten that.
The next time the sword was drawn, he was in a place with different mountains, where the people wore different armor, and no one had heard of the Old Leopard. He never did find out what happened to the man’s valley, or his family, or why the sword had been passed on.
That felt like a failure to Sarkis.
I can’t do anything if they don’t draw the sword,he told himself wearily. He’d told the Leopard’s daughter that he was there to serve, but perhaps he hadn’t tried hard enough to make her understand.
Halla rolled over in her sleep, mumbling to herself.
You won’t automatically fail,he told himself.It’s a walk to the next village, not a seven-day siege. Surely you can escort one good-natured woman to a temple without making a miserable hash of things.
Surely.
Great god have mercy on us both.
“I have purchased a cloak,” Sarkis announced the next morning.
Halla was still bleary-eyed from sleep and was trying to remember where she was and why there was a large man with a sword in her room.Right. Sarkis. Enchanted sword. Inn. Right. Okay.“Oh?”
“It will be a better disguise,” he explained. “I have an undershirt as well. The constables are searching for a tattooed man in leather—if, indeed, they are bothering to search at all.”
“Makes sense,” she said, standing. She had slept in her clothes last night and was trying to press the wrinkles out with her hands. It was a largely futile effort.
“Should you need to sheathe the sword, grab the cloak if you can. It will not come with me.”
“Right.”
He paused, suddenly frowning. “I have only been downstairs.”
“Okay?”
“I did not want you to think that I left you unguarded.”
“Err?” Halla tried to rake her hair into some semblance of respectability. “It’s fine? I wasn’t worried?”
Sarkis stripped out of his leather surcoat and the shirt underneath and stood, bare-chested.
Halla gaped at him, the tatters of sleep fleeing immediately from her mind.
He caught her expression and one corner of his mouth crooked up.
“It’s been a few years since my physique struck women speechless,” he said, slapping his belly. “Several hundred, at least. But I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“No! No—I—What isthat?”
Sarkis glanced down at himself, puzzled. “What?”
Halla pointed to the center of his chest.
