The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  All the breath whooshed out of her, as effectively as if she’d tumbled down all four flights of stairs and landed in a heap at Walker’s feet in the front hall. Was it part of his shaman’s Magick, of his justice, to punish her like this? To make her feel small and dirty?

  Rolling over, she picked up a shard of mirror from the rickety nightstand. She had a broken-backed hairbrush too, both rescued from the trash heap. The mirror was shaped like a long, narrow triangle that came to a nasty point, lethal as a poniard. From the moment she’d seen it, she’d thought it might make a useful weapon. She still thought so. Tilting it, she stared into her own eyes, a stormy gray luminous with tears. Her nose was pink, so were her cheeks.

  Well, shit. What was done was done. Mehcredi set her jaw. A daft lump she might be, but small and dirty she wasn’t. Her lips twisted in a wry smile. Certainly not small.

  She poured herself a cup of water from the chipped jug and drank it slowly, thinking. Walker wasn’t interested in her body, in fucking. He’d made that clear enough from the outset. You are not appealing to me in any way whatsoever, he’d said, his voice deep, each word spaced for emphasis. So it followed he would have no knowledge of her stupid sluttish fantasies.

  They were all her own. Her gaze traveled to the shirt. With a wistful smile, she wrapped her arms around her middle. All her own. It was tempting, but she wouldn’t sleep in the shirt, or even with it. If she did, it would end up smelling like her and she’d lose this tiny stolen piece of an impossible dream.

  She’d never met anyone like the swordmaster, could never have imagined such a man might exist. But then, she had so little experience. Perhaps there were men like him all over the world?

  No, not possible. She wasn’t the only one who thought he was amazing. Wait a minute. Mehcredi corrugated her brow, thinking. Had she seen anyone laugh in Walker’s presence? Or even giggle? She didn’t think so. Serafina had made her loyalties clear from the very beginning, so had the ex-mercenary called Pounder, the man who’d prevented her from falling down the stairs, but they hadn’t claimed friendship with the swordmaster—respect maybe, but not friendship. When she’d asked Walker if Prue and Dai were his friends, he hadn’t answered.

  Normal people tended to cluster, she knew that much. Resolutely, she set aside the grief that came with the thought. Nothing to be done. People had families, or barrack mates. They made connections, took food together, laughed and fought and argued. Even the revolting Taso had an equally revolting father, a senile bundle of rags he referred to as the Old One.

  Who was in the swordmaster’s cluster? Dai perhaps? She made a mental note to ask the man.

  There wasn’t a person in the world who wasn’t a mystery to her, but none so intriguing as Walker. He’d been angry with her today, even though the dog needed washing, as he’d pointed out himself a few days ago. Mehcredi puzzled her way through the encounter in the garden, trying to recall every nuance. If she separated his words from his actions . . .

  She should have been frightened—Florien certainly had been—and yet it hadn’t been so. She’d been wet and cold and Walker had given her his shirt. Taking hold of an empty sleeve, she pleated the linen between her fingers. He’d promised the boy training.

  With an irritated snort, she let the sleeve drop.

  If the boy could learn, why couldn’t she? But what could she offer in exchange? Because that was how the world worked. Ye don’t get somethin’ fer nothin’, Cook used to say. All she had was her physical self—another pair of hands, a strong back, a cunt. She grimaced, thinking of Taso’s disgusting tongue licking over the shape of the word. Surely there must be other terms for that part of her? She made a second mental note. Ask Dai.

  Wistfully, she thought of Walker flowing from one movement of the nea-kata to the next, graceful as a widow’s hair tree dancing with the wind, and just as strong.

  Sweet Sister, everything about the swordmaster fascinated her. Questions trembled on her tongue. Where was he from? How did his shaman’s Magick work? How did he get those scars? What was he thinking when he studied her with that black, dispassionate gaze?

  His face, his hands, his body—oh gods, the acres and acres of bronze skin. She ached with the need to touch and be touched in return. This yearning wasn’t a new sensation, it had been part and parcel of her existence for as long as she could remember. She’d lost count of the nights spent rocking to and fro, curled into herself, numb with misery and longing. Skin hunger, she called it, painful as the gut cramps of starvation.

