The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  She’d been frightened, she didn’t mind admitting it. Standing helpless in the yard, staring up at that godsbedamned window while angry men beat down the door to get at Walker—that had been the worst moment. What would she do without him? The prospect was literally inconceivable, more than her mind could encompass. Her heart squeezed. Sister save her, she wouldn’t need to worry, because his Mark would kill her the moment he ceased to breathe. Uneasily, she rubbed the heel of her hand over the spot.

  The thing with the dog had been all her fault. Shit. The flock of flutterbyes currently resident in her belly took an abrupt right-angled turn. But on the whole—she trailed Walker into yet another shabby chamber—she didn’t think she’d done too badly. Now that it was over, she’d almost enjoyed the fight. Her nerves sang with the remembered rush.

  The slave boy had been hopeless. She gave a fierce grin, reliving that perfect jab in the gut. By all the gods, she’d got something right for once. Competence was a heady, unaccustomed glow behind her breastbone. Anyhow, it served him right, the little shit. The names he’d called her took her right back to Lonefell. Cunt, whore, slut.

  There were two dusty pallets, slung on sagging bed ropes, and a rickety table. That was all.

  “Stay here,” ordered Walker, the door swinging shut behind him.

  A few moments later, he returned, carrying a chipped jug and a widemouthed mug.

  Mehcredi stiffened her spine, taking comfort from the press of a furry body against her calf. Best to get it over with. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About the fight, I mean.”

  Walker turned, dagger in one hand, one of those strange black fruits in the other. “I should never have brought you.”

  “Oh no.” She took an eager step forward. “I’m glad you did.” A grin bloomed on her face, she couldn’t help it. “I’ve never had an adventure before.”

  The swordmaster’s lips went thin. Somehow, he seemed to grow, looming over her, all lean and bronzed. And shit, he was angry again. “Is that what you think this is?” His voice rose. “Some lighthearted frolic? Nerajyb Nyzarl has a demon.”

  He tossed the blengo onto the nearest pallet so he could wrap his fingers around her throat. He forced her head up so she couldn’t avoid his eyes, blazing like fiery coals. “I’ve seen a demon turn a man inside out like an old sock and suck his guts like a noodle dinner.”

  “A demon?” Mehcredi’s stomach lurched. She stared into those pitiless eyes, her brain spinning. “What do you mean? He’s a diabloman? You want to kill a diabloman?”

  Walker released her so abruptly she stumbled. “Yes.”

  “B-but . . . how ?”

  “Same way I killed the other fourteen.” Scooping up the blengo, he struck the top off with a single vicious slash. “You’re still too pale, Meck. And do something with the shirt unless you want it dyed too.” He busied himself squeezing juice into the jug.

  Her fingers trembled so badly, it took forever to unpick the knot in the laces. Diablomen? But everyone knew—Fourteen of them? Still in a fog, she dithered. The back of her neck must still be as white as the Sister. She glanced down. Not to mention her chest. How far down did the stain need to go? And then there was the mass of her hair. In the end, she let the shirt slip right off her shoulders, clutching it to the upper swell of her breasts, exposing the first graceful swooping curves of Walker’s shaman Mark. The air brushed against her skin in a pleasant caress. A wave of gooseflesh ran up her spine. Her nipples stiffened.

  Walker ripped the sleeve out of her robe. “Right,” he said, turning toward her. “Hold st—”

  Truly, she was learning all the time. Who’d have thought a man’s gaze could make you feel like you’d stood too close to the fire? The Mark burned worst of all.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.” She looked him in the eye. “And you promised you’d tell me, remember?”

  Walker’s mouth tucked up at the corners. “You look decidedly odd.” Strong fingers spread over the back of her skull, pushing her head down.

  Mehcredi suppressed the urge to arch into the touch the way the dog did when she rubbed behind his ears.

  “Like one of Serafina’s chocolat and cream cakes, but a trifle, ah, underdone. Don’t move now.”

  Damp and cool, the rag whispered over the back of her neck. Carefully, he wiped over the shell of her ears, covering one finger to delve into the whorls and curves. When Mehcredi wriggled, he slapped her casually on the rump. “Be still. This is delicate work.”

