Thief With No Shadow (4 page)

“The necklace, you filthy vermin.”

The wraith’s chin rose slightly. She stood swaying in his grip and said nothing.

“
Where?
” He bared his teeth at her, snarling.

She tried to pull away.

Bastian shook her a third time, making her head snap back on her neck.

“I don’t have it,” she said hoarsely.

Fear stabbed in his chest, sharp and cold, and he pushed her from him. He heard the outrush of her breath as she fell hard on the dirt. “What have you done with it?
What?
” But even as he asked the question, he knew.

The wraith raised herself on one hand. She turned her head. Her eyes were like chips of gray stone, the eyes of a creature with no soul. “I gave it to the salamanders.”

The utterness of the catastrophe took Bastian’s breath. As well to have cast the necklace off the edge of the world. No one, common man or king or magical beast, could make the salamanders give it back.

He was blind and deaf. He heard nothing. Saw nothing. He was aware only of horror. No. It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.
No
.

Bastian inhaled a shuddering breath and blinked. Vision came back more clearly than before, sound more loudly. He saw a beetle scurry across the bare dirt, its carapace shining blackly. He heard the wraith breathe with quick and shallow inhalations. He saw her with the clarity of hatred: the scratches on her pale skin beaded with dried blood, the smears of mud and dust, the ragged clothes, the filthy bloodstained bandages around her feet, the bold defiance in her eyes.

The wraith scrambled to stand.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” He clenched his hands. “Do you have
any idea?
”

She raised her chin and stood as haughtily as a queen in her rags and her dirt.

“You have destroyed us.” His voice was hoarse with fear.

The wraith shrugged lightly.

“You
—” Bastian snatched at her hair, knotting his fingers in the tangled braid. He twisted it tightly, baring his teeth at her...and could go no further. He couldn’t hit her, couldn’t punish her as she deserved.

She.
Smaller and shorter and lighter than him. A woman. A wraith.

Bastian saw the silvery tracks of dried tears on her dirty cheeks.

He spat. The wraith flinched slightly as the spittle hit her ragged shirt, landing over her heart. He released his hold on her hair and she staggered and almost fell. Her chin rose high as she regained her balance. Her stance was proud and unrepentant.

“My parents died for that necklace.” His voice choked on the words.

The wraith’s mouth tightened. She shrugged again, a tiny movement of her shoulders.

Her utter lack of remorse, of compassion, drove the air from his lungs. Bastian turned away, breathless. His hands trembled with the need to hit her.

“You will steal it back,” he said harshly, to the meadow.

The wraith made no reply.

He turned swiftly, almost stumbling, but the wraith was still there, still visible. She knelt on the bare dirt, bent over the man’s body, her fingers touching his throat. Endal stood at her back.

“You will steal it from the salamanders,” Bastian told her, more loudly.

The wraith didn’t bother to turn her head. “No.” Her voice was flat.

“Yes!” He crossed the distance between them in one stride and clenched his hand in her plait again, jerking her head up and around to look at him.

She met his gaze unflinchingly. “Nothing you can do to me will make me steal it back.”

He read the truth of the words in her eyes, in her expression. She was unafraid of him, unafraid of his size and strength, his rage, his hatred. Unafraid of Endal standing behind her.

Bastian released her hair.

The wraith turned her attention again to the man’s body. “Go away,” she said, dismissing him.

Bastian swayed on his feet. Failure pressed so heavily on him that he almost fell to the ground. The edges of his vision were dark with exhaustion and despair. “Did you get paid well?” His voice was slurred, rasping, nearly unintelligible. The farm. His parents. So many deaths, so much suffering. For nothing.

The wraith’s dirty fingers curved protectively over the man’s black hair. “Yes. Go away and leave us.”

Understanding was slow to come. He stood stupidly for a moment. “You bartered the necklace for him.”

She didn’t look at him. “It was the price.”

“The price of your thieving is my sister’s life!” Or perhaps his own.

The wraith made no sign that she’d heard his words. Her attention was wholly on the man. She stroked the hair back from his face.

Bastian’s gaze flinched from the man’s injuries—the peeling, charred skin, the livid bruises, the swollen and blackened eyes.
Does he live?
he asked Endal.

He smells of death. He will die soon.

“Your thieving is for nothing,” Bastian told her, the words bitter in his mouth. “He dies.”

The wraith’s fingers clenched in the man’s hair. “No.” Her voice was fierce. She didn’t turn her head to look at him. “He will live.”

Bastian shook his head, but she didn’t see. He took a clumsy step backwards, away from her, and shook his head again.

Endal whined. His anxiety pressed into Bastian’s mind.

The salamanders have the necklace
, Bastian told him.
We are too late.
He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Blackness.

Endal barked.

Bastian lowered his hands and opened his eyes. Endal stood at the heavy door to the salamanders’ den. He barked again, loudly, futilely.

“No.”

Endal gave another deep-throated bark,

“No! Endal, don’t!”

Bastian made it to the door in fast, stumbling steps. He grabbed the leather collar around the dog’s neck and pulled him back.

Too late.

