WindDeceiver (5 page)

Sitting there propped against the tent pole behind him, Conar wondered just how much he really knew of those he had spent his life around. It had been a surprise to learn that both Marsh and Storm were from the Inner Kingdom. Now to learn that Hern had also originated in this arid desert country, filled him with complete surprise.

“He did not tell you,” Balizar said, seeing the confusion on his companion’s face.

“Nor did my father,” Conar answered.

“Perhaps they saw no reason to tell you,” Balizar commented. “Or maybe Hern never told his King where he had been born and bred.”

“How did you get to Serenia?” Conar asked. “Surely they don’t allow slaves here to buy themselves free like bondspeople.”

“It was Hern who found the way for us to escape.” He lowered his head and looked down at the floor. “He was in love with one of the young serving girls and they began to keep company right about the time our mother was sold. I have often thought Hern needed more comfort at that time than I did. The girl’s brother had joined the underground and was helping others to escape to Creat, a seaport off the coast of Kensett. Hern contacted him and the three of us: me and Hern and Phoebe, the man’s sister, were transported to Virago. From there, we fled into Serenia.”

“Obviously you made your home there,” Conar injected. “How did you wind up back here?”

Balizar sighed. “When I was nineteen, I met a Kensetti woman who had been brought to Serenia through the underground seaway. I fell in love with her, and, well, you know how it is when a man’s in love: he’ll do anything for his lady.”

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Conar smiled sadly. “Aye, that I do.”

A dark cloud shifted over Balizar’s face. “She still had kin over here: three brothers, a sister, several nieces and nephews. She worried about them constantly, fearful they would be sold to houses that would be less gentle with them than the ones in which they were enslaved. It nearly drove her to madness.”

“I can understand that.” Conar shifted in the bed, wincing at the pain in his leg. “Worrying about those you love can undermine your ability to survive.”

“I hated to see her so beset with worry,” Balizar said. “Hern and I talked it over and it was decided one of us would go back to Kensett and bring her family out.”

“And you were the one who came back?” Conar asked.

“We drew straws and I lost, if you want to call it that.” He sighed. “Hern wasn’t happy about the situation; he wanted to come along with me, but one of us had to stay to protect Deanna.”

“Was she the mother of his sons?”

Balizar glanced up, surprised at the young man’s astute conclusion. He nodded. “Hern loved her as much as I did. They became lovers after I left.” His face turned sad. “I think she always loved him more than me, anyway.”

“So you are over here, looking for her family, and she comes back looking for you,” Conar said. “Were you gone longer than she thought safe or did she come back to escape Hern?”

“Hern felt guilty over what they had done. He thought he had betrayed me, so he ran away, back to Virago, and joined the royal household there as a palace guardsman. He left our lady in the care of another, told her to wait for me.

“Deanna missed Kensett. It was in her blood. She told me when I saw her again that she would rather die a Kensetti slave than live free outside her birthplace.”

“So she came back here to have her sons. She thought you would take care of her.”

“Aye, but I had met another woman over here.” He smiled. “Rachel’s mother.”

Conar stared at him. “Rachel is your daughter?”

“No, but she well might have been.” He laughed softly. “It was not from lack of trying on my part that Rachel wasn’t born from my seed.” He shook his head. “No, she is Rupine’s niece.

Her father was Moshe Stone.”

“And Deanna was hurt by your love for Rachel’s mother and stayed only long enough to give birth before leaving,” Conar concluded.

“That was the way of it,” Balizar admitted. “I found out she went back to Jabol and the last I heard of her, she had sent the boys back to Serenia, fearful they would end up slaves if they should stay here. She even made them change their names so no one from here could find them.”

“But she stayed,” Conar stated.

“As far as I know.”

“Have you tried to find her?”

“Many, many times, but it is as though the earth had opened and swallowed her.” His gaze darkened. “For all I know, she may be long in her grave.”

“So you decided to do everything you could to help others get out of slavery to atone for losing her.”

Balizar looked at him. “You understand how it is. A man has to do what he can to make up for all the mistakes he’s made in his lifetime.”

