WindDeceiver (10 page)

Yuri glared at the Ionarian. He’d never liked the man; had never trusted him. But he was a friend to Conar. He backed down although it galled him to do so.

“Go with us,” Sajin asked Chase. “Help us find this man Jale.”

“Sirocco, no!” Sabrina cried, reaching out for her lover. “Do not!”

Chase patted her hand on his arm. “I have to, sweet one.” He looked down into her tearful face. “Storm Jale is a friend of mine; we’ve been through a lot together. I came here to find him and now that we may know where he is, I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t go to his aid, now, would I?”

“But it is dangerous, Sirocco!” she cried, dragging on his arm. “You are an Outlander.

With your fair hair and coloring, you will be--“

“My personal slave,” Sajin interrupted her. He smiled at Montyne’s fierce scowl. “So to speak.”

“It might work,” Azalon admitted. “His Grace can say we have come to the quarry to chose stone for his tomb.”

Sajin winced. “I don’t think so.”

“What better reason?” Azalon inquired. “Everyone knows how eccentric the royalty is.

What better excuse to go to a quarry and inspect the work than to pick out just the right slabs of stone for your final resting place.”

“It is bad luck to jest of such things,” Yuri groused.

“But a damned good ploy,” Chase answered.

“All right,” Sajin sighed. “What do you suggest we do once we find Jale?”

Sabrina listened as the men sat at the desk and planned their trip to Kilnt. Her expression was grave, her heart thudding in her chest. She watched her lover’s excited face, saw the gleam of battle in his eyes and knew there would be no way she would prevent her precious warrior from leaving.

Balizar held up his hand, halting the others. He stood up in his saddle and looked around him, reading the landscape as though perusing a map. There was a worried look on his lined face.

“What’s wrong?” Conar asked as he reined in his mount beside Hern’s brother.

The aging warrior shook his head. “Just a feeling,” he answered. “Something in my gut is warning me to be very, very careful.”

Conar crossed his wrists over the pommel. “A trap?”

“Doesn’t feel like one,” Balizar told him. “Just a feeling I can’t shake.”

“Maybe we should send a scout ahead,” Asher said.

“That may be a good idea,” Balizar agreed. He sat down in the saddle and pulled on the reins.

“You’re going?” Asher asked.

“And who better, may I ask?” the older man sniffed.

“Be careful,” Conar warned him. “If we were in Serenia, I could be of more help to you, but here, what powers I have left are useless.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Balizar laughed. “Now, I am really worried!” He kicked his horse in the ribs and left the others on the flat stretch of barren sand.

“How far are we from the quarry?” Conar asked Asher.

“Three, maybe four miles.” He pointed east. “The Lady Sabrina’s breeding farm is just over two miles that way.” Asher knew all about Conar’s encounter with the procuress.

“Maybe I’ll go visit her while I’m here,” Conar laughed.

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“And get a good look at that blond haired archer,” Rupine commented.

Conar nodded. “I could have sworn the man was a friend of mine, but I don’t think that’s likely.” He snorted. “If I know Montyne, he’s sitting on a cliff in Ionary sipping oozio.”

“That didn’t take long,” Asher said.

Conar looked around and saw Balizar riding back toward them. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

Balizar’s face was thunderous as he reined in with the others. “They ain’t at the quarry,” he spat. “They’re trekking to that great pile of stones that Hasdu son-of-a-bitch is building for his afterlife!”

“How many?” Asher asked.

“Three, maybe four hundred,” Balizar ground out.

“Hundred?”

Conar

gasped.

“And all in a little line spread out along a good long stretch, at that,” Balizar told him. “We ain’t never gonna find that Serenian in all that!”

Conar looked away from Balizar. All day, ever since he had awakened in the early morning hours, his heart pounding and his body covered with chilled sweat, he’d had the oddest feeling.

The flesh on his back, long since devoid of feeling because of the massive amount of scar tissue, had been tingling as though a lash were being laid to it. His palms, where once twin brands had been scored into the flesh, were itching; and his left cheek with its parallel scars had been twitching ever since they had left camp.

“I can find him,” Conar announced, feeling the surety of it all the way to his soul.

