Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 51

After climbing down the outer wall of the plateau on their way to the Scar, Nicci and Bannon made good time even across the rugged, dead terrain. During their earlier scouting expedition, they had cautiously picked their way, exploring, but now that she possessed the right weapon, Nicci had a clear, firm goal. With the Eldertree acorn, she was on her way to kill the misguided wizard who had caused such appalling damage, had sacrificed countless lives, all because he feared his own death.

Nicci considered the Lifedrinker a monster, an enemy to be defeated at any cost; she did not think of him as a sick and frightened man, a naive scholar playing with dangerous magic. He was not Roland in her mind. He was a toxin spreading in every direction. He was a scourge who could destroy the world.

And this was the reason Red had sent her on this journey, accompanying Nathan to find Kol Adair. Save the world. She would do her part.

Bannon kept up with her without complaint as they crossed the worsening landscape, and Nicci was impressed with the young man’s dogged determination. After emerging from the dying foothills, they made their way on an arrow-straight path across the cracked and rocky Scar. Wind whipped the powdery dust of dry lakes into a salty chemical haze in the air.

Nicci focused ahead. She did not run; she simply did not rest. The barren landscape sparked anger and impatience in her. She picked up the pace, covering miles at a steady clip. Bannon kept looking from side to side, wrinkling his nose in the bitter air. They passed under the shadow of a goblin-shaped pinnacle. Spiky branches of a dead piñon pine protruded from a crack in the rock formation.

Without stopping, Bannon took a cautious sip from his waterskin. A worried frown crossed his face. “Sorceress, is it wise to travel out in the open? Maybe we should try to hide our path so the Lifedrinker doesn’t know we are coming for him?”

She shook her head. “He knows where we are. I’m certain he can sense my magic. Skulking in the shadows would only slow us down.”

When Bannon offered the waterskin to Nicci, she realized her throat was parched. She drank. The water felt warm, flat, and slippery on her tongue. She handed the waterskin back, and Bannon fastened it at his side, then touched his sword and turned slowly. “I sense that something is watching us.”

Extending her gift, Nicci could detect that this desolate place festered with twisted life, the few surviving creatures that had adapted to the Lifedrinker’s evil taint. “Many things are watching us, but they don’t interest me unless they interfere with our mission.” Her lips curled in a hard smile. “If they do, then we will show them their mistake.”

Nicci intended to press forward without rest, without making camp, until they reached the heart of the Scar. They had left Cliffwall with the first glimmerings of dawn, and after they had trudged through midday and into the dry afternoon, their pace began to falter. She and Bannon perspired in the relentless heat, and white alkaline dust clung to them, making both of them look white as stone.

Nicci brushed the powder from her face and arms. Her black travel dress was now crusted with the harsh chemical residue.

After the sun set, thermal currents skirled up dust devils, blowing sand and grit into howling veils. As darkness fell, the building dust storm masked the strange stars overhead, but the two plodded on through the night. Near midnight, the raging winds had reached such a crescendo that she could barely hear Bannon behind her, and they grudgingly stopped in the lee of a tall rock. Nicci said, “Rest while you can. We’ll stop for no more than an hour.”

“I could keep going,” he insisted. His lips were cracked, his eyes swollen and red, nearly puffed shut.

“We are too vulnerable if we continue in this blowing storm,” Nicci said. “If we can’t see, we might fall into a pit, or the Lifedrinker could send dust people to attack us. We will stay here until it calms. It is not my preference, but necessary.”

During the brief respite, she released some of her magic to dispel the gritty residue from their chafed faces and burning eyes, but as she used her gift, Nicci felt the magic thrum and recoil inside her. Something else had detected it, tried to grasp it. This deep into the Scar, the Lifedrinker’s vitality-sucking power grew more oppressive. She immediately felt him struggling to gain a hold on her, to sap her strength and draw away her powers. Her small use of magic had triggered his response.

The howling wind and whipping sand diminished only slightly after midnight, but Nicci decided they had waited long enough. “We need to go.”

Bannon stumbled after her across the parched open terrain. The young man’s determined energy had flagged, and it was more than just weariness after the day’s long, rugged journey. Nicci could not deny what they saw. The closer they came to the Lifedrinker, the more they both began to weaken from his dark and oppressive thirst. He was draining them as well.

Hours later, the sky became a red haze as the bloated sun rose above the mountains like fire from the funeral pyre of slaughtered victims. Far ahead, Nicci spotted the black center of the crater, a vortex into which the Lifedrinker’s potent magic swirled.