“I know.” Better than most, Conar thought.

“I am getting old, Lord Khamsin,” Balizar admitted. “I have been at this for a good long while and my judgment is starting to slip. I am not as adept at leading my people as I use to be.”

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“And you think I can help?”

Balizar stood up and began to pace the tent. “Five days ago,” he explained, “twenty of our men were hanged at Abbadon.” He looked back at Conar. “You know the contraption they use at Boreas to hang men? That vile instrument of death they call The Garrote?”

How well I know it, Conar remembered. He had lost six good friends to that loathsome apparatus. “That was how they were executed?” he asked, shuddering, seeing men slowly choking to death as the platform slipped out from beneath their feet and the nooses constricted.

Balizar shook his head. “Just before they choked to death, the Prince had them taken down and disemboweled as a warning to the rest of us.”

A hard wave of nausea rose up in Conar’s throat. Kahlil Toire had threatened the same kind of agonizing end to Conar’s Elite that day in the Punishment yard. Had he not done as Toire had demanded, he would have witnessed his men meet the same gruesome fate as Balizar’s men had faced.

“A horrible way to have died,” Conar said quietly.

“The Rysalians do not take kindly to having their slaves liberated,” Balizar snarled.

“Killing those men in such a fashion was meant to undermine our cause. Having so many of the resistance murdered like that at one time has taken the fight out of many of our people.”

“I can appreciate that,” Conar remarked. “The same thing happened in Serenia when many of the leaders of our rebellion were sent to the Labyrinth.”

“That is why I believe you were sent to us, Lord Khamsin,” Balizar said as he came back to the bed and sat down on the stool once more. He leaned forward, his face earnest.

“What can I do?” Conar asked.

“We have men, good men; men who are willing to die to rid this land of slavery. But they need a leader, a man strong enough to draw them together, to bond them into an elite fighting unit such as your Wind Force.” He searched Conar’s face. “A man who is capable of helping us destroy slave masters like the Jaborn family.”

The Serenian went deadly still. “Jaborn? As in Jaleel Jaborn?”

“You know of him?” Balizar asked. At Conar’s slow nod, Arbra continued. “It was by his orders our men were murdered at Abbadon. That is his own private fortress.”

For a long time, Conar didn’t answer. He sat there, seemingly studying Balizar. His face was carefully blank, his gaze unwavering, and when he finally did speak, his voice was hard and tight. “I owe you my life, Balizar, and--“

Balizar waved his hand in dismissal. “You owe me nothing, my Prince.”

“I feel I do and I always repay my debts.” He reached out to put his hand on Balizar’s shoulder. “Is it not written in your Book of the Prophetess that should you save a man’s life, his life belongs to you until he repays you by saving yours?”

A wry smile stretched Balizar’s mustached lip. “Aye, that is so.” He felt the strong sword hand of the Prince of the Wind tighten on his shoulder.

“Even if I did not owe you such a debt, I would gladly do everything I could to crush Jaleel Jaborn.”

“Then you will lead us?” There was hope in the oddly-lisping voice.

“Aye, my friend, I will lead you.”

Rupine sat smoking his pipe, listening to Balizar and Asher as they spoke. He cast his dark gaze to his niece, Rachel, and observed that she was paying close attention to what the men were saying.

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“He has agreed to lead us,” Balizar informed the group of thirty-two men and nine women who were gathered at the camp fire.

“You trust him?” Asher asked.

“With my life,” came the immediate reply.

“Is this Serenian from the Darkwind’s force?” Rupine asked, withdrawing his pipe and tapping out the ashes in the sand before burying them with the hell of his hand.

“He is.” Balizar saw no need to tell them the man in the tent W
as
the Darkwind.

“And you vouch for him?” Rupine pressed.

“I

do.”

“It will be another six weeks, maybe even longer, before he can be up and about well enough to lead a force of men, Balizar,” Rupine reminded him. “What if someone comes looking for him before then?”

“We hide him,” Rachel answered and drew everyone’s attention. “His skin will darken after the sunburn goes away. He will blend in as one of our own.”

