The Lone Warrior (5 page)

Stepping up easily onto the bench, she examined the curved sword, probably drawn by the glitter of gems if the way she was running her fingers over the hilt was any indication.

A stifled yelp sharpened his attention. Still standing on the bench, Mehcredi glared at her forefinger. Then she wiped it on her shirt and stuck it in her mouth, looking so like a petulant child, he almost smiled. Favoring the curved sword with a last, accusing glower, she turned her attention to the thin wicked dagger. With the utmost caution, she lifted it from the supporting brackets, keeping the point well away from her body.

But once she’d gained the floor, she didn’t know what to do with it. She had no sword belt, no scabbard or sheath, only the clothes she stood up in. When she tried to shove the blade into her waistband, she came within a hairsbreadth of disemboweling herself. Walker winced.’Cestors’ bones, didn’t she know to put it in her boot? What was the Assassins’ Guild teaching these days?

Eventually, she worked it out for herself and slid the evil thing into her left boot. Despite the fact she was right-handed, thought Walker in irritation. Cautiously, she stepped out into the garden, her wary gaze passing straight over the touchme bushes that concealed him. On the other hand, she ignored the obvious, the path down to the water stair. Instead, she sidled to the rear corner of the building and peered around it. With an audible huff of relief, she headed toward the stable and the garden sheds.

Silently, Walker rose and padded after her.

Beyond was a small gate giving out onto the narrow street that ran behind all the buildings facing the canal. As the assassin swung it open, he saw her shoulders lift in a huge sigh.

A sharp bark rent the silence. Mehcredi froze, glaring down at the shaggy mongrel capering around her knees. It was an indeterminate color, something between brown, gray and dirt, with a tail like a tattered flag.

“
Will you shut up?
” she hissed, her voice carrying clear as a deep sweet bell in the still morning air. “And stop following me! This is all your fault!”

Walker very nearly laughed aloud, which was a strange thing in itself. In general, he didn’t find life amusing.

Unfazed, the dog continued to prance, its whole attitude one of cheerful adoration. Walker suspected there was a toothy grin hidden somewhere under the hair, although only the tip of a black quivering nose was visible.

With a final furtive glance over her shoulder, the assassin stepped into the street.

She stopped in midstride, as if she’d run into a wall. One hand flapped about in a vague sort of way, while the other clutched at her chest. Mehcredi crumpled, shrinking into herself. Her knees went from under her and she fell back through the open gate, landing hard on her backside in a mud puddle.

Gods! Walker took two rapid strides forward, his hand extended.

But the assassin was making too much noise to be dead, rocking back and forth, moaning and hugging herself. The dog nosed at her face, whining and licking.

Walker exhaled carefully, fading back behind the sweeping branches of a convenient widow’s hair tree. The Mark was working as it should. For a second there, he thought he might have miscalculated and killed her. Setting his jaw, he told himself to enjoy the spectacle, and waited. An eternity later, she batted the dog out of the way, uncurled and sat up slowly, tears shining on chalk white cheeks.

“Get out of it, you scrounger,” she muttered to the little animal, but without much venom. Slowly, she climbed to her feet and turned to stare at the House of Swords.

Almost in full view save for the foliage of his tree, Walker froze and her gaze passed right over him. Again.

Mehcredi wiped her face on her sleeve and sniffed loudly. Then she tugged ineffectually at her muddy trews. “Ah, shit!” she said with tremendous feeling.

Satisfaction warmed Walker’s chest.
The penalty for disobedience. Off you go now, assassin, do as you’re told.

But to his surprise, she spun on her heel, hauled in a huge breath and charged the gate with her head down like a human battering ram.

In the second it took him to reach her, she screamed and went down in the street as if poleaxed. Without ceremony, Walker wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and hoisted her bodily to her feet. “I told you,” he snapped, hauling her back through the gate.

Gulping, Mehcredi leaned hard against his arm, her face a ghastly shade of gray.

