Swordheart

by T. Kingfisher

Mostly a ghoul. Coming along to gnaw the corpse before Silas is even cold. Hmm, perhaps a ghoul would prefer a warm corpse, now that I think about it. Maybe it’s like fresh bread out of the oven, if you’re a ghoul.

and I’d be right back here except with a different obnoxious person trying to wed me. Although at least that person might not have clammy hands.

No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Her mother had always said that, although to be fair, not usually about killing oneself.

It would be humiliating to try to stab myself in the heart and get hung up on my own left breast.

“I am the servant of the sword,” he said. “I obey the will of the—great god, woman, put on some clothes!”

“A strong shieldmaid is the equal of any man in combat. Certainly equal to an old woman and a man with clammy hands.

Halla had tried to love her and then had tried to like her, and then had tried to be dutiful and compliant, and finally had settled for not being too obviously relieved when the woman had dropped dead.

“My people aren’t slavers!” “Ah. Good to know.” “Are yours?” “Occasionally.” “That’s dreadful!” “It is. But my people also don’t force women to marry their cousins in order to steal their fortunes.”

The world had few enough good women in it, it needed to keep hold of the ones it had.

“That sounds like plain good sense.” “Perhaps there’s so little of that to go around that they had to make it divine.”

I do not always trust goodwill, but greed … greed is usually predictable.”

“Aren’t I heavy?” she asked. “Both of my legs are asleep. Lady.” “Oh dear.” “It’s fine.” “No, it isn’t! You can’t feel your legs!” “There is a certain point after which they cannot get any more asleep. Now that they have passed that, it’s fine.”

Frightened, Halla thought, a bit sadly. She wondered if it was a man, then snorted at her own foolishness. Of course it’s a man. It always is.

She didn’t mind being older, she just wished her bones hadn’t aged faster than the rest of her. Somewhere in her early thirties, her hips had decided they belonged to a much older body.

She grimaced. She had always been a poor liar, particularly to herself.

Maybe it was just that people you knew were always the most likely to be hostile.

Sarkis, who had negotiated mercenary contracts with kings, did not scream, “Always read before you sign!” and shake anyone by the neck. He was rather proud of that.

One of the grimmer realizations of Sarkis’s youth had been the discovery that knowing you were being an ass did not actually stop you from continuing to be an ass.

He clearly had entirely ridiculous notions about beating men up in the market, but he scrubbed pans without complaint.

Sarkis occasionally thought that his own mind believed he was an idiot. He only wished that he had evidence his mind was wrong.

If she chose to wander about wearing nothing but strategically placed lizards, that would be her choice, and you would say nothing.

He was not impressed with the warriors of this decadent southern land, but their women were tearing the heart out of him with their courage. And their compassion.

“But think how much we’re learning!” said Halla. “The two of you are like kindred spirits. Horrible, horrible kindred spirits.”

“People do frown on monstrous evil,” said Halla. “Not nearly often enough if you ask me,” Sarkis said.

Dead bodies don’t worry me. It’s the live ones that get you.”

Zale considered this. “That … might work. Clearly you have a fine criminal mind.” “I’m flattered. Wait, should I be flattered?” “I don’t know anymore,” sighed the priest.

The goats eyed them all maliciously, but this probably didn’t mean anything, since in Halla’s experience, goats eyed everything maliciously.

“I doubt he suspects we’ve got bodies,” said Zale. “He probably just thinks we’re in a cult.” “Is that better or worse than bodies?” “It’s fine as long as he doesn’t want to join our cult.”

“There are rather more dead bodies than I find acceptable stowed under my seat!” said Zale. “How many dead bodies would you find acceptable?” “Ideally, zero.” The priest chewed on their lower lip. “One would be bad, but I feel like I would handle it better. Two is really an excessive number.”

“Yes, well. Doesn’t your practical rat-god teach you how to hide bodies?” Zale sighed heavily. “No,” they admitted. “Although I am starting to believe that was a severe oversight. I shall bring it up with the bishop.”

“What, bits of your countryside don’t get up and move around to suit themselves?”

I don’t think there’s dragons living in here, for example, or giants herding trees like sheep, or kraken.”

“I think when a pile of flying slime lands on you and tries to crawl inside your mouth, it probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart.”

Love was a patient, exasperated emotion,

Do you really want to make the last seconds of your life unspeakably awkward? Well, given that it’s me, if the last seconds of my life aren’t unspeakably awkward, I’m probably doing something wrong

Zale grinned like a shark that had eaten the cat, the canary, and several innocent bystanders.

Halla would probably trip and fall on a bear. She would undoubtedly then ask the bear questions until it forgot to eat her, but he didn’t think his nerves could take it.

Great god’s teeth. Did I always get this morbid after sex, or is this new?

“You are sure that everyone means well,” said Zale, clearly amused. “Which is why I think you are perhaps well matched with Sarkis after all. He’s sure that everyone is determined to kill everyone else in their sleep. Between the two of you, you average out to a nicely functional outlook.”

Why is so much of my life these days related to corpse disposal? It never used to be. I used to just leave them where they dropped.

He screeched like a chicken laying a particularly large egg,