The Last Warrior

by Susan Grant

  Sweetheart. The affection in his tone melted her.

  He took a few long strands between his fingers, sliding them down to the ends. Her body reacted instantly, awash in tingles. A thought intruded. Tao was a man accustomed to dancers and camp followers meeting his sexual whims. Was this gentle caress what it seemed? Or was he only inspecting the merchandise before choosing a bed partner, as he must have done many times before? She didn’t know.

  She wasn’t supposed to care. Not at this critical point in her plans. She merely wanted to take a few steps down that road Marina had warned her about. A road of my own choosing.

  “Perhaps, if I teach you to read, you can teach me how to kiss.” Somehow, she’d managed an amazingly light, casual tone.

  “Kissing lessons in exchange for reading lessons? Hmm. You are a master trader.” He cradled her face in his hands, oh-so-lightly, oh-so-completely, as if he couldn’t choose between studying her upturned face and hauling her close for another kiss. “I confess I’ve been curious for far too long about what you feel like. And to see if you taste as good as I suspect.”

  “Do I?” she whispered.

  “Let me confirm.” His thumb stroked her cheekbone, warm and callused. Then, playful, tender, he bent down and lazily tasted his way from one corner of her mouth to the other, the chaste kiss leaving her aching for more. More what? More everything. An entire gamut of intimate adventures she’d too long delayed experiencing.

  “Yes…quite good,” he said as he kissed his way along.

  “Better than sumsala?” she mumbled against his mouth.

  “No comparison. Hotter. But without the sting.”

  As she started to laugh, he buried his fingers in her hair, and her mouth opened farther under the gentle pressure of his lips, his tongue searching out hers. A shudder coursed through his body as he pressed her close, one big hand cupping the back of her head. The sensation of his caresses coupled with the stroking of his tongue made her so dizzy and breathless it was all she could do to hold on, his hard muscles shifting under the fabric of his shirt.

  Finally, he broke off the kiss, pausing to soothe her tingling lips with gentle, tasting nibbles. “Lesson one,” he said, moving his lips to her cheek, letting her feel the scrape of his beard.

  Her pulse throbbed in every part of her body. “I have a lot to learn,” she whispered.

  He touched his lips to hers. “I have a lot to teach.”

  I imagine you do. She blushed all over again, drawing her hands back into her lap as she sat up. “Now it’s your turn.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ELSABETH DIDN’T WANT to end the kissing, but she’d made a promise. Ben’s Lost Dog. She lifted the cover of the old brown book, a children’s school primer.

  “The marks are enormous.”

  “The letters,” she corrected.

  “Yes. Letters. And the story…” He flipped through the pages. “It seems to be of a dog. And children.”

  Patiently, Elsabeth explained, “The simpler the words, the easier it will be to learn.”

  “Easy. Bah. I have never sought out the easy path. I won’t start now.”

  “When you first learned to fight, was it with a full-size sword?”

  “Uhrth, no. A full sword would have weighed more than we boys did.”

  Days ago when he was first healing, he’d told her of how he was taken from home at twelve to train, his childhood over. Yet, he’d gone into Uhr training gladly, even excitedly, off to live the adventures she’d experienced only in her imagination. “You can’t begin literacy training with a full-size textbook, either.”

  “But a lost dog?” he complained.

  “We’ll move on to something better. I promise.”

  “The same can be said about our kissing,” he said, making her shiver inside. He relented with a quiet laugh and tapped the page with two fingers. “All right, Kurel girl. I stand ready to learn.”

  The next hour proved trying for Tao. But he was intelligent and determined to get it right, although sooner than was likely feasible. “It’s impossible to master reading in a day,” she said.

  He pushed off the couch, stalking to the window, moving aside the curtains to peer into the street as he so often did, as if never fully relaxed. As if always half expecting an enemy attack. “I’m used to doing most things well, Elsabeth. Not that I plan on giving up yet.” He flicked her a glance. “Or ever.”

