The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  And Amae, the little sister he’d adored.

  The old pain twisted in Walker’s chest and he had to wait a moment to catch his breath. He hadn’t found her body, nor those of two other girls. The Trinitarians had taken them for torture and rape at worst, slavery at best. But he’d taught Amae to fight, and gods, she’d been fearless! She would have fought to the death, he had no doubt of it. Nonetheless, he spent five years in fruitless searching. It took a further three to completely extinguish the stubborn ember of hope.

  He’d trekked alone through the desert then, to Shiloh. At the sacred Spring, he’d sung Amae’s Song, and for a short period, he lost his mind once more to the grief, as fresh as if the blood of the slain still trickled from the wounds, wet and warm and smelling of sweet copper.

  His rage had made him careless. A few weeks later, he’d underestimated both diabloman and demon. Reflexively, he laid a palm over the claw marks on his hip. They weren’t especially deep, but the wounds had taken fifteen months of festering to heal properly. They still ached when he was tired.

  Not now. Walker inhaled the purple ebony scent of his dark roses, letting the ch’qui of the perfume obliterate the remembered stench of dark Magick, demon fog and spilled guts.

  The assassin stared hopefully into his face, almost vibrating with tension. Gods, she was young. So very, very hungry. Passion and yearning shone in her eyes, still overlaid with that sense of wonder she hadn’t managed to lose. The Ancestors didn’t give the gift of intellectual curiosity to everyone. Like you’ve gone away somewhere beautiful, but you’re still here, she’d whispered. It wasn’t such a bad summation.

  Amae’s face had sparkled with an expression very like that, though her eyes and hair had been as dark as his own. Standing side by side, the two women would be a study in obsidian and marble.

  Don’t, whispered the voice of good sense. By the seven million Songs of the Ancestors, don’t do it.

  If anyone needed to learn control, it was Mehcredi the assassin. The discipline of the nea-kata would give her that at least. Whether it brought the gift of peace in its wake was a different matter.

  Walker stepped away from her. “Stand still,” he growled when she would have spoken, and she subsided, grumbling under her breath.

  He took his time, studying the big body from heels to top of shining head. “You think you’re strong enough?”

  Mehcredi drew herself up. “I’m stronger than most men.”

  “I was referring to mental strength, but yes, you’ve lost some of the puppy fat, put on a bit of muscle.” Physically, she had the potential to be the most formidable woman he’d ever trained. “But you’re clumsy.”

  Her head drooped, though he caught the faint curve of a triumphant smile. “I know.”

  “Impulsive.”

  “I try, honestly I do, but I—” A sigh. “Yes.”

  “I won’t tolerate half measures, Mehcredi.”

  She stared at him, frowning.

  “The nea-kata isn’t a fad. It’s not even a martial art, though that’s part of it. It’s a spiritual practice. Be very careful before you decide. Do you understand?”

  “No.” Her face lit up as if a sun had risen inside her. “You’ll do it?” She took a pace forward, putting out a hand. “Oh, Walker, thank—”

  “Now you are being stupid,” he snarled. “You’re going to hate me, more than you do now, if that’s possible.” Which will be an excellent thing. “Dai says you’ve done enough penance as far as he’s concerned. I disagree.” He favored her with a thin smile, brimful of menace, and was gratified to see her breath hitch. “Are you sure, assassin?”

  She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “Tomorrow at dawn, then. Usual place.” He strode away, feeling the prickle of her stare between his shoulder blades. The placid mirror surface of his contemplation pool jogged his memory. He turned. “Assassin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s that shirt of mine?”

  She sank down onto the bench, extending a pale leg to scratch the dog’s belly with her toes. “In the laundry,” she said, and bent down to ruffle the animal’s ears.

  9

  “Here.” Walker thrust a bundle of clothing into her hands. “We’re much of a size. Change.”

