The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  The horny plates on the creature’s chest lifted and settled with a tiny clattering sound, like mandibles rubbing together. “Ss.”

  Nyzarl’s heart pounded in his massive chest. By Shaitan, the man had been a coward. No wonder, given his woeful lack of self-discipline. But the Necromancer was purging the dross from this body, eating well and sparingly. Already, he’d had to cinch his belt two holes tighter, he sweated less and his wind was greatly improved.

  “Well then, do so. Somewhere far from here.”

  Xotclic folded one set of arms across its chest and leaned against the wall. Its hideous head tilted to one side. As clearly as if it could speak, its posture said, Yeah, and so?

  “I called you here to listen to a proposition.”

  “Ss?”

  “We have exchanged Names. That makes us partners, of a sort.”

  “Ss.” The lipless mouth stretched, the chest plates quivered. The Necromancer avoided looking at what writhed beneath them.

  He suspected the demon was amused. To the seven icy hells with the bastard, he needed its cooperation, its advice even.

  “I have found a pet for us, a weapon I”—he caught himself—“we can use to hold the world to ransom. Enough corpses to glut even you.”

  Xotclic slid down the wall, hunkering comfortably, though its legs folded the wrong way, an ugly parody of a long-legged bird.

  The Necromancer released a careful breath. He suspected that if he touched the demon, the power of the True Names combined with his own Dark Arts would allow mind-to-mind communication, but that was a risk he was not yet prepared to take.

  Choosing his words, he described his vision as accurately as possible, the alien creature drifting in the deep reaches of space, its pain and dissolution in the atmosphere of Palimpsest. He recounted the trip into the desert, the old man’s story and the djinns of death riding on the hot winds.

  When he finished, the demon stared at him in silence, a third hand rubbing its chin in a weirdly human gesture, its eyes very bright. At last, it opened its mouth and emitted a string of grating, high-pitched sounds, redolent of doubt and ending with what was obviously a question.

  “Yes. It’s damaged, I’m almost certain,” said the Necromancer, chewing a thumbnail. “Dying. That’s what Dotty said, in the two minutes she made any sense at all.”

  “Ss.” When Xotclic nodded, its neck creaked.

  “It should be one djinn, not many,” the Necromancer mused aloud. “It was a single entity out in space, where it’s cold and dark.”

  Creak, creak. “Ss.”

  “The damn thing’s no use to us dead. If I could get it away from the heat, out of the desert . . .”

  “Ss.”

  “Take it north, to the ice fields.” When his gaze met the demon’s, he smiled. “Fortunately, I have maps. Even better, I have a guide to take us to its most recent location.”

  “Ss!” hissed Xotclic, coming off the wall to wave all four arms in the air. Its chest plates clattered with excitement.

  Walker couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been, how catastrophically he’d missed his step. As he turned to leave their chamber at the inn, Mehcredi grabbed his hand and pressed it briefly to her lips. “Uh, thanks,” she said, her voice as husky as a boy’s, before walking past him with her head held high.

  He stood there like a fool, watching her trim ass as she moved away from him with that swinging mannish stride, and his heart turned a somersault in his chest. He had to wait for a moment for the black spots to clear from his vision before he could follow her down the stairs. For the first time in his adult life, he was grateful to be the only living speaker of Shar. Carazada, he’d called her. ’Cestors save him! Let alone the rest of it. Lust fogged a man’s brain, not a doubt of it.

  He caught up with her in the street, holding the gut flutters at bay with sheer willpower. They weren’t panic, or anything like it, for the simple reason that he couldn’t afford such stupidity, not now when he had to make everything clear.

  “So,” he said briskly. “I assume you’ve got that out of your system?” He showed his teeth. “Scratched the itch?”

  Her eyes flickered behind the tinted spectacles. “I suppose so.” She turned her head to watch a veiled woman walk by, a tousle-haired child on one hip, a huge pottery jar balanced on the other. “Amazing,” she murmured, and he wondered what she was thinking.

  She lengthened her stride. “What are we doing today?”