  Grabbing the broken brush, she dragged it through her hair, the teeth scraping across her scalp, bringing the blood to the surface, helping her think.

  She knew the difference between his inward face and his hunter’s face. She wasn’t sure how, but she did. There was a more relaxed expression too, when he sat in the afternoons, talking quietly with Dai.

  Mentally, Mehcredi reviewed every conversation they’d ever had, right from the first terrifying moment. Her eyes rounded. Word for word, she’d spoken more with the swordmaster than with anyone else in her entire life, even Cook. Little wonder she was obsessed. She knew him not at all and yet she knew him best.

  8

  When she entered the next morning with Dai’s breakfast, Mehcredi found him stamping into his boots. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  The swordsman shrugged. “Living,” he whispered. “Going . . . on.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Wincing, he massaged his throat.

  “Dai—” She broke off, her mouth working. The words hurt, like hard-edged stones, digging into the soft flesh of her tongue and palate. “Sorry, so sorry. I . . .” Gasping, she ran out of air, her chest heaving.

  Dai turned to stare into her eyes, a brow raised. “What, again?” A heavy flush bloomed on his cheeks as a cough wracked his body. When it receded, he was whiter than the sheets on the unmade bed. But he persisted. “Still?”

  Mehcredi sank down on the bed, her brain spinning. What did sorry mean, truly? Her stomach ached. The silence stretched, broken only by the harsh whistle of Dai’s breath and the distant calls of the skiffmen on the canal.

  At last, she said slowly, feeling her way, “I wish I hadn’t done it, that I could turn back time and undo it all. Even though the Necromancer would kill me.” She risked a glance from under her lashes, but she could find no clue in his expression. Of course.

  “When you hurt, I do too.” She raised a hand before he could speak. “I know it’s nothing compared with . . . but I feel . . . I feel . . .” She shook her head, unable to express her distress in anything as inadequate as words. His pain was like a foul ague that infected her as well—how, she had no idea. “Awful,” she whispered.

  Dai gave her his back, turning away to pour himself a cup of water.

  “Medicine,” said Mehcredi absently. He added the requisite spoonful of sparkly powder.

  Sip by sip, he drank it down, finally turning to watch her over the rim of the cup.

  “Does it help, that stuff?” she asked, unable to bear the silence.

  Dai nodded, setting the cup aside. “It’s called guilt,” he rasped.

  “Guilt? What I feel?”

  A nod.

  “Oh.” Mehcredi fiddled with the hem of her shift. Guilt. “Thank you. That’s good to know.”

  “You,” said Dai, “are the . . . strangest person . . . I’ve ever met.”

  “I’m from Lonefell.”

  His mouth curved, very slightly. “Not . . . what I meant.” He sank into a chair and extended his legs, feet crossed at the ankles. His eyes gleamed green gold, very bright. “Tell.”

  “What? About Lonefell.”

  “No . . . you.”

  “Me?” Her voice cracked with surprise. Mehcredi shut her sagging jaw. “You sure?”

  Nod.

  “Uh, all right then.” She wriggled up the bed, curling her legs beneath her. Her cheeks heated, a corresponding wave of warmth suffusing her entire body. “I had one friend,” she started
slowly. “Cook. At least . . .” She frowned, remembering. “I think I did. Anyway, he used to—”

  Half an hour later, she’d barely drawn a breath, so giddy with the luxury of an audience that words tumbled out of her in a torrent, her hands waving as she described Taso with his wet mouth and lewd talk, the keep children laughing behind their hands, the cavernous kitchen and cruel winters, Cook and his pastries, her clever little hidey-holes, the narrow escapes. Through it all, Dai’s catlike eyes remained fixed on her face, though she thought the hard line of his lips had softened a little.

  “And then . . .” She faltered, everything crashing back, the weight of what she’d done falling over in a suffocating tide. “The Guild Master sent me to the Necromancer.” Her shoulders hunched. “Sorry.”

  Dai waved a hand. “Stop. Let me . . . think.”

  All the joy leaking out of her, Mehcredi rose to tidy the bed.

  “You’ve grown,” said that travesty of a voice from behind her.

  “No.” She gave the pillow an angry thump. “I’ve lost weight. All my clothes are loose.”

  “Nu-uh.” He tapped the left side of his chest. “Here.”

