Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 46

At their makeshift camp, the hot mesquite campfire died to orange coals before dawn, but Nicci did not wake Bannon to change the watch. She needed little sleep, so she remained alert throughout the night, studying the nightmarish outlines of rock formations at the edge of the waning firelight. As soon as Thistle awoke, the girl crawled over to sit next to her. Neither of them said a word, but both stared into the darkness waiting for sunrise.

Bannon yawned, stretched, and got to his feet, brushing dirt and dried twigs from his clothes. Soon enough, they set off, leaving the comforting glow of their campfire embers behind.

As they made their way back toward the sheer wall of the plateau that rose up above the encroaching Scar, Nicci and Bannon picked their way along a wash, while Thistle scuttled ahead with the grace and agility of a darting lizard. They found a trickle of water and followed it up step after step of ocher slickrock. The trickling sounded like music after the dust devils and chemical haze of the desolation. The three spent long moments cupping their hands, filling their palms with drip after drip of cold water, which they splashed on their faces to wipe away the burning alkaline dust.

“Can the Lifedrinker still be watching us?” Thistle asked. “Even here?”

“He could be. There are other dangers, as well,” Nicci said. “Something in this world always wants to kill you. Don’t forget that.”

They moved on up the canyon. Reptiles darted among the rocks overhead, and Thistle glanced up at the ledges, tempted to hunt them, but she kept moving instead.

Bannon trudged through the rocks of the wash, keeping his sword in hand just in case. All night long, Nicci had sensed that predatory presence circling their camp, but she had heard no sound, seen no flashing eyes in the firelight. Now she again felt that oppressive sense of being watched. Following Bannon, she looked around, stared at the rock formations, and wondered if the evil wizard might stage another ambush. But she saw nothing.

Silent and unexpected, something heavy dropped from above and struck her in the back, an avalanche of tawny fur, slashing claws, and loud snarls. The blow knocked Nicci to the ground before she had a chance to release her magic.

Bannon yelled and spun around. Thistle cried out.

Hidden in the ruddy tan of the slickrock walls, two additional feline shapes sprang—huge sand-colored panthers with curved saberlike fangs and claws, like a fistful of sharp daggers.

When the first panther crashed down on Nicci, the blow knocked the wind out of her. She squirmed, trying to fight back. The beast was a dynamo of muscles, its body an engine of attack. It could kill her in mere seconds.

Nicci dodged the first swipe of its paw, but the other paw raked bloody furrows down her back, slicing open her black dress. The panther let out a roaring yowl and tried to clamp its fangs down on her head. Nicci didn’t have time or luxury of concentration to find its heart with her magic and stop it dead.

In a desperate defense, she released an unfocused wave of magic, a rippling shock wave of compressed air in every direction. The invisible explosion flung the feline attacker away from her, but the blast seemed oddly diminished. Bleeding badly, Nicci staggered to her feet.

Bannon had pressed his back against the slickrock wall for protection while he jabbed with his sword. One of his blows scored a bloody gash in the ribs of the second panther. Thistle dodged and darted as the third beast tried to trap her, playing with her like a cat with a mouse. Angry at seeing the girl threatened, Nicci reached out and aimed her gift, intending to burst the heart of the attacking panther.

Nothing happened.

Nicci felt the flow of magic go out of her, but somehow her spell bounced off the sand panther like a stone skimming over the surface of a pond. She tried again, also with no effect. She had control of her gift—she had not lost it, like Nathan—but this big panther was impervious to her strike.

As the beast prowled in, Nicci saw that its hide was branded with arcane designs, glyphs that were all angles and swooping curves. She recognized it as a spell-form of some sort, perhaps a kind of magical armor.

These were not merely wild beasts.

Nicci crouched to defend herself as the first panther came back to attack. She hurled fire that should have incinerated the big cat, but the magical flames rolled off of its fur. Undaunted, the snarling cat sprang toward her, and Nicci had no time to consider what alternative magic might be effective.

