Erik DeBie: Ghostwalker

He moved through the hallways as a black fish moves through a dark stream. Two servants passed, carrying a basket of woolens and a platter of empty plates and tankards respectively, and Walker did not hinder them, hiding against the wall with ease.

As Walker turned a corner, a guardsman carrying a candle almost ran into him. "Wha-" the man started.

Walker's sword was out, darting for the guard's life. Light from the spilling candle flashed along its mithral surface, dazzling the guard. The man stumbled back and set a hand on his own weapon, but before he could draw he stopped, shuddered, and slumped down, gagging. The dying guard glimpsed the dagger standing out of his throat then stared at the gleam of Walker's mithral blade, still distracting him even after the real attack had come.

Walker whispered an apology over the body-the guard had not been his target. He knelt and recovered his knife with a quick jerk. Blood splashed on his cloak but did not discolor the black.

Black absorbs blood, Walker mused wryly. Black covers all things and hides all hurts.

Drex's bedchamber stood within half a dozen paces. Though he had no foreknowledge of the house, he could recognize the grunting and yelping sounds coming from behind the door easily enough. With a dismissive shake of his head, he turned the handle, silently opened the door, and slipped into the warm room.

Drex was in bed, and he was not alone. Walker averted his eyes and drifted silently over to an axe on the mantelpiece.

Rain pounded on the wooden roof overhead and on the shutters. A fire was sputtering and dying on the hearth, and he could feel the enticing heat as he neared it. Walker had known so little warmth that he found it succulent, fulfilling, and altogether intoxicating. He could have forgotten his purpose and just sat, watching the fading flames spark and flicker. They called to him…

But the voices he heard were those of spirits rather than flames, hissing whispers of unwanted memories of pain and hatred. The fragments of words cut like knives.

He stood, tall and slim, and pulled his cloak around him. Lightning flashed and thunder growled outside. He waited, motionless and prepared. It fell to his enemy to make the first move. Drex would notice his presence when he was no longer distracted.

Soon enough, Drex's eye happened to wander the room and alight on Walker. Or, rather, his looming shadow on the wall.

"Who's there?" Drex stuttered, shoving the lass away.

Walker didn't answer. He merely stood, blending in with the surrounding dark, but Drex met his terrible gaze and the rest of the world seemed to slide away.

Drex sat bolt upright in bed, startling his courtesan. "Who in the Nine Hells are you?" he roared, now angry. The older man was from the south, by his accent. Walker remembered that.

And more.

A memory washed over him: Pain, blood. Drex's laughter. Swords… death…

"I am tears on the mountain," Walker said. His voice was a rasp, a deep, throaty whisper. "I am the chill in the night. I hunt with the spirits, and I walk with the dead… as will you." He put his hand on his sword hilt. "Soon."

Drex shivered at the intensity of that glare, but he sprang from bed all the same. He yanked the blanket with him, revealing the cowering woman, who screamed and curled into a ball. He wound it around himself to cover his nakedness.

In truth, Walker did not care. He kept his arms crossed and his gaze level.

"Pretty speech," Drex chuckled. His hair was gray now. Different. "One of Greyt's 'prentices, eh?"

Walker felt a flicker of irony, but the feeling passed. His neutral frown was hidden behind the twin flaps of his high collar. Lightning flashed again. Drex was approaching fifty now, almost double Walker's age. They stalked around each other.

"Sounds like something out of the Singer's songs, lad," Drex said. "So what, you barge into my room in the night to tell me a children's rhyme? You think I'm in the mood?" He laughed and gestured to the terrified woman.

"Apparently not," Walker replied in a monotone. He remembered the axe, the blood running down his chest and arms, the murderers standing over him…

"Then speak, boy." Drex's voice became irate. "Speak quickly. As you can see, I'm occupied at the moment." The woman had rolled off the bed and was hiding beside it. "What is it you want?" he demanded.

"Your life," Walker replied.

Drex froze, staring at the ghostwalker in outright shock. His expression turned to one of anger, then disdain, then contempt.

"I have no time for the games of Dharan Greyt or that bastard son of his," said Drex. He spat at Walker's feet, then reached over and hefted the great woodsman's axe from the mantelpiece. "Now get out, or I'll send you out… in several small bundles."

"No," Walker said. "You will not."

Drex slashed his axe at him in reply, his shout slurred with too much ale.

Walker sidestepped and brought his arm around with a snap as though embracing Drex, allowing the axe to swipe past and the drunken lord's momentum to carry him staggering toward the opposite wall. The heel of Walker's hand darted for Drex's back and should have put him down, but the lord dived, rolled, and came up, his axe slashing across in a blur. Walker fell back, and the blade tore a long gash through his cloak.

Drex kept up the assault, egged on by the ripping of fabric, and reversed his slash.

Dark cloak trailing, Walker leaped horizontally over the flashing steel and rolled away from the deadly side chop-even when half-drunk, Drex was fast-and the steel burst wood chips from the side of a desk. Walker came up with his hand on his sword hilt and his knees bent. His hard eyes cut into Drex's watery ones. The lord was growing sober.

"You move like Torlic," growled Drex as he pulled the axe free, splintering the hardwood desk. "All jumping an' twirlin' like a lass."

"Torlic," repeated Walker, the name crashing against his mind like a wave. Torlic…

Seeing his opponent distracted, Drex slashed low.

Walker leaped, his black boots clearing the glittering steel by a hair's breadth, and turned in the air, lashing out with one foot. He caught Drex on the chin and sent him staggering back a few steps. Walker landed with a creak of wood even as Drex crashed backward into a nightstand, spilling several tankards and a pouch of coins to the floor.

The woodsman felt at the blood coming from his split lip and looked at Walker in surprise. Then his face twisted in outrage. "You're going to die now, boy!" Drex growled.

Walker shuddered, a memory flooding through him: Drex's face, red with blood that wasn't his, laughing at those same words. Walker's eyes narrowed. The world slowed as a dead calm flooded his limbs.

You're going to die now, boy!

"I remember you," he pronounced, as though intoning an elegy. "Standing over me…"

"As I will be in a moment," Drex growled. His words spoke of confidence, but his eyes held doubt.

Walker drew his sword, letting the mithral glow with silver fire. The weapon seemed ghostly, almost translucent, though surely it was a trick of the light.

"The time has come for a reckoning, Drex Redgill," Walker said softly. A familiar bleak power filled him-a terrible emptiness in which nothing existed.

Nothing but vengeance.

The axe darted, but Walker flowed out of the way. It missed cutting through his floating cloak by a breath. Drex reversed the blow, but Walker almost lazily swept his long sword down, catching the axe and throwing it back as though Drex were a child. The lord roared in frustration and slashed at him again and again, but Walker turned it aside each time.

Each time, he felt the pain of those first blows, struck so long ago…

After the fifth chop, Walker countered, his movement casual but blindingly fast. The sword seemed to snap into his left hand, startling Drex so that he missed the parry. Walker's blade slashed a line across Drex's naked torso.