  It was strangely intimate, sensing his strong body so close, hearing the quiet rhythm of his respiration while he performed this very personal service. Eyes half closed with pleasure, Mehcredi hummed under her breath, tilting her head as he directed. Oh, it was beyond good to be touched, to be stroked like this. She’d had no idea. He could paint her brown all over if he liked. Oh, gods. Once the thought appeared, she wasn’t able to banish it. All over. When she pressed her thighs together, her secret place burned hot and slick. Tingles coiled at the base of her spine, before breaking loose to skitter across her quivering belly and up over her ribs.

  “Close your eyes and lift your chin.”

  Was his breath coming faster? It was hard to tell.

  With exquisite care, he smoothed over her forehead, tracing each eyebrow with a firm gentle thumb. When his fingertips moved over her eyelids, light as a flutterbye’s wing, she had to swallow hard to banish the foolish prickle of tears. Casually, she crossed her arms over her breasts, pressing against her stinging nipples. It didn’t help.

  “That’s better,” said his deep voice. “Not so streaky. Open your mouth a little.”

  When he ran a slow thumb over her lower lip, she had to lock her knees to keep from staggering. Despite herself, she made a small choked noise.

  He stopped. “You all right?”

  If she opened her eyes, the Magick would stop. “Yes,” she said into the darkness behind her eyelids.

  The swab moved down to the pit of her throat, paused, then glided across her collarbones. Her breasts tightened, yearning toward his touch.

  “That’ll do, I think,” he said and she could have wept.

  “It’s over?”

  “Not quite.” He moved behind her, a wall of muscled warmth an inch from her spine. “Sorry about this.” Firmly, he gripped her braid. She felt a sharp tug against her scalp, and suddenly, the oddest sensation of lightness.

  Mehcredi’s eyes flew open. She whirled around, clapping a hand to the back of her head.

  The swordmaster stood before her, blade in one hand, the shining length of her plait dangling from the other. He cleared his throat. “There’s too much of it to dye.”

  The silence stretched. Mehcredi sank onto the bed, and the dog came to lay his head against her knee. She shrugged, digging her fingers into the animal’s ruff. “It’ll grow back. Just feels strange, that’s all.”

  “Wrap this around your shoulders.” Walker thrust the old robe at her. “You know,” he said, as if thinking aloud, jug in hand, “you’re not like any woman I ever met.” He tilted the jug and cold liquid trickled into her hair.

  “No, I don’t suppose I am,” she said, sagging a little. Gloomily, she bit her lip, too depressed to enjoy the sensation of hard fingers massaging her scalp, working the juice well in. What sort of women did he prefer? She wasn’t sure, except they’d be intelligent, poised—and undoubtedly lovely.

  He was thorough, but it didn’t take long. “Here.” He pressed a comb carved of some dark shiny wood into her hand.

  “No mirror.” She passed it back. “I’ll just mess it up.”

  Walker gave an annoyed grunt, but he nudged her chin up with one fist and wielded the comb, his brow knitted with concentration.

  “There,” he said at last, stepping back. “With the glasses, you’ll pass.”

  Mehcredi ignored this. “Why do you want to kill this Nyzwhatever man?”

 
He stiffened. “Nerajyb Nyzarl.”

  “Yes, fine. So why kill him?”

  He shot her a narrow-eyed glance. “Don’t you ever give up?”

  She took a moment to consider it, wishing she could see his face, but he had his back to her, emptying the jug out the window. “If I gave up I’d be dead by now.” She shrugged again. “I’m not dead. So answer the question.”

  “It’s necessary.” Setting the jug down, he turned off the lamp, plunging the chamber into darkness. “Go to sleep.” The bed ropes creaked as he stretched out his lean length.

  Biting her lip, she fumbled her boots off, unbuckled her sword belt and laid it aside. With a scuffle and a scrape, the dog settled under the bed. Why was it necessary? Her mind racing, she tried to imagine what a demon might look like and failed. She’d come to believe Walker could do anything, but this? Gods, a diabloman! Was it even possible? But if he said he’d done it, it must be.

  So many questions trembled on her tongue that she clapped a hand over her mouth lest they escape. She shifted restlessly on the pallet, aggravated on so many levels that her skin itched.

  “Mehcredi?” His voice came out of the darkness.

