The Lone Warrior (17 page)

Once established, he’d drifted farther south, hauling Dotty along with him, a piece of baggage that muttered and mumbled and rocked back and forth. Thank the Dark Lord, the average Trinitarian paid zero attention to a female unless he needed to be fed or fucked. Gradually, the conviction stole over him that he was moving south for a reason. He began to dream, the same vision repeated over and over—a formless presence, nothing he could discern; many voices screaming in concert; strange high-pitched whining noises, and best of all, the sparkle and pop of souls winking out. He’d wake trembling, covered in sweat, a hand shoved under the waistband of his trews, hungering.

He obtained maps, puzzled over them. What called to him had to be infinitely far away, deep in the southern desert. When he passed his fingertips over the area on the creased parchment, they tingled.

“The south, my lord?” he asked carefully.

Nyzarl removed his head cloth and ran his fingers through a head of shiny black curls. No gray, the Necromancer noted. The diabloman was propped up on a lavish daybed, supported by embroidered pillows.

“Used to be Shar country,” he said. “Wiped ’em out myself, the savages. Years ago.”

“The Grand Pasha, blessed be his name, is wise in his recognition of service.”

“As am I.” Nyzarl turned his head to watch the girl return. With her, carrying the tray, was a pretty young man wearing a loincloth. The youth knelt by his master, while the girl crouched to wipe up the spill. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and dripped down her neck, but she didn’t raise a hand to it.

“Every slave’s a spy,” Nyzarl rumbled. The smooth circular motion of the girl’s cloth on the floor paused for an instant, then resumed. “I do not tolerate spies.”

“My discretion is absolute, Pasha,” said the Necromancer. “I can assure you of that.”

“Hmpf.” Another narrow glance. “Let’s make sure, shall we?” Another click of the fingers. “Girl.”

The slave’s olive skin went a pasty green gray, but she rose and crossed the room dutifully enough. The young man moved hastily aside, the slave tattoo showing dark and vivid on his cheek. Idly, the Necromancer wondered where the girl wore hers. Somewhere inconspicuous, no doubt. Grabbing a fistful of hair, Nyzarl tugged her down to land hard on her knees by his side. Uttering a string of guttural syllables, he sketched a shape in the air with his free hand, spreading his fingers wide, then closing them slowly.

The Necromancer peered, fascinated. Acrid green fog flowed swiftly into the room, through what he could only call an aperture. He wrinkled his nose at the stench.
Faugh
.

The girl moaned, low and soft. Despairing. “Master, no, please—”

“Shut your mouth and I may yet find a use for you.”

The misty green substance coalesced into a tall, narrow shape. As it drew together, the Necromancer was able to discern a long narrow lipless face, attenuated limbs and black-tipped talons. The creature was completely naked, its hide a muddy brown, hard and warty. It had four arms, segmented with what looked like more than the usual number of elbows, each bearing a wicked spur. Its legs were spindleshanked and knock-kneed and a thin spiked tail lashed behind it. No more than usual size, a limp phallus swung between its legs, but the organ was barbed, the wicked spines presently lying snug against its length.

Interestingly enough, the demon’s huge round black eyes were fixed not on the slave, but on the master. They literally glowed with hatred.

It took a lurching step forward, out of the mist, then halted as if it had run into a wall. Nyzarl was speaking again, a harsh rapid tumble of noise, so hard-edged and angular it sounded painful, as if he had a mouthful of thorns. The only syllables the Necromancer could distinguish from the guttural mumble sounded something like Xotclic.

Indifferent to the creature’s furious attention, the diabloman paused and drew a steadying breath. “Demon, I conjure you to my will by right of your True Name,” he said formally.

The thin-lipped mouth opened. “Sss?” Though technically, the Necromancer thought, watching carefully, the demon had no lips, only a set of opposing horny plates.

“I have a treat for you.” The slave girl had sagged, her knees gone from under her, her body weight hanging from the diabloman’s grip on her braid. “No real damage, but you may add your own sauce.”

“Sss.”

Gods, the thing was so ugly, it was beautiful. He wanted it more than breath.

Xotclic paused in its progress toward the girl and shot the Necromancer a penetrating glance over one bony shoulder. Immediately, he dropped his gaze.
I’m a scribe, nothing more than a terrified scribe. See? I’m shaking, going to piss my trews.

When Nyzarl released the girl’s hair, the demon seized it in one clawed hand. Then it pressed its sunken chest against the girl’s back and nuzzled its horny mouth into her neck. A thin forked tongue flickered out and licked up the blood from beneath the girl’s ear.

With a noise like a stricken puppy, she froze.

The demon moved around to face her, and as it did so, it began to change, slowly at first and then more rapidly. The emaciated body morphed into a strong broad frame, the horrible narrow head became a mature handsome face with a pugnacious jaw.

The girl’s eyes widened until the whites showed all around. Clearly, she knew this person. “No,” she whispered. “Gods, no.” Even with the demon flickering in and out behind the simulacrum, there was a clear resemblance between them. Her father, perhaps?

This must be the sauce. There was a straightforward, uncomplicated cruelty to it he had to admire. Most ingenious.

When the forked tongue flickered out of her father’s mouth to scoop up the blood on her chin, the girl’s eyes rolled up. Urine pattered down her legs to drip on the floor. Undeterred, the demon licked until every trace of blood was gone.

