The Deadwalk (11 page)

Their attention distracted, Riordan scrambled after the Sword.

“No, Riordan, don't touch it!” Nhaille's attention wavered, torn between
restraining Rau and preventing her from snatching up the Sword.

Rau seized the opportunity. Shoving Nhaille away from him, he bolted for the
entrance. Caught off balance, the Captain swung his sword, narrowly missing Rau
as he fled across the threshold. Riordan's fingers closed upon the Sword.

Rau's footsteps echoed down the corridor into silence.

Riordan glanced up at Nhaille towering above her.

“Put it down, Riordan,” he said, as she climbed dazedly to her feet.

Riordan felt the first tendrils of the Sword's will wrap around her mind.
With a cry she shoved it into her scabbard and sagged against the wall.

Sheathed, the Sword's influence dissipated slowly. She dragged in a breath of
air and tried to clear the fog from her mind.

Nhaille glanced regretfully in Rau's direction. Frustration, followed quickly
by anger crossed his face. Picking up her lost sword he tossed it back to her.
“Do not be so taken with the Sword that you forget the basics of combat.”

The Sword's presence in her mind subsided, leaving behind the realization of
what she'd nearly done.

A deep sob, wedged inside her since they'd left Kanarek, burst free. She
attempted to choke it back and failed.

Cautiously, Nhaille crossed the distance between them. Satisfied she wasn't
going to draw the Sword and run it through his heart, he drew her into his arms.
She looked up at him, read the deep lines of concern on his face.

“Gods, Nhaille, it was in my mind.”

He scrutinized her face, making sure she was in control of herself again.
Finally, he sighed in relief. “I know.”

“I couldn't think. It made me do...” she glanced at him, then quickly away,
“things I didn't want to do.”

Nhaille's arms tightened around her. “I know, Riordan. I know.”

“I almost killed you.”

Saying the words released the tremors locked inside. Shaking uncontrollably,
she clung to the only sane reality in the whole situation.

“It's all right.”

“Nothing's all right, Nhaille. I can still feel its touch upon my mind, and
Rau--”

“He got away.”

She scrambled to her feet. “We can't let him get away, he's too
dangerous.”

“We have the Sword, Riordan. We will deal with Doan-Rau, later.”

“But he'll just be lying in wait for us. We'll never be safe from
ambush.”

“I don't think so. Rau has an army to command. Having lost this attempt at
the Sword, he'll likely make haste for Kholer and try to strengthen his position
on the coast before we catch up to him.”

“And how are we going to stop him? Sure we have the Sword, but by the time we
make it to the coast, Rau may already have conquered it.”

Nhaille looked nervously around, as if Rau might have his ears to the very
walls. “Come, Your Majesty. We can't stay here. It's far too dangerous. We need
to put some distance between us and the mountains. And then,” he uttered a weary
sigh. “There are many, many things I must teach you.”

#

Wind played the crystal peaks like a series of pipes. High thin notes fell
upon each other forming a disturbing melody. Nhaille would have liked to have
traveled farther before the sun set, but Riordan looked as if she'd tumble from
the saddle if they went but another foot. Sitting stone still on her horse, her
pale hair unbound and tumbling over her shoulders, the Sword of Zal-Azaar slung
across her hips, she looked like a Shraal painting straight out of the history
books.

And when she glanced at him, he noted an emptiness in her gray eyes that
hadn't been there before. Worries crowded together in his mind. Would bearing
the Sword be the thing that unhinged her completely, or would it change her
irrevocably until he didn't recognize the haunted woman riding beside him. He
longed to reach across the brink between them, touch her, to take her into his
arms like he had when she was a child. But the eyes that stared unblinkingly
back at him were most definitely not the eyes of a child. The eyes of a Shraal,
he thought and shuddered. After she'd nearly driven the Sword straight through
his heart, the thought of being in close quarters with her gave him pause.

She hadn't uttered a word of what had happened between her and Rau. Had he
made good on his threat to defile her body as well as her soul? Traitorous
thoughts of her body pressed against his in the Sword's chamber sprung unbidden
to his mind. She is your Queen, his conscience warned him. Nhaille forced his
attention to the safer topic of war.