“Ain’t no way, I tell you!” Balizar disagreed.

Conar nodded. “I can.”

“We can wait until the go back to the quarry,” Rupine suggested. “It will be safer and easier for us to find an Outlander there than on a trek to the Valley of the Dead.”

A dull pain jabbed into Conar’s gut and he leaned forward with it, drawing in his breath.

His eyelids flickered.

“What is it, son?” Balizar asked, seeing a strange emotion crossing over McGregor’s face.

“If we don’t get him today,” Conar said, as sure of what he was saying as he had ever been of anything, “there won’t be any need to go after him again.” He turned his steady stare to Balizar.

“They will have murdered him.”

Balizar didn’t need to ask the young man how he knew that. After all, this was the Prince of the Wind. He nodded. “What do you want to do?”

Conar looked back across the desert. “How many guards would you say they have?”

“Six, seven dozen,” Balizar informed him.

“On horseback or foot?”

“Some on horseback, but most on foot.”

“Weapons?”

“A few with crossbows.” Balizar shrugged. “Most with whips.”

Conar straightened in the saddle, once more feeling the vague, dull pain, but this time in his side. “How many crossbows?”

“Ten, maybe twelve.”

Asher Stone watched the Serenian carefully. There was a powerful expression on his scarred face, a deadly sheen that, when it turned to Balizar, boded ill for whoever had caused it.

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“The man we’re going after will be apart from the others. They’ll have several guards around him whose only duty it is to torment him.” His mouth turned bitter. “Look for one out of all that throng who is being viciously beaten with every step he takes and you will find our man.”

“How do you know that?” Rupine asked.

“Don’t be asking him such a foolish question!” Balizar snapped. “The man knows what he’s about.”

Another dull pain flared in his stomach and Conar bent double with it, waving aside Balizar’s concern. He ground his teeth and forced himself erect, glaring off across the sand as though it were a mortal enemy.

“Let’s go,” he said, flicking his reins against his mount’s sides. “We don’t have all that much time.”

Rachel kicked her horse into motion, cantering him as closely behind Khamsin’s as she could get. Her eyes were on his back, her hand on the cross bow slung over her pommel.

Storm fell, his bleeding face pushed into the hot sand by the keeper’s boot on his neck. He felt the heat, could not breathe, experienced the suffocating horror of the sand invading his mouth and nostrils. His lungs were burning beneath the torn and bloodied flesh of his chest. He barely grunted as someone grabbed his hair and pulled his head free of the sand.

“Infidel dog!” the shout came as a hard boot connected with his temple to flip him over.

Pain exploded inside his head and his vision dimmed. He rolled, his ravaged back tortured by the white-hot heat of the sand. Another boot drove into his side and he doubled over, drawing his legs up to protect his groin.

“Get up, dog!”

Hard hands, unrelenting hands fastened around his arms and jerked him up, held him. A vicious backhand blow caught him across his already-bleeding mouth and knocked still another tooth loose.

“When we arrive at the site, I will see to it you are staked again!”

Storm Jale, his dark eyes filled with utter submission, sagged between his captors, his head lolling, only partially aware of what was being done to him.

“Walk, dog!” the keeper bellowed.

They let go of him and he staggered, knowing if he went down again, he would never get up again this side of hell. He stumbled backward, caught himself from falling. It was an effort to drag one foot ahead of the other, but he managed to turn without crashing face down in the sand and walk unsteadily toward the cart he had been dragging before the keeper had singled him out for punishment.

“Is this how it was for you, Conar?” he asked as he placed himself between the traces of the cart and bent down to lift up the poles. “Did you yield to this surrender?”

“What are you saying?” the keeper yelled and the whip came down on his bare shoulders like a stinging hide of angry bees.

Storm leaned into the pull, feeling the weight of the cart dragging at his shoulders. He dug his feet into the sand and inched the cart of timbers forward. Blood dripped from his chin, ran down his chest through the thick matting of hair.

He stumbled, went down on one knee and the whip descended on him, cutting down his right arm from wrist to shoulder.

“Get up, dog!”

