WindDeceiver (12 page)

“Hang on, friend,” he whispered, kicking away one of the guards who had lashed out at him with a dagger. His boot heel caught the man in the mouth and he saw the give as teeth caved in.

Storm opened his eyes and saw the big black horse racing toward him. “Seayearner,” he sighed. He watched with detached calm the bloodbath going on around him. Several guards were down, some screaming from the bite of Conar’s sword. Another fell from a quarrel in the back and Storm shifted his gaze to see Liza re-loading her bow.

“I’m dead,” he said, keeping his steady gaze on the lovely woman who, without the least bit of compunction, reached down to a taut thigh and withdrew a wicked-looking dagger that sailed unerringly into the throat of a guard who had managed to drag Conar from his horse.

Conar pushed the guard away, not even realizing the man was dead, and plunged his sword into the corpse’s belly. It wasn’t until he was dragging the sword clear that he saw the dagger. He WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 55

glanced up, expecting to see Balizar and nearly screamed with frustration when he found Rachel bringing her bow up.

“You gods-be-damned stupid bitch!” he bellowed at her, wishing he hadn’t for the bow wavered for just a moment before the quarrel shot from the shaft and plunged into the heart of another guard.

“Let me do my job, Khamsin!” she yelled back at him.

Something hit him hard across his shoulders and he spun around, finding himself wrapped in the braided tail of a rawhide whip. His fury went beyond the rational to some farther reach of insanity and he grabbed the lash and jerked, pulling the guard off balance and impaling him with one fluid motion on the end of his blade.

“Don’t you ever hit me again!” Rachel heard him scream. She watched in fascination as he shrugged the rawhide from him and lunged forward to disembowel another whip wielder before the man could bring his arm forward.

“Conar,” Storm whispered. He tried to crawl toward the man he had desperately wanted to come for him, but he found he didn’t have the strength. He reached up, reaching out for Conar, but his friend was busy fighting two guards at once, and Storm dropped his hand to the ground again.

“You need help?” Rachel called out to Conar, looking around to make sure there were no other guards nearby to give him trouble.

“No!

“

She shrugged and lowered her crossbow. She watched him, marveling that he had so much stamina, so much strength as he hacked at one man and drove the other back with feints and jabs that had the man’s shirt front bloody.

“You

sure?”

Conar risked a look at her, enraged that the bitch could be taunting him at a time like this.

He was so angry, he pivoted on his left and kicked one of his opponents in the face, breaking the man’s jaw.

“Bet that hurt,” Rachel breathed.

The remaining guard jumped back, away from the lunge that would have ripped his belly open. He flung down his own weapon and turned, running as fast as he could away from the deadly man he’d been fighting.

Conar’s hand went down to his thigh and he drew out his dagger, flipped it over so that the point was in his palm. He brought it back, then cursed, realizing the man was out of range of his blade.

“Let me,” Rachel sighed, pushing him aside and bringing up her crossbow. She leveled it and sighted.

“Shoot him!” Conar shouted at her.

“I

will.”

He stared at her, wanting to slap her silly as she just stood there, letting the bastard get further out of range. Just as he was about to snatch the bow from her, she let the missile go and he turned his head to follow its arc: straight into the running man’s back.

“Sweet Alel!” Conar breathed, despite himself. He slowly turned his head to look at her.

“I always hit what I aim for, milord,” she told him, not realizing her words hurt him so badly he nearly cried.

“How come you always wind up with all the pretty girls, Conar?”

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Conar spun around, his eyes flaring as he saw Sajin Ben-Alkazar sitting on a horse behind him. He shifted his gaze, found Chase Montyne staring back at him, then was stunned to see Yuri Andreanova grinning at him, as well.

“How?” Conar asked.

Chase shrugged. “Just looking out for your arse as usual, McGregor,” he answered.

“That was you!” Conar gasped.

“Once more into the breach, eh, Darkwind?” Chase chuckled.

“This man is hurt bad, Khamsin,” Rachel called out to him, breaking into his awareness.

“He needs Rupine.”

