Page 24 of Swordheart
The servant of the sword frowned, looking back over his shoulder. Pinpoints of light were appearing in the village as people brought out torches to light the darkness. “Not much cover, either.”
“Well, no, but if we can get over the hill, we’ll be up against another hill and there’s rocks on that hill. Are rocks cover?”
“Rocks are cover.”
“All right then.”
“Then let us hurry.”
They abandoned stealth for speed and ran down the lich road. Moonlight blazed on the stubble standing in the fields. The harvest was nearly over, the sheaves drying, making lumpy shapes in the fields on the right. Hills rose off to the left, not high but increasingly stony, unfit for anything but sheep.
After a few minutes, Halla had to slow, gasping for breath. She put her hands on her knees. “Sorry.”
Sarkis shrugged, watching behind them. “Do your people have dogs that track men?”
Halla nodded. “Slewhounds,” she panted. “But not in… Rutger’s Howe. They’d have to go to Archon’s Glory to raise a pack. We’re just not… big enough…”
“No lord runs them to bring back slaves?”
Halla stared at him, round-eyed. “My people aren’t slavers!”
“Ah. Good to know.”
“Are yours?”
“Occasionally.”
“That’s dreadful!”
“It is. But my people also don’t force women to marry their cousins in order to steal their fortunes.”
Halla closed her mouth with a click.
After a moment, she straightened and began walking swiftly down the lich road, with Sarkis silent at her side.
CHAPTER 7
Sarkis was having a rather odd day.
It was not the worst day of his life by any measure, nor even the strangest. It was simply odd.
He had been an heirloom for years, passed down from generation to generation, the guard who did not tire, the sword that did not break. It was rather tiresome, being an heirloom, but you got used to it, and at least everyone knew what to expect.
Some wielders he knew well. Some he saw only briefly. Most of them he failed, in the end. There was only so much that a single warrior could do to stave off death.
And then there had been another dying: a blade through the chest, up and under, just notching the sternum. His last thought had been,Hung up on my ribs, you bastard, you’re not getting your sword back unless you cut it loose,and then he had gone into the long, dreaming torpor of death.
In truth, he’d half expected it. His last wielder had been a boy barely out of the nursery, defending the family lands with no more than a handful of old men. Sarkis had known they were going to die when the enemy came for them. The best he could do was muster a defense that cost the enemy more than they expected.
He had done that, and done it well, but at last he had fallen. Then had come thesnapof the wielder’s death, like a bone breaking, and then he had been alone inside the sword.
He felt the sting of his failures keenly, but this one, at least, he could not blame himself too harshly for. There had been no chance of victory, only courage.
Sarkis knew that a long time had passed after that. Decades, probably. Not the first time that the sword had gone for years without a wielder, but one of the longest.
Fortunately, he had only the vague sense of time passing. The world inside the sword was a place of silver shadows, of darkness and metallic dreams. He could not say if he slept, exactly, but he knew that he never stayed conscious for very long.
To spend eternity trapped in a blade, and to be awake the entire time, would have been a recipe for madness. The sorcerer-smith had explained it all very clearly that day so long ago, perched on the edge of the worktable. She had been a lanky woman with a blacksmith’s oversized arms, and a light in her eyes that would make a rabid dog howl and run for the hills.
