by Nalini Singh
But he’d clearly refused the wineskin again. When the warrior walked stiffly past the woman, striding across the thickening pools of blood toward the wagons, she determinedly stalked after him. “What harm will come to me? Lord Barin’s reach doesn’t extend past the river.”
This time he was close enough for Mala to hear his answer. “And your family? Your husband’s family? Even after you have gone, they will still reside in this land.”
All at once, the fight seemed to leave the woman. Despair and helplessness darkened her expression as she turned her face away, her jaw working as if she could taste the words she wanted to say, but knew uttering them wouldn’t make any difference.
The warrior looked to Mala again, but he came no nearer. With a heavy sigh, the woman brushed past him. Tears glittered in her eyes when she stopped in front of Mala and bowed her covered head.
“I am Telani, and I stand forever in your debt.” Her voice was thick. “My boy only lives because you helped us.”
All of these people lived only because of the man behind her, but Mala would not be so quick to reject the woman’s offering.
“My mount needs to quench his thirst,” she said, then gestured to the wineskin. “What do you carry?”
“Water.” With renewed irritation, the woman shot a glance at the warrior, whose dark gaze had not left Mala’s face. As a stranger to them, she expected to be watched. Unlike the travelers, however, Kavik didn’t appear wary. Instead he looked at her with an expression both haunted and fervid, as if he saw his death approaching, yet could not bear to glance away from it.
“Water will do.” And she wanted to know why this woman had told the warrior that he would soon need it, but only asked, “How fares the boy?”
“We will know when the fever passes.” With dirty fingers, Telani touched her injured shoulder. “Several of us will.”
Though humans couldn’t be transformed into revenants, the creatures’ poison produced a dangerous fever. There were remedies for it, but Mala supposed that few of Nemek’s healers journeyed to Blackmoor to sell their wares—or if they had, their bones were littered beside the river. Fortunately she had encountered several during her travels.
“Go and tend to him, then,” Mala told her. “I will see to my horse and this man, then come to you with a salve to draw out the venom.”
The woman’s renewed gratitude sat uneasily on Mala’s shoulders. If Mala was to tame a demon, and if the salve was not readily available in Blackmoor, she might soon be in dire need of it. But Vela never offered the easy path. If giving the salve to these travelers meant that Mala would soon suffer a revenant’s fever, then she would suffer it—and trust that her own strength and the goddess’s generosity would see her through it.
Wineskin in hand, she retrieved the salve and an oiled cloth from her saddlebag. The warrior didn’t look away as she approached him, but his big body seemed to stiffen with her every step.
Mala stopped an arm’s length away and extended her hand. “Your sword.”
His grip tightened on the weapon. Roughly he said, “I won’t harm you.”
“I didn’t fear you would,” she told him. “Your blade needs to be wiped clean, and you’ve been standing with a saddle on your shoulder for so long that the blood has begun to dry. I suspect that you remain still to avoid tearing open one of your injuries. So give the sword to me, and I’ll see it cleaned.”
His mouth flattened. Without a word, he reached for the saddle and lifted it from his broad shoulder. His gaze never left hers as he held the heavy tack out to his side for one breath, two—then deliberately dropped it.
Stupid, stubborn man. But Mala couldn’t say that her reaction would have been any different, so she offered him the oiled cloth.
He abruptly crouched and slammed his sword hilt-deep into the ground, as if driving in a stake. The muscles in his arms bulged as he ripped the blade to the side through the dirt, then hauled it out again. Aside from a ring of blood and mud near the hilt, the weapon had been scraped clean.
His jaw was tight when he stood again. “It is done.”
She looked to his arms. The gashes were bleeding again, and he stank of revenant. With a sigh, she opened the small pot of salve.
He shook his head. “Don’t tend to me.”
“You will be fevered, warrior.”
“I’ve lived through a revenants’ attack before.”