#

The wind's incessant whine sliced through morbid thoughts. Ever since the
Sword had touched her mind, Riordan felt the cold vacuum of the space it had
occupied in her mind. Sheathing the Sword only quieted its voice, but never
quite silenced it.

She hadn't expected to come this far. First she'd doubted the prophecy, then
she'd doubted they would make it to Zal-Azaar alive. And now the fabled blade
was strapped across her hips, she doubted her own ability to wield it.

Vividly, she envisioned a multitude of victim's voices, all shouting for
prominence in her mind. Would it be like that? Would she spend the rest of her
life haunted by their souls?

A sudden desperate need for human contact stirred inside her. She craved
warmth, touch, anything that would fill the cold void the Sword had left inside.
Riordan glanced over at Nhaille and debated how to ask.

But Nhaille had been decidedly quiet on the ride away from Zal-Azaar. She
caught his sideways looks of concern, but he remained silent, immersed in his
own dark thoughts. He feared her, she realized with a pang of regret.

Well, what was I expecting? I nearly skewered him to the wall. Sorry somehow
didn't seem sufficient.

Still, he'd held her in the chamber, even after the episode with the Sword.
As if he wanted to comfort her but was unsure how to proceed. Acknowledging
those feelings shook loose an avalanche of risky thoughts.

Riordan stared into the mug of steamy tea.

“Now that I have the Sword, I'm going to have to do the rest of it, aren't
I?” Carried aloft by the wind, her words drifted across their campsite to where
Nhaille tended the horses.

His head came up sharply. “Regretfully, I believe you will.”

“At first I was afraid of failing,” she said. “But if I succeed, what then? I
have no idea how to do what the prophecy says I will.” Riordan struggled to find
the right words to express this nameless fear. “I'd have to rebuild a kingdom
take a husband, beget heirs...”

Nhaille stilled, regarding her shrewdly over Strayhorn's back. “You would
have nothing to fear from a husband,” he said at last.

“I may die before I have the chance to take one.” The words hung between
them, her meaning plain. Nhaille looked away.

“Riordan, I assure you--”

“Kayr, I don't want to die without knowing what it is to love.”

Never in nineteen years had she called him by his given name. She knew it had
been even longer since anyone had.

Nhaille swallowed uncomfortably. She watched longing battle with duty before
he gained control of his expression. “Riordan, there isn't anything I can do to
help you.”

“There is.”

“That would be treason,” he said and went on to rub down Stormback.

“Treason! Who would prosecute you? I decide what is treason. And I wish you'd
stop calling me Your Majesty.”

He looked at her painfully. “It is your title, Ma'am.”

“Fine,” she snapped. Another thought occurred to her. “If I were to order
you, would you obey me, Nhaille?”

He stared at her, mouth open in shock. “Do not play games with me,” he
snarled and stalked off.

Tears of embarrassment burned in her eyes. She had needed him so desperately,
it never occurred to her he might refuse. Out of duty, or lack of desire, it
didn't really matter.

So much for my heavy handed attempt at seduction.

Riordan stared off into the darkness, resigned to enduring more embarrassment
to mend matters. With a sigh, she started off in the direction he'd taken.

She found him perched atop a low ledge, staring at the heavens.

“I'm sorry. What I said was unkind.”

He nodded curtly.

“It's just that I'm afraid I'm going to die before I have a chance to
experience some of the kinder things life has to offer.”

“It was unfair,” he said, quietly, “to send you away the way he did. I told
him that.”

“And you? Were there not other things that you wanted for yourself?”

“I am only human,” he said simply. For the first time she wondered who
Nhaille had been before the prophecy and what he had wanted for himself.

“Yet you obeyed my father's wishes.”

“He was my king, and I his most trusted friend.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Nhaille--”

He pulled away gently. “I have thought of you as a daughter. It wouldn't be
right.”

“But I want it to be you.”

“Your Majesty,” he used her title to put distance between them. “You don't
know anyone else.”

“I may not live to know anyone else.”

