WindDeceiver (6 page)

“Chase Montyne,” he breathed.

“There was no man named that here,” the innkeeper assured them.

“Yuri?” Sajin asked.

“There’s a name here.” He glanced back down again. “I can’t make out what it says, but it’s Montyne’s writing. I’ve seen enough of it to recognize it. He sent many messages to Conar over the years and I intercepted most of them.”

“This Montyne,” Azalon remarked, “is he not royalty? I have heard that name before.”

“He’s the Prince of Ionary,” Sajin answered. “I’ve heard tales of his expertise with a bow.”

“But what’s he doing here?” Azalon asked.

“My guess would be when Storm did not report back to Boreas, they sent another member of the Wind Force after Conar,” Yuri said. “Montyne would have been my choice.”

“And now He’s missing,” Sajin snarled. He looked at the cowering innkeeper. “Sold?”

Azalon’s cousin nodded miserably.

Sajin swore. “Now we’ve two of Conar’s friends to worry about.”

Harim nudged his master as the three men entered the warehouse. “Trouble,” he whispered to Lord Khan.

Khan Subet turned, viewing the approaching men with only mild consternation for he recognized the caravan leader and knew who the tall man beside him was.

“Your Grace,” Khan said, bringing his hand up in the time-honored greeting. “How may I be of service to you?”

“We are looking for a man,” Sajin snapped, looking around him at the cages full of people.

His disgust showed on his face.

“Two men,” Azalon corrected.

Khan swept his arm about the warehouse. “Take your pick, Highness. The auction is not until the morning, but chose whichever one you would--“

“The men we seek have already been sold,” Sajin growled. “A Serenian and an Ionarian.”

As the word ‘Ionarian’ registered in Khan’s mind, his face drained of its color. “Why--why would you seek these particular men?” he asked.

“I want to know who you sold them to,” Sajin said, ignoring the question.

“Which Serenian do you seek?” Harim asked, seeing a way he might go beyond being a slave warden to being a dealer in flesh. He did not expect the vicious grip that leapt at him and shoved him helplessly against one of the holding cells.

“What do you mean by ‘which’ Serenian?” Yuri shouted into his face. “Was there two?”

Harim stared into the deadly eyes of the Shadow-warrior and knew he had met one man who would not be intimidated by his stare.

“We sold two last week,” Harim admitted. “One to the quarry at Kilnt and the other to the Lady Sabrina.”

Sajin’s mouth dropped open. “The breeder?”

Khan, realizing the ploy his servant was utilizing, attempted to turn the tables on the man.

“She paid the highest price for the Serenian that had ever been paid in Rysalia before now.”

Swinging his eyes to the slave trader, Sajin felt a glimmer of hope enter his very soul.

“Why?”

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“Because of who the man was!” Harim put in, once more gaining the upper hand and the attention of the others.

Yuri’s fists tightened in the man’s caftan. “
Who
?”

“He doesn’t know,” Khan injected. “He’s just--“

“Who?” Yuri bellowed.

“Conar McGregor!” Harim gasped, his windpipe severely constricted.

Khan swung his shocked stare to his slave warden. “We had Conar McGregor in our hands and you let Sabrina buy him?”

Sajin’s body went limp with relief. Conar WAS alive! He hadn’t dared to believe it was so although in his soul he had prayed that Conar had escaped the fate that everything on board ship suggested he had met. He barely heard the slave warden trying to explain his actions to his master.

All he could do was stumble away, tearing his gaze from the hopeless face peering back at him from the cages.

“Where is he, now?” Yuri shouted. “Where is McGregor at this very moment?”

“I don’t--“ Harim shrieked with pain as a knee was viciously driven into his groin.

“Where?”

“The farm!” Khan yelled. “Sabrina took him to her breeding farm!”

Azalon’s head whipped around and he stared at the young Kensetti Prince who had suddenly erupted into hysterical laughter. “Your Grace?’ he asked, his face mirroring his confusion and his shock. He took a few steps toward Ben-Alkazar.

“Oh, by the Prophetess, but this is rich!” Sajin chortled, waving the man away. He was wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “This is
rich
!”

