A Warlord's Lady

by Nicola E. Sheridan

  ***

  It was her seventh night without hearing from Cain, and Sabra had woken to a long pained whistle in the apartment.

  The air around her was cold and she shivered, peering through the dark. ‘Hexa, Peony?’ she said softly. She fumbled in the darkness, and surprised the lamp was turned off, she switched it on again.

  As the light illuminated the room, she saw clearly in the gloom the rising figure of a Shadow Man.

  Sabra felt her bladder nearly spill.

  ‘Get away!’ she cried, cringing back into her blankets and lifting them over her head.

  How did he get here? Could he touch her through the fabric? She didn’t know.

  ‘Grey-eyed one, hush and rest.’

  The voice was as ethereal and incorporeal as the Shadow Man himself.

  ‘Get away!’ she squeaked, not daring to even peep over the covers.

  ‘No, your thriae have given me as much as they can. It is you, grey-eyed one, you that I need.’

  The pounding of Sabra’s heart sped up. What did he mean? Had he been feeding off the thriae?

  ‘Sabra.’ It was Hexa; her whistling voice came from close to the sheet that covered her.

  ‘Hexa,’ Sabra whispered, ‘what is going on?’

  She pulled down the cover and looked around. Her bed was bathed in light from the lamp, and the Shadow Man hovered at its perimeter.

  The tiny bee walked over to her hand. ‘We have tried to keep him from feeding on you, Sabra, by offering our own lives. It has been prophesised that we shall die for you. We did this gladly…’

  ‘You shouldn’t have! Oh my goodness, how long has he been here?’ Sabra gasped, but she knew — the swaying shadows, the sense of being watched.

  He’d come with the flowers.

  ‘I could feel your presence, grey-eyed one,’ the Shadow man said, ‘and so, I ordered the flowers and came in their shadow. You are mine.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Sabra shrank away, looking desperately for something to defend herself with.

  But what? Dawn was hours away and even if she turned on every light, there would still be shadows for him to lurk in.

  Then she remembered the laser light on the key ring.

  ‘You must leave.’ Hexa whistled softly, close to her ear, ‘We are weak. We cannot sustain his growth. He wants you. Get out, and find Cain.’

  The shadow was spreading, melting from its human shape and oozing into black mist.

  She was going to die, unless she could think of a plan.

  The shadow was inching closer and she threw a terrified stare at the small thriae huddled by the lamp. She wouldn’t leave them here to die, so scooped the tiny thriae into her palm. She was wearing a nightdress, a cotton slip thing, which she didn’t have time to remove to camouflage using chromatophores. If she could quickly get her SABRA ability working, she could get to the laser light. But would the Shadow Man still be able to see the thriae hiding in her hand? She didn’t know, but didn’t have time to wonder.

  She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the clawing fingers of shadow that seemed to be making their way to her bed. She knew there was no one else who could save her.

  I can do this! She took another deep breath and concentrated on her breathing, not allowing fear and anxiety to shatter her concentration.

  She had never been good at meditation, but within a second Sabra was concentrating so hard she felt her eyeballs might explode. Eventually, finally, she felt it. It started in her left foot and crept up her body. It was a nearly unidentifiable sensation and she froze, allowing her breath to be her only movement.

  She opened her eyes and stared about the room. The fingers of darkness were licking the shadowed corner of her bed.

  ‘Where are you?’ the shadow whispered, then hissed with frustration.

  It was then Sabra knew he couldn’t sense her, nor the thriae. Silently she slid from the bed, her toes touched the ground with a soft pad, and she paused. The Shadow Man was re-forming in the darkness beside the bed. It was crumpled, messy; she’d not bothered to make it all week.

  The Shadow hissed again, and in semi-human form he loomed over the bed and raked a dark, misty hand over where she’d just lain.

