The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  Godsdammit, a fatal error.

  She reared back, her lips thin. For a long moment, she glared into his face. “I get it,” she said. “Finally. Sorry for being so slow. I’ll take care of it myself.”

  “Take care—?” Something fluttered in his belly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “There are towns on the route, aren’t there? Dinari said so. I’ll find someone.” She chuckled, though there was more pain than humor in the sound. “You’re looking appalled, right?” She peered. “Yes, you are. Don’t worry. I’ll dress as a woman, take my time.”

  When he opened his mouth, she held up a finger. “Give me some credit. I’ll be sensible, I won’t rush it.” She sent him a travesty of a smile. “If the House of Swords is full of good men, I should be able to find one in all of Trinitaria, don’t you think?”

  Hard cruel hands on her soft flesh, leering faces, disease, brutality, indifference. His lungs contracted. “You’re bluffing.”

  “Try me.”

  “You can’t go out looking for it. I won’t permit it.” That was better, more commanding, colder.

  She raised an eyebrow. “How did you plan to stop me?”

  With a dreadful sense of foreboding, he recognized her expression. The steely resolve of a true warrior. And ’Cestors help him, he’d taught it to her.

  “All right then. I’ll wait ’til Trimegrace. It’s a big city. I’m not a complete idiot, no matter what you think.”

  He leaped to his feet, the clean shirt bunched in one fist. “There,” he snarled, “you are completely wrong. And not about the city.”

  Without a backward look, he stepped out of the bower and strode off, heading out into the desert, needing space and the chill earthy smell of the rocky landscape more than his next breath. But his footfalls, as always, were silent.

  Hands on hips, the Necromancer stood in the center of the rutted track that wound its way through the gates of Nerajyb Nyzarl’s new estate. He turned a full circle, tugging at his lower lip. It would do, he conceded. Very well, in fact.

  The main building, only two stories high, sprawled across a small rise, looking down over the rocky valley and across to the dusty hills in the far distance. The Necromancer had to admit he was surprised—on more than one count. He’d imagined the desert as an ocean of dunes, rolling all the way to the horizon under a pitiless sun. The sun was pitiless all right, but it shone on an arid landscape of gravel and scree, crisscrossed by wadis and dotted with clumps of hardy mannaplants and stands of feathergrass. The few small trees visible were bent almost horizontal, sporting narrow gray green leaves and gnarled trunks.

  It was a relief to turn his gaze to the house, surrounded by verdant green. Three wells drew sweet water from far below and Ghuis Gremani Giral had lavished it on lawns and flower beds and fountains and purplemist trees. He could hear the quiet splashing even from here, outside the wall. Smaller buildings clustered about gave the impression Nyzarl’s mansion had pupped—stables, guard barracks, quarters for guests and huts for slaves. Everything was constructed of mud brick, plastered an eye-aching white.

  By Shaitan, the ass-end of the universe, but he’d put up with it for the short term. He needed privacy to deal with Nyzarl. As for whatever lurked out there in the desert . . . He ran his tongue over parched lips. Ally or enemy, he’d find it and learn it the way he was learning Xotclic the demon. Then he’d bend it to his will, make it his pet, his slave. No such thing as coincidence. Everything had conspired to bring him here, to the perfect place.

  “Hantan.” An impertinent hand tugged at his sleeve.

  It was the little slave girl, hollows beneath her eyes like great dark bruises.

  The Necromancer rounded on her with a snarl. “Don’t touch me.”

  “He’s ready. My lord is ready. He says come at once.” Another tug. “Please.”

  It wouldn’t do to keep Nyzarl waiting. Besides, Xotclic might be there. He took a steadying breath. He’d made Dotty triple-check everything, then do it again and again. Until she cried.

  Tonight, if all went well. His chest ached, a horrible heavy feeling as if the chambers of his heart were full of tar. Gods, it had to be soon, soon.

  But only if Xotclic took the bait.

  Puffing a little, he followed the slave girl up the slope to the mansion and past the hard-eyed stare of the two guards on duty at the ornamental gates. Immense in his snowy robes, Nerajyb Nyzarl sprawled in a huge chair of woven cane, set like a throne in a courtyard shaded by two immense purplemist trees and cooled by a miniature waterfall trickling down over carefully placed rocks and into an artificial grotto. Small black fish darted about in the water while larger golden shapes nosed about the roots of the feathery water plants.

