Read Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 for Free Online Page B

said it could be dangerous."
    Del slipped a foot into the left stirrup and swung up, settling herself into the blanketed saddle with
    ease. "Now, do you want to spend all morning arguing about horses, or shall we actually ride them?"
    It was ridiculous. We were bound for the Punja and all its merciless miseries, including unceasing
    sun. Del herself certainly knew the risks; she had once been so sunburned I was afraid she'd never
    recover. A blue-eyed, white horse lacking pigmentation was a burden we couldn't afford.
    But Del was right: neither could we afford something better. I suspected we had only a few coins left
    from Del's shopping expedition. If we didn't take the gelding, we asked the stud to carry two across the
    searing Punja, or we'd have to take turns riding and walking, which was slower going yet. Besides, if the
    gelding dropped dead on us from sunstroke, we could always eat him.
    On that cheerful note, I mounted the uncommonly cooperative stud, winced at the creaking of my
    body, and began the careful process of relaxing complaining muscles fiber by fiber. Eventually my body
    remembered how it was supposed to sit a horse, and some of the soreness bled away. The stumps of my
    missing fingers were still a trifle tender, but once the stud hit his pace and settled, it wouldn't take more
    than index and middle fingers to grasp the soft cotton reins.
    Del, mounted atop her white folly, leaned down to hand the horse-boy a few copper coins. Likely
    our last. I sighed, turned the stud, and aimed him out of the stableyard into the narrow alley between
    livery and adjoining building. He sucked himself up into stiff condescension as the gelding came up beside
    him, snorting pointed disdain. Then he caught a glimpse of one sad blue eye peering at him out of a circle
    of black greasepaint coupled with dangling gold fringe and shied sideways toward the nearest wall.
    I planted a heel into his ribs, driving him off the wall before my foot could collide with adobe brick.
    "Let's not."
    The stud took my hint and kept off the wall. Now he turned sideways, head bent back around so he
    could keep both worried eyes on Del's gelding. Ears stabbed toward the white horse like daggers. The
    accompanying snort was loud enough to drown out the sound of hooves.
    Del began to laugh.
    "What?" I asked irritably, trying to point the stud back into a straight line as we exchanged alley for
    street.
    "I think he's afraid of him!"
    "A lot of horses are afraid of the stud—"
    "No! I mean the stud's afraid of my horse!"
    "Now, bascha, do you really think—" But I broke off because the stud, now freed of the confines of
    the narrow alley, took three lunging steps sideways into the center of the street and stopped dead,
    stiff-legged, snorting wetly and loudly through widened nostrils. Fortunately it was early enough that the
    street was not yet crowded, and no one was in his way.
    Del was still laughing.
    "Maybe you should have gotten a mare after all," I muttered. "Look, bascha, just go ahead. I'll bring
    up the rear."
    Grinning, she took my advice. The stud eased after a moment, ears flicking forward as Del departed.
    "What, you like the view from behind better?" I asked him. "Fine. Can we go now?"
    And indeed we might have gone beyond the first two strides, except someone stopped dead in front
    of us. On foot. It was either ride over the top of him, or halt yet again.
    I reined in sharply, swearing, and looked down upon the interruption. A young man in an russet-gold
    burnous, a Southroner, with smooth dark skin, longish dark hair, strong but striking features, and the
    kind of liquid, thick-lashed, honey-brown eyes that can melt a woman's heart. It might have been
    happenstance that he stepped in front of the stud, impeding my way, except that one hand was on a rein,
    holding the stud in place—and the other held a sheathed sword.
    "You are the Sandtiger," he declared, raising his voice. Plainly he wanted an audience.
    I might have denied his