The Lone Warrior (53 page)

“Hold your water!” Yachi bellowed. “Sit tight. It’s just passing through.”

The barking became a fusillade, high and frantic. Mehcredi’s head whipped around and her guts cramped with horror.

Gods, no! The only one in all the world of whose love she could be certain.

With a gasp, she jerked her hand back from the bar across the door.

“
Mehcredi!
” Walker’s full-throated bellow reverberated off the stone walls. He skewered her with the intensity of his black stare, every ounce of his formidable will focused on pinning her to the wall. “
Don’t.
” She saw his lips shape the word as he began to work his way toward her through the crowd.

But she couldn’t listen to Scrounge die,
she couldn’t
.

Holy Sister, Sister of mercy, please. Oh, please. Frantically, she glanced around, avoiding Walker’s furious gaze. Window, the nearest window. I know he’s only a—

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a skinny leg disappear behind a tapestry and her blood turned to iced water. There was an alcove there, if she recalled correctly, and a—Sweet Sister!

Before she knew she was going to do it, she’d shouldered past an elderly couple and shoved the hanging aside, just as Florien’s shabby boots jiggled in a narrow window aperture and vanished into the thrashing darkness. Without hesitation, Mehcredi hurled herself after him, slamming the window shut the moment she gained her feet on the flagged path outside.

Crouching, a naked blade in either hand, she peered into the shadows. Nothing. The night was clear, the Sibling Moons blurring every chunk of stone, every blade of grass, with their strange double radiance. “Florien?” she called softly. “You little bastard, wait ’til I get hold of you.”

No answer, but the yapping started up again, the other side of a projecting buttress.

The wind shoved her about like a bully. Mehcredi’s lips peeled back from her teeth. What the fuck. She’d been bullied by the best. Pushing the whipping hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand, she crept forward.

The boy stood with his back pressed to the tower wall, staring toward the keep gates, his face stark with terror. Scrounge was clasped in his arms, still shouting canine threats at the stream of brown black fur pouring out of the stables. Rats. They scuttled across the bailey to dive into a grate over the kitchen.

Mehcredi barely flinched. Her heart thudding with foreboding, she turned to track Florien’s gaze.

A heaving turbulence boiled through Blay Pass, a thousand whirlwinds jostling, jockeying for position. The choir of the djinns swelled to a hellish chorus as they swept through the gates of Lonefell.

Using her whole body, Mehcredi shoved boy and dog into the corner provided by the buttress. Her legs weak with terror, she placed herself in front of them. The air roiled. Lifting her chin, she snarled her defiance.

The bolt of fear was so intense, Walker stood frozen for vital seconds. The great doors boomed as though a huge ghostly fist hammered, demanding admittance.

Snapping out of his paralysis, he grabbed the nearest lantern, his brain spinning, calculating the odds. It would take him too long to work through the press of bodies to Mehcredi’s window. Whirling about, he pulled a shutter from the window behind him. As he thrust a leg over the sill, a voice growled, “What the fuck—?”

The baron’s sergeant lunged forward to pull him back. Walker clipped the man neatly on the jaw, yanked the quarterstaff out of his hand and tumbled backward into the moonslit bailey. The keening of the djinns had become a concerted howl. They darted and swooped, thickening the air in dizzying patterns that twisted the mind.

Walker opened the lantern, shoving the pitch-covered end of his staff into the flame until it caught. Torch blazing, he ran flat out, stretching into his stride like a direwolf, circling the tower. A thunderclap split the air, accompanied by the vicious roar of a hungry flame. Walker risked a glance upward. On the top of the tower, three small figures were silhouetted against the moons-wracked clouds. The light surrounding them glowed a strange acrid green. Deiter’s robes billowed as he staggered back into Erik’s arms. The green intensified and the flames resumed.

Cursing, the swordmaster jinked and wove while the wind flailed at the dark air around him. Heart hammering, he sped around the final curve—and there she was, standing foursquare, her legs braced, shielding the boy and the dog with her body. Her face was upturned, gleaming pale as bone in the night and her eyes were wide, fixed on three vortexes of whistling air hovering just above her head.

Walker’s guts cramped with horror, the blood congealing in his veins.

The djinns rose a foot, swirling about as if confused by the multiplicity of targets.

Gray stepped out of the well of deep shadow thrown by the tower. “
Boy!
” At his side stood a man-shaped slice of midnight. The hair rose on the back of Walker’s neck.
Shad
. Reaching out, it wrapped an impossibly long arm around Florien’s waist and drew him back into the shadows, the dog still squirming in his arms.

Gray, Shad and the boy vanished, but Gray’s disembodied voice carried clearly enough. “I’ve got him. Godsdammit,
run
!” A sorcerer of shadows indeed. Gods!

Her back to the wall, Mehcredi panted open-mouthed like an animal.

The djinns collected themselves and swooped like corpsebirds, ignoring Walker completely. Sharp reports split the air, small objects ricocheted off tower walls at all angles. Something scored a furrow in Walker’s cheek, but he barely registered it.

He hurled the lighted lantern straight into the thick of them. Glass tinkled and an ear-piercing shriek lingered and died on the freezing air. One down, two to go. Mehcredi was dodging and weaving, cramped as well as protected by the stone at her back.

Walker waded into the fray, swinging his burning staff in a wide circle.

“Mehcredi!” yelled Gray, still cloaked in shadow. “Ten feet to your left.
Quick!
” A darker rectangular space appeared in the tower wall. A doorway.