  “What?” she asked, her pulse kicking into a gallop.

  “Tell me you brought the breastband.”

  “I brought the breastband.” She sat up. “Why?”

  “Good.” The bed ropes creaked as he rolled over, giving her his broad back. “From now on, wear it.”

  When the Necromancer returned to the tent, he found Dotty crouched over an odd assemblage of wires and glass. In the uncertain light of the cheap tallow candles, she held the object so close to her nose her eyes were practically crossed. With trembling fingers, she turned it over and over, crooning and stroking.

  He brightened. “Nearly finished?”

  But the former Technomage Primus of Sybaris continued to squint at the apparatus, her blue gray eyes clouded, an unhappy droop to her mouth. “Need a . . . a . . . thing,” she muttered, rocking back and forth.

  Shaitan take the silly bitch, her brains grew more addled with every passing day. How much longer before the device was complete? More to the point, was she still mentally capable of the work? The scribe’s crazy sister had ceased to be amusing. Every time their so-called lord and master—hah!—laid eyes on her, he swore on the Trimagistos and poked the dusty, shambling bundle with his cane. Sometimes Dotty noticed, whereupon she shrieked like a kettle on the boil and scuttled away, her hands flapping in futile defense, but other times she remained oblivious, no matter how savage Nyzarl’s jabs became.

  “What?” he asked. “What do you need? And it had better be the last.”

  Finding the strange materials she required as Nyzarl and his entourage traveled southward through an increasingly arid and sparsely populated landscape had taxed his ingenuity to the utmost. He’d scavenged and bartered and bargained. From a shopkeeper in the last outpost of a town, he’d stolen, though he’d really only done it for the challenge.

  Funnily enough, money wasn’t a problem. Nerajyb Nyzarl had been surprisingly generous with his personal scribe. It seemed he had a hankering for immortality—in ink and parchment. A biography of all things, an overinflated retelling of what felt like every stupefying, vomit-inducing, useless act of his fat, miserable life. What with controlling the urge to stave off the mind-numbing boredom by popping Nyzarl’s eyeball with the sharp end of the ink brush, the Necromancer figured he was earning every cred.

  “See here?” The Technomage indicated a socket-like spot that looked no different from a number of others. Her tongue crept out, sly and pink, and she shot him a weirdly knowing glance. “I need a male part. It slots . . . right . . . in . . . here.” Repeatedly, she jabbed a fingertip in the concave depression. Then she gave a lewd, high-pitched giggle.

  15

  A wave of revulsion rolled down the Necromancer’s spine. By Shaitan, the old bitch had gone beyond disgusting. He ground his teeth. If the trap had worked that first time, he wouldn’t be stuck with her now. The whole scheme had been a thing of beauty, baited with the silly little null witch—gods, what an abomination she was!—but the air wizard had slipped through his fingers. The man hadn’t even had the decency to die, and as for the null witch—

  The Necromancer pressed cautious fingertips against a spot on the side of his skull. His head still ached when he grew tired. Completely against his will, memory shoved an unpleasantly vivid image toward him—Prue McGuire advancing, blue green eyes ablaze in her pale face, swinging a gardener’s spade with all her compact strength—a fucking spade! One day. His lips drew back from his teeth. One day . . . Her screams would never end, he swore it by all that was unholy.

  The candles guttered, the temperature in the tent dropping ten degrees in as many seconds. Dotty whimpered, hunching down until she resembled nothing as much as a bundle of dirty laundry.

  Gods, every time he thought of Erik the Golden! That big body, so strong and smooth-limbed and physically adept, such a magnificent envelope to house his own Dark Powers. Physically, Nerajyb Nyzarl wasn’t much of a substitute, not if one aspired to male beauty, though presumably there was muscle hidden somewhere beneath the lard. Nonetheless, the diabloman had a number of advantages to offer. First, there was the wealth and power conferred by the favor of the Grand Pasha, nicely topped off by the gift of the estate in the south. The Necromancer licked his lips. The south—where he sensed the weight of some vast presence, utterly alien. It couldn’t be coincidence, it couldn’t.