  And that was it. His brows rose. Well, not so difficult after all. He should have known—no tears, no female weakness, not Mehcredi the assassin. Godsdammit, she was mighty cool about her first sexual experience. It had been . . . extraordinary. Any other woman would be overwhelmed, the emotional effects still reverberating deep inside. If he could feel it, hardened as he was, why didn’t she?

  Aloud, he said, “I want to buy a couple of desert ponies, and then stock up on supplies. We need waterskins, among other things. We’ll ride out late in the day, when it’s cooler. If we travel all night, we’ll be at Nyzarl’s before dawn.”

  And that was precisely what they’d done. With the addition of a broad-brimmed floppy hat for Mehcredi. He’d overruled her objections. Blengo juice or no, he refused to take any more chances with that tender skin, not out in the deep desert.

  A long bruising ride later, Walker sat cross-legged at the lip of a cave in the hills behind the diabloman’s estate, feeding a small smokeless fire. Behind him, he could hear the soft regular sigh of Mehcredi’s breath as she slept, the dog curled against her hip. She’d carried the damn animal across the bow of her saddle all the way from Trimegrace. He’d sat bolt upright as to the manner born, tongue lolling happily. He even had a name now—Scrounger, but she called him Scrounge.

  For a lone assassin, she was collecting dependents at a remarkable rate. First, a stray cur, and now—

  Brooding, he gazed into the heart of the fire and reached for the ch’qui. “Cenda, are you there?” he whispered, feeling like a fool. “Cenda!”

  Nothing.

  When he tried again, a twig rippled, putting out a couple of hopeful green leaves, only to have them blacken and shrivel in the hungry flames. Walker’s lips tightened. Godsdammit, for once in his life, nothing would have pleased him more than to speak with Deiter.

  Delighted with a fresh audience, the horse trader in Trimegrace had lingered over the cups of bitterbrew, regaling them with gory tales of the desert djinns. Safe in his shabby stable, the man’s eyes had shone with a mixture of horror, relief and glee, but fuck it, everything he said fit with the evidence of the caravan they’d found destroyed on the road. Especially the wounds.

  More to the point, Walker had found Deiter’s nameless evil. Djinns. He snorted. What did the old wizard think he and his little band of heroes were going to do? Gallop into Trinitaria on snow-white horses and kill the things? Or was Walker supposed to do that? He ground out a curse, poking another stick into the fire.

  The Sibling Moons had sunk below the horizon, the Brother a reluctant red glower retreating behind the shoulders of the arid hills. Dawn wasn’t far off. By the First Father, nothing compared with the smell of home, the ancient odor of dust and stone, mixed with the resin tang of the small hardy conifers that scraped a meager existence up here.

  Walker blinked out at the shadowed landscape, noting where dawn light illuminated the gray and pink and yellow of cliff faces, the dense shadows where night still lay pooled in the wadis. He half expected Owen and Brennard to appear from out of the rocks, Amae trotting at their heels. They’d ignore her chatter with brotherly disdain, one keeping a watchful eye on her while the other scanned the terrain. Ensuring her safety.

  And this was fucking useless. Rising, he scattered the fire and stamped out the embers. He circled up behind the cave, discovering a sandmat in one of the traps he’d set. With a grunt of satisfaction, he skewered it behind the head, rolled it up and stuffed it into a rough net he wove out of feathergrass.

  Turning
to the west, he stared at the white cluster of buildings and the startling patch of green that was Nyzarl’s estate. A blight on the ancestral lands of the Shar. These ancient rounded hills were his. He knew every fold of them, every spring and seep, all the plants and animals, from the packs of lean direwolves to the painted dogs with their huge furry ears and high-pitched yips. For every creature, no matter how small or how venomous, there was an ancestral Song, handed from parent to child, generation after untold generation.

  And all of them would end with him.

  His mouth was full of an acrid taste like bitterbrew. How much of Shar culture had he forgotten already? How much was lost because he’d been too young to be trusted with it? As for the faces of his kin—the harder he tried to hold on to them, the faster they slipped from his mind.

  As his tally of diablomen grew, the moments of disorientation increased, running together until there were times he knew he approached dissolution. Not all the gardens in the world, nor the framework of the nea-kata, were strong enough to keep his spirit from fading from this life, his Song dying away. Soon it would be no more than another tiny voice among the seven million Songs of the Ancestors, echoing from star to star.