  Sabra flinched and sunk low to the ground; it was an unnecessary gesture, as she realised she had affected his mind, not his sight. Still she sunk to knees and crawled down the side of the bed, hugging the lamplight towards the kitchen. But as she did, her foot brushed past something underneath the bed. Her heart leapt and she struggled to continue to use her ability while very nearly losing her bowels. She turned slowly to see what strange smooth coolness had touched her foot. She brushed away fallen bedclothes and saw an intricately decorated sheet of paper sliding under the affected foot.

  She hesitated. She could hear the Shadow Man hissing, and the shadows all around seemed to move and sway until she could no longer tell which was true shadow, and which was not. She needed that laser light.

  Ignoring all else, Sabra skirted along the wall until she reached the apartment keys, which had been ignored on the kitchen bench. She grasped them quickly.

  She had never paid much attention to magical beings lessons at school — and she bitterly regretted it at this moment. As her fingers closed around the laser light her neck prickled with unease. Exactly how did one kill a Shadow Man with a laser light? She knew it was possible, but was it a strike to the heart, or severance of the head?

  Careful not to crush the thriae in her hands, she released the weakened creatures on the kitchen bench and they staggered away.

  ‘Ah, my delicious little honey bees. You have made a mistake, little grey-eyes,’ the Shadow whispered, and she could sense him close behind her. With a gut-squishing certainty she realised that she’d just given her location away. If he could trace her from Perth to Geraldton, and hide in a bunch of flowers, what kind of fool was she to think that he couldn’t find her in a small apartment?

  She spun around and met the dark shadowed face — and her ability failed completely.

  ‘No!’ she cried, her hand flying protectively to her stomach — but too late, as the Shadow’s hand had reached forward and sunk onto her belly.

  The weakness brought by a Shadow’s touch floored her, and she knew then he was sucking her life from her very skin and that of the tiny clump of cells she suspected grew in her belly.

  ‘No,’ she cried again and her hand tightened on the laser, but sweaty and stressed as she was, the keys and light slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor with a clatter.

  The thriae screamed, and flew at the Shadow.

  It took but an instant before Sabra realised what they were doing.

  ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Not for me! Your prophecy is damned!’

  Without a second thought, Sabra fought the hideous weakness and flung out a hand, which sent the two small bees careering from their path and across the room. They crashed into the blinds and fell to the floor with an angry buzz.

  Sabra sunk down, feebly, into the Shadow’s embrace.

  ‘Get off.’ She groaned, weakly struggling against the hideous leaching the Shadow gave off.

  ‘You’re mine,’ he hissed, and she opened her eyes. His features sharpened as her life seeped through the shadows and filled his form.

  She tumbled now, hazily aware that the thriae were whistling hysterically somewhere in the distance. As she crashed to the floor, her head banged into the fallen keys. The pain was abrupt and sharp but brought her, if only briefly, to her senses.

  Her arms felt like lead, but she reached up and gripped the keys with her sweaty hands.

  ‘Relax,’ the Shadow crooned, his skin beginning to glisten with smooth grey flesh. ‘You can sleep soon.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ Sabra moaned, ‘I will not.’ The small action seemed as difficult as running in lead boots, but somehow Sabra’s fingers found the small switch and pressed down.

  A red beam split the looming darkness.

  The shadow reared
back instantly, hissing and recoiling from the fierceness of the light beam.

  Through her dull, foggy mind, Sabra had the sense to raise the laser light and point it at the half-corporeal figure.

  ‘No,’ he shrieked, shrinking back, yet as he was only half corporeal, he seemed unable to slink completely back into shadow.

  Sabra could feel her skin roar with colour and she struggled to find the strength to direct the piercing light at the figure now cowering in whatever shadows he could.

  ‘You tried to kill me,’ she heard herself saying, though the voice sounded nothing like her own. ‘How dare you?’

  The impotent frustration and uselessness that had dogged her for so very long erupted into a hot burning anger.

  ‘God damn it, I’m not a damsel in distress, waiting to be saved. I’m not just a Chameleon.’ With her anger her strength rose. ‘I’m not just a girl who works in payroll and I’m not just a warlord’s plaything. I’m not just your way to find a corporeal body! I am SABRA, and I’ll be buggered if I’m going to be made extinct by a jumped-up shadow like you.’

