The Lone Warrior (31 page)

To her, Abad’s face appeared a perfect blank, though his hands were relaxed on the reins. She wanted to hiss with frustration. Why the invitation? Perhaps he was bored? Only one way to find out.

“Are you bored?”

He shrugged. “Could use the company, but please yerself, lad.”

Lad? She grinned to herself. He couldn’t be much older than she was.

“All right.” Urging her mount a little closer, she reached out, grabbed the side of the van and freed one foot from its stirrup. A graceless heave, an undignified scramble and she arrived in a cursing sweaty heap on the seat next to the waggoner. The mare rolled an eye at her as if to say good riddance.

Ow, ow,
ow
. Mehcredi eased from one buttock to the other. The hard wooden seat was no softer than the godsbedamned saddle.

“Not much of a rider, are ye?” said Abad mildly.

A grunt sufficed for answer. There were definitely advantages to being male.

“So,” said the waggoner, elaborately casual. “Wajar any good with that fancy sword?”

Her shiver was entirely genuine. “The best I’ve ever seen.”

“What about you?”

“He’s teaching me.” She shrugged. “I can hold my own.” A wry grin tugged at her lips. Of course she could, against a man like Abad at any rate. Walker could slice her to ribbons with his eyes closed. But this line of questioning was dangerous. Hastily, she said, “Are the beasts yours? Do they have names?”

It seemed they were and they did. Nothing loath, the waggoner described each plodding beast, describing its every virtue, vice and ailment in detail. After a couple of miles, Mehcredi relaxed enough to rub the ache out of her thighs. She’d met Abad’s sort before—a man who loved the sound of his own voice, thanks be to the Sister. All she need do was insert the occasional murmur of interest and he rambled on and on, the wheels creaking as the sandy track unrolled beneath them.

She’d never be the same, she knew that. Not after last night. Blankly, she gazed out at the sparse grayish vegetation. For the first time in her life, she’d seen
inside
another person, seen a soul laid bare—Walker’s agony and guilt, his driving need to avenge his people in blood and pain. Then he’d shown her his pleasure and he’d shown her his Magick.

Her breath caught. How could it have slipped her mind? With his beauty and his tragedy, the swordmaster had driven every other thought clean out of her head. A woman had risen up out of the fire, disembodied, and spoken from the Sister knew how far away. Caracole it seemed like.

And Walker, Walker had—Abruptly, the stunted trees blurred into a long gray splodge. He’d used his Magick to ensure her comfort. Such beautiful Magick too, of green and growing things. It had seemed to her the trees bent to his will with joyous abandon, the feathergrass swishing around his boots like an affectionate cat.

She’d been privileged to see it. Her hand stole to the Mark on her breast. Perhaps to wear it too. And yet—she braced her feet against the floor as the van lurched in and out of a pothole—Walker was a man of such stark contrasts. His Magick bloomed with life and light, but his soul was shadowed in death and darkness.

“Is he a good master then?”

She started. “What?”

“Wajar,” said Abad. “Looks like a hard man.”

“I’d die for him,” growled Mehcredi, realizing with a kind of dull shock that it was true.

By the time she recovered herself, the waggoner was speaking of his two wives, both of whom he clearly adored. He hadn’t meant to offer for the second, but he’d been so taken with her sweet eyes and lissome form, he couldn’t help himself. A good vanbeast the dowry had cost him, but the little sweetheart was worth twice that. When he smiled, in a sheepish kind of way, he was very nearly good-looking.

“They do well together, my girls,” he said fondly. “No fighting. And next year, there’ll be two more mouths to feed.” Though he reddened, his chest swelled with pride. “Don’t like to do such a long trip, but Dinari’s a good master and, well, extra creds are always handy when a man’s got a family.”

Well, well, love and honor did exist in Trinitaria. Who’d have thought it? Mehcredi cast a sidelong look at her companion as he rummaged about under the seat to produce a shabby box, which he opened to reveal a couple of rather squashed manda fruits and several greasy packets.