That was not all he’d lived through. Closer now, she could see the ridged scars that marked his skin. A wide slash on his left cheek, as if from a blade. The pucker of an arrow in his upper biceps. A ragged half moon from some animal’s teeth lay above his elbow—and there were probably far more scars that she couldn’t see beneath the blood, his beard, and his clothing.
She dipped her fingers into the cool salve. “This time you will live through it more easily.”
“No.” His big hand shot out, covering the pot, his bloodied fingers trapping hers. “Do not tend to me. You will pay for your kindness.”
It wasn’t just kindness; it was a warrior’s honor and duty to care for another’s injuries. Even in Blackmoor, it must be. But she only asked, “Why?”
When he didn’t answer, she studied him for a long moment. He wasn’t much to look at—just a huge bloody mess of matted hair and gore. He reeked like a putrid corpse, too, but his eyes were the warm brown of a good beer. That would be reason enough to like him, but Mala appreciated warriors who used their strength well even more than she appreciated her ale.
And she was more aware of his hand on hers than she’d ever been of any man’s touch. Usually she was prying their fingers away or chopping them off. She didn’t mind his.
He must have run afoul of someone, though, if he believed she would regret helping him.
“Are you ill-favored by a god?” she wondered.
“No,” he said bleakly. “Just forsaken.”
If he had been truly forsaken, it might be his own fault—or it might be undeserved, if he suffered from a god’s caprice. It mattered not. Mala was not a god, and she was not in the habit of forsaking warriors who had stood against dozens of revenants in the hope of saving a small group of travelers.
Travelers who were apparently escaping the reach of one man, though their families had been left behind. What name had Telani spoken earlier?
“Should I fear Lord Barin?” When his chest lifted on a sharp breath and his gaze hardened, her guess was confirmed. “What have you done to offend him, that he would punish anyone who helps you?”
Anger tightened his face. But he didn’t offer a reason. He only said, “Don’t risk it.”
“Why? Who will tell him?” She smiled and looked up into the gray sky. “The birds? Or will he read the truth in the revenants’ bones? Or perhaps I will tell him myself, because I have no wish to hide it. I don’t wear this cloak lightly, warrior—and I won’t risk Vela’s wrath by ignoring someone in need.”
She wouldn’t have ignored him even if she hadn’t been wearing the cloak, but he might be less likely to refuse her if he believed it would inspire a goddess’s anger. But old scars were sometimes more sensitive than new wounds, and whatever his reason for denying her—and denying the other woman’s simple gift of water—the pain of his injuries must have paled in comparison to whatever retaliation he thought the kindness would bring.
He shook his head and released her, his fingers skimming the back of her hand. “Give the salve to me, then. I’ll see to the wounds myself.”
That would have to be enough for now. She poured water into a clay bowl, left the wineskin at his feet, and called for Shim. Mala kept her back to Kavik as she rubbed down the stallion’s legs. Shim would watch for any danger from behind, but she didn’t think that the warrior would pose any threat now. Turning her back gave him privacy to feel his pain. By the heaviness of his breath and the long catches between, she suspected that the agony of removing his armor and tending to his wounds had all but immobilized him.
Yet the rest of t
he caravan seemed to be preparing to move again. Not right away—there was still much to be done—but no one was setting up camp. “How far do you intend to journey today, warrior?”
“To the river.” The response emerged on a grunt, then he hissed before adding, “Beyond that, they travel alone.”
Then he would return to Blackmoor? But the question died on her tongue when she looked behind her.
Though Kavik had refused her help, he apparently wasn’t such a stubborn fool that he would haphazardly slap the salve over his injuries rather than properly attend to them. To better reach the wounds, he’d removed his breastplate, tunic, and loose brocs, leaving only the winter furs belted around his hips to cover his loins, and the leather-wrapped boots hugging his strong calves. With one arm crooked behind his head, he slicked the cream down a slash alongside his ribs, glistening fingers smoothing over taut muscle.