  Taking a deep breath, steeling her strength, Sabra lowered the laser ray and sliced off the Shadow’s head with one smooth slash of light.

  The grey face exploded with surprised horror, his eyes flashing red under the rim of his broad hat.

  Then the head fell.

  Vomit boiled thickly up her throat as the realisation of what she’d done dawned.

  As the head collided with the carpet, with a surprisingly soft but wet thunk, shadows and thicker, more viscous stuff exploded and smattered out from the headless torso, coating her in copious quantities of grey sludge.

  The Shadow’s body writhed and swirled as it bled, then collapsed to the ground. Sabra’s hand started shaking wildly and her arm fell. She leaned against the wall unable to contain her panicked convulsions.

  She watched, sick and horrified and amazed at herself, as the Shadow Man perished there on the carpet, oozing darkness and her own life’s energy.

  As she lay there, Sabra could dimly hear the thriae whistling as they crawled over the Shadow-ooze stained carpet towards her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, as Hexa crawled over her bare foot and stared up angrily.

  ‘I am well but you should not have done that,’ Hexa whistled shrilly.

  As numb as she was, Sabra felt a burst of irritation that the thriae wasn’t more grateful she’d saved all their lives. She took a deep breath, and steadied her shocked spasms. ‘Hey, I’m a big girl, I think I handled it well, actually. You should be thankful I saved you stingers. But I’ve gotta say, I don’t feel so good. I really need to lie down.’

  Some faintly aware part of her felt something gush from between her legs, cramps wracked her body and her spasms renewed.

  The thriae watched her silently before they buzzed slowly back to the lamp.

  Sabra dragged herself to her feet. Another gush of warmth poured from between her legs. She ignored it, and its meaning.

  She turned and grabbed the telephone, then hobbled over the semi-formed Shadow Man, averting her eyes from the deteriorating decapitated head. Her eyes caught the card under the bed.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked.

  They shrugged their tiny shoulders. ‘We are prophetic, but not all-knowing.’ Hexa sounded angry. ‘We were meant to die for you. Our deaths were seen by the swarm…’

  Sabra stared at them. ‘So you had your own Swarm prophecy?’ she asked softly, ignoring the rich musty stench oozing from the Shadow’s corpse.

  ‘We did, and it…has…not come to pass.’

  Sabra frowned, trying to understand the ramifications of their words. She could not.

  Her brain hurt, and the warm gushing between her legs distracted her with alarming thoughts. She felt she walked the cusp of madness at that moment. The things she had seen, the things she had done…she shuddered again, and tried to ward away a hysterical meltdown. As she moved she tried to distract herself from increasingly frenetic thoughts and bent down to pick up the paper from beneath the bed.

  Her heart sped up again when she realised what she held.

  The copy of Cain’s prophecy. Her eyes absorbed it, and her need for him struck her like a physical blow.

  Cain had believed these words all his life and had been waiting.

  ‘Oh my Lord.’ Her hand trembled.

  Despite her exhaustion and discomforting cramps, questions whirled like a cyclone through her mind.

  Sabra bit her lip and looked down at the paper. It was decorated in familiar Lao style, curling scripts and highly stylised naga’s woven around the border. It was beautifully done and deserved its place within a glorious leather-bound tome, not discarded beneath her dusty, unmade bed.

  As her blurry mind registered the words on the paper a new pain exploded — this time in her heart.

  The prophecy was a beautifully written work filled with elaborate riddles. There was no mention of eggs or even of the woman’s power. Cain was right. This prophecy spoke only of one warlord’s love for his woman.

  Me. How did I not see it?

  She bit her lip and turned the card around, and for the first time saw something written on the back in Cain’s curling script.

  How had she not noticed it before? Her eyes devoured the message.