Over their heads, Nyzarl pinned the scribe with a hard stare. “There are things worse than death.”

“Oh yes, my lord, I know,” said the Necromancer, with perfect truth. “It would be my honor to work for you.” With some difficulty, he prostrated himself on the floor and banged his forehead three times on the tiles.

Walker noticed the slip of paper straightaway, a pale square lying on the floor, a foot inside the door. He contemplated it for a moment, then squatted to pick it up. Balanced comfortably on his heels in the way of his people, he unfolded it with steady fingers.

Nyzarl’s name leaped off the page, one word in a block of script, below which sat the modest sigil of Caracole’s spymaster, known as the Left Hand of the Queen. The Left Hand answered only to the reigning monarch, the office so secret that no one knew who he was—not even Uyeda, who was Queen Sikara’s Right Hand and her chief executive officer. The arrangement took the concept of separation of powers to a unique level, but it worked with perfect, ruthless efficiency.

Walker had received notes like this before, written in the anonymous, well-formed hand of a clerk. To be precise—he’d had missives concerning diablomen six, nine, eleven and thirteen. Times, dates, places, names—the information was a gift he’d taken and used with relish. His lips drew back from his teeth in a hunter’s grin.

He returned to the paper. So Nerajyb Nyzarl was about to leave the shelter of the tripartite palace? Thanks be to the Ancestors. He read on. Even better, the bastard would be vulnerable, traveling south to take up a new estate near—

The note crinkled softly as Walker crushed it in his fist. Cold sweat sprang up on his brow, the back of his neck. ’Cestors’ bones, he hadn’t been back there in years, not since he’d sung the Song of Death for Amae. His throat went dry, as raw as if the last anguished note had just left his lips.

He
couldn’t
.

But he would. As he tripped the mechanism to the secret drawer in his dresser, a low menacing noise filled the air, a kind of rumbling purr. When he straightened, a long box of polished cedderwood in his hands, he caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. His eyes were wild and his teeth gleamed very white.

Gods, he not only sounded like a direwolf, he resembled one too.

Not displeased, Walker lifted the lid and stared down at his trophies. The bleached finger bones shone a shocking white—fourteen digits, fourteen diablomen. His lip curled in a hard sneer. Barbaric no doubt, but then Commander-Pasha Ghuis Gremani Giral had decreed the Shar to be no more than animals, vermin to be exterminated.

Plans clicking in an orderly procession through his brain, he began selecting items and shoving them in a battered pack. He wouldn’t need to be gone long—two, perhaps three, weeks. Dai was very nearly back to full strength. Between them, he and Pounder could run the House of Swords without much trouble. They’d done it often enough before. He’d ask Rose if he could borrow her gardener. The elderly woman was no artist, but she was conscientious and thorough. No problem.

His long fingers stilled on the Trinitarian head cloth he was folding.

Mehcredi the assassin.

Well, shit.

Walker tossed the head cloth onto the bed and crossed the room to stare out the window at the beauty of his garden, but there was little comfort to be found there.

His responsibility, in every possible way. The Mark tied Mehcredi to the House of Swords—and to him, though she didn’t know that.

She was brash and ignorant and on the way to becoming the most gifted swordswoman he’d ever known. The potential of her shone so bright it dazzled. It was there in the happy silver of her gaze, in her strength and beauty on the practice floor, even in the devotion of that godsbedamned dog. The physical changes were indescribable. Mehcredi didn’t hunch into herself anymore. She stood tall and strong and proud, every muscle smoothly delineated, her hair a long shining fall like a river of ice speaking to the sun.

Walker growled under his breath.

The other week, he’d walked in on Dai teaching the assassin and the slum boy how to cheat at cards. They’d been laughing—
laughing
! Yesterday, he’d discovered the man showing her his favorite defensive move, quarterstaff a blur of motion as he demonstrated under her admiring gaze.

Mehcredi might have endeared herself to Dai, but Walker wasn’t such an easy touch. The assassin’s penance wasn’t over yet. By the Ancestors, a lifetime under his control wouldn’t be enough.

He cursed aloud, his voice bouncing off the walls in the quiet room.

Fuck it all to the icy hells, why hadn’t he seen it before? He
couldn’t
let her go, even if he wished to. Freedom would be her death warrant. Vividly, he recalled Deiter’s face, the wizard’s callous greed. Remove the Mark, and even with Dai’s protection, by the time he got back, the old wizard would have her. The hair rose on the nape of his neck. There wouldn’t be enough sense left in her skull to fill a teaspoon.

Walker’s chest went tight with something that felt like anger but might have been regret. He pinched the bridge of his nose, seething. Godsdammit, he’d spent all the years of his adult life avoiding entanglements, and now look what he’d done. Vaguely, he wondered if the Ancestors were amused. Too dangerous to leave her, too risky to take her. A woman who looked like Mehcredi, who
acted
like Mehcredi, in Trinitaria? He suppressed a shudder.

But he’d be there, wouldn’t he? Him, not Deiter. He’d cow her into obedience, frighten her so thoroughly she wouldn’t dare set a foot out of line. He’d keep her safe. Because the assassin—and her penance—belonged to him.

Shit, shit,
shit
!