Chase looked around Conar and nearly fell from his horse as he caught sight of the woman who had spoken. Very slowly he dismounted his steed, staring at her all the while. “Blessed Mary!” he heard Yuri gasp.

Conar turned, more annoyed than ever with the woman, but he saw her sitting on the ground, holding a man’s head in her lap, his face against her belly. There was blood on the front of her caftan and he hoped it was the man’s, not hers.

“Were you hurt?” he asked, striding toward her.

“No,” she snapped and smoothed the long hair out of the injured man’s eyes.

Conar knelt down, put his hand on the wounded man’s throat. He felt a weak pulse and relieved. “From all that blood on his throat, I was afraid they’d slit it,” he told her.

“Lash mark,” she answered.

“Unload that wagon,” Balizar snapped to several of his men. “We’ll transport him in it.”

“Give him to me,” Conar demanded and put his arm under the man’s shoulder.

“Be careful with him,” Rachel warned.

“Did I tell you how to shoot that bow, woman?”

“No.”

“Then don’t tell me how to pick this man up!”

“You aren’t invincible, you arrogant bastard!” she shot back.

“Shut the hell up, woman!” Conar flung at her.

“Make me, you arrogant ass!”

Chase looked at Sajin when Conar lifted his head and glared at her. Sajin was frowning, darkly, and Yuri didn’t seem happy, either.

“Is it Storm, Conar?” Chase asked, to break the angry stare between his friend and the woman who bore such a strong resemblance to Liza it was unnatural.

Conar flinched as though a lash had came down on him. He slowly turned his head and looked up at Chase with stunned confusion.

“We think it’s Storm Jale,” Yuri told him.

Rachel saw all the color drain from Conar’s face as he looked back around, met her eyes briefly before lowering his gaze to the man. She saw his hand shake as he reached out to gently turn the injured man’s face toward him. If she lived to be a hundred, she thought later that evening, she would never again see such unbridled misery on a man’s face as she saw when Khamsin recognized the man she held.

“Oh, my god!” she heard him whisper, his voice breaking. His entire body shuddered.

“Storm?”

Storm came to, hearing that familiar voice call his name. He looked up into eyes filled with tears, a face that was crumbling with pain.

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“I knew you’d come,” he managed to croak through his torn and bleeding lips. “I knew you would.”

“Storm?”

“I’m sorry, Coni,” Jale said.

Rachel relinquished the man in her arms to the gentle embrace that lifted him to Khamsin’s chest, to the trembling arms that braced the man’s thin and pitifully battered body, to the bloodied sword hand that cupped the greasy, dirt-encrusted head to Khamsin’s shoulder.

“Forgive me--“ Storm sighed, reaching up a shaking hand to touch his friend’s face.

“For what?” Conar cried, his tears falling on the dirt-streaked face of one of his own Elite.

“He killed Nadia,” Storm whispered. “He slashed her throat.” His filthy hand caressed the scarred plane of Conar’s cheek. “If I’d known--“

Chase turned away, his face going bleak and hopeless. They had found the traitor in their ranks at last.

“Don’t talk,” Conar told him, pressing his old friend’s body close to his. “We’re going to get you to a healer. He’ll--“

“I betrayed you, Conar,” Storm whispered, his vision beginning to lose focus. “It was me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Conar told him, rocking Storm’s broken body against his own. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Forgive

me.”

“Aye, I do,” Conar told him. “Be quiet now. Just be quiet and lie still.”

Yuri stared down at the man in Conar’s arms, wondering how Conar could possibly forgive Storm Jale. Forgive the man who had turned his infant daughter over to her murderer.

“When you didn’t come, I thought you’d forsaken me,” Storm said, trying to see Conar’s face, but the darkness was closing in on him. “But you would never do that, would you, Conar?”

“Never!” came the immediate reply. “You know better.”

Rachel sat back, staring at the ravaged face of Conar McGregor, seeing misery and agony filling the tearful gaze, watching guilt and loss already forming.

“You always forgive the things we do to you, don’t you, my friend?” Storm’s voice was so low no one heard it but the man to whom he was speaking. “No matter what we do.”

“Shush, Storm,” Conar pleaded with him. “You’re going to be all right.”

