The Sunset Warrior - 01 (23 page)

He climbed the stairs as far as they would take him. He emerged into a bright Corridor painted a brilliant yellow. Dust lay thickly along the floor, clung to the walls. He looked down. Bootprints in the dust, confused, but certainly more than one pair.

He sprinted down the Corridor and gradually the colour of the walls deepened. There were no doors. On he ran, the hate a living thing within him now. Existence narrowed.

And the Corridor ended. Here near the summit of the Freehold, the Corridor did not describe a complete circle. He faced the black bulge of a Lift’s doors. He stabbed at the black sphere and the doors yawned. He stepped inside. Up, ever up. There was one sphere and he pressed it. He ascended. Eyes like stones.
Ronin, I am sorry,
he said. What had he meant? I am the one who is sorry, Nirren. But death comes and there is no way to stop—

The Lift sighed to a halt and the doors opened. Above him the surface of the planet, so near. Perhaps just steps away? He went into the room before him. It was an ellipse, painted red. In the centre was a black platform from which a metal ladder ran vertically into a round section cut out of the ceiling. Low doors in the solid platform were open, and he saw what looked like neat piles of clothing. One stack had been tipped over. And the thought grew in his mind. Borros—

A tiny whistle in the air, like a tickle at his ear. He drew his sword and spun. The dagger was in his belt. A sword drove into his, scraping down the length of the blade, smashed into the hilt. Slight, deceptive twisting of his wrist and disengagement was accomplished.

He looked at his opponent and a shock ran through him. Blood pounded in his temples and for a split second the scene before him seemed to blur.

She stood before him, in leggings and jerkin of a soft tan colour. Across her chest ran a thin leather strap to which was attached a red leather scabbard that hung between her breasts.

She stood before him in the oblique combat position, legs apart, knees bent, leading with her shoulder to present a narrower target. Her pale hands gripped a sword the same length as Ronin’s. The black torrent of her hair was held back from her face by a plain gold band. It had the appearance of a helm.

She stood before him, small beads of sweat glinting at her hairline. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, the pupils contracted so that they seemed to be all iris. She smiled and it was like the coming of the frost. Her white teeth gleamed, small and even. She looked quite deadly.

‘K’reen,’ he breathed.

She laughed sharply, a bitter sound. ‘How I have waited to see you at this moment!’ she said in a tight voice. She swung at him and he parried solely by instinct. He felt as if the floor had suddenly become molten. He was sinking into it. He could not move. He could not take his eyes from her. She circled him, and they moved out on to the floor, like slow dancers moving to metalled music. She struck again and he parried.

‘A Bladesman,’ he said softly. ‘Can it be?’

‘Come,’ she said thickly. ‘Come and find out.’ She slashed again and again at him, drawing him out, and her eyes flashed coldly, triumphantly as he moved towards her.

He stared at her and realization suddenly flooded him. Because now she was not beautiful or pretty or any of the other words he would normally associate with her. She was naked to him now, stripped of the layers of femininity. She was at once more and less than she once was, pared and honed and transformed.

She was elemental.

Metal rang against metal in the small oval.

‘Here is what I really am!’ she said savagely. ‘Not what you made me out to be. The Salamander saw the potential in me—to be a Bladesman. He was not afraid to reject Tradition. Years we worked in secret, lest the other Saardin suspect and forbid it.’

They moved around the oval, she advancing, he retreating. She struck at him continuously, testing, probing.

‘Why?’ asked Ronin. ‘Why did he train you?’

She smiled coldly. ‘Part of the gathering of power.’ Then she sneered. ‘Something you would know nothing about.’

But it was not right, somehow, and he heard the Salamander saying,
A reason behind it all.
But there was no time; she swept it away. ‘You could have been his Chondrin!’ she hissed, striking at him. ‘You would have been with him when I came. He would have put us together, and then we could have had everything!’

There was an odd sensation inside him, and he looked at the feral glow in her eyes, the sweat running down her cheeks, her heaving breasts. And he saw what he had not wanted to see before: the jewel-hilted dagger between her breasts. And his gaze moved, as if of its own accord, to her flank, to the scabbard hanging empty there.

‘It was you,’ he whispered. ‘The Rodent. You killed Nirren. Why? He was our friend.’