  Mehcredi’s warm body, sealed the length of his in a narrow bed, that had helped. He’d felt her heart beat next to his, tasted her on his tongue, and felt real. Solid.

  His lips twisted. Very sweet. A distraction that might very well kill him.

  Scrubbing his hands over his face, Walker ducked into the cave to stow the sandmat in a dark corner. As he wove finger bones into his braids with steady fingers, he wondered if he’d be back. Well, if he wasn’t, Mehcredi had the horses and the supplies. The ponies were hobbled in the shade, fed and watered. He’d pointed out all the landmarks during the journey. When he’d drawn scratch maps in the dirt, she’d grasped the concept straightaway. He’d taught her so much already. She’d cope.

  His death would release her from the Mark. That beautiful breast would return to its unmarred perfection. He wished he could look upon it one last time.

  But even standing over her sleeping form, he didn’t waver. She was curled up like a child, a hand beneath her cheek, her lips soft and slightly parted. A bright spirit meant for a long and happy life.

  Mehcredi had called him by name, not once, but twice. Welderyn, show me what I’ve been missing. She even got the inflection right.

  When Scrounge raised a shaggy head, Walker bent to rub him behind the ears, but he didn’t trust himself to touch the assassin. Welderyn’d’haraleen’t’Lenquisquilirian wasn’t going to fail her too. Slowly, he backed away, then turned to negotiate the rocky scree. He passed into the well of shadow at the base of the wadi, no more than a presence on the wind, silent and deadly as a lone direwolf on the hunt.

  25

  “Gone?” said Walker with deadly calm. “What do you mean, gone?” He settled on the fusty bed next to the man’s hip, his guts churning. He felt as if he’d run full tilt into a brick wall.

  The man fumbled the bedclothes up to his chin and hung on with a white-knuckled grip. What, did he think Walker intended to rape him?

  “Left d-day b-before yesterday. T-took almost everyb-body.” When he realized what he’d revealed, his face went a nasty shade of gray green.

  “Shit! Here, you fool.” Walker snatched up the brandywine bottle from the floor and thrust it into the other man’s palsied hands. “What’s your position here?”

  Judging by the way the man tilted it, there were only dregs left, but his face regained a little color after he’d swallowed. “S-steward.” His gaze flickered over the finger bones in Walker’s hair and he made the sign of the Three. “W-what do you want?”

  Walker’s lips pulled back from his teeth and the man blanched. “Nerajyb Nyzarl.”

  “He’s Nerajyb Nyzarl Necros now,” said the steward with an odd sort of dignity. “It t-took my lord a little while to settle on the third name but I sent the p-papers by courier the same day he left.”

  “Did you indeed?” murmured Walker, all silky menace. He leaned forward, ignoring the man’s sour breath. “Where has he gone?”

  The steward made a noise like a whipped dog. “I can’t t-tell you that. He—He swore he’d g-give me to the d-demon. I can’t fuck up, not again.” He reached out to clutch at the swordmaster’s sleeve, but Walker swayed back, out of the way.

  He gave a thin smile. “That’s only a probability. What is certain, however, is that you will die”—a blade glinted in his hand—“here and now, if you don’t tell me what I want to know.” Placing the point under the man’s chin, he leaned forward, the finger bones clattering softly. “Slice by slice, piece by piece.”

  The steward moaned and his eyes rolled back in his head.

  “He’s gone to find them,” said a husky contralto. “The djinns, I mean.”

  Mehcredi perched on the windowsill, one long leg thrust into the room. Scrounge wriggled under her arm, whining.

  Could this get any better? Walker stalked toward her, knowing there was murder in his eyes and not caring. “What the hell are you doing here?” He’d heard the quiet movements outside, but put it down to the other servants, waking. Godsdammit, she’d made him soft.

  “Following you,” she said placidly, and released the dog. To the steward, she said, “Did all the guards go with him?”

  “N-no.” He pulled in a small rattled breath. “Habrik stayed behind, but he’s got a b-bad leg. He got kicked by—”

  With a growl, Walker ripped the covers out of the man’s grip, exposing a long body clad in a grubby nightshirt. The steward clamped his bony knees together.