“Here, lad.”

When she investigated, suddenly ravenous, the packet proved to contain a cold savory noodle cake. “Thanks,” she mumbled, her mouth full.

As if by Magick, a cold nose materialized in the vicinity of her neck, the dog peering over her shoulder, his panting breath hot against her ear. Mehcredi chuckled. “Scrounger.”

Her heart lifted a little as she broke off a piece of cake for him. At least she still had one friend.

You’re bluffing,
Walker had said in a voice like ice.

And she had been—at first. But he’d made her so mad she couldn’t see straight, let alone control the stupidity that fell out of her mouth. She’d had all night to think about it too, to flay herself with useless regrets and recriminations. Godsdammit, she couldn’t have made a bigger mess of everything if she’d tried! It had taken her hours to drop off, her mind a seething mass of confusion and wonder. Her sleep had been restless, her dreams nightmares of frustration in which she was running and running, desperate to get . . . somewhere, but when she’d looked down she discovered her feet were rooted to the ground, brambles curling around her ankles.

Walker had shaken her awake with a firm hand on her shoulder, not long after dawn. She’d opened her mouth, ready to say she hadn’t meant it, would never—But then she’d seen his face and the words had died stillborn. Not only his hunter’s face, but colder than winter iron in Lonefell. She hadn’t seen that expression since the night he’d caught her in the Melting Pot and she’d known with absolute certainty he was going to kill her.

Bastard. Double-dyed bastard.

A harsh honk interrupted her thoughts. Three large birds passed over their heads and disappeared toward the distant hills. Abad leaned over the side of the van and spat. Then he made the sign of the Three. “Corpsebirds,” he growled. “Hate ’em.” From farther around the bend came the bellow of a vanbeast.

Abad really did have a nice face, even frowning as he was now. He gave her hope. There’d be decent men in Trimegrace, there must be. Perhaps a merchant or a well-to-do tradesman, young and clean, with eyes as dark as Concordian chocolat and high cheekbones and long black hair, as soft and straight as rain . . .

The sigh came all the way from her boots. Who did she think she was fool—?

Hoofs thundered from up ahead, approaching at breakneck speed. Men shouted. What the—

Mehcredi leaped onto the seat and rose to her tiptoes.

Walker pulled his horse up on its haunches at the lead van. He leaned over the animal’s shoulder, speaking urgently to Dinari, gesturing down the track, the Janizar’s sword flashing in the sun.

“Fuck,” groaned Abad. “Knew it. Fuckin’ bandits, mark my words.”

Walker wheeled his horse and raced off again, back the way he’d come, followed by another three men. More dashed toward the horse string on foot.

“Shit! No, Meck, don’t—” The waggoner stretched out a hand, but too late.

Mehcredi landed on the startled mare all anyhow, but she managed to settle her feet in the stirrups before kicking her mount into a jarring trot. Bouncing like a sack of taters, blade naked in her hand, she set off in dogged pursuit of the man she knew best in the whole world, the man who
was
her whole world.

By the time they hit the bend in the trail, the horse had slowed to a stolid walk and no amount of kicking and swearing would induce her to speed up. Then the wind changed, bringing with it a heavy abattoir reek. The mare snorted, reared and tipped Mehcredi off into the dust.

Painfully, she rose on one elbow, feeling as if a mountain had leaned down and thumped her between the shoulder blades. She blinked, horror overwhelming the aches.

The derelicts had once been caravans, drawn up in a defensive circle. For the rest, it was a butcher’s shop from a nightmare. Bodies lay scattered about, limbs contorted, clouds of bitemes buzzing over the carnage. A few vanbeasts struggled feebly in the traces, lowing with distress. Not more than ten feet away, a man stared at her with black sunken eyes, his mouth stretched wide in a rictus of terror, his chest a gaping ruin, black with clotted blood and white with shards of bone. He could have been any age from twenty to sixty, but it was no longer possible to judge.