She shook her head. ‘The enemy,’ she said deliberately. ‘He was the enemy. Just as you are now the enemy—’

‘But this makes no sense—’

‘You turned your back on him. After he taught you and trained you, you would not serve him. You would not aid him now.’

Still he retreated under her blows. ‘I serve no one,’ he said softly. ‘It is the only fact of which I am certain.’ Then, as if suddenly realizing what she had said: ‘You were in the room, behind me!’

‘Yes!’ she hissed. ‘Ready to embrace you, if you joined us.’ She swung at him. ‘He gave you a chance to amend your insult. You mocked him instead.’

Where was the woman he had known? Whence had she fled? Could she have felt any fondness towards him? But the emotions he knew, when they had been there, had been genuine. He recognized the fault within himself. Surely he could have seen this side of her, had he only looked. But he had turned from her too many times, and this, he knew, as much as her training, as much as the purpose set for her by the Salamander, was the cause of this confrontation.’

‘But Nirren—’

‘He delayed me,’ she cut in. ‘I had not expected him to be so close.’ He wiped the sweat from his forehead, stood his ground. Sparks flew from the meeting of their weapons. ‘The delay cost me,’ she said bitterly. ‘The old man was faster than I had imagined. I missed him by seconds.’

‘You mean Borros is on the surface?’

‘What is that to you? He will be dead soon enough, frozen and buried under the snow.’

But part of him exulted and he knew now what he must do. He shook his head. ‘You are wrong. He will live. And I will follow him.’ And he thought, But she is Nirren’s killer. In friendship he asked for revenge.
I serve no one.
Sweat rolled along his neck, and he felt a chill.
Ronin, I am sorry.

She snarled and her teeth looked like those of a small predatory animal. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘This is your tomb.’ And she lunged at him, arching her blade with all her might, catching him off guard with the unexpectedly powerful blow, and he realized at once that he had underestimated her cunning. They locked blades, and he twisted again, moving his wrist. But she countered and the blades ground together at a peculiar angle. Her sword snapped abruptly, the released force causing his weapon to jump away. She reached between her breasts, withdrew the jewel-hiked dagger. His palm closed over the hilt of the sister blade and he held it before him. This is what she wants, he realized. She is most proficient with the smaller weapon.

They circled each other in the confined space, judging distances and the switch to lighter blades. He wished his head were clearer, but conflicting emotions darted like lightning in his mind, squirting too fast to catch.

Perhaps she saw a hint of this confusion in his eyes, and perhaps that is why she threw herself against him unexpectedly. They tumbled to the floor, locked together, hand clutching wrist, rolling over and over.

Her hot panting breath was against his face and he smelled her scent as their legs twined and their bodies heaved. They grunted and clung to each other, desperately fighting for position. He stared into her eyes. They were large and deep and liquid and he felt a stirring inside. He thought of what she had done, of what she wanted, and knew the hate was there. He fought to push down the edge of the other emotion. Her enigmatic eyes stared at him and he could not tell whether there was hate or hunger there.

Her heat and her sweat melted into him. Her long hair whipped his face. Her flesh was both hard and soft as it writhed against him. ‘I’ll kill you,’ she hissed. ‘I’ll kill you.’ Her thigh was between his legs, imprisoned. She moved it against him and her other leg came over his hip and her calf pressed his buttocks. Desire rose in him like a great feathered bird gaining the air currents. Her voice was low and thick as she said it again, ‘I want to kill you.’ But it was almost a moan. Their bodies ground together. He was aware of the press of her breasts against his chest.

Something slammed into the back of his head and a red film clouded his vision as pain lanced through him. He had fetched up hard against the platform at the centre of the oval. Dazed, he still clung tenaciously to her wrist, but using all her strength she wrenched it away from him and the honed blade of the dagger seemed to pulse in the light.

She was panting through her open mouth, the lips pulled back from the pearl teeth, and her thighs gripped him convulsively as she rocked hard against him. He wanted to lie back and embrace her. He shook his head but it would not clear. She began to shudder. ‘Kill you,’ she choked. ‘Kill you.’ And with an effort she stopped her eyes from closing. She gripped the dagger, knuckles as white as bone, and she moaned a little as she drove the blade point first towards his throat. Her pelvis ground against him in waves and he looked up to see that her eyes were wet. He saw dimly the terrible flash of light along the moving blade and wondered that he still felt the power of her groin moving against him. He felt suffocated by a great heat and instinctively he put up his hand. As Nirren did; vainly, he thought.