“Throw up on me,” he said, “and I’ll make you sorry you were ever born.”

Huge silver eyes stared into his. “T-too late.” She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and her next words came out muffled. “I already am—sorry I was born, I mean.

Yanking the shirt away from her skin, she peered inside. Walker averted his gaze from what looked like smooth curves of finest-quality alabaster.

“Gods, what have you
done
to me? What
are
you?”

“I was a shaman among my people once, long ago, before I took to the sword.”

Walker’s mouth shut like a trap, as if he hadn’t meant to say even that much.

For the gods’ sakes, where had he come from? One minute she’d been alone, save for the bloody dog, but making her escape easily enough. The next, her heart caught fire and exploded in her chest. Before the black spots cleared from her vision, Walker had materialized, seemingly out of thin air, wearing his hunter’s face.

“A shaman?” Her bones were still rattling like a snow birch in a winter gale, her left breast burning as if she’d been branded. Mehcredi locked her knees. “Is that like a necromancer?”

“No.”

He was angry with her again—or perhaps he’d never stopped.

“Are you a wizard?”

“No.” Walker turned and strode toward the building, but because he hadn’t released his iron grip on her arm, she was dragged along behind him like a naughty child. Sweet Sister, he was strong, stronger even than the Lonefell blacksmith. He’d lifted her out of the mud as if she weighed next to nothing.

The dog trotted at their heels with the jaunty air of one about to be entertained.

Mehcredi tried to pull free without success. “You
hurt
me!”

Walker slid her a stern glance. “Step outside the gate and you will die, assassin.”

Atavistic terror raised all the small hairs on the back of her neck. She didn’t doubt him.

The Necromancer had swum into her dreams, descending on her like a foul cloud, his cruel, spectral fingers sinking deep into her body, tweaking and pinching her nerves. The violation had had a malicious intent to it, a kind of hideous relish. Walker’s Mark was just as lethal, but somehow, it felt impersonal. Like a tygre lying in wait to cut out the weakest in the herd, it was what its nature made it and no more. Only . . . she wasn’t the weakest, was she? Stupid might be stupid, but it had its own stubborn endurance.

Mehcredi hauled in a breath and gritted her teeth.

Walker jerked her to a halt in the room with all the weapons on the walls. He snapped his fingers under her nose. “The dagger. Hand it over.”

“What dagger?” She held the obsidian gaze.

He didn’t blink. “The one in your boot.”

He’d said he was a shaman. Did that mean he was a mind-reader too? No, he must have been watching. It was the only answer that made sense. With a shrug of resignation, she retrieved the blade. Handing it over, she asked, “What do you do in here?”

“It’s a fighting salle.”

“A what?”

A long pause. Walker’s eyes narrowed. “For a trained assassin, you don’t know much,” he said at last.

He didn’t need to know how close she’d come to failing even the First Circle. She raised her chin. “So tell me.”

“I am a swordmaster. I train mercenaries, soldiers, guards. Here.”

“Oh.” He must be good, then. Mehcredi considered, mentally contrasting Walker’s uncanny patience with the scathing demeanor of the Guild’s Arms Master.
Graceful as a sow in rut,
the man had said, tugging at his sparse hair.

Her heart leaped at the thought of a second chance. A swordmaster with his own establishment. He could hardly be worse than the Arms Master. “Would you train me?”

“Not funny, assassin.”

“I’ll work hard, I promise.”

Strong fingers gripped her jaw, tilting her head at an awkward angle. Walker glared into her face, his eyes so fiercely black, she realized she’d misstepped again. Godsdammit, she hadn’t meant to make him angry. Would she never learn?

“You,” he said, “have the most extraordinary nerve.”

Somewhere around their knees, the dog whined, breaking the tension. Walker grunted, lowering his gaze, and Mehcredi released a shaky breath.

“Out.” Pointing a stern finger at the garden, he glared at the dog.