She pulled the long dagger at her side, ready to fight. She realized the branded arcane symbols might give the sand panthers a kind of protection against magic, but surely a sharp knife would cause damage. She sliced the air with her dagger, then sprang to one side as the lunging cat missed her. She did not have time for finesse, nor did she mean to taunt these creatures. She needed them dead.

Thistle ducked behind a fallen slab of slickrock and a twisted piñon. Bannon defended himself, wildly flailing with his sword, forgetting the intricate moves that Nathan had taught him. The panther was also a flurry of feral rage.

Nicci watched the big cats move together in an oddly coordinated attack. The three big cats moved in eerie unison. They had separated their prey, and each panther seemed to know what the other two were doing. Although she couldn’t read the symbols branded on their hides, she had heard of spell-bonded animals before. These three panthers were a fighting triad, a troka, their minds connected to one another to make them a perfect fighting force.

Nicci wondered if the Lifedrinker had sent these predators to attack them, but that didn’t seem right. Sand panthers were not part of the Scar, or the original fertile valley here from years ago. They must have been raised and trained somewhere else, by someone else.

Regardless of their origin, the cats were perfect killing machines. The reasons didn’t matter. Not now.

She diverted her attention to see Thistle duck under the piñon boughs and scramble out the other side as the cat lunged into the tangled branches. The girl rolled on her back and came up with her own knife in her hands. She wrapped both hands around the hilt as the panther pounced.

Nicci caught her breath, knowing that she couldn’t reach the girl in time—and then she realized that Thistle had intentionally lured the overeager predator. As the cat lunged, Thistle brought the knife up under its chin, driving the blade through its jaws, the roof of its mouth, and into its brain. The panther convulsed and shook, then collapsed on top of the scrawny girl, nearly crushing her.

When the big cat fell dead, the other two panthers shuddered and reeled, as if they, too, had suffered a painful blow. They howled in eerie unison.

Bannon used that moment to charge forward, thrusting his sword straight into the rib cage of the second panther. The tawny predator thrashed and roared, opening its mouth wide, but the sword point had pierced the creature’s heart and protruded from the opposite side of its chest.

Nicci raked her own knife across the ribs of the last panther, which was momentarily stunned by the deaths of its two spell-bonded partners. The maddened creature slashed at her with its claws, and Nicci sliced again with her knife. The injured beast thrashed its tail and came back in a wild attack, as if ready to throw away its life. The heavy creature drove her to the ground, but Nicci stabbed upward, deep into its belly.

Soaked with blood, Thistle squirmed out from under the body of the panther she had killed and flew like a demon to Nicci’s rescue. The girl stabbed the last panther several times with her own knife, and with a great heave, Nicci pushed the dying beast away. She extricated herself and stood covered in blood, both the panther’s and her own. The skin of her back had been torn to ribbons.

Bannon was in shock as he slid his sword from the carcass of the panther he had killed. “I’m surprised the Lifedrinker didn’t send giant scorpions or centipedes.”

Nicci shook her head as she stood bleeding, beginning to feel the fiery pain of her multiple wounds. “I am not certain the Lifedrinker is the cause of this.”

The last sand panther was not dead. It lay on the ground heaving great breaths, rumbling with deep pain and bleeding from numerous wounds.

Bannon stepped up behind her, gasping at the deep bloody furrows in her back. “Sorceress! Those wounds! We have to heal them.”

Nicci looked down at her scratched arms. “I can heal myself.” She bent next to the dying sand panther. “But this one is nearing its end. I should put it out of its misery.” She looked around. “With those spell symbols shielding it from magical attacks, I’ll have to use my knife.”

The dying panther emitted a loud rumble that sounded more forlorn than threatening. Bannon’s face fell and his lip trembled. “Do you have to kill it? Can’t you heal it, too?”

Nicci narrowed her eyes. “Why would I tend this creature? It tried to kill us.”