  “There will come a moment when the symbols will become words, and indistinguishable from the thoughts in your head. I promise you, you’ll be able to read without thinking about it. Then you’ll see, Tao. You’ll see what you’ve been missing.”

  He released the curtain. “Like when you kissed me and saw what you were missing.” His grin was smug, rakish.

  She almost protested, but he was right. The plan had been to introduce Tao to her world, not the other way around, but she was learning about his life. About him. She’d tasted what she’d never imagined.

  And wanted more.

  “There’s plenty of adventure to be had in books, too. Growing up, I’d lose myself in books and pretend the adventures in them were mine.” She waved a hand around the little house. “I guess I always believed there was more than this, these four walls, this life.”

  “There is more,” he said.

  “Because you’ve seen it. You’ve been there. Outside.”

  “There’s no reason you can’t go, too. Now that we’re at peace.”

  Her blood surged with longing. “Just once, I want to know what Tassagonia looks like from the outside.” She sighed. “As a girl, I’d climb up the tallest windmill to look out beyond the walls, and dream.”

  “So you ventured into the palace, and got yourself a far better view from the palace hill.”

  “I stopped looking. My parents’ murders turned my dreams back inside these walls—the ghetto walls—to Xim and what he’d done, and how I’d stop the violence by stopping him.”

  “Those aren’t dreams. That’s a vow of retribution. You’ll grow hard without dreams.” The lines in his face that hinted at the harshness of his years in the Hinterlands, slaying Gorr, were back. Yet, the memory of his achingly tender kisses remained.

  “Why are you not hardened by what you experienced? The slaughter. The Gorr. How did you manage to remain so…human?” When others like Uhr-Beck were anything but.

  His expression mellowed, yet there was determination there, too. “I’ve got dreams of my own.”

  What did this warrior dream of? She was dying to know. Not love, she already knew that. A life with a cooperative wife, she supposed. A wife from his class, his people.

  A woman not at all like her.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Chun summoned Tao to the clinic. Tao sat on the examining table in his undershorts. “How do I look, healer?”

  “Good. Very good. The sutures are ready to come out. You’ll feel sore afterward.”

  “Pash,” Tao scoffed, using the word he often heard the Kurel say when they dismissed something. “I’ve been so immersed in learning Kurel ways, I’ve all but forgotten about these bites.”

  The physician’s careful extraction didn’t require Tao’s attention. He sought out Elsabeth’s gaze and winked, just to see her squirm. He remembered her taking charge and kissing him first, something he’d never expected she’d do. Pleasure had battled with bashfulness in those big blue eyes, and surprise.

  She turned slightly away from him, feigning great interest in the physician’s work. Did she think she’d escape before he left her hungry for more? She might think she seemed all business when teaching him her ways, but he knew he could get under her skin and fluster her. He liked it.

  Hell, she’d gotten under his skin, too. He couldn’t stop thinking about the kissing lessons, couldn’t stop imagining every other possible place his mouth could explore on that sweet little body of hers. He’d burn all night, no doubt, thinking of it, cursing the fact she was asleep upstairs, and he was all alone in his bed.
>
  He’d been living with her less than two weeks, but every day she revealed a little more of who she really was—a woman of honor and conviction with a sensitive spirit and a strong, brave heart. It was clear she hadn’t wanted the job of introducing him to the ways of the Kurel, but even she couldn’t deny that they were both starting to enjoy each other’s company. Yes, very much so. But with Aza’s life and Tassagonia’s future hanging so precariously in the balance, he couldn’t afford to stay away from the palace for long.

  Tink. Tink. Tink. The sound of little bits of metal clanged into a bowl, one by one, until all the so-called sutures were out. Tao dragged a hand over the fresh scars, examining the new additions to the physical evidence of his violent history. They were impressively flat with practically no puckering, unlike many of the others on his body. “Well done, healer.”

  “All in a day’s work, general.”

  “Such techniques would be helpful to my people. To keep them to yourselves doesn’t seem right.”

  Chun glanced up at him in surprise. “We Kurel have never denied medical treatment to a Tassagon.”