Yuri frowned, looking away from the man whose privates he had crushed to stare at the nomad Prince. “I see nothing funny about Conar’s predicament,” he hissed. “To be sold into slavery. To be sold--“

“To a stud farm!” Sajin chuckled, bending over to slap his hands against his thighs. “A stud farm, Andreanova!” Fresh gales of laughter snorted from him and he staggered, throwing back his head.

The Shadow-warrior found nothing humorous about the situation. He viewed it, as he was sure Conar must, as a degrading, dehumanizing concept. Not just the slavery, but the very thought of being at the whim and mercy of a woman intent on breeding him--.

“Oh, my God,” Yuri breathed, finally understanding. He looked up slowly, catching Sajin’s eye, watching as the Kensetti dissolved into helpless mirth once more. The Outer Kingdom warrior’s lips twitched. “Oh, my God!”

Azalon, not smiling, not understanding the reason that both men were now doubled over with laughter, and, being a business man to the very core, turned his attention to Khan.

“Who bought the other one. The Ionarian?” he asked.

Khan had been grinning as he watched the Kensetti and Outer Kingdom man laughing. His grin rapidly dissolved. “The Lady Sabrina purchased him, as well.”

Azalon nodded and reached inside his caftan and took out a purse. He cast an annoyed look at his two companions who were still laughing uncontrollably, then counted out twenty gold Ryals.

“This should cover what information we have earned here today.”

“The Ionarian was in bad shape when he left here,” Harim whispered, gagging over the pain between his legs.

“Shut up!” Khan yelled, taking a step toward his slave warden, but Azalon put himself in between them.

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“Why?” the caravan leader asked, unaware that both Sajin and Yuri had sobered at Harim’s remark.

“He is just trying to cause me trouble,” Khan was quick to say. “Pay no heed to what he tells you.”

“What was wrong with the Ionarian?” Yuri asked, fully sobered, his hawk-like gaze intent on the slave warden’s face.

“Ask him!” Harim scoffed, still doubled over. “Ask him what he did to the man!”

Khan backed away, fearful of the look on the Shadow-warrior’s face. He held up his hands.

“I did nothing to him!”

“The hell he didn’t,” Harim barked. “Ask him how much he got from his friends for the privilege of raping the Ionarian!”

Sajin stiffened. He swung his eyes from the slave warden’s angry face to Yuri’s shocked expression to Khan’s terrified countenance. “Is that true?” the Kensetti asked.

Khan backed further away, wanting to put as much distance as possible between him and the three men now looking at him as though he were of the lowest order of living things on earth.

“He was the first,” Harim recounted. “Then he let the others use the Ionarian until the man’s mind was gone.”

A violent shudder of loathing shot through Sajin and before he even knew what he’d done, the slave trader lay in a pool of his own blood, Sajin’s dagger quivering in his heart.

“Did you let them do that to my friend, too?” Sajin whispered, glaring at the dying man as though he would rip him apart with his bare hands. “Did you do that to Conar?”

“He would have had he known who the man was!” Harim told him. “Why do you think I didn’t tell him?”

Sajin swung his gaze to the slave warden. “Did any man touch Conar McGregor while he was here?”

Harim shook his head. “I protected him as best I could,” he lied. “It was a relief when the Lady Sabrina outbid Prince Guil. She--“

“Guil?” Sajin shouted. “Guil bid for Conar?”

Harim quickly nodded. “But the Lady bid more!”

Yuri swore. “That means Jaborn was behind everything that happened on that ship!”

Sajin growled, turning away. “That also means Jaborn knows where Conar is.” He reached out an grabbed Yuri’s arm. “We have to get to him, Andreanova! We have to get to my friend before it’s too late!”

“There were eight of them, Your Grace,” Rasheed informed his master. “Prince Sajin, six of the Outer Kingdom warriors, and a Rysalian. They are riding to the Lady Sabrina’s farm.”

“So Sajin knows the Serenian escaped his end on the ship,” Guil commented. He shrugged, peeling another fig. “Little good it will do him. That bastard is buzzard bait by now.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jaleel remarked. He had an uneasy feeling that that wasn’t the case.

“No man could survive out there without water, Jaleel,” his friend assured him. “He’s long dead.”