  Mehcredi retired behind the screen of a ticklewhisker bush. Goose bumps rose on her skin as she stripped. There was a shirt, and the loose drawstring pants were no problem, though she had to roll the legs up a few times. Wondering if they were his, she buried her nose in a worn sleeve, but all she could smell was soap and sunshine. The third item, a wide strip of heavy linen with reinforced eyelets and sturdy laces, was a real puzzle. As she turned it over in her hands, she called, “What am I supposed to do with this belt thing?”

  A short pause, then Walker’s voice said, “It’s a breastband.”

  Oh, she’d heard of them. Well, that seemed sensible in the circumstances. It took her a couple of tries, but eventually, she wriggled herself into the thing and tied it off firmly. Experimentally, she flexed her shoulders. Oh yes, a breastband was an excellent idea. She slipped the shirt on over her head.

  When she emerged, the swordmaster was gazing at something in the middle distance, as self-contained as ever.

  “Where on earth did you get a breastband?” Mehcredi asked, grinning.

  “Move over there,” he said, waving toward an area of closely clipped grass. “First posture.”

  “Yes, but what about the—?”

  Walker turned to face her, and though his expression didn’t change, she had the sense he’d stiffened. “I don’t respond to impertinent questions,” he said softly. “Much less from a student.”

  Shit, not again. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I will have respect, assassin. Or your lessons finish before they begin.”

  Gods no. Sweet Sister, she was so close! “I’m sorry,” she babbled. “I have a problem.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Problems.”

  “You think?” His long-lidded gaze burned into hers.

  “I need to . . . explain something.” She wet her lips. “But it’s hard.”

  “Go on.”

  She got it out all in one breath. “I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”

  A black brow arched. “No reason you should.”

  Mehcredi tried again. “I’m not . . . normal.”

  The swordmaster continued to stare, unblinking. The silence grew like a living thing.

  “I don’t know how to be with people,” she plowed on. “I don’t get jokes. I ask stupid questions, and then . . . everyone stops talking and looks at me.”

  Walker made a huh sound, deep in his throat.

  “See?” Mehcredi waved her hands in frustration. “What does that mean?” Tears of rage stung her eyes and she averted her face, refusing to let him see. “All I know is that you don’t like me.”

  “What was your first clue?” The deep voice was very dry.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Gods, you tried to kill me!” A high-pitched giggle bubbled in her throat, but she gulped it down. Unconsciously, she pressed her hand to the curve of her breast, compressed behind a firm shield of fabric. “And you Marked me with your Magick. As a punishment.”

  “Do you blame me?”

  She shook her head. “I understand now,” she whispered. “Why you did it.”

  The sleepy twitter of an early-morning bird broke the silence.

  “We’re wasting time,” said Walker.

  In her agitation, Mehcredi took a step forward. “But this is important!”

  “To you perhaps.” He released a long breath. “All right, if it’s plain speaking you want?” Both brows went up this time.

  “If you’re asking me, I . . . guess so.”

  “Very well.” He folded his arms. “You, assassin, have no tact, no manners and, apparently, no finer feelings. Physically, you have potential, and I believe you possess a perfectly adequate brain—not that you appear to use it.”

/>   Mehcredi’s mouth fell open. The blighting words washed right over her—she’d heard them all before, and worse. Tears welled up, trembled on her lashes and spilled over. “Then I’m not a great daft lump?”

  “Who called you that?” he asked sharply. “Your parents?”

  “Don’t have parents. Never did.”

  “Family? Brothers and sisters?”

  “No.”

  He frowned. “Who brought you up then?”

  Mehcredi wiped the tears away with the backs of her hands, relief coursing through her, heady and sweet. She was going to learn the nea-kata, she really was. “I did,” she said absently.

  The swordmaster was looking at her so strangely. “How old were you? At the beginning?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, quite little, I think. I could walk though.”

  “Come here.” Walker drew her over to the grass. “Sit.” He pointed.

  Bemused, but willing, she sank down and he settled cross-legged in front of her. “We’ll start the lessons tomorrow,” he said. “For now, I need to know about my student.” He held up a hand. “Just the highlights.”