The second djinn writhed on the point of Walker’s quarterstaff, dying in a shower of stinking sparks. Mehcredi edged sideways.

With blinding speed, the remaining djinn lunged, the air exploding around it. Mehcredi reeled back, making the strangest noise, midway between a grunt and a shriek. Folding into herself, she slumped against the wall.

His brain was frozen in a stasis produced by sheer horror, but his limbs moved with the perfect precision that was the result of decades of training. Walker surged forward, close enough for the translucent creature to brush his arm, a weird touch like congealed water. In a single flowing movement, he speared the djinn with his quarterstaff, bent and scooped Mehcredi up in his arms. She moaned piteously.

He threw himself through the door, sinking to a dusty floor, cradling Mehcredi’s quivering body with his own.

Behind him, the door slammed and a bar dropped into place.

“Get a light, lad,” gasped Gray’s voice. “
Run!
”

Outside, the whistling rose to a crescendo and the door rattled. Florien’s footsteps pattered away.

“Where?” Gray said. “Where did it get her?”

An icy ball of dread had taken up residence in Walker’s gut. “Not sure.” When he passed frantic hands over Mehcredi’s torso, she screamed.

“Shit!” He recoiled.

A circle of light appeared, Florien entering through a bricked archway. They were in some kind of cellar, obviously used as a storeroom, judging by the sacks of flour and dried fruit, the huge yellow wheels of cheese.

Mehcredi was still conscious, how he had no idea. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she’d bitten her lip until it bled. The warm ivory of her skin had gone a horrible shade of gray green. Frantic, he sank his fists into her shirt and ripped it down the middle, baring her to the waist.

“Argh!” Her body contorted.

The blood sheeting her side shone black in the wavering light, the boy’s hand shaking as he held the lantern aloft. The dog crouched, the moaning sound he made eerily human.

“Candles,” said Gray. He gripped the assassin’s shoulders and pressed her down. “Florien,
hurry
.” Shad leaned forward, joining Gray, his smoky fingers long and thin.

Mehcredi’s face distorted in a rictus of excruciating pain. An obscene lump, like a huge, hard carbuncle, slid slowly under the skin of her ribs.

Walker’s world tilted on its axis. His vision hazed.

Outside, the noise of the djinns subsided to a fretful buzzing. A last rattle, a whoosh as if a huge volume of air had been sucked out of the world and then all that remained was the moaning of the wind. A pause and a hundred people began to babble, deeper voices shouting orders.

“Healer,” Walker croaked. “I’ll get—”

A small bony hand grabbed his arm. “Nah,” Florien said. “He’s busy wit’ Cenda an’ the old man.”

“Cenda?” Gray jumped to his feet. “Shit! Walker, I—”

“Go,” Walker said dully. “There’s nothing you can do here anyway.”

Gray opened his mouth, then shook his head and closed it again. Shad stroked a dark hand over Mehcredi’s hair and rose to join him. In perfect step, they charged through the archway at a dead run.

Mehcredi groaned and her eyes snapped open, so dark with pain they were black. “W-Walker?”

“I’m here,” he said.

“H-hurts.” She grasped the wrist of his knife hand, the manic strength of her grip hard enough to leave bruises. “Cut it out.”

But when he touched the tip of his blade to her skin, the djinn stone skittered about as if aware of his intentions. Mehcredi’s thin scream echoed off the ceiling.

Walker clenched his teeth on a whimper like a wounded animal. He pulled away, sweat pouring off him. “I’m making it worse.”

“Fook,” whispered Florien. “It’s runnin’ away. Fookin’ thing’s alive.”

They waited until the trembling stopped. Mehcredi went still, save for the jerky rise and fall of her breasts.

“L-love you.” She stopped to grit her teeth. A runnel of blood trickled down her chin. “Do it.” Her hand moved toward the knife, the movement uncoordinated but purposeful. “C-clean and quick.”

“Can’t.”

“
Aaargh!
” Beneath his hands, Mehcredi bucked, clenching her teeth on a long groan. Her spine arched off the floor, the bones cracking.

Florien knelt beside him, shaking. “Fookin’ hell. Do something!” His voice was clogged with tears and horror.

A terrible rage moved in Walker like a caged beast. “I won’t let you die, Mehcredi. Do you hear me?”

“N-no choice.” Incredibly, she tried to smile, though it came out like a grimace. “Worth it though.
Ah gods!
” She writhed for a moment, then went limp. “Every m-minute.”

Magick rose within him—the rising sap of spring, the slow inexorable strength of tectonic plates deep below the surface of the earth. His skin grew hot and tight as the power expanded, filling him to the point of pain.

Grimly, Walker brought all his shamanic skills to bear, breathing in the stench of sweat and blood and burning as though it were an exotic perfume. Sinking down beside her, he laid his palm over the breast he’d once Marked, closing his eyes. With a moan, he brushed his lips across her slack mouth, tasting the sweet copper of her blood, feeling the faint warm rush of her breath.

Resolve firmed within him, deep and granite hard, enduring as the earth. What did he have to live for, after all? ’Cestors’ bones, if his Magick wasn’t good enough, he’d find something else to give—his life if that was what it took.

Very softly, he began to chant the Song he’d made for her and the Mark rose beneath his palm, the lines swimming up from the heart of her, Marking her flawless skin once again. When Walker switched to his own Song, the Mark reached out to twine up his forearm like a vine, toward his own heart.