Authors: Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“
Roget
!”
Du Mer had looked up to see Wyn pointing at the cliffs they were passing. He narrowed his gaze, made his way to the taffrail and stood staring across the span of water.
“Is it him?” Sentian had asked.
“Aye, it is.”
Holm was curious to know what the other men were looking at and walked to the rail. He looked out across the waves and a hard glimmer of anger shot through his pale eyes.
“Du Mer!” Holm shouted, making those on deck flinch with the fury and hurt in the man’s booming voice. “Get your ass back to jenny!”
Roget saw his brother, Teal, thrust his hands into the pockets of his breeches, but he did not answer. He wondered if Teal knew where Conar was and that they were going to find him.
“He knows,” Ching-Ching had told him. “He came to wish you well.” The Chrystallusian had shaken his head. “A man’s pride is a terrible burden at times.”
“Conar doesn’t blame him for what Sadie did,” Roget had argued. “Teal should know that.”
“No, but du Mer blames himself.”
Teal had stood there for a moment longer, listening to Holm berating him, then had turned and disappeared.
“He’s got a wife and babe and the man has forsaken them!” Holm had bit out, slamming his hand down on the railing.
“Give him time, Holm,” Tyne had tried to soothe the man. “Let him come to grips with it.”
“When we get Conar home,” Sentian had vowed, “we’ll go find du Mer and bring him home, too.”
“Bring her around, Mr. Tarnes!” Holm shouted to his first mate.
Paegan scampered forward, giving orders to bring in the yards.
“Jasmine Cay,” Sentian whispered, never thinking to see the island again.
“He loved this place,” Thom said.
“Aye. Once,” Sentian agreed. “But after what happened to Nadia--“
“Do you think Edan is the traitor?” Thom asked, surprising Sentian.
“Edan?” Sentian shook his head. “No. He loved Nadia as though she were his own daughter. Whoever took her from the keep is our traitor, Thom. It can’t be Marsh.”
“He left,” Thom grumbled. “Right after Conar did.”
WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 51
“He told us why,” Roget said, joining them. “Do you have reason to think he was lying?”
Thom scrunched his rubbery face into a mask of worry. “Maybe.”
“What does that mean?” Roget asked.
But Thom would say no more. He kept his suspicions to himself.
Captain Serge Nickolayevich Kutuzov grinned widely at the burly captain of the Ravenwind. He strode forward, his hand thrust out, his face beaming with pleasure.
“Van de Lar?” he barked in his thick accent. “It is pleasure to meet!”
Holm took the hand of the Outer Kingdom sea captain and cocked his head toward the sleek vessel lying at anchor in the cove. “She is a rare beauty! What do you call her?”
Serge lifted his chin. “She is Anya Katrine.”
“A lovely name for a lovely lady,” Holm assured him. “I can’t wait to get aboard.”
“We sail in three hours,” Serge told him and then looked about at the men who had disembarked the Ravenwind. “The Wind Force?”
“Most of them,” Holm agreed, then introduced the man to the others.
“Chalean!” Serge shrieked with joy and began to converse with Tyne in his native tongue.
“Boisterous fellow, ain’t he?” Thom asked Sentian.
“Conar spoke highly of him,” Roget said.
“Your
ship
handsome.”
Sentian turned around to see a man he knew could be nothing else but a Shadow-warrior.
He smiled. “Conar named her.” He held out his hand, somewhat surprised when the man did not hesitate in taking it.
“I,” the man said, jabbing a thumb into his chest, “Alexi Romanovitch.”
“Sentian Heil, Thom Loure and Roget du Mer,” Sentian introduced themselves.
“You,” Alexi said, pointing at Thom, “he tells me of.”
Thom’s high forehead drew together. “Conar?”
Alexi nodded. “Fight fire together. Hear tale of how long.” He looked pointedly down at Thom’s crotch, then grinned and reached out to slap Thom’s shoulder. “Much good, eh?”
Sentian glanced up at Loure and saw the man blush. He laughed and found the Outer Kingdom man’s hand on his own shoulder.
“You, he say got
big
temper!” Alexi squeezed Sentian’s shoulder. “Say good friend.” He jabbed his thumb into his chest once more. “
My
friend, too!”