  The Necromancer allowed himself a single flash of nostalgia for Caracole and its blue canals. Then he put the foolishness aside. He had a trap to set.

  He prostrated himself on the grass. “My lord?”

  Nyzarl’s eyes narrowed. “You come to me without your tools?”

  “The parchments and ink are indoors, mighty lord. Such precious things must be kept in the cool. The merest step. May I send one of these”—he waved a hand at the three slaves in attendance—“to fetch them? I had hoped your lordship would discuss with me whether he wished to continue with his military or diplomatic, ah, exploits, next.”

  The Necromancer held his breath. Had he overdone it?

  But apparently that was impossible. With a grunt, Nyzarl jerked his head at the nearest slave, a tall graceful boy with broad shoulders and a high rounded ass.

  Nodding and bowing, the Necromancer inched closer to the path. Nyzarl droned on and a few minutes later, the lad reappeared, his arms full, rolls of parchment balanced on top of the scribe’s portable writing desk.

  Now!

  He extended a foot.

  A startled cry and the desk went flying, ink bottles arcing across the grass, sheets of parchment fluttering like broken-backed birds.

  “Oh no!” fluted the Necromancer. Frantically he dived across the lawn, managing to snag one page before it landed in the water. Others were not so lucky. Ink ran and smeared before they sank out of sight, and the little back fish gathered to nibble the soggy mess.

  “Our work,” he wailed, righting an ink bottle with shaking fingers. “All our work. Oh my lord.”

  “Help him!” roared the diabloman, and the others leaped to do his bidding. But the tall boy stood frozen, his face ashen.

  Nyzarl rose, his fleshy face flushed with rage. “You stupid little fucker!” Spittle flew from his lips.

  “S-sorry.” The boy fell on his face as if his legs had been cut from under him. “My lord, pl—”

  Nyzarl stooped, grabbed the slave by the throat and lifted him one-handed until his toes brushed the grass.

  Impressive, thought the Necromancer, busily smoothing parchment and moaning. When he heard the familiar garbled syllables and smelled the stench of the green fog, he smiled to himself.

  The boy began to scream, short and shrill, but he tuned the sounds out, forcing himself to concentrate. Gathering his Dark Magick, he formed his will into a narrow beam, sharp as a rapier. He thrust. I know what you want.

  The weight of the demon’s attention felt like burning coals on the back of his neck, but he didn’t look up.

  I can set you free.

  The crunch of bone had an inquiring tone to it, if such a thing were possible. The slave shrieked once and fell silent.

  The Necromancer drew a deep breath and opened himself. See? I hide nothing from you. Not like him. Your master. He invested the last two words with all the mental scorn of which he was capable.

  The touch of the demon’s mind was hideous, even for the Necromancer. Not because it was evil—he was well accustomed to evil—but because it was wrong. Dislocated and set adrift, the moorings of his sanity writhed like worms. He bit his tongue until it bled.

  “Get on with it, Xotclic,” growled the diabloman. “Take the carrion
back with you if you want.”

  The demon’s contempt for Nyzarl burned like acid across the Necromancer’s brain.

  How little he knows, he whispered silently. How little he respects you. But I know the boy cannot exist in your world. All that sweet blood and terror. Gone.

  The pain of maintaining the contact was sending him cross-eyed. Unable to help himself, he clutched at his temples.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you, Hantan?” barked Nyzarl.

  “M-migraine, my lord,” he moaned truthfully. “If you c-could give m-me a moment.”

  “Day’s gone to shit anyhow. Get out of my sight, the lot of you. You too, Xotclic.”

  Tonight, thought the Necromancer with the last of his strength. We will bargain, you and I.

  The demon’s laughter ricocheted around inside his skull, a distorted echo, vast and abrasive. By Shaitan, the very timbre of it was like a scouring pad, another couple of seconds and his brains would be reduced to the consistency of thin gruel. It hurt, gods it hurt!

  Then—mercifully—Xotclic let the slave boy’s broken body flop to the ground and departed without a backward glance. Except mercy had nothing to do with it. The creature had its orders.

