opened the grain pouch and poured a handful into the empty water bucket. He needed good grazing, but there wasn't any. For now, this had to do.
I did not look forward to the journey back to the shelter. 'One step an hour ought to get me there,' I told the horse.
But he was no longer paying me any mind. He'd drawn himself up, head lifted, and pealed out a whinny of welcome. Steadying myself against his neck, I turned, expecting to see Nayyib. Relieved that I'd see Nayyib. He was bringing the healer.
And indeed, I saw Nayyib. Along with three other men on horseback. Nothing about them resembled healers. In fact, everything about them resembled sword-dancers.
Especially since I knew one of them.
He was highly amused. 'Sandtiger.' All his handsome white teeth were on display. 'You look terrible.'
I glared. It was all I could manage. 'What do you want, Rafiq?'
'You.'
Figured. I sighed, squinted at him, hung onto the gelding. 'How about we skip the sword-fight and name you the winner,' I suggested. 'Right about now, as you can see, I'm not really up to a match. There'd be no challenge in it. As I recall, you like to tease an opponent for an hour or two before defeating him. Hoo-lies, I'd go down in the blink of an eye. No fun for you.'
Rafiq was still grinning atop his palomino horse. 'He said you were sick. Sandtiger, was it?' He laughed. 'Appropriate.'
I shot a glance at Nayyib. He sat his mount stiffly, not even looking at me. I wondered if they'd paid him to lead them back here. Or promised him a dance in a circle. Or lessons in being a sword-dancer.
'Sick,' I agreed. 'Probably even dying, and therefore not worth killing. So why don't you just ride on out of here and let me die in peace?'
Rafiq jumped off his horse, pulling something from the saddle. 'Because,' he said, approaching, 'we have every intention of not letting you die. At least, not like this. If you're up and moving now, the poison's mostly out of your system.'
'What's the plan?' I asked.
Rafiq had a loop of thin braided leather in his hands. 'You're coming with us.'
He intended to tie my hands. I debated avoiding it, even tensed to do so.
Rafiq saw it and laughed. 'I can tie you standing here before me with some measure of dignity, or I can tie you with your rump planted in the dirt. Which do you prefer?'
I said nothing. He slipped the loop over my wrists and snugged it tight, preparing to knot it.
Then I moved.
TEN
WHEN I came to, my rump was not planted in the dirt. All of me was. Rafiq had one knee on my chest and was scowling into my face. I expected him to apply inventive curses to my aborted attempt to escape, but instead he asked, 'What happened to your fingers?
I scowled back. 'I got hungry.'
Rafiq claimed a good share of Borderer blood and thus was larger than most men in the South. It wasn't an impossibility for him to jerk me to my feet, especially with me wobbly from venom residue and being knocked out. Especially with his two friends on either side of me, waiting to help. He lifted his knee, they grabbed my arms, and he yanked me up by dint of tied wrists. Which hurt. Which he knew.
His expression was odd. 'What happened to your fingers?'
I blinked away dizziness, aware of how tightly the others gripped my arms. Surely they didn't believe I could offer much of a fight, after that brief travesty of a protest. 'I was kidnapped by bald, blue-headed priest- mages, and they cut them off.'
Rafiq accepted the truth no easier than falsehood. He studied my stumps with every evidence of fascination. 'This isn't new.'
Well, it wasn't that old, either, but I didn't say anything.
He thought about it. 'At least I know you didn't lose them in the last couple of days.'
I glared at him. 'What does it matter?'
He looked at my face, searching for something. 'You killed Khashi four days ago.'
Actually, I'd lost count. Apparently I'd missed the night before and much of another day. Being poisoned will do that to you. 'If you say so.'
'You killed Khashi with two missing fingers.'
'And easily,' Nayyib put in.
Moral support. How nice.
Rafiq's eyes flickered. He looked again at the stumps, thoughts hidden. Then his face cleared. 'Well, we'll let Umir decide. It's his business if he wants damaged goods.'
'Umir?' I blurted. 'Umir the Ruthless? What in hoolies does he want?'
'You.'
'Me? Umir? What for? He never wanted me before.' It was Del he'd wanted, and gotten, even if only briefly.
'He does now.' Rafiq smiled. 'You've apparently become a collector's item. A seventh-level sword-dancer who's declared elaii-ali-ma. It's never happened before. That makes you unique. And you know how Umir is about things—and people—he considers unique.'
I shook my head, slow to grasp the essentials. They were simply too preposterous. 'What does he want, to put me on display?'
Rafiq's brows arched. His hair was darker than mine, but not quite black. 'You haven't heard about his contest?'
'Umir's holding a contest?'
The Borderer, who knew very well how fast news traveled among the sword-dancer grapevine, stared at me. 'Where in hoolies have you been?'
Blandly I replied, 'Trying to convince bald, blue-headed priest-mages I didn't want to join them.'
'Ah. The same ones who cut off your fingers?'
'The very same.'
Rafiq snickered, shaking his head. 'You always did have a vivid imagination.'
I gifted him with a level stare. 'So did Khashi. He believed he could defeat me.'
That banished the humor. Rafiq nodded at his friends. I realized abruptly that while I'd been briefly unconscious they had slipped leather nooses over my head, now circling my neck. I was cross-tied like a recalcitrant horse, one man on either side of me holding a long leather leash. And currently tightening it just to demonstrate how well the system worked.
When, having made their point, they loosened the nooses, I asked, 'Leashing me like a dog these days, Rafiq?'
'A cat,' he answered easily. 'A big, dangerous cat. Umir gets what he pays for. Fingers or no fingers, I'm not underestimating you.'
'Khashi did,' Nayyib said.
Very helpful, he was. And it served to bring the image back, and the knowledge, that a man lacking two fingers might still kill an Alimat-trained fifth-level sword-dancer.
Maybe even Rafiq.
Rafiq looked at me again. Assessed me. 'Then Khashi was a fool. You may have broken all your oaths, but that doesn't mean you've forgotten how to kill a man. You always were good at that, Tiger.'
I suppose it could be taken as a compliment. But my mind was on other things. 'I'm not going anywhere