“Sweet Sea Mother, we’re almost there,” Bannon said in a raspy voice. He sounded more relieved than frightened.

“Not close enough.” Nicci tried to put on a burst of speed, which only showed her how much the wizard’s relentless drain had diminished her. If they didn’t confront the enemy soon, she feared she wouldn’t have the strength to destroy him, even with the powerful talisman of the Eldertree.

Ahead, the ground became uneven. Slabs of rock tilted at shallow angles, as if restless upheavals continued to stir beneath the surface of the dead valley. Fissures sketched across the land like dark lightning bolts, and tall boulders lay strewn about as if the Lifedrinker’s rage of magic had scattered game pieces.

Nicci and Bannon climbed over the sharp rocks, tottering on unstable slabs and leaping across the fissures, from which foul fumes emanated. Even as they journeyed into the increasing heat of the day, the dark lair shimmered like a mirage in the distance. Nicci sensed a prowling presence watching them, closing in, though not yet ready to attack. Although she remained alert, the Lifedrinker was her real enemy, and everything else was just a distraction.

Though her irritated eyes were blurred from the dust, she saw a large shape move across the ground ahead of her, brown and angular. A hissing sound scratched through the air, and a well-camouflaged scaly figure scuttled toward them among the rocks. The creature opened its mouth to reveal moist pink flesh, rows of jagged white fangs, and a forked black tongue: a huge lizard armored with pointed scales, its back crested with a dark sawblade fin. The reptile moved forward on four legs, thrashing a long tail. The creature’s hide was mangy with oozing, red sores.

Nicci backed away, and Bannon held up his sword to face the lizard. As it charged at them with a swift skittering gait, Nicci caught more movement to her left and her right. Three more of the giant reptiles emerged from behind rocks or beneath the broken slabs. She had seen the dust-colored lizards that Thistle hunted in the desert, but these were each the size of a warhorse. All were scarred with countless lesions and festering sores.

Bracing himself for the fight, Bannon let out a low whistle. “I always wanted to see a dragon. I’ve heard legends but—these are real!”

“Not dragons,” Nicci said with scorn. “Just lizards.” But as the reptiles came closer, flicking their forked tongues and snapping their jaws, she added, “Big lizards.”

Beside Nicci, Bannon planted his boots in the dust and held Sturdy in front of him. Two of the lizards stampeded forward, focused on their prey, while the other two crawled on the rock formations around them, flanking Nicci and Bannon. The reptiles moved with a swift grace, warmed by the baking sun and driven by bloodlust.

Nicci held out her hand, curled her fingers. She concentrated on the lizard’s chest, found its heart, and as the nearest one bounded toward her, she released a burst of fire. In other battles, she had used her magic to increase the heat inside a tree, flash-boiling the sap and causing the entire trunk to explode. Now she did the same, heating the lizard’s heart until the blood burst into steam. The monster staggered and collapsed forward, ploughing a furrow in the rocky sand at Nicci’s feet. She knew she could make swift work of all four lizard attackers.

But after killing the first one, she felt a wave of dizziness. By releasing her gift, it was as if she had opened a floodgate to the Lifedrinker. Even from afar, he began to steal her magic, siphoning off her strength.

Long ago, Nicci herself had assimilated the powers of other wizards she had killed, and now the same thing was happening to her. Roland was stealing her life. In a reflexive survival measure, she wove shields to stop the bleeding rupture of power, but she realized she could no longer fight the lizards with magic. She reeled and slumped back against the nearby boulder.

Bannon was busy blocking the second lizard and did not see her stagger. Holding the grip with both hands, he swung his sword with all his weight and strength behind it. When the edge of his blade struck the scaly hide, the sound that rang out was like the tongs and hammer in a blacksmith’s shop. He wavered as the blade ricocheted off the lizard’s armor, leaving no obvious injury.

The reptile lunged back toward him. Bannon recovered and spun, clattering his sword across the scales, to little effect. When he finally pierced one of the oozing, mangy patches, the lizard did recoil and squirm, but then it kept coming.

Bannon smashed its head so hard that sparks flew. When the lizard opened wide its fang-filled mouth, he pulled back the sword and thrust forward with all of his strength, stabbing Sturdy’s tip into the soft pink flesh. He shoved harder, twisting the blade and digging it into the creature’s soft palate until it broke through the thin bone and pierced the small brain. As the monster perished, Bannon tore the sword back out, severing the black forked tongue, which fell out and flopped like a dying snake in the blood-soaked dust. The enormous beast twitched and thrashed in a thunderstorm of last nerve impulses.