  Though it galled, the Necromancer had to accept the assistance of the little slave girl to get down the hill to his quarters.

  A firm hand in the small of her back, he thrust Dotty past the guard on the door and into the brightly lit bedchamber. Two steps later, she stopped dead, emitting a sudden high-pitched giggle fit for a five-year-old. Nerajyb Nyzarl raised his head, his eyes slitted with pleasure as the little slave girl worked the muscles of his bull-like neck. He lay facedown on a padded bench covered with white towels, completely nude, glistening with oil and supremely unconcerned.

  “I sent for you, not her.” He flapped a big hand in a dismissive gesture.

  The Necromancer promptly fell on his face. “Forgive my presumption, mighty lord,” he said to the rug on the floor. “I have nothing to offer as apology for this afternoon’s, ah, disaster save my worthless life and that of my sister.”

  When he risked a glance upward, the diabloman was looking thoughtful. He reminded the Necromancer of nothing so much as a beached leviathan, his strength in big bones and hard muscle beneath the blubber. His shoulders and ribcage were massive, his buttocks broad and hairy. In fact, he was furred all over, as far as the Necromancer could see, his jaw dark with beard, a coarse black pelt all down his back. Gods, what a barbarian.

  “Her veil,” grunted Nyzarl. “Off.”

  The Necromancer climbed painfully to his feet and did as his master bid. The Technomage Primus of Sybaris blinked in the light of the torches like an idiot child, her faded eyes fixed wistfully on Nyzarl’s body.

  The diabloman grimaced. “By the Three, not much of an apology.”

  The Necromancer hung his head. “I had hoped, my lord, that I might still be of use to you. I have nothing beyond this.”

  Nyzarl sighed, as if much put upon. “She’ll do, I suppose. Xotclic isn’t fussy, but for the gods’ sakes, man, cover her up. And you—” Reaching back, he pinched the slave girl’s thigh with his powerful fingers. “Get on with it.” A stifled gasp and she shifted her attention to his shoulders.

  The first step accomplished. Releasing a careful breath, the Necromancer flipped Dotty’s veil back into place and thrust her into a shadowed corner. Reaching into his robes, he withdrew a box containing parchment, ink and brushes. With some difficulty, he sank cross-legged to the floor at the diabloman’s feet, the low table bearing refreshments at his elbow. Perfect.

  Averting his eyes from the sight of the hairy wrinkled pouch lying slack between the other man’s open thighs, he coughed discreetly. “A suggestion, my lord?”

  “Hmpf?”

  “A fresh chapter. An account of your victory over the demon.” He infused his voice with sly admiration. “You must have been immensely strong for one so young. I cannot imagine the courage and learning it must have required.”

  The story came in fits and starts, punctuated by grunts when the little slave’s clever fingers unkinked a knot. If the silences were any indication, the diabloman found it surprisingly difficult to tell. The Necromancer’s brows rose. He’d never had much respect for Trinitarian Magick, thinking it all flourish and no subtlety. But while he remained convinced it was more blunt instrument than rapier, the training Nyzarl described was both rigorous and breathtakingly cruel, devised to strip every last vestige of human feeling from the apprentice demon masters.

  Enthralled despite himself, the Necromancer took notes in earnest, his brush whisking over the creamy parchment. No one noticed him extract a twist of paper from his box and empty the powder it contained into the diabloman’s cup of chilled wine.

  The words slowed to a trickle as Nyzarl approached the culmination of his evil apprenticeship. The summoning and enslavement of a demon was the blackest of any Dark Magick known in Trinitaria. It required the aspiring diabloman to sacrifice a life—and not just any life, but that most dear to him.

  The diabloman ground to a halt, gulping for breath, his back sheened with sweat and oil. He snapped his fingers. “Wine.” The slave took a sip from the cup before placing it in his hands.

  The Necromancer’s lips curved in a serene and satisfied smile. Such precautions were completely useless. He’d been feeding the diabloman a harmless compound of herbs for a week now. Despite his addiction to fatty foods and strong drink, it would do nothing but improve his already robust health—until the second portion of the mixture met the first. It had taken some juggling, but he’d ensured only the boy tasters had shared the original compound. Not that the girl mattered, but she massaged her master every evening and the man was far too dangerous to be afforded even the slightest warning.