“You mustn't believe that. According to the prophecy, you will have a very
long life.”

“Prophecy be damned,” she said.

He looked at her helplessly. “Riordan, I can't do this.”

“Then you abandon me, just like my father,” she said, and returned to the
cold fire.

“I am old enough to be your father,” he called after her. “Think about that,
Your Majesty.”

Love, she decided hugging her wounded pride close, was a great deal more
complicated than war.

In her mind she could still feel the Sword's cold kiss. The wind that had
been a mere annoyance now chilled to the bone. Nhaille returned to the horses,
putting the physical distance between them that he had not attained with
words.

Riordan hunkered down against a large boulder of quartz that did little to
cut the wind. Just as she was certain her feet and hands had turned to blocks of
ice and there was no other alternative but to raid their packs for a blanket,
she heard the whisper of his boots against quartz. A blessed warmth covered her
shoulders.

Nhaille pulled the coarse blanket around them and pulled her against him. But
his closeness only twisted the cruel blade of embarrassment inside.

“Am I so undesirable?” The question escaped her lips before she could call it
back.

Regret flashed across his face, tangling with unmasked desire. “No, Riordan,
you must never think that.”

“Then what is it?”

“It would be...improper. I took an oath.”

“Nhaille--” She was afraid to call him by his first name again, to be the
cause of that strange look of pain. “My father is dead. Of the Khun-Caryn line
there is only me left. And I want it to be you.”

He dragged in a breath. “Riordan, I--”

“In all this time,” she asked gently, “have you never thought of it?”

“Of course I have. I lost my heart to you long ago. But what you're
asking...”

“You misunderstood.” Why was it so hard to find the words to express this new
feeling? “It isn't because you're the only man I know, it's because I care.
And...”

He gazed down at her, his eyes glittering against the dark sky. “And?”

“I want to know what it's like to be a woman.” She paused, then blurted,
“Before I have to become something else in order to wield the Sword.” There,
she'd said it. Uttered aloud it still made no sense.

But Nhaille caught her meaning and nodded grimly.

“I can still feel the Sword in my mind. And Rau--”

His expression darkened to murderous. “Rau what?”

“He touched me.” Her hand flew to her breast. “And it felt awful, but I kept
thinking that with you it would feel nice.”

Nhaille swore under his breath. “I will kill him for that.”

Her arms tightened around him. “Help me forget it all, Nhaille. Rau, Kanarek,
the Sword. Just for a little while.”

Damned if she'd beg and risk rejection again.

He read the plea in her words and let go his breath in a rush. “It's not that
simple, Riordan. What if we were to create a child?”

“It isn't my time.” She tilted her head to face him, and in doing so, her
lips brushed his. “You told me about that, remember? You were embarrassed.”

“I was.”

“Are you embarrassed now?”

“No,” he said quietly. His lips moved against hers. She felt his resolve
weaken.

“Kayr, I wouldn't ask again--”

“No, Riordan, don't ask. In the name of the Seven Heavens stop talking.”

As if to stem the tide of words, he kissed her. Not chastely the way his lips
had always brushed her forehead, but a deep probing kiss that warmed the
coldness inside.

“Forgive me Arais,” he said, uttering a prayer to her dead father.

His fervent whisper trailed off into silence as he loosened the straps of her
armor. She felt the warmth of his hand between shirt and leather as he traced
the swell of her breast. He cast one last urgent glance around them.

“This is dangerous. We can't be caught in the open like this.”

“My whole life has been dangerous. It has ceased to matter.”

She fumbled with the laces of his vest. Spreading his shirt, she buried her
face in the soft hair that covered his chest. Then, continuing her exploration,
her fingers located the laces of his breeches.

His hands found the tender buds of her breasts, followed quickly by the hot
pull of his mouth.

A torrent of unfamiliar sensation poured through her. Wholesome, natural,
unlike the cold probing tendrils of the Sword. She arched against him, toward
warmth and the refuge he offered her.

Calloused hands drifted lower, caressing her buttocks as he slid the leather
over her hips. She gasped aloud as his questing fingers located the tender spot
between her thighs.