impossible. The dead walking...
Soulcatcher. One-time mentor. One-time mistress of the Black Company. More recently a deadly enemy, but still long ago. Supposedly dead for a decade and a half.
He'd been there. He'd seen her slain. He'd helped hunt her down....
He tried to rise again, some vague force driving him to fight the unfightable.
A gloved hand stayed him. A gentle voice told him, "Don't strain yourself. You aren't healing well. You haven't been eating or taking enough fluids. Are you awake? Are you sensible?"
He managed a feeble nod.
"Good. I'm going to prop you up in a slightly elevated position. I'm going to feed you broth. Don't waste energy. Let your strength come back."
She propped him, had him sip through a reed. He downed a pint of broth. And kept it down. Soon a glimmer of strength trickled through his flesh.
"That's enough for now. Now we'll get you cleaned up."
He was a disgusting mess. "How long?" he croaked.
She placed a pot of water in his hands, inserted another reed. "Sip. Don't talk." She started cutting his clothing off him.
"It's been seven days since you were hit, Croaker." Her voice had become another voice entirely. It changed every time she paused. This voice was masculine, mocking, though he wasn't the mockery's object. "Your comrades still control Dejagore, to the embarrassment of the Shadowmasters. Your Mogaba is in command. He's stubborn but he could be embarrassed himself. And however stubborn he is, he can't hold out forever. The powers ranged against him are too great."
He tried to ask a question. She forestalled him. The mocking voice asked, "Her?" Wicked chuckle. "Yes. She survived. There'd be no point to this if she hadn't."
A new voice, female but as hard as a diamond arrowpoint, snarled, "She tried to kill me! Ha-ha! Yes. You were there, my love. You helped. But I don't hold a grudge. You were under her spell. You didn't know what you were doing. You'll redeem yourself by helping me take my revenge."
The man didn't respond.
She bathed him. She was free with the water.
He'd been diminished by his wound but he was still a big man, four inches over six feet tall. He was about forty-five years old. His hair was an average, unnoteworthy brown. He'd begun to go bald in front. His eyes were hard, humorless, icy blue, narrow and deeply set. He had a ragged, greying beard surrounding a thin-lipped mouth that seldom smiled. His face bore scattered reminders of a childhood pox and more than a few memories of acne. He might have been moderately good-looking once. Time had been unkind. Even in repose his face looked hard and a little off center.
He didn't look like what he had been all his adult life, the Black Company's historian and physician. His appearance was more suited to the role he had inherited, that of Captain.
He'd described himself as looking like a child molester waiting for a chance to strike. He wasn't comfortable with his appearance.
Soulcatcher scrubbed him with a vigor that recalled his mother's. "Don't take the skin off."
"Your wound is healing slowly. You'll have to tell me what I did wrong." She'd never been a healer. She was a destroyer.
Croaker was puzzled by her interest. He wasn't valuable. What was he? Just a dinged-up old mercenary, alive well beyond the expectations of his kind. He squeaked a question.
She laughed, voice filled with childlike delight. "Vengeance, dear. A simple, gentle, guileful vengeance. And I won't lay a hand on her. I'll let her do it to herself." She patted his cheek, drew a finger along the line of his jaw.
"It took a while but I knew the moment was inevitable. Fated. The consummation, the exchange of the magic, deadly three words. Fated. I sensed it before you met." Again the childlike laughter. "She was an age finding something so precious. My vengeance will be to take it away."
Croaker closed his eyes. He could not yet reason closely. He understood only that he was in no immediate danger. The plot
Francis Ray
Joe Klein
Christopher L. Bennett
Clive;Justin Scott Cussler
Dee Tenorio
Mattie Dunman
Trisha Grace
Lex Chase
Ruby
Mari K. Cicero