  “Just a minute,” said Mehcredi, crossing the room to peer through a doorway on the far side. “That’s your office, isn’t it?”

  The steward swallowed, a prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny throat.

  She gazed at him thoughtfully. “You’re frightened out of your wits,” she said on a note of discovery. “We’ll tie you up,” she offered. “Knock you out. That would help, wouldn’t it?”

  Walker bit the inside of his cheek, his usual mental balance decidedly off-kilter. If he laughed now, he’d never stop. “Turn your head away,” he growled at the trembling steward. “If you piss yourself, I’ll leave you to lie in it, I swear.”

  His fist caught the man behind the ear and he slumped to the mattress with a choking grunt. Walker picked him up by the front of his nightshirt and punched him three times in rapid succession, face, kidneys, gut.

  “Stop!” Strong slender fingers dug into his forearm. The dog gave a single sharp yip. “Walker, are you out of your mind?”

  “No.” Walker rubbed his bruised knuckles. Even under the blengo juice, she was pale. Stepping closer, he jabbed his fingers none too gently into her neck.

  “Ow!” She clapped her hand to the spot, scowling.

  “I could have done it that way, but he’ll need the bruises to show the others.” He glared, feeling distinctly ill-used. Gripping the sheet, he gave it a vicious jerk. The fabric was so threadbare it ripped easily, the raw tearing sound startling in the early-morning hush.

  “Godsdammit, Mehcredi, why didn’t you stay where I left you?” He tossed the first strip to her and tore off another.

  She busied herself wrapping the makeshift tie around the steward’s ankles. “You’re joking.”

  Walker secured the man’s wrists, then hog-tied them to his feet. “I never joke.”

  Mehcredi frowned at him as they dragged the limp body off the bed and dumped it on the floor. “I thought you were supposed to understand women.”

  With a certain wicked satisfaction, Walker scooped up a dirty sock from under the bed and jammed it into the steward’s slack mouth. “The man isn’t born who does that.”

  Mehcredi’s lips twitched, but she said nothing.

  The steward’s office was tidier than his sleeping quarters, but only barely. A few minutes searching through the haphazard piles of paper on the rickety desk rev
ealed a sheaf of to-do lists written in a small crabbed hand. Walker rifled through them. “The steward’s right. Nyzarl took almost the entire household. Bastard likes to travel in comfort.”

  Mehcredi lifted a glowing face. “Look.” She brandished a roll of parchment. “I found a map.”

  “Don’t need it,” said Walker frowning down at the list in his hand. Gods, the diabloman had even taken his fancy cook, plus his strongbox. “That many people will leave a trail a blind man could follow.”

  Her face fell.

  “On the other hand . . .” He sighed. “Give it here.”

  After a few minutes’ study, he pointed to an area circled in pencil. “This looks like the approximate area where the djinns have been worst. You could be right.”

  “What do you think he wants with them?”

  “Nothing good,” said Walker grimly. “Let’s go.” Scrounge trotting happily behind, they negotiated the maze of buildings, emerging from the shadows into the blazing sunlight where the rear of the estate butted up against gray rocky hills. The only person about was an elderly man who shuffled toward an outdoor privy, scratching his privates and muttering to himself.

  Mehcredi kept up easily enough, though she was noisy on the scree slopes, pebbles clattering from beneath her feet. Even behind the tinted spectacles, she squinted in the light that bounced off the rocks, baking and relentless.

  “Where’s your hat?” Walker said irritably.

  She rolled her shoulders, blotted her face with her sleeve. “In the cave. It annoys me.”

  Pausing in the shade of a narrow wadi, she turned to face him, her hands on her hips. “You didn’t even say good-bye.”

  Walker shouldered past her. “Wasn’t much point.”

  After a short tingling silence, she scrambled after him. “Why? Were you going to come back?”

  “I don’t know.” He whirled around so abruptly, she slammed into his chest. “What do you take me for, Mehcredi?”

  Pushing the glasses down, she peered over the top of them. “I don’t know,” she said seriously. “I’ve told you that.”