The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  “Ah,” said Nyzarl, on a note of discovery. “You have a history with demons. By all means”—he waved a negligent hand—“meet mine.” A string of guttural syllables left his mouth, spoken very fast and under his breath. At his side, the air congealed. Swiftly, it turned green. Clawed hands appeared, grasping the sides of the cloud and ripping it apart like rotted silk.

  Peripherally, Mehcredi was aware of sounds—Cenda’s gasp, Gray’s curse, Erik’s rumble as he drew Prue closer, the growl in the back of Walker’s throat—but all her attention was focused on the nightmare that stepped out of the green fog.

  This was a demon? This . . . twisted, grinning offense against nature? And Walker had killed fourteen of them? Merciful Sister!

  Nyzarl trained a calm dark gaze on Deiter’s face. “Give me the fire witch and I will take my djinn and my demon and retire to the ice. I swear it.”

  Cenda recoiled into Gray’s embrace. “Purist!” As one, Gray and Shad turned their heads to glare at the old man. Gray’s hand dropped to the hilt of his blade.

  Ignoring them, Deiter gave an inelegant snort. “Then we are at an impasse. How many djinns are left? Half? Maybe less? Grievous losses.”

  The demon hissed, the holes that served it for nostrils flaring. A thin forked tongue flickered.

  “Xotclic scents your wounded, Deiter. How many of you are left? Half? Or less? You can cut your losses, starting now. One small sacrifice. Give me the fire witch.”

  “Filth.” Prue straightened her spine with an almost audible snap. “Take me instead.” She scowled at Nyzarl, her aquamarine eyes gemhard with fury. “Erik, pick me up and float me closer.”

  Erik looked frankly appalled. “No,” he said. “Are you insane?”

  Prue stamped a foot. “Look at him. Look! ”

  Nyzarl had backed up a step, glaring at Prue with unconcealed hatred. Despite the cold night air, sweat popped on his brow, rolled down his cheek.

  The wind rose. Erik swung Prue up into his arms and drifted a few cautious feet into the gorge.

  Nyzarl took another pace backward. The demon’s chest plates clattered and its tail lashed, the spikes gouging deep furrows in the rocky ground. The djinns dipped and whirled.

  “I don’t believe in Magick,” snapped Prue. “And Magick doesn’t believe in me.” She patted Erik’s forearm. “Closer, love. I don’t see how he did it, but . . .”

  Slowly, a smile broke over her vivid little face, a smile so full of implacable purpose that a shiver like a drop of freezing water ran down Mehcredi’s spine.

  “How are the headaches?” Prue asked politely. “Bad, I hope.”

  “Abomination. Mongrel bitch.” Nyzarl’s face was very nearly the same color as the demon’s cloud. He waved the creature forward. “Xotclic!”

  Casually, the demon shambled out into midair, three djinns circling above its head like some outré guard of honor.

  “No.” Mehcredi gaped in horror.

  Long tongues of flame snaked out from Cenda’s outthrust fingertips. The djinns exploded with shrieks that pierced the bones of the skull. The demon’s horny lipless mouth opened in a snarl, its taloned fingers reaching out to snatch Prue from Erik’s arms.

  Erik breathed so deeply, his chest expanded to an alarming degree. When he exhaled, the demon tumbled backward in the air, its chest plates clattering. The armored spikes of the tail whipped by so close to Prue’s face, she barely had time to jerk her head aside.

  Walker swore in Shar. The ground under Nyzarl’s feet rippled and a vine sprang out of bare rock to curl around his ankle. Fighting to maintain his balance, the diabloman stretched out his arm, crooking the fingers of one hand, as if he squeezed something in his fist. It looked theatrical, Mehcredi thought, like a bad parody of a wicked wizard.

  Nothing happened for a moment, then Deiter groaned, clutching his chest. He staggered back, his breath coming in pained gasps. But as Mehcredi and Rose rushed to support him, he forced a wine-stained grin, his skin tight against the bones of his skull.

  “Fuck you,” he whispered, the rest lost in muttered incantations. His gaze locked onto Nyzarl’s and refused to release him. Slowly, two hectic spots of color returned to the old man’s face.

  Open-mouthed, Mehcredi watched Nyzarl dancing about, trying to keep his feet as the ground pitched and vines writhed about his legs like snakes. Cenda picked djinns out of the sky and Erik played a grim game of aerial cat and mouse with the demon.