  Mehcredi straightened, staring. Dai closed one eye in a deliberate wink, flipped one hand in a casual salute and walked out the door. Her knees going out from under her, she sat down so hard that the bed ropes creaked.

  If he hurried, he’d have time to prune the first bed of dark roses before dinner. As the skiff bearing Rose and Florien disappeared around a bend in the canal, Walker turned away, heading for the garden shed and his tools. The precision and repetitive nature of the task would soothe his soul. He looked forward to it. And the roses would be grateful too.

  But as he rounded his favorite venerable cedderwood tree, he slowed to a reluctant halt. The assassin sat on a bench shaded by touchme bushes, bent almost double, her head clutched in her hands. The dog, now marginally lighter in color, lay curled up on the grass at her feet.

  “Why aren’t you at work?” he asked coldly and her head jerked up to reveal eyes no longer silver, but dark as storm clouds, her lashes clumpy with moisture. Strange, he would have expected them to be as pale as her hair, but they were a light brown. Brows too. The framing gave her eyes an impact that resonated deep in a man’s chest, all the more effective because he could swear she was unaware of it—almost.

  Her lips twisted, taking on a bitter line he hadn’t seen before. “I went up to clear away the tea things and Dai threw me out. Told me to fuck off.” Her voice dropped. “I thought we were doing better this week. Silly me.” The touchme bush chimed its distress, feathery fronds bending to brush across her cheek in an effort to comfort.

  “You’re upsetting my garden, assassin.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Go find something to do. Anything.” Deliberately filling his mind with roses, Walker stepped back onto the path.

  A noisy sniff came from behind him.

  Godsdammit. He turned. “It’s not you,” he said, reaching up to soothe a quivering touchme blossom. “It’s Rose.”

  “Who?”

  “Rosarina from The Garden of Nocturnal Delights. The Dark Rose. The incredibly beautiful woman who just spent the last hour with Dai.”

  “Oh.” The assassin thought for a moment. “Long dark hair, strange eyes, great tits. That the one?”

  Walker bit the inside of his cheek. Hadn’t Dai said that Mehcredi was hands down, the weirdest woman he’d ever met? “That’s her,” he agreed. “Dai’s had a crush on her since he was a lad.” And why he was telling her this he had no idea.

  “Does she love him back?” Mehcredi grinned and he blinked, taken aback by the way her face lit up. “That would be nice.”

  Walker shrugged. “Only in a way. She’s fond of him, but like a sister. What you did hit her hard. She loved how he used to make her laugh.”

  Mehcredi couldn’t conceal the flinch, though her pain gave him less satisfaction than it should.

  “Rose has everything—beauty, charm, brains. See those blooms?” He indicated the bed of roses, each fist-size bloom a satiny purple so dark it might as well be black. Their rich spicy perfume pervaded the air. “They’re dark roses. I bred them specifically for her. There isn’t a man in Caracole who doesn’t want Rosarina.”

  “Poor Dai.” Mehcredi snagged him with her shining gaze, so he made a point of staring back without blinking. “Does that include you?”

  “Me?”

  “Do you want her too? You made those flowers for her.” She watched him so intently, a little tendril of unease unfurled in his gut. No, oh no, she couldn’t, she didn’t—Not possible, not after what he’d done to her.

  “I’m human,” he said, showing his teeth. “Though you may not think so.”

  But the assassin remained unfazed. “You’ve got scars,” she said calmly. “I see them every morning, remember?”

  He didn’t know why he hadn’t put a stop to it long since. Willing the heat not to rise in his cheeks, he said, “Well, that’s over. As of now, your invitation is rescinded.”

  She didn’t move, not an inch, but Walker had the unnerving sensation of witnessing an internal collapse, all the life draining out of her as surely as if he’d failed to protect her and the Necromancer had pierced her to the heart with his death Magick.

  “Please,” she whispered, a thread of sound.

  She rose and took a shaky step forward, standing nearly as tall as he, close as a lover, closer even. No one invaded Walker’s personal space, his air of chilly reserve made it impossible, which was exactly how he liked it. He couldn’t fathom why he was allowing it now, but the depth of misery in the assassin’s expression hooked him and held him immobile. Her rapid breath puffed warm and moist against his jaw as she grabbed his forearm.