Metal scraped against stone. Heat billowed out at him and peppery musk gagged in his throat. He saw shadows and sleek red skin and fiery eyes.

“Yesss?”

The salamander was smaller than he was, much smaller, and yet Bastian trembled to hold his ground. His heart beat hard, urging him to run. Endal whimpered. He pressed against Bastian’s leg.

Bastian had read the tales. He’d heard storytellers speak of salamanders, had seen sketches drawn by those who’d encountered the creatures and lived, but second-hand description was no match for reality. The domed skull with its needle-sharp crest of spines, the elongated jaw and slitted nostrils, the lipless mouth, the eyes...so bright, like staring into the heart of a fire.

“Yesss?”

Words choked on his tongue. It was useless to utter them, hopeless. Salamanders didn’t give back their treasures. The necklace was lost.

Endal nudged his leg. He whined again.

Courage. For his sister Liana, he had to have courage. Bastian swallowed. “The necklace she gave you.” The words came out in a rush. “I’d like it back. Please.”

The salamander uttered a gleeful, hissing sound, like steam rising from the spout of a kettle. A tiny wisp of flame licked from its mouth. “And what do you offer in exssschange?” it asked.

Bastian’s mouth was dry. He struggled to breathe. The sharp scent of the creature’s skin choked in his throat. Sulphur stung his nostrils. He had no gold coins, no jewels, nothing that might tempt a salamander. The silver signet ring on his finger was too plain. “Her.” He gestured at the wraith. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her head rise swiftly. “I offer her.”

The salamander laughed its hissing laugh again. Its eyes narrowed in delight. “We do not want her,” it said.

Bastian inhaled a shallow breath of musk and sulphur. “I have nothing else to offer.”

The ember-bright eyes blinked slowly. The creature smiled, showing teeth that were small and neat and sharp. “You are male.”

He’d heard the tales in the taverns, had laughed and scoffed outwardly, and recoiled inside himself. He didn’t need to be told what the salamander meant. It was legend. It was horror.

Bastian trembled.
For Liana.
Fear knotted in his belly. There was perspiration on his skin. His pulse beat fast and loud in his ears. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I...I can’t.”

The salamander shrugged sinuously. “Then the necklasss isss oursss.” It turned away, into the hot shadows of the den.

“Please.” Bastian swallowed his pride and begged, holding his hands out to the creature. “I must have it. I need it to lift a curse.”

The salamander looked back over its shoulder. It blinked burning eyes at him, uncaring, and closed the door.

CHAPTER FIVE

A
CURSE.
M
ELKE
clenched one hand in Hantje’s matted hair. What had she done to this man and his family?

She’d thought the harm was only to herself. She had stolen, had crossed a line burned in her soul that she’d sworn never to breach, had become the creature she never wanted to be. Wraith. Thief.

If her actions ruined this man, if anyone died because of her...

She felt for Hantje’s pulse.
Live. Let the sacrifice be worth it.

The man stepped close to her. Melke tensed, her head bent.

“He’s as good as dead.”

She knew it from the way Hantje’s pulse faltered beneath her fingertips. She shook her head. Her grief was too huge, her shame too overwhelming, to admit he was right.

“Yes!” The man gripped the nape of her neck, jerking her head sharply back, forcing her to meet his gaze.

Melke struggled not to flinch from him. His face was as hard and brutal as those of the mercenaries she’d seen in the northern ports. He wanted to hurt her. It showed in the twist of his mouth and the tight furrows that bracketed it, in the flaring of his nostrils.

“I’ll give you his life in return for the necklace.” She heard hatred in his voice, and she heard truth.

“How?”

“A healer.”

She stared at him. A healer. A chance for Hantje to live.

What was her brother’s life worth? Her own death? Hantje had tried and failed. How could she hope to succeed?

Melke spoke the truth carefully, “The salamanders...I don’t think it’s possible to steal from them. Not even a wraith can do it.”

The man’s fingers pinched tighter at the nape of her neck. “If you want him to live, you will do it!”

“My brother tried,” she said, her voice thin and slightly breathless. Could he hear her pain? “You see the result.”

Breath hissed between the man’s teeth. He released her abruptly. His face contorted in loathing. “Another wraith.” He spat at the ground by Hantje’s feet. “You have destroyed us because of a stinking, thieving piece of
scum
.”

His hands clenched into fists. Fury pulled his lips back from his teeth. She saw in his eyes that he trembled on the brink of violence. He wanted to injure her as she had injured him.

I am sorry
, she wanted to say, but the sheer inadequacy of the words gagged her. No apology she could make would be sufficient. She turned her face away from his rage.
I did not mean to harm you. It was not my intention.

She touched light fingers to Hantje’s hair. How long before he died? How many minutes, hours, before she was alone?

“If my sister dies, I will kill you,” the man said. Emotion was thick in his voice.

If someone dies because of me, I will not want to live.

She laid her fingers on Hantje’s skin, bloodied and bruised and burned. How precious life was. How fragile. How easily destroyed.

If Hantje died, if this man’s sister died...

“I will try to do it,” she whispered.

The man said nothing. She turned her head and looked up at him, tall and hard-faced. The hound stood, large and black, at his side.