  No longer did he have the power to kill with nothing more than a thought, to pinch nerves and arteries between his spectral fingers, but he and the razor-sharp edge of his blade had managed to make the last murder last a good long time. Crouched in the back room behind an apothecary’s shabby shop front, he’d dipped his hands to the wrist in blood and pain, drawing sigils on the dusty floor to net the man’s agonized soul with bonds of power.

  He’d done what he could with the apothecary, riding the old fool’s death hard, as if it were an unruly horse. The Dark Lord had been with him then, vouchsafing him a glimpse of carnage in some hillside village, people running this way and that, shouting, falling in midstride as if felled by crossbow bolts, whereupon they writhed and shrieked like souls in torment. Fascinating. Because there were no bolts, no weapons of any kind, only a strange, shrill, whistling sound, and dark clouds scudding across the indifferent faces of the Sibling Moons.

  Instinctively, he’d grasped at the energy released by so many deaths. With the ease of long practice, he let the power buoy him up, and he’d seen it, etched against the stars—the Pattern.

  Not as clear as the last time, but still so fucking pretty he wanted to spit. A five-pointed star, a Pentacle, complex and yet perfect. Complete in itself. Drawn despite himself, he’d drifted closer, peering, his breath coming short.

  Fortunately, he was always wary. Without warning, a fireball bloomed above the Pentacle like an improbable flower. A whoosh of angry air and it was hurtling toward him, a tail of flame streaming behind with the speed of its passage. He’d barely escaped unsinged. In fact, his retreat had been so precipitate, he’d regained his senses sprawled across the apothecary’s doorsill, his cheek resting in a puddle of congealed blood.

  He’d recognize the distinctive flavor of the fire witch’s fury anywhere. And clearly, although the air wizard was so newly come to his Magick he barely qualified as a novice, Erik Thorensen knew his enemy. The Necromancer’s mouth twisted. Shaitan take them, that degree of cooperation did not augur well. As for that old bastard, Deiter—Something in the Necromancer’s chest clenched, hurting him. He pressed his palm to the spot. It felt like a warning.

  “A power source,” said a decisive voice at his elbow, shattering his reverie. Dotty smoothed a steady hand over the graying tangle of her hair like the Technomage of old, her level gaze clear and cold and clever. “Did you realize we don’t have one?”

  “No.” The Necromancer’s fingers flexed
involuntarily, despite the stiffness in his knuckles. He glanced down at his hands, at the wrinkled mottled skin. He was still stronger than she—perhaps. But if he throttled her now, he’d be left stranded, an old man in an old man’s body. “It’s your problem, Technomage. Solve it.”

  “I can’t.” He caught the shadow of a flinch. “I mean, I think I can do it, but only with you—using death energy.”

  “Ah.” The Necromancer regarded her with interest. “How many?”

  “Two, if they’re young and strong.” Little by little, her face collapsed in on itself, as if all the teeth were dissolving in her gums. “Two, two, two,” she warbled. “Who are the two? Two by two is four, four by two is—”

  “Give me that.” The Necromancer took the apparatus out of her hands and placed it carefully in the padded, wooden box he’d purchased especially for the purpose. Then he drew his arm back and cracked the Technomage across the face. “Nyzarl wants to feed you to his demon, did you know that?”

  Dotty gibbered, fingers splayed across the reddening mark on her cheekbone. As she scuttled toward the dubious safety of a shadowed corner, not for the first time, the Necromancer considered Xotclic and the interesting problem of its True Name.

  He’d been thinking about the demon pretty well continuously from the moment he’d first laid eyes on Nyzarl. Possession of a demon was what defined a diabloman. If he could take all that was Nerajyb Nyzarl’s—his body, his demon, his wealth and status—it wouldn’t matter if the gods shat Pentacles all over the sky, let alone how many witches and wizards Deiter rallied to the cause.

  He’d be as near to a god as made no difference, not only their equal but more, Shaitan’s heir maybe. No—he smiled, suffused with fierce pleasure—an usurper, Shaitan Himself.

  But without Xotclic’s True Name, there was no chance, it was all piss in the wind. Infinitely worse, he’d be trapped in this decaying jar of flesh until the final indignity when it failed him utterly. A cold shudder raised the hair all down his spine, a wave of atavistic terror that took him by surprise, though on reflection, it shouldn’t have. The Dark Lord had His own way of dealing with incompetents and upstarts.