“I’d hate to know what he said of me,” Roget quipped.
Alexi shook his head. “Not gamble with you.”
Roget’s brows shot up. “No, that’s Teal you’re thinking about.”
“Not gamble with
you
!” Alexi repeated, walking off.
“Wait a minute!” Roget called out, following the man. “He was talking about my brother.
Not me! Alexi!!”
Meggie stared at the tall, burly men walking around her on the deck of the Outer Kingdom ship and was amazed so many big men could gather in one place and not sink the ship. She smiled at them, was relieved to see them grin back, if only fleetingly.
“Brutes, they are, I bet,” she mumbled, shaking her head of fuzzy white hair.
“But
polite
brutes.”
Meggie glanced up, seeing only a dark outline above her for the speaker’s back was to the afternoon sun. She shielded her eyes with her hand and sniffed.
WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 52
“Can’t see a bloody thing with you standing there. Sit yourself down here by me and let’s have a little talk.”
Wyn glanced across the deck and saw the woman sitting with Meggie. He elbowed Rylan.
“Do you think that’s her?”
Rylan squinted through the murky haze drifting in from the Sinisters. “Probably.”
“Should we go speak to her?”
Rylan shook his head. “Not until Meggie’s finished with her.” He tried to see the woman’s face, but could see nothing more than a slim nose and a cap of dark curls.
“They called her Your Grace,” Paegan told them as he hurried up. “That’s Conar’s woman!”
“You sure?” Grice Wynth asked as he glanced behind him.
“Go ask her!” Wyn insisted.
“When Meg’s through,” Grice answered.
“What was her name, now?” Holm asked, standing with the others and staring across the deck.
“Her name is Marie Catherine Steffenovitch,” Ching-Ching informed the men in a haughty tone that said they shouldn’t be gossiping. “And yes, she is Conar’s lady.”
“What’s she doing here?” Sentian asked, craning his head to see the woman, too.
“Come to help get her man back,” an Outer Kingdom sailor chuckled and when the others turned to him, he grinned. “When message come he be found alive--“
“Alive?” the men of the Wind Force bellowed to a man.
Meggie turned her head and the sound and looked across the deck. “They be discussing you, gal.”
Catherine nodded. “I don’t doubt it.”
“I have just one question for you, sweeting,” Meggie said, gaining the young woman’s attention.
“Do I love him?” Catherine asked.
Meggie slowly bobbed her head up and down.
“Does the sun set in the west, Meggie-love?” she asked, surprising the old woman with the nickname Conar had given her long ago. “Does it rise in the east and dry the dew from the flowers?” She took the old woman’s hand in her own. “Does this woman love Conar McGregor?”
“That’s what I’m wanting to be knowing!” Meggie snorted.
“I came half-way around the world, against my parents’ wishes, my brothers’ angry denials, stowing away and living off a tin of warm water and two loaves of bread until I knew we were far enough out to sea that they couldn’t turn around and take me home. I shunned the hand of every eligible bachelor in my homeland, seven emirates and three kingdoms just to have Conar McGregor kiss me as only he can.” She lowered her eyes. “And I gave him what I had given no other man before him and thrilled in the giving.” She looked up. “How do you think I feel about him, Meggie?”
Meggie stared hard at her for a good long time then squeezed her hand. “Don’t go hurting him, lass,” she warned. “If’n you do, you’ll have a heap of trouble piled on your pretty little head the likes of which you ain’t never seen.”
Catherine smiled. “He’s been hurt enough in his lifetime. I’d die before I’d let anything hurt him, Meg.”
“That you might,” Meggie agreed. “That you might.”
WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 53
Chase couldn’t believe what he was seeing as he and the three other men rode down off a high dune to view the staggered line of moving men and vehicles stretching along the desert.
“Sweet Alel,” Chase gasped.
“Slavery,” Yuri barked, his face stony. “Whips and shackles and torment.
That
is slavery!”
“How the hell are we going to find one man among all them?” Sajin asked, overwhelmed by the sight. Slavery had been a part of his life since he was old enough to understand what the word meant, but never had he seen such a sight as this. In Kensett, the slaves were not treated so.
“Well, we won’t do it sitting here,” Azalon remarked. He wiped the sweat from under his bearded chin. “Watch yourselves. There’s other riders to the east of us.”
