The Lone Warrior (3 page)

Writhing, she struggled for air. A painful gasp brought her awake, her eyes snapping open. Above was a low, whitewashed ceiling with a pronounced slope. Wonderingly, she patted her throat with her fingertips. Gods, she was alive! But how—?

She turned her head.

A man sat opposite on a wooden chair placed squarely against the door, his empty hands in plain sight, folded across a flat stomach. His eyes closed, he was so still in the warm light of the lamp he could have been a statue cast in bronze. Mehcredi’s gaze darted over high slashing cheekbones, an imperious nose and uncompromising mouth. His body was all lean length, whipcord and muscle, clad conventionally enough in a working man’s shirt and trews, soft boots.

Beyond him, on the other side of the door, lay freedom.

Soundlessly, Mehcredi eased herself up on her elbows, her head pounding like a funeral drum. She was lying on a narrow bed, no more than a pallet, in a room not much bigger than a cupboard. Remarkably, there were no ropes, no restraints, nothing to impede her—save the man.

His long legs were stretched before him, ankles crossed. Mehcredi stared longingly at the scabbard hanging from his belt. She ran her tongue over dry lips. If she could grab the weapon before he woke . . .

She lifted her gaze to his face and swallowed a scream.

The man was watching her, his dark gaze unreadable. But then, she’d never been able to fathom what people were thinking, feeling. His eyes were black—as dark as his hair. The lamplight struck bluish gleams from the sable thickness of it, falling soft and straight as rain over his shoulders, two thin braids on either side of his face.

And she knew him.

“The bones.” Her voice came out raspy, even huskier than usual. “Where are the bones?”

The hunter regarded her in silence. Unnerved, Mehcredi scrambled as far away as possible, until her shoulder blades were pressed right up against the wall behind the bed. She tucked her legs beneath her.

After an interminable wait, during which her heart banged against her ribs like a trapped bird, he said, “You are Mehcredi the assassin.” It wasn’t a question.

She raised her chin. “I—” Her voice cracked so badly she had to stop and swallow. The hunter crossed his arms over his chest and the gleam in his eye became more pronounced. “I am a member of the Guild, yes.”

“Count yourself fortunate Dai’s not dead. Thanks to Erik’s quick wits.”

She hadn’t known the man’s name, only that watching him writhe on the tavern floor, his merry handsome face contorted into a mask of excruciating pain, had made her guts heave. At the memory, bile rose in her throat, sour and burning. “H-he’s not?” She swallowed again. “Water, I need water.”

The hunter went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Though I don’t doubt he wishes he was.” A pause. “You used prettydeath, assassin.”

This time, Mehcredi had no problem recognizing the expression that flashed across his grim features. She’d seen it every day of her life. Revulsion. Disgust.

“What’s that?” she whispered. “I swear, I—”

“You didn’t know it’s absolute agony? That it can take a whole day to die?”

Abruptly, the hunter rose, lethal grace in every line of him. Stalking to the foot of the bed, he raised one arm and pressed his palm against the low ceiling. He leaned in, dominating, his eyes flat and black. “Someone wanted him to suffer. Don’t lie to me,
assassin
.”

“No.” Mehcredi shook her head, panic slowing her wits. “No, I’m not lying. Anyway, it was a mistake. He wasn’t supposed—” She broke off on a gasp.

“I know. It was Erik Thorensen you were meant to murder. The singer.”

“N-not murder. I had a . . . had a commission.”

His lips compressed. “Don’t dress it up. Murder, pure and simple.”

“The Guild Master calls them commissions.”

A dark brow winged up.

Desperately, Mehcredi stumbled on, wishing he would look away, give her even a split second of relief. “He said he’d help me, seeing it was my first, so he gave me . . . gave me—May I have some water? Please?”

“No. Gave you what?”

“The . . . the poison. P-prettydeath.”

“And you didn’t know what it was? Is that the story?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t say. Only that it never failed.”

The hunter’s hand dropped to the hilt of the long dagger in his belt. He straightened, his lip curling. “Then you must have crawled from beneath a rock. Prettydeath is notorious here, and among all the known worlds.”

“I’m not from Caracole, or anywhere near it.”

He grunted. “Where, then?”

“Lonefell.”

A shrug.

“Beyond the Cressy Plains. In the high hills.”

His hard stare shifted to the tangle of her pale hair. “To the north?”

She nodded.

Another grunt. The hunter returned to his seat. “You kidnapped Prue McGuire, didn’t you?”

Mehcredi’s nerve cracked. “Who are you? What do you
want
?”

Another of those dreadful silences. At last, he said, “My name is Walker and this is my House of Swords. As for what I want?” His lips pulled back from his teeth. “I will see you pay for your crimes, assassin.”

“
But what did I do to you?
” she cried, almost sobbing.

“To me? Why, nothing.” Again that feral expression, like a tygre crouched for the kill. “But on the floor below is a man who can’t make a sound louder than a kitten, though he needs to scream. Your poison stripped the flesh from his throat.”

When she opened her mouth, he overrode her. “You kidnapped a woman from The Garden of Nocturnal Delights, an innocent you delivered into the filthy hands of unimaginable evil. Even now—”

When he broke off frowning, his hair shifted on his shoulders like a shawl of midnight silk. “She might be dead. And Erik’s likely to get himself killed finding her.”

“I don’t understand.”
Unimaginable evil
. Mehcredi’s skin crawled. She searched the hunter’s face, but regardless of what he might be feeling, it told her nothing. Faces rarely did.

“Why do you care? What are they to you?”

“Why do I—? It’s none of your concern, assassin, but Dai works for me. As for Prue McGuire, she audits my accounts.”