  “Then why haven’t we seen such treatment in the capital? I know what the laws of Forbiddance say, but these sutures aren’t sorcery. They’re little more than metal fasteners. The technique might have saved my men from disfiguring scars, especially the kind that prevent the proper use of a limb. My men could have returned to the front to fight again. Especially with your potion—penicillin. We Tassagons have been too quick to shun the possible uses of your medical techniques. It can be used—sparingly—and for the greater good. Such as allowing soldiers to live and fight longer.”

  An idea that made Elsabeth cringe, as he should have known it would. “It’s wrong to use technology for the purposes of war,” she said. “Sinful.”

  “Is it? If it curtails war, or prevents it altogether? Is its use sinful then? If technology is the glove as you said, doesn’t it matter what the intent is of the hand inside? Of course it does. Like my crutches, for instance. I had the choice to use them to walk again. Or, I could have used them to smash every cup of tea you brought to me.”

  Elsabeth didn’t sigh or shake her head or give him one of those patronizing looks that meant he knew not of what he spoke. She merely bit her full lower lip a little, worrying it as she considered what he said, which told him she was less sure than before that all military use of technology was wrong. “Chun,” she said. “He needs to see.”

  A glance passed between the physician and Elsabeth, then Chun measured Tao with a thoughtful stare, finally nodding. “All right.”

  Tao frowned at this apparent new conspiracy. What was going on between the two, and how was he involved?

  Then Elsabeth turned to him. “Today Chun treats his outpatients. I want you to come with us.”

  THEY BOARDED A CART hitched to a sturdy old workhorse with blinders on. Tao thought of Chiron, and hoped his warhorse was being cared for, growing fat in a palace barn. Then he thought of Aza in the palace, and her proximity to Xim and Uhr-Beck, and his mood turned foul.

  There is nothing you can do about that today, or even likely the next. Tao willed himself to focus on the present, on learning to live amongst the Kurel, where their sanctuary would keep him alive until he could take back his reputation—and wrest control of his army back from Xim’s henchmen.

  Tao tugged a cap over his face and helped Elsabeth climb up to the driver’s bench. Chun snapped the reins and started out in the direction of the market. Along the way Elsabeth pointed out one neighborhood or another, and the peculiarities of each as they traveled along narrow, twisting streets barely wide enough for a cart, let alone all the people squeezing through the inches of remaining space. He’d never seen her so animated, her cheeks pink in the sunshine. Her dress was green as new grass, and it contrasted vividly with her fiery hair as she happily told him about life in the ghetto. The Kurel were not really conjurers, but this woman had cast her own spell on him, nevertheless. He’d certainly fallen for her charms, unable to stop savoring the sight of her.

  They passed the bustling marketplace, and he hunched a little lower in the seat. “I never told you of my error while trying to find the items necessary to fix your aviary. I stumbled into a shop that was as different from a hardware store as one could get. A place I doubt any man had ever trespassed before.” His tone was wry. “Lacy, frilly things hung everywhere. Female unmentionables.”

  “You went into the lingerie shop? Oh, Tao.”

  Chun was dignified enough to say nothing.

  “I believe so. They had a broom outside the front door. I made an assumption. An incorrect assumption.”

  “I can see why you came home with your tail between your legs.” Her sympathetic tone was belied by an escaped giggle.

  “Hardly. More like burning curiosity.” Did all Kurel women wear such items? Even without looking at her, he knew she’d guessed his question, and it caused her to blush. He smiled. “I have much still to learn regarding Kurel ways.”

  But the question was left hanging. He supposed that further exploration would be necessary to gain his answer.

  Chun navigated toward the orchards and the merchant road, where the buildings of the ghetto petered out. By a big red barn, he parked the cart under the shade of a tree.

  Inside the barn the scent of hay was thick and tickled his nose. A stale scent of manure told him livestock had been kept there, but not for a while. Chun busied himself by setting up a table and some chairs, throwing down a white tablecloth and then arranging medical tools and jars of many sizes on it.