“Not with those eyes of his,” Rupine replied. “You may hide his face behind the cover of his headpiece, but you can not hide the color of his eyes.”

“Blindfold him,” Rachel suggested. She pointed to one of the other men. “Felder disguises himself as a blind beggar when he goes to Abbadon. Why not do the same with the Outlander?”

Men nodded, murmuring their agreement.

“If you wrap him in a leper’s rags, no one will come near enough to him to even wonder.”

“Give him a tent to himself,” Asher suggested. “Well away from the others. If Jaleel’s men should come, I doubt they’ll be overly interested in one of our outcasts.”

“They are not smart enough to think him anything but that which he appears to be,” Rachel put in.

“It might work,” Rupine agreed.

“It’s worth a try,” Asher added.

Conar sat in his tent and listened to himself being discussed. The others had accepted him on the strength of Balizar’s word and that meant the man was well respected and had his people’s confidence. That was good, because there would be a need to have a buffer between him and the others when he began to teach them in the ways they would use to see an end to Jaleel Jaborn and others of his kind.

“It’s not over between us,” he could hear Jaborn snarling at him.

“You were right, Hasdu,” Conar growled, “it isn’t over between us.” A vicious grin appeared on the Serenian’s face. “It’s just beginning!”

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Sajin slapped the man again, as hard as he could. He tore an already split lip, further still, and blood drooled out of the man’s slack mouth.

“He’ll kill you,” Azalon warned his cousin. “I suggest you tell him what he wants to know.”

“I don’t know where they took him!” the innkeeper babbled. “They sold him. That’s all I know!”

“To whom?” Sajin ground out, lashing out once more to connect a heavy hand with the bastard’s thick face.

“I don’t know!” the man blathered. He sagged against the Shadow-warriors who held him erect. A shriek of pain bubbled out of his torn mouth as the two Outer Kingdom brutes jerked him up.

“To whom?” the Kensetti bellowed at him.

“I don’t know,” the man whimpered, urine leaking down his legs beneath his caftan. “Ask Lord Khan.”

Sajin glanced at Azalon.

“He’s the wealthiest slave trader in Asaraba. If he sold the Serenian warrior, he’ll have a record of it,”

Azalon

told

him.

A flick of the Kensetti Prince’s hand caused the Outer Kingdom men to drop their burden to the floor in a heap.

“Where can we find this Khan?”

“He has a house not far from the auction arenas, but this time of day, he would be most likely inspecting his latest consignments.” Azalon frowned. “There is a large warehouse where the slaves are kept before being sent to market.”

Yuri snarled, the image of such a loathsome thing as slavery making him clench his big fists together. He stared hard at Sajin Ben-Alkazar. “This bastard had better not have put his hands on Conar McGregor like he did Storm Jale,” he growled. “That much I know!”

Azalon’s cousin looked up with dismay. “The other one?” he asked, fear making him shudder. He cringed away as Azalon quickly bent down and grabbed him by the front of his robe.

“What do you know of another one?” Azalon hissed.

“There was another. A blond,” the man whimpered. “He was taken--“ He got no further before the Kensetti Prince shoved Azalon aside and grabbed him up with a snarl of rage.

“Blond? There was a blond man here?” Sajin spat out. “A Serenian?”

Azalon was amused as his cousin vigorously shook his head in terror.

“Ionarian!” the man stuttered. “He was no Serenian!”

Yuri reached out to grasp a handful of the man’s greasy black hair, grimacing at the feel of it in his beefy palm. He pulled hard, craning the man’s head back as far as it would go.

“Leave off, Yuri,” Sajin warned. “You’ll break his neck.

The Shadow-warrior ignored the remark. “What was the man’s name?” Yuri snapped, twisting the greasy hair. “What was the Ionarian’s name?”

“It’s there! In the register!” came the grunt of agony.

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Yuri let go and stomped to the desk, jerked up the register and flipped back through several pages. He stopped at one page, stared down at the writing, then looked up at Sajin.