“No,” was the weak sigh. “I’m paying for what I did to you.”

“Don’t say that!” Conar yelled at him. “You’ve done nothing to me!”

“I took Nadia to him. I let him kill your daughter.”

Rachel winced, looking down at the man Khamsin held. She could see the light beginning to fade from his eyes, knew he was already heading for the light. Whether the warm white light of paradise or the glowing red of hell she didn’t know; either way, she could already hear the death rattle in his voice.

“Find him, Conar,” Storm told him. “Find Jaborn and kill him.”

Sajin turned his head away and looked straight into the face of Asher Stone. A dark thundercloud of anger formed on the Kensetti’s face and his hands balled into fists at his side. He could barely hear the dying man’s words for hot blood was already beginning to pump through his temples as he stared at Asher.

“Jaleel Jaborn killed Nadia,” Storm said on a long sigh. “Because she was your child and I did nothing to stop the bastard.” His hand fell from Conar’s cheek.

“I’ll take care of it,” Conar promised, his heart aching. “He’ll die on his knees for hurting my daughter, Storm!”

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“I

know.”

“Why?” Yuri heard himself asking, not even noticing the protective way Conar had quickly drawn Jale’s body to him. “Why did you betray him? He was your friend!”

Storm used the very last ounce of his strength to look Conar in the eye. He tried to smile and couldn’t. Tried to reach up once more to touch Conar’s face and couldn’t. His words were the last thing between him and death:

“It was my babe, not du Mer’s. I loved Joanie, but she loved you. I hated you for that. I--“

Conar felt the life leave Storm’s body and yet he continued to hold it, even when Balizar shouted at him that other guards were headed their way.

“They’re going after the escapees,” Rupine shouted.

“Aye, but they’ll be coming after us, too!” Balizar yelled back.

“Yuri,” Sajin ordered, “take the body away from--“

“I will not!” the Outer Kingdom warrior seethed. “I will not touch that traitor’s body!”

Conar looked up slowly, found Yuri’s enraged stare and held it. “Never!” Yuri stressed.

Chase spun around and strode to where Conar knelt in the sand and forcibly took Storm’s lifeless body out of his arms. He shifted the man’s weight and glanced down at Rachel. “Help him up, lady,” he ordered. He carried Jale to Sajin’s horse, and assisted by the Kensetti, managed to place Storm face down over the mount.

Sajin, with one last glance at Asher Stone, mounted his horse and then kept it under tight control as the steed’s sensitive nose caught scent of Jale’s blood.

Conar’s gaze shifted to Rachel as she reached out to put a hand on his arm.

“It is time to leave, Khamsin,” she said.

He nodded, all the fight and anger gone out of him. He allowed her to help him up, did not comment as she slipped her arm around his waist and led him toward his prancing horse that Azalon was having difficulty controlling.

“Hurry!” Balizar yelled out all of them. He glanced behind them and saw guards running toward them with drawn swords.

Conar swung himself up into the saddle, felt her hand on his leg and looked down at her.

“Are you all right, milord?” she asked.

“Aye.”

Chase pulled himself onto his mount, thinking there was no emotion in that flat answer, no depth. He turned his horse’s head and walked him to Conar.

“You know where I can be found if you need me, Khamsin,” Montyne said.

Conar

nodded.

“If we don’t ride, we’re going to have to fight!” Balizar shouted.

Conar kicked his horse into motion, felt the sleek animal respond as it pushed its head forward and lengthened its stride. Vaguely he was aware that Montyne had taken a solitary path back the way he had come. Yuri, Sajin and the man he didn’t know were close behind Asher and Balizar and he wondered where Rachel was.

“Here,” she called out.

He turned his head and saw her matching him stride for stride. How well she sits her horse, he thought. Like beast and mistress were one entity.

Like Liza use to ride Windkeeper.

A sob tore out of his throat as he began to count all the people he had loved and lost over the years.

He swore Storm Jale would be the last.

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The men of the Wind Force stepped off the ship in Asaraba and looked around them at the teeming life, the sharp gazes staring back at the them, the loud sounds of merchants hawking their wares and the running feet of juvenile thieves escaping retribution from their elders.