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Storm turned his head and looked up at the man. With every ounce of strength he had left in his weakening body, he slowly smiled. He watched the incredulity flit across the man’s dark ugly face; saw the moment the whip came up and lashed out; endured the agony of the steel-tipped barbs penetrating as the rawhide dragged over his exposed throat. Blood gushed out of his torn flesh and Storm Jale, a smile still on his lips, crumbled to the ground in a heap.

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Holm Van de Lar looked up into the sheeting and was satisfied with what he saw. The Ravenwind was running before the wind, her yards squared. She was making good time to Jasmine Cay and by his calculations, they should reach the Sinisters by mid-morning. He glanced down at his sea charts and nodded.

“I hope those charts are correct,” Paegan Hesar commented to the captain.

“They are,” Holm answered. “Let’s just hope that Outer Kingdom ship is waiting for us when we reach Jasmine Cay.”

“I’m not looking forward to going through the Sinisters,” Paegan admitted. He looked off the starboard rail and could see the hump of land in the distance.

“Consider it a learning experience, little brother,” Rylan Hesar said.

“I’m most anxious to view this thing called a fog horn,” Jah-Ma-El announced. “I hope it doesn’t frighten the men like it frightened Conar.”

“He wasn’t prepared for it,” Roget reminded Conar’s brother.

“And we won’t be either,” Sentian grumbled.

Legion had stayed behind, Tyne thought as he cleaned and polished his sword. As had Chand Wynth, who was seeing to the affairs in Oceania; Shalu, who was in bed with a bad case of the flu; and Marsh Edan. But all the rest of them were there, including young Wyn.

“I don’t see why Coron and I can’t go with you!” Dyllon, Conar’s youngest brother had argued.

“You lost the draw,” Wyn had answered. “Coron goes to Ionary to see to Chase’s business and you, Uncle Dyllon, have to go to Chale.”

“Chale!” Dyllon had spat as though it were a dirty word.

“Be careful, young McGregor,” Tyne had warned him. “My people will set the leprechauns on you if you don’t respect your obligation.”

“It was rigged!” Coron had hissed. “The draw was rigged!”

Tyne knew it hadn’t been; that it had been the gods’ plan that the two young Princes remain behind. Marsh hadn’t been happy with his lot, either. He had been the first to draw a short straw.

“But I know the country!” he had complained. “You need me with you!”

“I need you to help Tristan run Boreas while I traipse off to Virago!” Legion had fairly bellowed, another loser not happy with his plight.

“I want to go along!” Tristan had yelled at his uncle, but every man there had shouted him down.

“Conar would have our hides if we allowed any of you boys to go along!” Thom had reminded both Tristan and Regan, who had insisted he be allowed to go.

“You can do your father much good here,” Ching-Ching finally impressed upon the boys.

“His magic is useless in that heathen place, but yours can protect him for here.”

“How?” Regan had shot back.

“Combine your powers, young birds,” Ching-Ching had said. “Send your combined strength to him. He will take note of it, believe me.”

“You don’t know he’s in trouble,” Regan had answered.

Ching-Ching-s wise monkey face screwed up in annoyance. “I know your father!”

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“I’m thinking this ain’t so bad,” Meggie Ruck pronounced as she waddled across the deck toward Sentian. “A little bit like walking with your snoot full, but not so bad.”

“He’s going to blow his top when he sees you, Meg,” Sentian warned her.

Meggie sniffed. “So let him. Won’t be the first time my bonny boy showed his arse.”

“Watch your mouth,” several men cautioned her.

“Go to the devil with you!” Meggie smirked at them.

“The worse ship’s cook I ever had,” Holm lamented and he watched Meggie sit down on a coil of hemp. “Whoever told her hardtack and biscuits was what was served at sea?”

“Thom,” Roget answered. “Hoping she wouldn’t come along.”

Holm stared across the deck at the tall, bald headed man. “Remind me to teach that bastard a thing or two when we get aboard that Outer Kingdom vessel.”

Wyn peered down from the crow’s nest. He loved sailing as much as his father did. He had scampered up to the lookout point before the Ravenwind had even cleared Boreas Harbor. It was him who saw the man standing on the cliff when the ship had started its tack south.