  Elsabeth took Tao up to a clean, fragrant hayloft, where shafts of sunlight pierced the plank roof. She hoisted her skirt high to crunch through the hay, offering glimpses of a white petticoat and bare legs before she threw down the blanket she’d carried rolled under her arm and spread it out. “We’ll have the best view from up here.”

  He settled next to her and pulled a piece of straw from her hair. “The best view, indeed.” He began to consider the best plan of attack that would culminate in kissing her.

  “Here they come,” she whispered, pointing.

  He peered out at the fields and orchards. Dust rose like smoke as several carts bounced along the merchant road toward the barn. Farther out, a covered wagon approached. Behind it, horses, some with single riders, others with two.

  “Tassagons,” he said. “This is what you told me about.”

  She nodded. “Kurel medicine might be illegal, and it is certainly feared, but in secret and when there are no other options, it’s coveted.” She settled onto the blanket. “It looks like Chun will be busy for a long time today.”

  That would aid him in his plans. “Then perhaps you’ll tell me a story.”

  She began to unlace a shoe, distracting him with glimpses of her ankle again. “You can’t get enough of dogs and children, hmm?” She removed her shoe completely, shaking out a straw that must have been annoying her. He’d been entertained by dancers with nothing of their bodies left to his imagination; he’d seen females in every state of undress. But rarely had he ever been as intrigued and tempted than by the sight of that one bare foot and its five little toes.

  Too soon, the shoe was back on. He leaned back on his elbows and said, “You said your mother was birthed in Kurel Town, but the woman couldn’t be saved.”

  Elsabeth laced her shoe. “My Tassagon grandmother came here as many of your people do, desperate for last-chance remedies for dying loved ones—or themselves. Willing to risk anything, even a sorcerer’s curse, or more realistically, arrest for violating the Forbiddance. All for the chance to live. Or in my grandmother’s case, for her baby to live.”

  “Tell me.”

  “My grandmother was in labor and bleeding. Someone dropped her off at the ghetto gates from a cart, but fled before anyone could see who it was, or learn my grandmother’s name. She couldn’t say who she was, or she wouldn’t say. We’ll never know. Her only request was to save the baby. S
he didn’t care what happened to her.” She twirled a piece of hay between her fingers. “The physician lost a patient that day, but he gained a daughter. Years later, my mother’s adopted father mentored a young medical student. It was how my parents met, and fell in love.”

  Tao listened, his back propped against the wall of the barn, his arms propped on his bent knees. “This charity, it’s been going on for generations, then.”

  “Yes. But my father took it a step further. He became the first to offer aid out here in the orchards, and on a set schedule, so the Tassagons could come to rely on the care. This is his legacy, and my mother’s, too. Chun carries it on now.”

  “Beth, your father was an incredibly selfless man. This could have become a lucrative black market, but he gave it all away.”

  “He never once charged a Tassagon for seeking out his care.” Her brows drew together, her expression grew colder. “They repaid him by taking his life.”

  “Not honorable men like my officers, nor I. Not men like Markam, and all those who came to the orchards and never gave away the secret. Xim and Beck, and the ignorant, cowardly men under their command, are to blame. Surely you see that now.”

  For a moment she simply searched his face, silent, thoughtful and with classic Kurel reserve—and he despaired of her ever letting go of her bitterness long enough to differentiate between the good and bad soldiers of the kingdom. Then she reached for him, coming up on her knees, her warm finger tracing the outline of his jaw. “I do see it, Tao. Every time I see you.”

  Without waiting for permission, he drew her into his lap, then slanted his mouth to hers and kissed her. Lesson number two.

  WITH DISTASTE, KING XIM studied the pile of charred bones the priest had presented. “You are certain, then.”

  “Yes. I swear before all the angels of Uhrth that the cracks read true. These are not the general’s bones.”

  Xim slammed a hand flat on the table. The bones bounced. Even after they stilled, in the flickering torchlight they seemed to be dancing. Mocking him. It was all he could do not to sweep them off the table and onto the floor. “What does it mean, then? He’s alive?”