Prue
. Oh yes, she remembered Prue. Unconsciously, Mehcredi rubbed the bruise on her thigh, wincing. Who’d have thought someone so small would be so fierce? Sister in the sky, the woman had very nearly got away. If it hadn’t been for the special cloth saturated with the stupefying drug . . . She owed that to the Guild Master too.

Walker’s gaze was fixed on her flexing fingers. The corners of his mouth turned up, very slightly. Did that mean he was amused? Was it safe to relax? “She hurt you, didn’t she?” he said. “Good.”

Mehcredi blinked. “Why is that good?”

A vertical crease formed between his brows. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, biting off each word.

“I’m not.” Mehcredi chewed her lip, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks.

Half-wit
, they used to call her at Lonefell. A casual clout across the ear from the housekeeper.
Get out o’ the way, ye great daft lump!
Followed by the muttered aside to a visitor.
She’s not all there, ye know
.

But she
was
, she
was
all there. She just didn’t like staring eyes and hard, cruel hands—or things she didn’t understand, like the human race in general.

Mehcredi forced herself to concentrate. From what she’d seen at the keep, people cared only about those they loved or feared, but it didn’t sound as though Prue and Dai were Walker’s lovers, or that they scared him. At least, she didn’t think so. Which left . . . “These two, they’re your, uh, friends?”

Every vestige of expression disappeared from his face and she was back where she’d begun. Clueless.

“Who employed you?” he demanded.

The tremors became so bad, she had to wrap her arms around her torso to stop the shaking. “I’m sure you know,” she whispered, staring fixedly at his boots.

“Possibly.” A shift in the air told her he was leaning forward again, intent. “Give me a description.”

“C-can’t.”

“Too scared?” Contempt again, the expression familiar.

Mehcredi shook her head, beads of cold sweat springing up around her hairline. The only power in the world she found more discomfiting than the Necromancer stood right in front of her. “A b-black cloud, he came as a black cloud, a shadow. There was nothing to see.”

He moved without warning, more swiftly than the eye could follow. Before she could blink, Walker was crouched at her side, the point of a long silvery blade pressed into the pit of her throat. Cold, so very cold.

“You lie.” His eyes blazed into hers.

“No, no!” She didn’t dare even to swallow.

“Tell me, then. Everything you remember, every detail, no matter how small, every impression.”

“A s-servant made the arrangements, told me to c-come to the Pavilion of Clouds and Rain at The Garden of Nocturnal Delights.”

The tip of the knife drifted over her skin in a calculated, icy caress. “I know the place. Go on.”

“He was there, waiting.”

“And?”

“I thought he was wearing a cloak at first.” The force of Walker’s stare dragged the words out of her. “But he
was
the cloak. When I looked, there was n-nothing inside. Only black. No eyes, nothing.”

“The voice. Did he have an accent?”

Mehcredi wet her lips with the point of her tongue. “I’m not very good with voices.”

“Don’t tempt me, assassin. I’d enjoy carving it out of you.” Walker’s teeth gleamed white against the bronze of his face. “His accent?”

Oh, gods. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to think, to recall. “Like everyone here in the city.” She shot him a glance. “Except you.”

A muscle in his jaw tightened. “I’m not from Caracole. So, a local accent. What else?”

Mehcredi frowned, her brain spinning with effort. “We keep saying ‘he,’ but I don’t know . . . It was thin and light. Maybe female.” A thought struck her and she grabbed his forearm. “Oh!”

The muscles beneath the linen of his shirt went rigid. How could the heat of him burn her palm when the blade he held at her throat was colder than the dark waters of Lonefell tarn?

“What?”

“The servant! Why don’t you torture him instead of me?”

Walker eased back. “I intend to.” Smoothly, he rose and turned to the rickety nightstand tucked under the lowest part of the roof. Sheathing the blade at his waist, he busied himself with a chipped earthenware jug and a rough cup.

Turning, he thrust the cup at her. “Here.”

Greedily, Mehcredi gulped the cool water. Nothing had ever felt so good.

“Slowly.” Strong, warm hands closed over hers and she gasped with shock. A touch that was not a blow. “Don’t choke yourself. I have plans for you, Mehcredi.”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Plans?” Her stomach lurched unpleasantly. “What plans?”

Walker gave her another of those impenetrable stares. “All in good time. Tell me again, from the very beginning.”

“You already know!”

A shrug. “Again,” he said inexorably.

Mehcredi gritted her teeth. “But why?”

“There may be something we missed. I’ll know if you lie, assassin.”

She sprang to her feet, fists clenched. “But I don’t know how to lie!”

“
Sit down.
” He didn’t raise his voice, but it cracked like a whip.

Mehcredi’s knees turned to water. Stunned and shaky, she collapsed on the bed.

“You’ve had dealings with a necromancer,” said Walker. “Very foolish. How did he contact you? Through the servant?”

“He . . . he came to me in my dreams.” She couldn’t prevent the reminiscent shudder. Phrase by halting phrase, Walker drew the experience out of her, every hideous second of it.

By the end, he looked more like a statue than ever. “He hurt you,” he said. “The bastard enjoyed your pain.”

Her eyes stung. When she rubbed them, her fingers came away wet. “He touched me with his Magick in places . . . Gods, I can’t explain properly.” She glanced at Walker’s hard face, but there was no help there. “Deep inside . . .
me
. It hurt so bad.”

If she hadn’t woken, she was sure the agony would have killed her, but for once in her miserable life, she’d been lucky. Thank the Sister for the filthy little stray and its insistence on following her everywhere. She couldn’t possibly have slept through those piercing barks, the frantic scrabbling at her door.

“I see. The Necromancer simply frightened you into committing murder.” His lip had curled again. Was that what people called a sneer? “What happened to greed?”

“He paid me,” she said. “But he kept dropping the fee. I think, I think he wanted to kill me. Or . . . something.”