Swordheart

by T. Kingfisher

“Are you asking me if I think I can fight one guard and a group of elderly women with embroidery hooks?” “… yes?” “My lady Halla, I have fought dragons on multiple occasions.” Halla considered this. “Did you win, though?” Sarkis coughed, looking suddenly embarrassed. “Well, one time.”

“The great god is punishing me,” he said softly, “for my crimes. I cannot go to his hell, and so he has sent a woman to torment me.”

“I am Sarkis of the Weeping Lands!” roared the servant of the sword, in a voice loud enough to shake the walls. “And you are in my way!” Cousin Alver let out a squeak and nearly fell in his haste to get off the staircase. “It is so gratifying when that works,” murmured Sarkis. “Does it not usually work?” “Not on actual warriors, no.” He started down the steps, one hand gripping Halla’s. “Normally they just yell back, ‘No one cares, come and die.’ Is anyone likely to come from above?”

“Consider it mentioned again. What was all that about cauliflower?” “Oh, that. Hardly anybody kills stupid women,” said Halla. “They kick us out of the way, they smack us occasionally, but nobody thinks we’re a threat.”

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.

“You’ve got a rather large sword for a woman,” said Scar, looking over at her. “Yes, but I’m told it’s not the size of the sword that matters,” said Halla. She frowned. “Although my husband used to say that, and do you know, he never told me what it meant?”

“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.”

“I cannot believe that your people have rogue mountain ranges roaming about and have not dealt with it!”

“What would you say if I tortured you?” asked the bandit leader conversationally. Halla blinked at him. “Err … ‘ow,’ probably? ‘Stop, stop, stop,’ something like that?” What a bizarre question. What does he expect me to say?

final nail in the coffin of his regard. “I am a lawyer and a priest,” said Zale. “There is probably someone on earth more bound to confidentiality, but I have yet to meet them.”