  Unlike Dai, the swordmaster asked questions, shrewd and sometimes difficult to answer. She had to think, and think hard. Sunlight grew and swelled, spilling over the trees and bushes, burnishing foliage to a blinding green.

  “This Taso,” he said at last. “Did he catch you?”

  “Oh yes.” Mehcredi grinned. “But I kneed him in the balls and broke his finger.” Amusement fled. “He said he’d be back, with his friends. That was one of the reasons I ran.”

  She risked a glance. Walker’s face was stony, his jaw tight.

  For the first time in her life, Mehcredi found the nerve to ask straight out. “Are you angry?”

  He shot her a fathomless glance. His lips barely moved. “Yes, but not with you.” In a single lithe movement, he rose. “Anything else is none of your business.”

  As he walked away, she studied the tail of his hair, as thick as her wrist and blacker than the night sky. Gods, she loved the way it fell, bisecting the broad expanse of linen shirt, just brushing the taut curve where his ass began.

  If the swordmaster was aware that Mehcredi watched him all the way back to the salle, he gave no indication of it.

  Deep in the Trinitarian Republic, an itinerant scribe set up his shingle in the shade of the north wall of the Grand Pasha’s palace. Beneath a snowy head cloth, he wore spectacles mended with tape and a mildly anxious expression. His throat had the flabby look of one who’d lost weight quickly and recently. Behind him, huddled up against the huge roughly hewn blocks of masonry, sat a figure concealed by all-enveloping black robes. As he put together a shabby traveling desk and laid out parchment, ink block and brushes, the scribe ignored his companion, despite the rocking and muttering. More than one passerby averted his eyes, making the sign of the Trimagistos, the briefest touch to forehead, heart and groin.

  The open square baked in the afternoon sun, mangy dogs dozed and pedestrians sauntered, the light linen of summer robes swishing about their calves. Nothing much happened until a matched set of eight male slaves, oiled and gleaming, rounded a corner and trotted toward the tall gates. Knees lifting smartly, all in step, they bore on their muscular shoulders an ornate sedan chair. As it drew level with the scribe, the gauzy curtains parted and a large hand emerged holding a knobby cane. A barked command, a vicious blow on the nearest back and the chair came to a halt, the slaves shuffling their bare horny feet in the dust.

  The little scribe came to his feet and bowed so low his nose nearly collided with his knees.

  A small female slave, dressed economically in a few strategic swathes of cloth, leaped out of the conveyance and hastened to unfold a set of steps. That accomplished, she held up a trembling hand to support the weight of the huge man who emerged. The scribe glanced over from under his lashes. It would be more than his life was worth to be caught staring. Clad in robes of dazzling white, relieved only by a midnight blue head cloth, the man was not so much fat as simply enormous, broad and beefy as well as tall. His heavy jaw gleamed with sweat.

  “How may I be of assistance, Pasha?” murmured the scribe. “My talents, meager though they be, are at your disposal.”

  The man poked the scribe in the shoulder with the point of his cane. “Who are you, one-name?” he rumbled. “You’re new.”

  “Hantan, I am called, Pasha. I have come on pilgrimage to the Tri-Lobed Temple, as all men must do at least once before they die.”

  “What’s that?” A stab of the cane indicated the bundle of black robes.

  The scribe’s lips thinned. “My sister Dotty, mighty lord. She’s not right in the head, but what’s a man to do?” He spread his hands.

  A grunt. “Couldn’t sell her, hmm?”

  “Regrettably not, Pasha.”

  The big man fingered a fleshy lower lip. “Hmpf.”

  Without another word, he clambered back into his sedan chair, the slaves staggering under the weight. As he was carried past the Janizars on the gate, they snapped to attention, hands falling to the hilts of their wickedly curved blades.

  The scribe perched on the rickety stool behind his desk. “Know who that was, Dotty?” he said to his sister.

  The black bundle emitted a string of numbers, fingers writhing as she counted.

