Heavy. Filled up. Drowning in the desert.
‘Not this night, lass.’
She stumbled as she turned about, threw both arms out for balance, and squinted at the guard who had followed. ‘What?’
‘Febryl has wearied of your spying. He wants Bidithal blind and deaf in this camp. It grieves me, Scillara. It does. Truly.’ He took her by the arm, gauntleted fingers closing tight. ‘It’s a mercy, I think, and I will make it as painless as possible. For I liked you, once. Always smiling, you were, though of course that was mostly the durhang.’ He was leading her away as he spoke, down from the main avenue into the rubbish-cluttered aisles between tent-walls. ‘I’m tempted to take my pleasure of you first. Better a son of the desert than a bow-legged Napan for your last memory of love, yes?’
‘You mean to kill me?’ She was having trouble with the thought, with thinking at all.
‘I’m afraid I must, lass. I cannot defy my master, especially in this. Still, you should be relieved that it is me and not some stranger. For I will not be cruel, as I have said. Here, into these ruins, Scillara-the floor has been swept clean-not the first time it’s seen use, but if all signs are removed immediately there is no evidence to be found, is there? There’s an old well in the garden for the bodies.’
‘You mean to throw me down the well?’
‘Not you, just your body. Your soul will be through Hood’s gate by then, lass. I will make certain of that. Now, lie yourself down, here, on my cloak. I have looked upon your lovely body unable to touch for long enough. I have dreamt of kissing those lips, too.’
She was lying on the cloak, staring up at dim, blurry stars, as the guard unhitched his sword-belt then began removing his armour. She saw him draw a knife, the blade gleaming black, and set it to one side on the flagstoned floor.
Then his hands were pushing her thighs apart. There is no pleasure. It is gone. He is a handsome man. A woman’s husband. He prefers pleasure before business, as I once did. I think. But now, I know nothing of pleasure. Leaving naught but business.
The cloak was bunching beneath her as his grunts filled her ears. She calmly reached out to one side and closed her hand around the hilt of the knife. Raised it, the other hand joining it over and above the guard.
Then she drove the knife down into his lower back, the blade’s edge gouging between two vertebrae, severing the cord, the point continuing on in a stuttering motion as it pierced membranes and tore deep into the guard’s middle and lower intestines.
He spilled into her at the moment of death, his shudders becoming twitches, the breath hissing from a suddenly slack mouth as his forehead struck the stone floor beside her right ear.
She left the knife buried halfway to its hilt-as deep as her strength had taken it-in his back, and pushed at his limp body until it rolled to one side.
A desert woman for your last memory of love.
Scillara sat up, wanting to cough but swallowing until the urge passed. Heavy, and heavier still.
I am a vessel ever filled, yet there’s always room for more. More durhang. More men and their seeds. My master found my place of pleasure and removed it. Ever filled, yet never filled up. There is no base to this vessel. This is what he has done.
To all of us.
She tottered upright. Stared down at the guard’s corpse, at the wet stains spreading out beneath him.
A sound behind her. Scillara turned.
‘You murdering bitch.’
She frowned at the second guard as he advanced, drawing a dagger.
‘The fool wanted you alone for a time. This is what he gets for ignoring Febryl’s commands-I warned him-’
She was staring at the hand gripping the dagger, so was caught unawares as the other hand flashed, knuckles cracking hard against her jaw.
Her eyes blinked open to jostling, sickening motion. She was being dragged through rubbish by one arm. From somewhere ahead flowed the stench of the latrine trench, thick as fog, a breath of warm, poisoned air. Her lips were broken and her mouth tasted of blood. The shoulder of the arm the guard gripped was throbbing.
The man was muttering. ‘… pretty thing indeed. Hardly. When she’s drowning in filth. The fool, and now he’s dead. It was a simple task, after all. There’s no shortage of whores in this damned camp. What-who-’
He had stopped.
Head lolling, Scillara caught a blurred glimpse of a squat figure emerging from darkness.
The guard released her wrist and her arm fell with a thump onto damp, foul mud. She saw him reaching for his sword.
Then his head snapped up with a sound of cracked teeth, followed by a hot spray that spattered across Scillara’s thighs. Blood.
She thought she saw a strange emerald glow trailing from one hand of the guard’s killer-a hand taloned like a huge cat’s.
The figure stepped over the crumpled form of the guard, who had ceased moving, and slowly crouched down beside Scillara.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ the man growled. ‘Or so I’ve just realized. Extraordinary, how single lives just fold into the whole mess, over and over again, all caught up in the greater swirl. Spinning round and round, and ever downward, it seems. Ever downward. Fools, all of us, to think we can swim clear of that current.’
The shadows were strange on him. As if he stood beneath palms and tall grasses-but no, there was only the night sky above the squat, broad-shouldered man. He was tattooed, she realized, in the barbs of a tiger.
‘Plenty of killing going on lately,’ he muttered, staring down at her with amber eyes. ‘All those loose threads being knotted, I expect.’
She watched him reach down with that glowing, taloned hand. It settled, palm-downward, warm between her breasts. The tips of the claws pricked her skin and a tremble ran through her.
That spread, coursing hot through her veins. That heat grew suddenly fierce, along her throat, in her lungs, between her legs.
The man grunted. ‘I thought it was consumption, that rattling breath. But no, it’s just too much durhang. As for the rest, well, it’s an odd thing about pleasure. Something Bidithal would have you never know. Its enemy is not pain. No, pain is simply the path taken to indifference. And indifference destroys the soul. Of course, Bidithal likes destroyed souls-to mirror his own.’
If he continued speaking beyond that, she did not hear, as sensations long lost flooded into her, only slightly blunted by the lingering, satisfying haze of the durhang. She felt badly used between her legs, but knew that feeling would pass.
‘Outrage.’
He was gathering her into his arms, but paused. ‘You spoke?’
Outrage. Yes. That. ‘Where are you taking me?’ The question came out between coughs, and she pushed his arms aside to bend over and spit out phlegm while he answered.
‘To my temple. Fear not, it’s safe. Neither Febryl nor Bidithal will find you there. You’ve been force-healed, lass, and will need to sleep.’
‘What do you want with me?’
‘I’m not sure yet. I think I will need your help, and soon. But the choice is yours. Nor will you have to surrender… anything you don’t want to. And, if you choose to simply walk away, that is fine as well. I will give you money and supplies-and maybe even find you a horse. We can discuss that tomorrow. What is your name?’
He reached down once more and lifted her effortlessly.
‘Scillara.’
‘I am Heboric, Destriant to Treach, the Tiger of Summer and the God of War.’
She stared up at him as he began carrying her along the path. ‘I am afraid I am going to disappoint you, Heboric. I think I have had my fill of priests.’
She felt his shrug, then he smiled wearily down at her. ‘That’s all right. Me too.’
Felisin awoke shortly after L’oric returned with a freshly slaughtered lamb for his demon familiar, Greyfrog. Probably, the High Mage reflected when she first stirred beneath the tarpaulin, she had been roused to wakefulness by the sound of crunching bones.