The point of the blade caught his palm. It was his gauntleted hand. The honed tip hit the scales, skidded off harmlessly. Within, his hand never even felt the force of the blow. He shook his head again, and grasped the obliquely moving blade, trying desperately to hold it. But she had both hands on the hilt now and she had the leverage and he had none and she began to force the gleaming point back at him. The cutting edge creased his throat, broke the skin. Blood welled up. But his left hand was free now and it scrabbled along the floor at his side until he found the hilt of the dagger he had dropped. And it was all reflexive now, no thought involved at all. He brought it up very quickly between their bodies, the blade quivering at his throat now, and buried it hilt-deep in her stomach.

Her eyes opened so wide that the whites showed all around the edges, and she grunted thickly, a brief guttural noise that seemed somehow terrible to him. Blood pounded against the back of his eyes and he jerked powerfully on the hilt so that it sliced up between her breasts.

Her head dropped abruptly, as if she had been hit on the back of the neck, and her lips came down over his, warm and soft.

He felt a great hot pool of wetness between them and convulsively he threw her off him and, panting, swayed to his feet.

She lay on her back, eyes still very wide and shiny, with the jewelled hilt protruding obscenely from between her breasts, sending shards of harsh light reflecting in the blood that covered her.

What have I done? he thought, as he stared at her.
All gone now.
It reverberated in his mind. Waves of blackness seemed to reach up, ready to engulf him, but he fought them off. He staggered across the oval to his sword, sheathed it. Then he went back to the platform, reached into one of the open doors. He let the fabric unfurl. It was silvery, slightly iridescent, and it was very light. It was a close-fitting suit of some sort. He believed he knew its purpose. Quickly now he stripped off his tattered clothes and donned the suit. As he had suspected, it fit him snugly and was very warm. It must retain all the body heat, he thought. Pockets along the sides bulged with concealed packets. Food. He strapped on his weapons belt.

He heard a sound and whirled, blade ready. The doors of the Lift hissed open and a whiff of cloves came to him. He tensed. Something moved within the shadows of the Lift and the immense jet figure of the Salamander stood half illumined in the doorway. His hooded eyes scanned the scene before him.

‘Come to stop me yourself?’ Ronin snarled, flicking the tip of his blade.

The Salamander smiled with the corners of his mouth, almost contentedly. He did not step into the room. ‘Oh, no,’ he said silkily. ‘Others were to have done that. I see that they have been unsuccessful.’

Ronin came forward. ‘I am leaving,’ he said slowly and deliberately. ‘You have lost. You have neither the Magic Man nor the information I possess. Go fight your battle alone.’

The Salamander sighed theatrically. ‘You have become a real menace, dear boy, and must be dealt with. But you still have much to learn.’ And now he smiled once again. He was delighted with himself. ‘You have lost quite as much, in your own way, as I. Perhaps more.’

Ronin stared at him, blinking back the sweat that rolled down his face, and cursed silently. He inched closer. I’ll get you yet, he thought. And said thickly, ‘Yes, I know.’

From deep within the shadows of the Lift, cloaked in his mantle of jet and crimson, the carved ruby lizard a blood splash duskily visible at his throat, the Salamander laughed long and deep. Then he said, ‘Oh, no, dear boy, you do not know. Yet.’ His arm extended briefly. ‘Look at the face at your feet. What do you see? The woman you slept with—’

‘And you trained.’ He was closer now.

‘Yes, quite. But all for a purpose.’ His eyes were dark and unreadable. ‘We were close, you and I. Until you—But why bring up old hates?’ The Salamander seemed oblivious to Ronin’s movement. ‘My men found her on the Middle Levels. They had heard rumours, you see, of a child found by the Workers. She was regarded as special, they believed that she sprang from the Freehold itself. They told me of this, not a Sign after you had left. And it occurred to me who she might be. But I dared not believe it. It was too improbable, too wonderful a coincidence. I sent them to fetch her and when I saw her I knew. It had to be, for she was no Worker’s child. And her age was right. In secrecy I found her and in secrecy I trained her.’ His voice was thick with triumph now and Ronin shivered in spite of himself. ‘And then I sent her out. And she was good, very good. She did precisely as I had instructed her. And now she has fulfilled her purpose.’ He laughed again. ‘Of course she never knew. Never even suspected. And that made it more delicious!’ He was gloating now.