Page 33 of Swordheart
He grunted.
“Did it work?”
“We lost the war.”
“Oh.”
Halla bit her lip. Was he one of those people who wanted their heroism acknowledged, or one of those who would gnaw their own arm off before admitting they had done anything heroic? She was getting the impression that it was the latter.
Still, if agreeing to be stuffed into a sword to become an unkillable weapon wasn’t heroic, what was?
She settled on the truth. “I’m sorry that it went so badly. But I’m very glad you’re here now.”
Sarkis looked over at her, his expression briefly unreadable, then dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I’m glad that I’m able to help, lady.”
It was another day before Sarkis was willing to return to a road, and only then because he knew that his charge could not take much more.
She hadn’t complained. Great god help him, she was cheerful the entire time, and he knew that she had to be exhausted. Her hair was full of dead leaves and the handprint where that foul old shrew had slapped her was still faintly visible across the side of her face.
He could also hear her stomach growling every few minutes.
Despite all this, she didn’t snap, she didn’t demand that he do something to fix this. She… just… kept… asking… questions.
“So how far can you go from the sword itself? Do you have to come back?”
“A quarter mile, perhaps a bit more.”
“What happens if you go farther than that?”
“I disintegrate.”
“Does it hurt? It sounds like it would hurt.”
“No.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like disintegrating.”
“Yes, but what doesthatfeel like?”
“Cold.”
“Right, but—”
He realized that she was not going to give up and wracked his brain for a description that would satisfy her. “Like a dream where you are falling and jerk awake again. Except that I awaken closer to the sword.”
It wasn’t all about being a sword, either. It was abouteverything.
“So you have sheep in the Weeping Lands?”
“They have sheep everywhere, lady.”
“But what are yours like? Are they the same color?”
“They are brown. And very short.”
He helped her across a patch of rough ground, where something, probably pigs, had torn up the earth and then it had frozen into a stiff, treacherous landscape. It was only when he reached down to take her hand that he noticed the deep blue smudges under her eyes, and saw that she was favoring her right foot.