Sajin looked to his left and saw twenty or so riders coming toward them. Something in his very soul told who was leading that group of men.
“Montyne!” When Chase looked his way, he pointed. “How much do you want to bet that’s our friend?”
Chase twisted in his saddle and saw the other group of riders. “I’d say by the way they’re bearing down, you may be right.”
“They’ve spotted us,” Yuri said, drawing his saber. He kept tight rein on his steed as several riders broke away from the main group and headed their way.
“He’s going after that last column of men,” Sajin said, watching a big black destrier racing ahead of the others.
Chase opened his mind, but nothing would come. Since coming to this godsforsaken land, he had not been able to use even a smidgen of his power.
“If that’s Conar, he knows exactly where Jale is,” Yuri said. He was watching the men hurrying toward him, preparing himself to fight if need be.
“Maybe not,” Chase answered, still trying to probe the aura around him. All he got for his effort was a wavering shimmer of heat.
“Heads up!” Sajin shouted, kicking his horse toward the group that was heading straight for him.
Conar had seen the other riders on the dune, but he had no time to worry about them. He had heard Balizar issuing an order to some of their party to intercept the riders and that was all that mattered. His entire concentration was on trying to find his fellow countryman in the miserable throne of humanity on the roadway.
“Where are you, friend?” Conar thought, sending out his powers only to have them fall short, not connect. He tried again, caught just a faint shifting in the air around him and was stunned to know it hadn’t come from the men on the roadway but from the riders up on the dune.
He turned his head for just a second, saw his men engaging the other riders in hand to hand combat, and wondered what sorcerer had tried to call out to him.
“McGregor!” Sajin bellowed to the men who were lashing out at them with drawn sword.
“Conar McGregor!”
The Kensetti had no way of knowing that name meant nothing to these men. If anything, it made them fight the harder.
“Tell them something, Sajin!” Yuri shouted, hacking at a nomad and trying not to hurt him just in case he was one of Conar’s men.
WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 54
“
What do you suggest I say
?” Sajin yelled back. He swatted one attacker on the side of the head with the flat of his sword and was relieved when the man fell off his horse and rolled to safety.
“Khamsin!” Chase called out, seeing two of the attacker’s looking at one another.
“Khamsin!” he said again and threw his sword away.
“Montyne, you idiot!” Yuri shrieked, kicking his horse between Chase and the seven men who had ridden down on them.
“Khamsin?” one of the attackers asked, pointing down to the big black stallion.
“Yes!” Sajin answered. “Khamsin!”
“The Darkwind!” Chase laughed.
The attackers reined in their mounts, lowered their swords and looked at the men.
“Darkwind?” the same man asked.
“Aye,” Chase grinned, putting out his hand. “We are the Darkwind’s men!”
The attacker reluctantly took Montyne’s wrist in his hand. “Khamsin’s man,” he said firmly.
“Is that him on the black?” Sajin asked in the language of the Hasdu.
The man looked behind him. “Yes.”
Yuri threw back his head and laughed. “Then what are we waiting for?” he yelled. He lowered his head and leaned low in the saddle, kicking his mount into action. “Let’s go get him!”
Dozens of slaves were breaking free of the staggered column, running out into the desert, trying desperately to escape the guards. But a dozen men turned toward the intruders and drew swords from their scabbards, shouting out a war cry as they met the threat of the Samiel’s raid head on.
Rachel was only two lengths behind Conar as he plunged his steed into the line of guards watching the last column of slaves. She saw him bend low in the saddle, take a backward swing with his sword to behead one guard and mortally wound another on the forward curve. He whipped his sword through the men as though they were sheaves of wheat inside of bone and blood and marrow. Few turned to fight him and those who did, died.
“Watch his back!” she heard Balizar shout and lifted her crossbow in time to bring down a guard intent on driving his spear into Conar’s side.
Ahead of him was a lone man, on the ground, lying huddled between the traces of a pull cart. As he had raced his steed toward the roadway, he had seen the whip raised and lowered, counting six times the lash had descended before the guard became aware of the trouble bearing down on him. Every time that lash had connected with the still form on the ground, Conar’s own back had tingled with an unpleasantness that was totally unlike anything he had ever felt before.