Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 Read Online Free Page B

sly.
    When that one missed, he pawed testily, digging craters in the turf.
    "You dig a hole, you stand in it," I told him. "I know you're mad--I'd be, too--but it's better than dying, you know. So just stand there like a quiet old
    ladies' mare and think about what you'd be facing if didn't have this stuff."
    I
    paused, checking the contents. "Good waste of liquor, if you ask me. Might as well drink the rest."
    The stud blinked a baleful eye.
    I relented. "Tell you what, old son--I'll give you extra grain. That ought to make you feel better."
    I dug into one of the pouches and pulled out a fistful of grain, moving within
    striking range to offer it. But the stud wasn't hungry. He lipped listlessly at
    the grain, spilling most of it between slack lips. He didn't even want sweetgrass, which was beginning to show signs of life now that most of the snow
    was going.
    Something pinched again inside my belly. "Better not sicken on me," I warned,
    "after all that amnit wasted." While thinking instead of the sword.
    But the stud made no answer.
    It came swift and clear and sharp: If he up and dies on me--
    No. I cut it off. No sense in borrowing grief.
    The stud shifted restlessly, knocking stone against stone. I didn't want to leave him just yet, so I leaned against his tree and squirted amnit into my throat.
    "You've just been out of the South too long, old man... like me. Just like me;
    you're a sandtiger drug out of his desert, swallowing snow instead of sand.
    Best
    get yourself right back home before the cold stiffens all your joints."
    Well, it already had stiffened some of mine. In the North, bones age faster.
    In
    the South, skin does.
    Which means, I guess, I'm growing old inside and out.
    Gack. What a thought.
    I moved off the tree and rubbed a hand down the stud's backbone, smoothing coarse, thick hair. He quivered, expecting amnit; I soothed him with a few words.
    Over his rump I stared at the cat with its alien steel tongue.
    I recalled the emotions I'd felt. The need to quench the sword; how it had sung
    its private song. How I, too easily seduced in my moment of fear for the stud,
    had turned my back on self-made wards and let the song commence. Giving the blade its freedom.
    For the stud.
    Worth it? Maybe. For that moment. For that particular moment.
    But what was I to do now? I didn't need it. I didn't want it. Not now. Not ever.
    I'd tasted too much of its power. "Leave it," I said aloud. "You can get another
    sword."
    Well, so I could. Somewhere. Someday. Meanwhile, I needed a weapon. "Leave it,"
    I repeated. Hoolies, I wish I could.
    Three
    A small, soft song. A private, intimate song. Powerful in its promise, weakened
    by neglect.
    Deep in sleep, I muttered.
    A small, sad song; a trace of desire only hinted at, too shy to speak of need.
    Memories of both.
    The stud, stirring, woke me. I sat up, stared hard into darkness, oriented myself. Got up and went to the stud, who pawed listlessly at turf.
    His head drooped, hanging heavily on the end of a slackened neck. He shifted from hoof to hoof. When I touched him, he barely took note.
    I was, abruptly, afraid.
    Singlestroke and this horse were all I'd ever had. And Singlestroke was gone.
    A small, soft, seductive song, promising me companionship such as no one had ever known.
    Companionship--and power.
    Beneath my hand, he stiffened. I felt the tension in his body; heard it in his
    rattling snort, in the crunching of gravel beneath shod hooves. His ears lanced
    erect, then slapped back against his head.
    "Hey--" But abruptly I shut it off.
    I hadn't felt it for weeks. At first it was so alien I didn't recognize it, and
    then the strangeness slid away and familiarity took its place. A man doesn't forget what it's like to be sick.
    Not sick sick. I've been that before, from wound fever or the Northern malady called a "cold." And not sick from too much liquor; I've been that, too, more often than I care to recall. No. This sickness wasn't of the body but of the soul, all