  Refreshed, Nyzarl resumed his tale, word by gritted word. The diabloman’s choice had fallen upon his youngest brother, whom he truly loved, the boy idolizing him in return. But ambition burned like a fire within him. Besides, in the face of all his sire’s dire predictions, he’d finally discovered something at which he truly excelled.

  Tears streaming down his face, sobs shaking his deep chest, he’d tied the boy down and subjected him to the hours of systematic torture demanded by the ritual. The hardest thing he’d ever done. Every time he glimpsed the agony and confusion on the lad’s beloved, distorted features, he wavered. Eventually, despite his mentor’s disapproval, he’d thrown a cover over the head. After that, he’d managed to keep his hands steady, though his tears continued to drip as readily as the blood.

  Irresistibly drawn by the delicious pain of both tortured and torturer, Xotclic had slit the curtain of the void with a curious claw and thereby damned itself to servitude.

  Nyzarl’s voice slowed, slurring as the drug took effect.

  By Shaitan, not yet!

  19

  Leaping to his feet, the Necromancer shoved Dotty forward, sending her sprawling across the floor. At her bleat of surprise, the diabloman lifted his heavy head and blinked.

  “Hmpf,” he said. His eyes fell closed.

  “Summon your demon, lord,” urged the Necromancer. “Dotty’s not much I know, but surely it is always hungry?”

  “True . . . enough.” Nyzarl spoke the creature’s name in a slow halting mumble.

  When the final syllable was out and green fog billowed across the floor, the Necromancer almost fainted with relief. But this was only the first step. Far greater danger lay ahead. Taloned hands grasped the sides of the mist and pulled. The demon lurched out into existence, impossibly alien.

  “Take her,” the diabloman choked. “Take . . .” He stared at his hand in puzzlement, his heavy brows drawn together. “Wha’? . . . Mmpf . . .” Spittle ran down his chin.

  The little slave girl made a noise like a frightened kitten, but the Technomage tore off her veil and stared, eyes narrowed with interest.

  This was it. The Necromancer drew what Dark Magick he retained about him like
a tattered cloak. “Xotclic.”

  The hideous head swung toward him, then away to focus on the prone figure of the diabloman. A hissing grunt that conveyed both comprehension and bone-deep satisfaction. The demon advanced on the bed, claws sinking deep into the pile of the rugs.

  “N-n-no,” gurgled Nyzarl, and fell silent, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks of horror.

  “Xotclic,” said the Necromancer sharply. “Wait. I have something better to offer.”

  The demon’s mouth opened—and opened, and opened—revealing a forked tongue and most of the mottled tract of its gullet. When it roared its displeasure, the building shuddered, as if all its fundamental molecules had been rearranged. For all the Necromancer knew, they had.

  The moment the horny plates shut with a snap, he said, “Remember? I said we’d bargain.”

  Xotclic swung its tail, embedding the barbs in the fleshy part of the diabloman’s thigh. He didn’t move, though he blinked frantically. Crossing its legs at the ankles, the demon leaned a bony elbow in the small of Nyzarl’s back, leaned against the bed and tilted its head. “Ss?”

  The Necromancer almost smiled. The thing had nerve, he’d give it that. A worthy foe. “I propose,” he said, “a partnership—of equals.”

  One last throw of the dice. Delving deep, he scraped up every vestige of the power he’d been hoarding, the death throes of the apothecary, Hantan’s final scream, even the old flower seller. Shit, this used to be so easy! Shaking with effort, he stretched out a spectral hand to the slave, wrapped his fingers around a couple of ribs and squeezed, ever so gently. In the old days, he would have thrust bone and muscle aside to grip her heart, but now, godsdammit, he hadn’t the strength.

  Immediately, she clutched her chest, her face turning a horrible putty color.

  Easy. Easy now. Slowly, the Necromancer drew her forward, step by stumbling step, until her forehead was pressed against the demon’s leathery sunken chest. Sweat popping on his brow, he released his hold, even managing a thin calm smile.

  Casually, Xotclic slung one of its arms around the girl’s neck and snapped it. Her body slipped to the floor to drape over one clawed foot.