One hand clapped over her nose and mouth, Mehcredi lurched to her feet.
Walker
. She could see him quite clearly about fifty yards off, in grim conversation with the van master, but for some reason, she knew she wouldn’t last another second without feeling the warmth of his flesh under her fingers. Touching him was imperative.

From her left, something called, a low harsh bray. She whirled. Five hulking birds with bare leathery necks and cruel beaks sat in an untidy row on a branch, glaring at her. When one of them shifted its perch, a strip of something pale flapped, tangled in a black claw. Corpsebirds.

Mehcredi’s stomach rebelled. Stumbling behind a boulder, she sank to her knees and was briefly and violently ill.

A firm hand clasped the back of her neck. “Breathe,” said Walker. “That’s it.” Sliding his arm around her waist, he hoisted her to her feet. Gratefully, she leaned into his shoulder. “Better?”

When she nodded, gulping, he handed her his water bottle.

“Idiot,” he said without heat. “You should have stayed put. You haven’t seen death at close quarters before, have you?”

“Yes, but only . . . properly laid out.”

His palm traveled up and down her spine in a comforting, matter-of-fact caress. “Battlefields are ugly.” His brows contracted, the lines around his mouth deepening. “There’s no sign of the enemy. They all died the same way, as if their chests just . . . exploded.”

She could only shake her head, wordless, and press closer.

“C’mon, Meck, lad.” Someone slapped her on the back. Abad, looking pale and grim. “Don’t be such a girl.” But he lifted a fold of his head cloth to his nose.

Walker released her immediately. “Go back,” he said. “We’ll take care of this.” He glanced around, his lips thin. “There’s something . . .” He shook his head.

It took the rest of the day to collect the bodies and make a pyre. Dinari ordered the caravan to pull off onto the stony plain, half a mile distant, well upwind of the greasy smoke.

Mehcredi helped Cook prepare the evening meal, but no one ate much and conversation around the campfires was subdued. Lying on another of Walker’s feathergrass mats in the lee of a big boulder with the dog’s head draped over her ankles, she gazed up at the silvery blue disk of the Sister hanging low in the arch of the sky. The Brother, three times Her size, flared an angry crimson, dominating the zenith. Far off, direwolves howled on the hunt, desolate and desperate, and the wind fingered her hair, a sly cool touch. The small hairs rose all over her body.

Scrounger sat up, a growl rumbling in his throat. Gradually, she became aware of another noise, threaded through the wind, a low rhythmic chanting near as desolate as the direwolf song. Through the double-edged shadows, she made out a dark form among the boulders a little way distant.

With a huff of regret, she abandoned her warm cocoon of blankets and walked slowly toward him, pebbles rattling beneath her feet. Walker didn’t move that she could see, but the chanting stopped.

“What are you doing?”

For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he turned his head, his hair shifting in a dark curtain across his shoulders. A long pause, as if he searched for something in her face. “It’s called the Song of Life.”

“For the dead?”

He shrugged. “There’s no one else to sing it for them.”

Anger swept over her, springing out of ambush from the gods knew where. “Not much bloody use is it?” Her voice rose. “They’re still dead. Torn to pieces, like so much meat. Gods, left for the corpsebirds and the direwolves.”

A strong arm drew her into his warmth. “Sshh.” He stroked her hair. “What do you believe, Mehcredi?”

“Believe? About what?”

“About life and death and why we’re here.” She caught the flash of a thin smile. “The big questions.”

“I don’t—I never thought about it.” Feeling calmer, she settled more comfortably against him.
I believe in you,
she thought and congratulated herself for having the wits to keep her stupid mouth shut. “What about you?”

“The Shar believe in the great cycle—birth, life, death, rebirth. The gift of our Ancestors.” Hard fingers lifted her chin, directing her gaze to the stars. “Look up. We’re part of that, of everything that is.”

Mehcredi snorted. “Sure. No more than bitemes matter to him.” She jerked her head toward the dog, her eyes stinging with tears. “In the end, all we are is meat. Blood and bone and muscle and guts, like—” She choked.