Jaleel got up and stared out the window of his five story fortress. For the last week, he had felt strange vibrations coming to him from the desert; vibrations that boded him ill. But when he had remarked on it to the High Priest, the man had tried to allay his fears with a common explanation.

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“It is the anger of the underground you feel, Your Highness. They are out there, lurking about, doing their dirty work.”

“They’ll learn nothing at Sabrina’s,” Guil told Jaleel. “What is there for her to tell them?”

“We should have killed them all that night,” Jaleel snarled. “Left no one alive in the encampment.” He turned his hot gaze to Guil. “Especially not that friend of McGregor’s.”

“The man’s harmless,” Guil answered. “You should have seen him when we were through with him that day.” He laughed. “He was mindless!”

Jaleel did not share his friend’s predilection for male sex partners. Guil’s tastes often left him feeling nothing but disgust for the man. That his boyhood friend often disguised himself as a slave buyer to haunt the auction houses in quest of fresh partners, both appalled and nauseated Jaleel.

“He didn’t seem mindless when he killed three of our men,” Jaleel reminded Guil. “He had enough presence of mind to take up a crossbow and do murder!”

Guil shrugged. “What does it matter, Jaleel?”

The Rysalian turned and pierced Guil with a hot stare. “What if a man like that should join the resistance? The Prophetess, alone, knows what harm he can do!”

“He was good with his weapon,” Rasheed mumbled, flinching as his master lashed out at him although the heavy fist did not connect.

“You want to go after him, then, Jaleel?” Guil asked. “Kill him?”

Jaleel thought about it for a moment. “It’s too late, now. The damage has been done,” he answered. “We can only hope McGregor is really dead and does not fall into the hands of the resistance.”

“What if he should?” Guil scoffed. “We will have crushed them by the end of the year.”

Jaleel looked at Rasheed. A quiet understanding passed between the two men. “Not with the Darkwind at their head,” Jaleel said softly.

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“There is a quarry near Kilnt,” Balizar told Conar, “where I am told there is a Serenian slave being kept.”

Conar looked up from his meal. “How do you know?”

“We have spies throughout the country, Khamsin,” Asher answered for the older man.

“Any time an Outlander is sold into slavery, word will filter back to Balizar.”

His leg had been bothering him all day, the falling rain outside not helping any. The wind of the Khamsin had ended its fifty day reign and now a light rain had come to plague the tent dwellers.

“Where is this place you’re talking about?” Conar asked, lifting his splintered leg off the bed.

“About thirty miles from here, due south. Huge stones are being trundled over the desert to build a tomb for one of the Venturians. The stone is quarried at Kilnt.”

Conar turned his eyes to Rupine. “How long before you can take this thing off my leg?”

Rupine shrugged. “Another three, maybe four days, I would think. IF you’re getting along all right.”

“I can hobble with the best of them,” Conar quipped. He took the crutch Asher held for him.

“But I can’t ride with this damn oak tree lashed to me.”

“You don’t have to go,” Balizar reminded him. “I think we’re capable of stealing one weakened man from under the noses of a Hasdu watchdog.”

“If the man is Serenian,” Conar insisted, “I will be there to see him to freedom.” He hobbled to the tent flap and ducked under.

“He’s restless,” Asher chuckled.

“He’s as fidgety as an untried girl about to lose her cherry,” Balizar joked. “And in a way of speaking, that’s an apt description.”

Conar made his way to the spot where he spent most of his late afternoons: a group of palm trees beside a glistening pool of spring-fed water. He wobbled gracelessly to the ground, his splintered leg thrust out before him, and propped his back against a good-size boulder. Laying his crutch beside him, he stared back at the encampment, watching children playing tag among the camels, women beating their clothes against the rocks at the far end of the meandering little spring, men tending to their weapons.

He

sighed.

These were good people. He liked them. They had opened their hearts to him and had listened to him. There wasn’t a one among them he didn’t trust.

Except

Rachel.

He frowned, thinking of the woman everyone was careful not to mention in his hearing.

Who stayed just as carefully out of his way. Who invaded his every thought even when she was out on one of the raids with the men of the camp.