  “You lose again, Necromancer,” called Deiter with relish, though he was breathing hard. “Impasse.”

  “No, no, we can finish it,” cried Prue. She reached out with grasping fingers. “Let me have him.”

  “Aargh!” A rock rolled right under Nyzarl’s foot and he stumbled. “Xotclic!”

  “Ss.”

  The demon shot out a chitinous arm and scooped up the diabloman’s substantial form as easily as a child. Nyzarl spat, his spittle a glowing green glob that sizzled. “Shaitan curse you! All of you!”

  “Hah!” Prue McGuire glared.

  Nyzarl, the demon and the green mist winked out of sight. The remaining djinns rose in a tight cloud until they were no more than moving disturbances in the sky.

  Mehcredi didn’t hesitate. Stepping up to Walker, she wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in the curve of his neck and hugged as if she could meld their bodies together. The swordmaster froze, then he clamped her to him, his breath gusting rough and warm against her hair.

  “Holy Sister, I see it,” said Prue’s voice, still hoarse with tension, “but I don’t believe it.”

  Mehcredi looked over Walker’s shoulder to see her staring.

  “Give them time,” Rose said equably.

  But the damage was done. His color high, Walker released her. Without missing a beat, he turned to Deiter. “They’re heading west.”

  “Lord’s balls, I need a drink.” One hand massaging his chest, Deiter tottered over to the camp table. “Where’s that bloody map?”

  With a shaking finger, he traced the route. Mehcredi frowned. If that dot represented Guardpass, and those flowing lines the mountain barrier, then the gap in the range where Deiter was tapping must lead to . . .

  Her mouth went dry.

  She pushed in next to the old wizard. “Is that—” Ignoring his outraged bellow, she snatched the cup from his fingers and took a healthy gulp. “Is that L-Lonefell?”

  Lonefell Keep crouched like a great gray beast, its small slitted windows staring down the rutted winding road that led up from Blay Pass. Behind it, reared a series of snow-topped crags, marching away toward the distant ice. The pale sun glittered off a dark mirror cupped in the fold of a meadow, a small tarn to supply the keep with water, not yet frozen. Winter had yet to tighten its grip on this harsh land. Gods, what a birthplace.

  Walker shot a sidelong glance at Mehcredi, who’d gravitated to ride on his left as she always did. One corner of his mouth tucked up in a wry smile. He was almost certain she did it instinctively, knowing she wouldn’t impede his sword arm there.

  He released a long breath. Small groups of figures marched purposefully back and forth across the bailey, but there were no signs of panic. ’Cestors be thanked, they were in time. The route from Guardpass shaved a day off the trip on the southern side of the range, but nonetheless, it had been two punishing days and most of a night in the saddle. The blisters across his shoulders itched as they healed, every muscle and joint in his body ached, except for his ass, which was numb. But physical discomfort faded in comparison with the jangle of thoughts seething inside his skull. And most of them began and ended with Mehcredi of Lonefell.

  She was hunched inside a jacket that he thought might once have been his. It seemed vaguely familiar. From somewhere, she’d procured a blue scarf and wrapped it several times around her neck and over the lower part of her face. Combined with a fur cap pulled low over her eyes, all that was visible was the tip of a pink nose and her strange light eyes. It would be a kindness to tell her she dr
ew attention by being obvious, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. She was so pathetically determined not to show her fear.

  Before he knew he was going to do it, he’d reached out to touch her arm. “I’m here,” he said, like a fool.

  The blazing look of gratitude he got by way of reply just about liquefied his spine. Tired as he was, his balls rippled as if she’d feathered her fingertips over the sensitive skin.

  Shifting irritably in the saddle, he glared at the unresponsive mountains. Fuck, he was precisely where he’d sworn not to be, surrounded by—he suppressed a growl—a ragtag band of heroes who held him back and got in his way. Somehow, he’d become responsible for them, not an area where he excelled. What’s more, he had a woman glued to his side, a woman who needed as much attention as the stray she had cuddled under her coat—his coat.