Bannon spun as the third giant lizard approached from the left, climbing over one of the boulders. Sparing a glance for Nicci, he gasped to see her slumped against the rock as she attempted to recover. “Sorceress!”

Rallying herself, she released a small burst of magic, hoping to stop the creature’s heart, but the moment she made the attempt, Nicci felt the voracious Lifedrinker snatch at her magic and her strength like a hunting dog clamping its jaws around a hare. Before it was too late, she cast her protective webs again and closed off the attempt. Dark static swirled around her vision, and she fell against the boulder, but vowed not to give up. She slid the dagger from her side and clutched it in a shaking hand, determined to fight with whatever weapon she had—even teeth and nails if necessary.

“I’ll take care of the other two, Sorceress.” Bannon charged toward the oncoming lizard, yelling with wordless fury. Again his sword struck sparks from the armored hide. He hammered and hammered with his blade, chipping scales and digging into the lizard’s flesh, and he twisted into one of the crusted, patchy sores. When the lizard hissed and snapped at him, Bannon responded with a primal roar of his own.

Nicci had not seen him release such blind rage since battling the Norukai slavers, but something had unleashed his fighting reactions. He was more calculating than a mindless dervish, though. Even if the edge of his blade caused little harm, he raised the sword above his shoulder and drove the point straight into the lizard’s eye.

With a gurgling hiss, the monster tried to squirm away, but Bannon pushed forward, driving his sword harder, pushing it in farther. He twisted and screwed the tip so that it turned the creature’s eye into a soupy splash of gore. It wasn’t enough.

Throwing his full weight into the thrust, he slammed the sword through the bone of the lizard’s eye socket and into its head. The monster collapsed. Bannon heaved great breaths and struggled to wrench Sturdy free, but the sword was stuck in the lizard’s cranial cavity. He grunted and cursed. “Come on!”

The last of the attacking lizards crawled toward Nicci, cautious. She held out her long dagger, ready for the attack. The monster prepared to spring. She knew its weight and momentum would drive her backward. And she also knew she was too weak to kill it.

Just then she sensed a feral presence, felt the ripple of muscles like an echo inside her, experienced the anticipated joy of the attack and the kill. Before the giant lizard could crash down on her, a tawny feline shape bounded from the boulders above. The great cat hurled herself down in a mass of claws and curved fangs and slammed into the distorted lizard, knocking it off balance.

Nicci felt a surge of excitement and relief as she dragged herself to her feet. “Mrra!”

The sand panther mauled the lizard with her long claws, ripping loose mangy patches of scales, exposing open sores. The monster writhed and bucked, but Mrra would not let go. Saberlike fangs chomped down, working into weak spots in the reptile’s armor.

Inside her mind, thanks to her connection to the spell-bonded panther, Nicci could feel the bloodlust, the energy, the need to kill this threat … this threat to Nicci. Mrra was born as a fighter, trained as a fighter, as a killer.

Because she was joined to Mrra, Nicci wanted to tear this monster apart with her bare hands. A feral blood rage sang through her, as it sang through the sand panther. She bounded forward to join the attack. She didn’t need magic, just her knife.

Mrra pushed over the thrashing lizard to expose the softer scales in its underbelly just as Nicci reached its head. They seemed to be coordinated, synchronized. The monster clamped its fanged jaws shut, and Nicci drove her sharp dagger beneath the reptile’s chin, piercing the thinner skin of its wattled throat. She drove the blade into its head again and again while Mrra tore open the thing’s belly and hauled out its flopping entrails. The lizard’s gushing blood washed away the caked white powder on Nicci’s skin and hands, but she did not feel clean.

Instead, she felt invigorated.

By the time the fourth monster was dead, Nicci shook with exhaustion, but was also afire with the need to go on.

Bannon looked ready to collapse, but he managed an odd grin, giving a respectful look to Mrra. “Good thing I convinced you not to kill the panther, Sorceress.”

“I agree.” Nicci looked down at Mrra, feeling the powerful inexplicable threads binding them. Her sister panther growled deep in her throat.

Bannon added, “And I told you I could be useful. You need me.”

“There are few things I need.” Nicci shaded her eyes as she scanned ahead, looking toward the dark vortex still miles away. “Right now, we need to get to the Lifedrinker.” She touched the pouch at her side that held the Eldertree acorn. “Before it’s too late.”