Her own fingers curled against her palms. She’d known he was strong. She hadn’t known that seeing the evidence of his battle upon his flesh would call to hers so forcefully, but her pulse pounded anew.
Hanan be merciful—but that god rarely was. He’d sprayed his seed throughout the world and rocked the earth with his fuckings. Under his influence, she would be rolling in the blood and mud with this warrior.
She thought that Kavik would roll with her. His head suddenly lifted, and his body stilled as his gaze met hers. No pain in his eyes now. Only the same hunger as before, and no madness with it.
Little dragon.
A fire burned in her now. Not for the first time since she’d earned her sword, Mala wished that she wasn’t bound by the obligations of her rank and could seek the same pleasures that her fellow warriors and friends often did.
Still holding her gaze, Kavik covered the pot of salve. “It is finished,” he said gruffly.
No, it wasn’t. “Do not move, warrior.”
She walked slowly toward him, her gaze following the trail of blood over his rippling stomach. His belt hung low on his hips, the line of it bisecting the ridges of muscle that defined his pelvis and the flat plane of his lower abdomen. He’d rubbed salve into a gash on his heavy thigh, smearing the blood around it. He’d had to spread so much on his arms that his skin appeared oiled. His sides had not been spared the revenants’ teeth and claws; only his chest, which the breastplate had guarded.
“Do not move,” she said again. She was close enough to touch him now, and his hands were clenching as if he stopped himself from reaching for her.
She slipped around his broad shoulder—and sighed. Just as she’d thought. He wouldn’t let anyone attend to him, but he couldn’t reach his own back.
Mala held out her hand. “The salve,” she said.
He began to turn. “Don’t risk—”
She jammed her thumb into his torn flesh—a bite wound, already swollen and red. Every muscle in his back went rigid. His breath hissed.
“I am not tending to you,” she said. “If your Lord Barin sees this, then it will be said that I am torturing you. Can you withstand it?”
Mala knew he could, because the evidence on his back told her he’d withstood far worse. Not just the revenants’ claws and teeth, but more old battle wounds, and the pale stripes of a whip. Had he been enslaved? If so, he must have been young. The edges of the scars had softened with age.
From what she could see, it was the only part of him that had softened. The rest was hard. So very hard. “The salve,” she repeated.
Jaw clenched, he lifted the pot over his shoulder, as if to pass it to her.
“Hold it there for me,” she said and dipped her fingers in. His back stiffened again as she smoothed the cream over the bite.
A frown darkened his blood-masked face as he looked over his shoulder. “That is not torture.”
She hadn’t said it would be painful. Her hand slicked forward around his side, her fingers skimming the skin at the edge of his belt. His big body tightened all at once, thick muscles straining. A laugh rumbled from him, cut short by a groan, then he hung his head and was silent.
Mala grinned and soothed salve across parallel slashes low on his back, then slipped her hand beneath the furs to test the hardness of his ass.
Like glorious steel.
“If you didn’t stink of revenant, I’d taste you all over,” she told him.
A rough sound reverberated through his chest, like another laugh that was strangled before it emerged. Hoarsely he asked, “Will you have me? Will you destroy me completely?”
“I cannot,” she said with real regret.
“Then your touch is torture enough.” A shudder ripped through him, then he stilled again. “Will you give me your name, red one?”
“Mala.” High Daughter of the House of Krima, second in line to the Ivory Throne, and one of Vela’s Chosen. “And yours is Kavik.”
“Only to those who’ve known me longest.”
“And what does someone call you if she’s known you a day?”
His hesitation told her that he took no pride in his current name. “I would have you call me Kavik.”
So she would. “Why do you only escort them as far as the river?”
“The revenants attack anyone leaving this land, but they don’t follow any travelers beyond the bridge.”
“You expected to fight them.”
“Yes. But never so many before.”
“How many times before?” She recalled the bones and shattered wagons littering the sides of the road—and how they’d been weathered and old. “When did you begin?”
