Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 Read Online Free Page A

stuck the cat pretty good: through his open mouth and
    on through the back of his skull. He lay sprawled on his side, but the hilt, thrust into dirt, propped up his head so it was level with the ground.
    Two sockets stared up at me. The eyes in them had melted.
    For longer than I care to remember, I couldn't look away. Couldn't even move.
    All I could do was stare, remembering the heat of the hilt. I'd begun to believe
    it imagined; now I knew better.
    Swords don't melt eyes. Nor do they singe whiskers or char lips into a rictus.
    Swords slice, thrust, cut open; on occasion they will hack, if the swordsman has
    no skill. But never do they melt things.
    Something inside me whispered: Maybe jivatmas do.
    I looked again at my hands. Still whole. Grimy and callused, but whole.
    Only the cat had burned.
    Well, parts of him. The parts the sword had touched.
    Empty eyesockets were black. I realized there was no blood; the sword had swallowed it all.
    Oh, hoolies, bascha, I've done what I swore I wouldn't.
    In the distance, beasts bayed. Like a pack of hounds they belled. As they had for Boreal whenever Del had keyed.
    And in answer, the stud snorted.
    Stud--
    I left the cat and the sword and went at once to the stud. He hadn't gone far,
    just far enough to put distance between himself and the cat, and now he waited
    quietly, sweat running down flanks and shoulders.
    Sweat mixed with blood.
    "Oh, hoolies," I said aloud, "he got you good didn't he?"
    The stud nosed me as I came up to him. Grimly : peeled ragged dark mane off his
    withers--down South we crop manes short; up North, they leave them long--and saw
    the cat had dug in pretty deep across brown withers, though the saddle had helped protect the stud a little. I found teeth and claw marks, carving gouges
    in his hide. There were more claw marks low on the stud's right shoulder from the cat's hind legs, and few others here and there. All in all, the stud was lucky; the cat had been distracted, by me or the sword I've seen half-grown sandtigers, in the Punja, take down larger horses much as this cat had done.
    But
    they finished the job more quickly by tearing open the jugular.
    Then again, I--or the sword--hadn't given the cat the chance to finish the job
    properly.
    Something like fear pinched deep in my belly. But I ignored it with effort, purposefully turning my attention to the stud. "Well, old man," I consoled him,
    "looks like we'll make a pair. You match my cheek, now--maybe I should name you
    Snowcat. To go with the Sandtiger."
    The stud snorted messily.
    "Maybe not," I agreed.
    The death-stink of the cat--and the smell of burned flesh--made the stud uneasy,
    so I tied him to the nearest tree and unsaddled him there, taking weight off his
    sore hide. I knew I'd do no more riding for a day or two, so I set up camp.
    When a horse is the only thing between you and a long walk--or death--a man learns to value his mount, and the stud's health and safety came first. If it slowed us down, too bad; the hounds, I knew, would wait, and the South wasn't going anywhere. So I picked up the remaining bota of amnit. I didn't dare risk
    infection; liquor leaches well enough.
    I paused to pat the stud gently, and to check the strength of rope and knot.
    "Easy, old man. I won't lie--this'll hurt. Just don't take it out on me."
    I aimed carefully and squirted, hitting every stripe and bite I could see.
    Ruthless, maybe, but sponging each wound gently would clean out only one, because the stud wouldn't let me near enough to do any more once he'd felt the
    bite of the amnit. At least this way I got almost all of them at once.
    Squealing, he bunched himself and kicked. A horse--especially a stallion--cutting loose with both hind hooves is a dangerous, deadly creature capable of murder. 'Prudently I moved another pace away, just to be sure, and grinned as he slewed an angry eye around to find me. Once found, he tried a scooping sideways kick with a single hind hoof, hoping to catch me on the