It danced about in indecision. Then it plopped its furry backside down on the nice clean mats and turned a shaggy head toward Mehcredi. It must have eyes because she’d noticed it didn’t bump into things.

“Get rid of it,” growled Walker. “Or I will.”

“It’s not mine,” she protested.

“You’re lying. Again.”

“No, no.” She grabbed at his sleeve. “He follows me everywhere.” She shot the dog a murderous glare, but he grinned back, tongue lolling. “I don’t want him, but I can’t shake him, the stupid, godsbedamned—” Breathing hard, she broke off. “I think he belongs to the Necromancer.”

Walker made a huffing noise, deep in his throat. When his lips curved, she decided it might signify amusement.

“Unlikely.” Crouching in a single, lithe movement, he snapped his fingers and the dog padded forward to have his ears rubbed. “Necromancers don’t keep pets, only corpses.” He glanced up. “Do you feed him?”

“Sometimes.” For some unknown reason, heat flushed her cheeks. “Hardly ever.”

“There you are then.” Walker rose in his graceful, unhurried manner. “You’re a meal ticket. A stray’s idea of heaven.”

Between one breath and the next, his face hardened. “The animal’s crawling with bitemes. Put him out.”

Mehcredi snapped her fingers the way Walker had done and the dog came to her side as if the gesture were Magick. To her surprise, when she moved toward the outer doors, he trotted along. On impulse, she sank to her knees in the doorway and got a lick on the face and a blast of disgustingly hot doggy breath for her trouble.

“Ack!” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “Run away,” she hissed. “I don’t want you. Go!”

The dog retreated half a dozen steps. Reaching the shade of a ticklewhisker hedge, he sat and scratched behind one ear. Then he turned two full circles, cast a wary glance around the quiet garden and flopped down, boneless. He yawned, showing surprisingly white teeth.

Feeling strangely warmed, Mehcredi closed the doors and returned to Walker.

“Come.” He led her back into the dim hush of the sleeping house. The thick, sable tail of his hair fell past his trim waist. She’d never seen a man with hair so long.

“Why don’t you cut your hair? It must take an awful lot of looking after.”

One of those all-purpose masculine grunts.

Shoulder to shoulder, they climbed the stairs. “It’s pretty,” she persisted, “but did you know you’re going gray, just here—”

As they reached a landing, she raised her fingers to touch his temple, but he knocked her arm away. “Keep your hands to yourself, assassin!”

Unobtrusively, Mehcredi cradled her aching wrist. “Sorry,” she said, striving for dignity. “Where are the bones you wore last night? What sort are they? What are they for? You didn’t say.”

Walker came to a dead halt. When he turned, his face was expressionless, but Mehcredi found herself backing away nonetheless, until the stair rail pressed hard across the small of her back. Silent and remorseless, he followed until she could feel the warmth of his muscular body all along her front. Funny how she tended to think of him as cold, when his physical presence was hotter than anything she’d ever known.

Slowly, so she would know what was coming, Walker raised his hands and fitted them around her throat. His touch was gentle, caressing even, but she’d never felt more terrified, not even when she’d known he was going to kill her.

“Who I am, what I am, is none of your godsbedamned business,” he said softly. “You’re a coldhearted bitch, a murderer for hire. Not a particularly good one, I grant you, but nonetheless—”

His touch was waking the bruises on her neck. They throbbed in time with her heart.

“You are not my servant, nor my student,” continued that quiet, inexorable voice. “And thanks be to Those Before, you are not my friend. Nor will you be, ever.”

He drew even closer, as close as a lover, exerting enough pressure to crack her spine over the stair rail. Absurdly luxuriant in that hard face, inky lashes brushed his high cheekbones. “You are my slave, as surely as if I bought you from a dealer in Trinitaria.” Callused fingertips drew idle patterns over her thundering pulse. “Slaves do not ask impertinent questions. Understand?”