“I returned to Blackmoor five summers ago. Since then, those people who want to leave this land come to me.”
Most of those bones had been there longer than five years. So Kavik had stopped the revenants from slaughtering the travelers. Yet the creatures still continued to attack—and though other people risked their lives to leave Blackmoor, he had come back.
But Kavik didn’t give her a chance to ask why he had returned. He slowly tensed again, but not by her touch—instead he was frowning at Shim. “Your mount was bitten.”
Mala had already seen to the shallow wound on the stallion’s chest. But that likely wasn’t what concerned the warrior. “He won’t become a revenant.”
Disbelief filled his voice. “He’s one of the Hanani?”
A descendant of the god Hanan, who had not only speared his cock into humans but had also fucked every animal he encountered, no matter how big or small. Those born of his seed were often gifted with abilities beyond the natural. Shim was far stronger and smarter than any other horse she’d ever encountered—but most Hanani animals didn’t associate with humans. Shim’s herd had resided in the highlands west of Krimathe.
“He is,” Mala said.
“He allows you to ride him?” Slowly he turned to face her, his shadowed eyes searching her features. “You must be favored by the gods.”
“No. I am only favored by one horse.” And only because Mala was patient and stubborn, and she’d promised Shim that he would stomp on many men’s heads during their travels.
“And a goddess.” His gaze fell to her cloak. “You are a Narae warrior?”
One of the wandering women who served Vela and enforced her laws. Those warriors wore dark crimson cloaks—and most traveling women who claimed to be Narae were not, but simply used the cloak to protect themselves from assault. A bandit couldn’t risk being mistaken, because any man who attacked the wrong woman wearing a crimson cloak was a dead man.
But this man knew Mala wasn’t a false warrior. “No. I travel on my sacred quest.”
“From Vela?” The words were rough. When she nodded, his eyes closed. “Did she send the quest to you in dreams?”
“No, warrior. She speaks to some that way. Not to me. I visited a priestess, instead.”
Her reply seemed to open some torment within him, and for an instant the agony in his gaze was deeper than any wound he’d received. Then his face hardened, as did his voice, though the grittiness remained
. “And she sent you here?”
“Apparently I am to find the demon tusker.”
The scar in his cheek whitened. “She sent you to die?”
“I hope not.” Mala trusted the goddess hadn’t. “Have you faced it?”
“Yes.”
“And lived?” Perhaps it wouldn’t be as difficult a task as Mala feared.
“Barely. Many of the men I fought with did not.” His gaze searched her face again, his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared, and Mala realized that he was stopping himself from forbidding her to go. He must have realized that she would, anyway. “Keep away from it, if you can. No blade or arrow can breach its hide and I’ve seen warriors cut in half by a blow from its tusks. Find some way to kill it from a distance.”
Mala didn’t intend to kill it, only to tame it. But she wouldn’t explain now. “Where will I find it?”
“It usually comes down from the mountains when the goddess turns her back.”
During the new moon—and the next was almost a full turn away. “Then it seems I will be in Blackmoor for a while. Perhaps I’ll see you again, warrior.” She hoped to. “Who should I ask for if I wish to find you?”
Eyes like stone, he took a full step back from her. “You would do best to say you have never spoken to or helped me.”
Perhaps. But she didn’t like that he retreated from her now, so she would see him again. “I don’t always do what is best. I only do what must be done.”
Kavik didn’t immediately respond. Instead he looked to the wagons when a hail came from that direction—the caravan was preparing to leave, and Mala still needed to give the salve to Telani and her injured boy.
He drew back another step, his gaze still on her. “Don’t drink or bathe in any of the rivers and lakes beyond the maze—they’ve been fouled by the demon. You’ll only find safe water in the wells dug in the city and villages.”
So that was why he would need the wineskin full of it. Mala didn’t. She would not always be in the city or villages if the beast was in the mountains, but she didn’t travel without protection. “Whilst I quest, Vela will bless and cleanse it for me.”