  He ground his teeth, tasting the bitter lees of failure and fury. Gods, he’d been so close! The last diabloman had escaped, gods damn it all to the seven icy hells. Prue swore that the black soul of the Necromancer had looked out from behind Nyzarl’s eyes and Deiter confirmed it. The only way Walker knew to make reparation to those he’d loved, to satisfy the savage craving in his soul—and it had been wrenched from his grasp, its absence a sore spot he had to prod at again and again, like a missing tooth.

  Bouncing like a bag of bones, the wizard nudged his mount alongside. “Thinking about Nyzarl, shaman?” he said, reaching over to clap Walker on the shoulder. He struck the man’s hand away. Mehcredi insisted on touching him whenever and wherever she pleased and he couldn’t work why he wasn’t able to stop her. It was baffling, but it didn’t mean he was fair game for all and sundry.

  As if he hadn’t noticed, Deiter gave a greasy chuckle. “I’d lay odds his own demon ate him. Horrible way to go.”

  Walker growled something under his breath, wishing he could scrub his brain clean of the memories of Guardpass. After the slaughter of his kin, he’d thought he was inured to horror, his soul armored with the calluses of suffering. Nothing could be worse than that.

  He’d been wrong.

  The excruciating effort of forcing the ch’qui through the dumb resistance of rock and soil had scraped him right back to the bare nerve. After the battle was over, it took every ounce of warrior discipline he possessed simply to force himself to his feet. When he wrapped his hand around his sword hilt, he half expected to feel bone grate on the metal.

  Then the healer had appeared, her face a thing of bone and hollows, and it hadn’t been over at all.

  “I can’t do it alone,” she’d said dully. “There are too many and all the sleepbalm’s gone. I gave it . . . gave it to the children.” She staggered and Gray caught her arm. “Please.” Her voice had sunk to a harsh whisper. “Help me. My hands shake. I can’t—”

  As the company passed through a tall gateway, watched by narrow-eyed guards, Walker drew a rattling breath. He wouldn’t think of it, of the butcher’s work of mercy. He and Gray and Deiter had done it. Gray had been a mercenary once, he knew what he was about. As for the old wizard, he’d turned out to be surprisingly handy with a blade, but the tears that dampened his grizzled beard, those Walker had not expected. After it was finished, the last screams stilled, he’d reeled out of the cave, past Gray, who was quietly heaving his guts up behind a bush.

  “Here.” Mehcredi had obtained a bowl of clean water, ’Cestors knew where, but by that stage Walker had no longer cared. He’d plunged his arms in elbow deep. They’d spent the night in the narrow bed in the tavern, locked in a fierce embrace, like children shielding each other from nightmares. Long after she’d drifted off, Walker had stared over the assassin’s shoulder into the darkness, running over the nea-kata in his head, endlessly, desperately, until sleep crashed over him not long before dawn.

  A stocky, barrel-chested man stepped up to greet them as they dismounted. “The baron bids ye welcome to Lonefell Keep.” His hand fell to the well-worn hilt of his sword. “We’re glad to see ye, Captain,” he said to Yachi. “The lads will take the horses. This way.”

  As the party clattered into a cavernous great hall, Mehcredi fell back until she was slouching among the guards at the rear.

  The baron stood before a fireplace big enough to roast a vanbeast whole, his hands clasped behind his back. He was a slim compact man, his dark hair silvered with gray at the temples, the slightest thickening behind his belt buckle. Walker decided his eyes were too close together. “Your timing is impeccable, Captain,” the baron said.

  He fixed a shrewd gaze on Yachi. “My sentries tell me the foe gathers in the valley beyond the pass.” Graciously, he inclined his head. “My grateful thanks to Her Majesty. We need all the help we can get.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Deiter, stepping forward. “About the djinns . . .” He took the other man by the elbow.

  The baron’s mouth thinned. Disengaging himself with icy courtesy, he beckoned to a serving man. “Is that what they are?” He gestured at a heavy wooden table. “Please, take refreshment and we will discuss how best to use you.”

  “Not so fast,” said the wizard, not at all discomposed. “First, you need to know what we know.” He brightened as a serving maid placed a jug and a steaming platter on the table. “Wine! How delightful!”

  With a single longing glance at the food, Mehcredi faded into the shadows.

  It took Deiter a solid hour to describe the nature of the djinns and to convince the Baron of Lonefell to shut the keep up tight, so the djinns could pass over it on their way north.