  The words were lyrical and the emotion and meaning behind them so rich that they shone in her mind like gold. Her heart ached anew as her eyes reached the last line. Sabra, whether this prophecy refers to us or some other warlord in the far distant future — I still believe you are my rainbow, now, always and forever…I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you.

  Believe me, please.

  Cain x

  Tears ran down her face, rapid and hot.

  She wasn’t the woman in this prophecy, she knew that.

  But she was a warlord’s lady.

  Cain’s lady.

  She felt her lip quiver. ‘Oh God, I’m not the one who has been waiting all this time…’ She paused, her body still shaking. ‘He is…’

  Her throat tightened and she dropped the prophecy, her head swirling. As the pains cramped through her she let out a low moan and fumbled for the mobile telephone.

  Chapter 19

  Cain sipped at another whisky, willing it to numb his disappointment.

  Jürgen and Christy had gone. He’d given them funds to re-establish themselves elsewhere, and he had ordered them to go. He expected them to obey.

  Another sentinel tree’s scream echoed though the valley, followed by the clatter of gunfire. Were Christy’s crew still trying to defend the compound? The thought brought a pinch of fury. They’d better not be wasting their time. He could uncloak the compound, hand himself over and it would be done.

  Then what? Who would protect those who need protection?

  He shook his head and rubbed his temples — how had it all gone so wrong?

  In the past week Cain had spent countless hours ensuring safe haven for a variety of beings and those too weak to defend themselves. Who would see to their upkeep? Who would keep the governments off their tails?

  The Magical Mafia? No. They cared for money, not life.

  No one would help them.

  But how can I do it alone?

  Interrupting this thought came the ringing of his mobile telephone. He hesitated — there was only one person it could be. He gnawed at his lip thoughtfully before reaching over to answer it.

  ‘Hello?’ he said, knowing instinctively it was her.

  There was a heavy silence on the end of the line, and he could hear the whistling of thriae in the background.

  ‘Cain…’ Sabra’s voice whispered down the line.

  He closed his eyes and relished the soft timbre of her voice.

  ‘I…’

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked gently.

  ‘No…’ she moaned. ‘Shadow’s dead, sorry.’

  A spike of panic hit Cain and fear chased the alcohol haze fr
om his brain. ‘Are you hurt? Are there shadows with you now?’

  ‘Just come,’ she moaned again. ‘Please.’

  ‘Okay,’ Cain said gently. After all, there was nothing left to protect here.

  ***

  In a storm of shimmering magic, Cain arrived in the Geraldton apartment. He was tired and defeated, but it didn’t matter. As he left, he had lifted the cloaking spell on the compound and expected that the militia would be tearing it apart within the hour.

  ‘Sabra?’ he called. The room was dark, only a bedside lamp offering any warmth. His eyes surveyed the scene with mounting alarm. Grey gore and the decapitated body of a semi-corporeal Shadow Man lay collapsed on the floor. The smell was musty and pungent. He looked around wildly.

  ‘Sabra?’

  ‘Here.’ Her voice was weak and breathy. He walked further into the room and saw her lying on the bed.

  In the faint light of the lamp her face was pale, her chromatophores faded of colour.

  ‘What happened to you?’ he asked, and walked towards her, his boots squishing on the floor.

  His heart squeezed in his chest as she turned to look at him. Her grey eyes were solemn, and a wry smile sat ill on her face. She reached over and caught his hand in hers.

  He frowned and glanced down at their hands. His were tanned and dark, and they wrapped tightly around her whitish one — and then he saw it.

  The ring. Glittering innocuously in the pallid light, his ring sat perfectly on the finger of her left hand. He felt his face crumple in a frown.

  ‘What? Why now?’ Confusion clamoured in his head, but he watched her carefully for her response.

  Sabra licked her lips, and squeezed his hand a little tighter. ‘I read your note, just now…’ She spoke so softly that he had to dip his head to hear her better. ‘I didn’t see it until…until…after…’ She groaned.

  ‘Until after you killed the Shadow Man?’ he asked tenderly, unable to keep a note of pride from his voice.