“What if it was trained to do that? Shouldn’t we know where it came from?” Bannon asked. “We already killed the other two, and it’s…” The words caught in his throat and he choked out the rest. “It’s such a beautiful cat.…” He couldn’t say any more.

As the adrenaline rush faded, Nicci began to feel the raging pain of her own wounds. This panther’s claws had torn her back down to the muscle and bone. “It is not a helpless kitten like the ones your father drowned.”

“No it’s not.” Bannon shook his head. “But it is dying, and you can heal it.”

Thistle squatted next to the heaving panther and looked up at Nicci with her honey-brown eyes. “My uncle and aunt said that you shouldn’t kill unless it is absolutely necessary.” Smeared with blood, she looked waifish and forlorn.

Bannon agreed. “And this isn’t necessary. Not now. “

Nicci reached out to touch the heaving female cat, cautiously extending her magic to measure the extent of its injuries. The branded spell symbols did not stop her, so she realized the protection must be specifically designed to deflect an attack. She moved her hand to touch the knife wounds she had inflicted. “I can heal it. I can heal her,” Nicci said, “but you need to know that these three sand panthers were spell-bonded. Her two sister panthers in the troka are dead. If we save her to live entirely alone, we may be doing this one no favors.”

“Yes we are,” Thistle insisted. “Please, Nicci.”

Her own wounds and blood loss were making her dizzy, making her weak. She didn’t have the strength to argue with the orphan girl.

Nicci touched the panther’s deep cuts. As she did so, some of the animal’s blood mingled with her own from the gashes in her arms and hands. The blood of two fierce creatures trained and ready to fight …

Nicci called up her healing magic, released a flow through her hand into the tawny beast, while also infusing her deepest wounds.

When she did so, Nicci felt a sudden jolt, like the last link being forged in a mysterious chain that connected her with the panther. The chain, the bond ran from her heart through her nervous system and her mind, and extended into each of the cat’s counterpart systems. Thoughts flooded through her as powerful healing magic surged into both of them, erasing the claw wounds, the knife cuts, the scrapes, the smallest scratches, even the sore muscles.

Yanking her bloody hands away, Nicci staggered backward. Even when she stopped touching the panther, she could sense the animal’s presence connected to her. Like a sister. She could not deny it.

“Her name is Mrra,” Nicci said in a hushed tone. “I don’t know what the word means. It’s not really a name, just her self-identity.”

The newly healed panther huffed a great breath and rolled over, coiling back onto her feet. The cat’s eyes were golden green. The long tail lashed back and forth, in agitation and confusion.

“What just happened?” Bannon asked. “What did you do?”

“My blood mingled with hers. The death of her spell-bonded sisters left a void like a wound inside her. When my magic healed Mrra, it filled that void within me at the same time.” Nicci’s voice grew breathy, and she was amazed at what she herself had experienced. “Now we are connected, but still independent. Dear spirits!”

The sand panther looked up at her, thick tail thrashing. Nicci looked again at the scarred spell symbols, but in spite of her link to Mrra, she still could not interpret the language. She did, however, understand the residue of pain—the lumpy, waxy scars from when red-hot irons had brutally branded those symbols into the soft tan fur.

Staring at her former prey, Mrra twitched, then dropped her gaze to the bodies of her two sister panthers. With a low growling moan, she turned to pad away, putting distance between herself and the three humans that the troka had meant to kill.

Nicci could feel the bond between them stretching, thinning. She couldn’t communicate directly, couldn’t understand what Mrra might be thinking. She just knew that she, Bannon, and Thistle were safe from further attack. And that Mrra would live now … if alone.

But not completely alone: there would always be a shadow of Nicci inside her.

With a thrash of her tail, the sand panther loped into the desolate wilderness, bounding up into the slickrock outcroppings, ledge by ledge.

Thistle stared after the sand panther, while Bannon still held his bloody sword, confused. As Nicci watched the panther go, she felt a strange sense of loss.

In a flash, the beast vanished into the uneven shadows.