  In the end, it was Yachi who tipped the balance. “It was bad enough at Guardpass,” she said in her blunt way. “And it’s narrow there, easier to defend. March out to meet the djinns and it’ll be a bloodbath, Baron. I guarantee.” Her shudder wasn’t faked. “Listen to the Purist here. He understands the godsbedamned things. This way there’s a chance—a real chance, mind you—no one will die. It was a hard lesson to learn.”

  Deiter gave a genteel burp. “It’s technically a single creature, a kind of hive mind. No more evil than you or I, but alien and ancient and terminally confused. I got no sense of real aggression, but it’s irresistibly drawn to the ch’qui released by death.”

  The more the baron heard, the grimmer his face became. “I can’t risk it,” he said. “Purist, we could finish up fighting them—it—on every room and stair. Brother preserve us.” He made the sign of the Sibling Moons.

  “If you don’t,” Yachi said implacably. “Your losses will be much greater.”

  “Put all your people in one tower,” said Walker. The baron summed him up in a single comprehensive glance and his eyes narrowed.

  “Go on,” he said, folding his arms.

  Walker shrugged. “They’ll be packed like fish in a barrel, but in a keep like this, you should be able to defend a single tower easily enough.”

  Deiter grinned like a moth-eaten direwolf. “And you can leave the Necromancer to me and the Sides. We’ll keep the bastard busy with Magick.”

  The baron’s mouth twisted as if he’d bitten into something sour, but he conferred with his sergeant. “All right then, we’ll try it your way.” His assessing eye skimmed over the company, paused and returned.

  His arm shot out. “You!” A stern finger pointed at the shrinking figure of Mehcredi. “Thief! Sergeant, arrest that woman!”

  33

  The cold stone of the wall at her back bled through her clothing to chill her heart. Mehcredi tore off her cap with one hand, drew her sword with the other and glared at the Baron of Lonefell.

  “I took what I was owed!” she shouted. At her feet, Scrounge’s lips peeled back from his teeth, the rough fur raised in a ridge all down his spine. From somewhere behind her, came a continuous stream of hair-raising curses. Florien.

  A quick quiet step and Walker stood on her left, a naked blade glittering in his hand and a snarl on his handsome face.

  Chairs scraped, men swore, a serving maid screamed and dropped a tray. Before Mehcredi could blink, Eri
k, Gray and the queen’s guards were ranged in a semicircle around her, staring at the baron and his men.

  “Quiet! ” bellowed Erik, his trained baritone bouncing off the stone walls.

  “What the hell is this?” said Deiter into the sudden silence.

  An ugly flush colored the baron’s cheeks. “This woman,” he said, biting off every word, “this slut, this misbegotten bastard, broke into my strongbox and then fled, like the common thief she is.”

  “Mehcredi?” asked Deiter, not taking his eyes from the baron.

  Spots danced on the periphery of her vision. Gods, it was all over, the adventure, the learning—Walker—everything. Slut. Half-wit. Ye great daft lump. How could she have been stupid enough to think she’d escaped? Wherever she went, whatever she did, she carried Lonefell within her, buried deep in her flesh like a malignant seed. She tried to keep her chin up, but words were beyond her.

  “See?” The baron’s lip curled. “She doesn’t deny it.”

  “You abandoned her to die,” said Walker into the thrumming silence. His voice was cold, quiet and very precise.

  Mehcredi’s heart leaped up into her throat, where it lodged like a boulder, stopping her breath. Cautiously, scarcely daring to hope, she laid trembling fingertips against Walker’s side, feeling his warmth.

  “She meant less than a dog to you, or anyone else in this godsforsaken place.” His flat black gaze bored into the baron. “But Mehcredi of Lonefell is a miracle, a stronger, sweeter spirit than a man like you can imagine.”

  When a thin smile touched the swordmaster’s lips, the baron hissed out a curse, falling back a step. “I have never met a braver soul,” said Walker. “I swear by my Ancestors, you touch her at your peril.”

  The baron’s jaw clenched. “This is my keep,” he said. “Here, justice is mine.”

  Prue McGuire set her hands on her hips. “Is this true, assassin? He left you to die?”

  Mehcredi wet her lips. “From the moment of my birth.” Her heart beat with slow painful thuds. Gods, it hurt.