  “I need, I need . . .” She seemed to lose her nerve, a pink tongue creeping out to moisten her lower lip. “T-teach me. Please.”

  Without haste, Walker gripped her wrist, quite gently, and removed her hand from his sleeve. A small choked sound caught in her throat and from somewhere down at knee level, the dog whimpered. The swordmaster forced her chin up with his fist and studied her eyes. “Dai says you’re sorry. That true, assassin?”

  Gulping, she nodded.

  “Not good enough.” Walker shifted his hold, wrapping hard fingers around her jaw. “Give me words.”

  “I didn’t . . . didn’t understand at first. What it means to hurt someone that way.” She swallowed, the skin of her throat moving smooth and warm beneath his palm. “How it hurts us both. I wish—gods, I wish I hadn’t done it.” Without warning, she sagged in his grip, so he had to steady her with the other hand on her waist. “But I did.”

  “You’re sorry because you were caught.”

  “Well, yes. I mean no.” Confusion swam in her eyes. “I d-don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “How old are you, Mehcredi?” he said softly.

  She blinked. “Don’t know that either.”

  She wasn’t lying, he was certain. Dispassionately, he noted the unblemished quality of her skin, like ivory velvet, the smooth brow and firm chin. There were weary shadows beneath her eyes, but no lines. Mid-twenties at the most. So young—too young to embark on a lifetime of guilt and piercing regret.

  “I could kill you a hundred different ways. Slow, fast, screaming, silent. Shall I teach you all that? Is that what you want, to be a better assassin?”

  Her tremors had ramped up into long rippling shudders. If he hadn’t been holding her so firmly, her teeth would have chattered. She tried to shake her head, but he refused to permit the movement.

  He leaned in, close enough to kiss—or to bite. “Well?”

  Very slowly, her eyes on his, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tugged cautiously. An unpleasant twist in his gut, Walker released her. He’d been gripping hard enough to leave bruises on that pale perfect skin.

  “I think,” she whispered at last, “you might be my last chance.�
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  “Chance? Chance for what?”

  She was thinking so hard he could almost hear the effort, whirring and clicking like a Technomage machine. “I’m not sure. To be normal? To know . . . things . . . Not to be ignorant.” Her lashes swept down, then up. “Stupid.”

  “Everyone does stupid things.” He fought the urge to blink, to blot out her pleading expression, just for an instant. “You’re not exempt.” Unfortunately, neither am I.

  Her respiration had become rapid and shallow, a pulse beating in the soft pit of her throat. But she lifted her chin. “Teach me the nea-kata . Please.”

  “Why?”

  He’d expected her to hesitate again, to stammer, but she surprised him. “I want what it gives you,” she said steadily.

  “And what do you think that is?”

  The breath whistled out of her on a long sigh. “Peace.”

  When he didn’t reply, she hurried into speech. “There’s something in your face that’s, that’s . . .” Two vertical lines appeared between her brows. “Like you’ve gone away somewhere beautiful, but you’re still here and you’re beautiful too and—” She broke off, color rising in her cheeks. “I’m being stupid again.”

  Walker grunted, torn between darkest unease and reluctant amusement. “It’s concentration that you see. The swords don’t forgive.”

  “But you wouldn’t start a beginner with blades,” she said shrewdly.

  No, he wouldn’t. Though he hadn’t taught first-level nea-kata for years. Dai and Pounder did that, so Walker could concentrate on those sufficiently gifted—or bloody-minded—to survive his brutally demanding brand of tuition.

  Strange though, despite his impatience with anything less than perfection, a part of him rejoiced in passing on his skills, in teaching. Until Giral and his diablomen descended on the Shar, he’d never known a time when he wasn’t the oldest—the big brother, the one in charge. He’d been so serious about his responsibilities—looking back from an adult perspective, he was pretty certain he’d usually overdone it. Brennard and Owen used to gang up on him like a pair of angry puppies, but even with the typical sibling arguments and scuffles, the bond between them ran deep and true. They’d been growing into fine warriors, his brothers, fit to be initiated at the Spring of Shiloh, but that possibility was long gone, faded into the mist of might-havebeens. Because he’d failed them, hadn’t he?