  “That,” said the Necromancer, with tremendous satisfaction, “was Nerajyb Nyzarl, the Grand Pasha’s senior diabloman.” His mild blue eyes rested thoughtfully on the palace towers, reaching white and narrow into the blinding azure of the sky. “How very fortuitous.”

  “Diabloman,” said Dotty suddenly, briefly channeling the Technomage Primus she’d once been. “May also be defined as demon master, but there are no empirical studies of demons and therefore no proof of their existence.”

  “If I offer your sorry carcass to Nerajyb Nyzarl, you’ll find out, won’t you?”

  “Dead,” she said. “Dead. Good. Be dead.”

  “Not yet, my dear,” said the Necromancer. “You’re still too useful, I’m afraid.”

  Dotty keened, a high and eerie sound.

  “By Shaitan, will you shut up!” He hopped off his stool to administer a swift, satisfying kick.

  With a startled squeak, Dotty resumed counting.

  “Are you Walker’s friend?” asked Mehcredi as she emptied a drawer of shirts. The healers had pronounced Dai as whole as he would ever be and he was moving out of what she now knew to be Walker’s room and back into his own.

  Dai gave a soft snort. “Doesn’t have friends.”

  “I thought everyone had friends.” She retrieved an errant sock.

  “Too cold, too scary. Never . . . smiles.”

  Mehcredi thought of the deep pool of silence that seemed to surround the swordmaster. When he passed through a crowd, people melted away without seeming to realize they’d done so. She’d seen it. “But you, ah, like him?”

  Dai shrugged. “Got my back. I got his.”

  “Loyalty’s a part of friendship?”

  The swordsman stopped stuffing garments into a duffel bag to shoot her an interested glance.

  “There has to be more?”

  Dai nodded.

  “So how do you know if someone’s your friend?”

  He’d developed the habit of speaking in short bursts, presumably to spare his throat. Mehcredi wasn’t brave enough to ask how much it still hurt.

  “They . . . take care of each other.” Pause to cough. “Laugh together, know . . . each other’s secrets.”

  “Oh.”

  When Dai bent to roll up the magnificent rug, she hurried over to help him. “Rose’s,” he said. “Loan.”

  “Is Rose your friend?”

  A shadow crossed Dai’s face.

  “Sorry,” said Mehcredi immediately. Shit, that was stupid. Hadn’t Walker said the swordsman fancied himself in love with the oh-so-beautiful Rosarina?

  “Dai?”

  “Hmm?” He buckled the straps a
round a duffel, securing them with vicious jerks.

  “Would you tell me a secret? Just a little one, about you?”

  She tried not to flush as he studied her face for a long time, but her stomach pitched with nerves. Then the corners of his lips tucked up and his shoulders moved in a what-the-hell shrug. “Was a . . . virgin’til . . . nineteen.”

  Mehcredi’s eyes went wide. “That’s a secret?”

  Dai inclined his head, then gestured. Now you.

  Shit, she hadn’t thought that far ahead because she hadn’t expected��Right. Squaring her shoulders, she got it out before her nerve failed her. “I’m a terrible assassin.”

  Without missing a beat, Dai said, “Is that . . . a secret?”

  Mehcredi dithered, pleating the fabric of her shift with nervous fingers. Something warm bubbled up inside her, fizzing until her head swam with it. “You made a joke.”

  When he smirked, her own smile grew so wide her cheeks bunched up. “I must be bad at it because you’re still here, that’s it, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t wait for a further response. “Gods, that is funny.” The giddy feeling exploded out of her in gales of giggles. Wrapping her arms around her middle, Mehcredi laughed until she couldn’t see straight.

  When she finally wiped the tears from her eyes, the swordsman was leaning against the wall watching her, a small smile on his lips. “Tell you . . . another . . . secret.”

  “What?”

  “I’m the best . . . card player . . . in the Isles.”

  “Really?”

  She got a blandly wicked smile. “I cheat. Teaching boy . . . teach you too. Move room first.”