WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (44 page)

Sajin frowned. "What of him?"

"We heard rumors that Belial was working for him. You know there is no love lost between Khamsin and Belial. If there is a secret way into Abbadon, I'd lay odds that brute knows of it."

Asker bit his lip. "If there is, could he not have sneaked into the fortress and perhaps abducted Khamsin?"

"For what purpose?" Nick asked, not knowing of the circumstances behind the dislike between his brother and the man called Belial.

"Other than to kill him, you mean?" Azalon scoffed.

"Stow that kind of talk, mister!" Balizar snapped. He glanced at Nick and saw the fury building. "Before you get on that famous McGregor high horse, Beriault," the old warrior snapped,

"let me tell you that Conar didn't believe there was a secret way into the keep and …."

"Crystals," Nate said softly. He had been sitting there, probing the aura surrounding the others, listening with his gypsy sixth sense to what was not being said, and the image of crystals: pink that would allow a body and mind to relax; orange to promote success; purple to produce uninterrupted sleep; red and white for protection; black to make the one carrying it invisible to others.

"Did you say something, Nathan?" Rupine asked, studying the odd look on the younger man's face.

Nate looked up, blushing, and he shook his head. "Just thinking aloud, I'm afraid." He turned his head away so the others could not see the furious concentration that was going on within him.

"I don't think Conar was in any danger at Abbadon," Sajin remarked. "Those women of Meghan Dunne's would have made damned sure of that. They'd have known if someone was after kidnapping him."

Not if it was one of their own who had been sent after him, Nate thought. Someone who Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 197

knew enough to provide the protection against detection. He got up and moved away from the fire, out of the light which was illuminating the faces of the other men. He didn't notice Rupine watching him as he paced beyond the glow of the firelight.

"Conar had every intention of leaving," Sajin went on to say. "If he'd gotten worse …."

"And we knew he was getting worse with every passing day," Azalon put in.

"Then he did what he told me he was going to." Sajin tossed away the remainder of the strong black Hasdu coffee in his cup. "And there isn't a one of the monks in the whole of Rysalia, in the entire Midworld, who will betray him." He shrugged regretfully. "We might as well go back to Abbadon and do what he wanted us to."

"Not me!" Nick snapped. He glared at the Kensetti. "I am going to find my brother with or without your help, Ben-Alkazar!"

"Not if he don't want to be found, you won't," Balizar quipped.

Nick swung his head toward the old man. "A hundred Ryals says I will!"

Balizar grinned. "Two hundred says you won't!"

Nate continued to pace near the picket line where their horses were tethered. His hands were thrust deeply into the pockets of his breeches and his shoulders were hunched, a sure sign to anyone who knew him that the man was totally lost to his surroundings and was deep in thought.

"Is he always so bullheaded?"

Nate looked up, startled that he was not alone. He smiled. "Always has been and always will be," he told Sajin.

"A McGregor trait, I've discovered," the nomad prince chuckled.

"Aye." Nate leaned against a tree. "Are we still going to stop at your sister's tomorrow?"

Sajin nodded. "We'll need to gather some fresh supplies before going on to Abbadon." He looked up at the heavy blanket of stars overhead. "By the Prophetess but it's cold tonight." He shivered, then huddled down into the warmth of his heavy cape. "Don't you feel the cold, man?"

Nate shook his head. "My blood's too hot," he laughed. "What's she like?"

"Who?"

"Your sister," Nate answered.

Sajin's mouth tightened. "More trouble than she's worth most of the time." He pulled the wool of his cape tighter around him. "The last time I spoke with her, we really didn't get our business settled." He thought back to that day. "Odd."

Nate tuned in to the bewilderment in his companion's tone. "What was?"

Sajin looked over at him. "We were discussing Conar and when I told her about the illness, it was almost as though the news floored her. You know?"

"No," Nate said, "I don't. What do you mean?"

The Kensetti felt as though he could tell this man anything and felt as though he should. He relaxed. "She's always disliked Conar. Ever since the first time she met him in St. Steffensburg."

He chuckled ruefully. "I'm afraid my sister fancies herself a witch and she warned me Conar wasn't to be trusted."

Nate pushed away from the tree. "Is that so?"

Sajin nodded. "I've been told Sybelle is truly empowered with magical abilities, but I still find it hard to believe. And even is she is, she was certainly wrong about Conar. I've never met a man more trustworthy than he."

"And you won't," Nate replied offhandedly. "He's a powerful sorcerer in his own right. Did you know that?"

"I've heard as much although I've never seen evidence of it," the Kensetti answered.

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"You wouldn't here where Windwarrior magic is useless to males of that caste," Nate told him. A vague smile slashed across the gypsy's mouth. "Thankfully other magi have not that problem in the Midworld."

"Whatever," Sajin said with disinterest. His teeth clicked together and reminded him he was getting colder by the minute. "You coming back to the fire?"

"In a minute," Nate answered. There were things he needed to think about.

Rupine had not been consciously listening to the conversation between the two men, but he became aware of a niggling sensation playing along his nerve endings that made him very aware of Nathan Newkern. He understood the gist of the conversation the two men had had and couldn't help but wonder why Nate had been so interested in the Kensetti prince's sister.

"Seven, including the Prince."

Sybelle swore. "Go get him."

Chaim bowed respectfully. He had brought her news he knew she would not want to hear, but had to be delivered nevertheless. That she would be furious had been a foregone conclusion and Chaim had not been disappointed with her reaction to his words. His mistress was hard on fragile vases. The evidence of that was lying scattered about the main corridor where she had thrown a lovely Chrystallusian urn. He skirted the destruction and headed for the Serenian's quarters.

Conar turned his head to see who had come into his chambers. The door, left open as it always was now, afforded him no privacy from whomever wished to enter. Sybelle had issued orders that the portal was to never be closed. Not that it mattered, he thought wryly as he watched Chaim coming toward him. He was always watched lest he renege on his word and try to escape the tender prison she had built for him.

"The Princess would like to see you, Your Grace," Chaim said.

It would do him no good to tell the servant he had no desire to see the Princess, Conar knew. Her command was law within the keep and he suspected for miles around the place, as well.

Wearily, he got to his feet.

"Has she decided to allow me to go riding again?" he asked, hoping the answer would be what he wanted to hear.

Chaim shook his head sternly. "You know better, Your Grace."

Conar's anger, pushed down over the last four days of inactivity, leapt up and spilled over on the hapless servant. "Damn it, man! I wasn't trying to run away!"

"So you've said repeatedly, Your Grace," Chaim answered tonelessly, "but the Princess does not believe you."

"Shit!" Conar exploded. He shoved past the man and stalked from the room, his face set and hard. His heart hating Sybelle Bath-Alkazar more than it ever had.

He hadn't tried to run, he reminded himself. The damned horse had simply gotten the bit in his teeth and had taken off like a bat out of the Abyss! It had been all he could do to finally bring the beast to a halt, Chaim and a dozen other men close on his heels, at the wadis just north of Mount Ireni. When he had, Chaim had lunged across his own steed, knocking Conar to the ground in the process, and the Serenian had found himself bound and gagged, trussed up as tightly as any feast goose, and slung across the damned beast's broad white back with no recourse but to bounce along behind Chaim's mount. And that indignity had only been the beginning. Once they had made their way back to the keep, he had been manhandled to a damp, dank dunjon cell and locked Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 199

in. He had spent the night in the same bondage as he had endured during the excruciating ride. His ribs were bruised beyond belief and he got thirstier and thirstier as the long night passed. No amount of screaming through the gag had brought anyone to his aid.

Morning, however, had brought an infuriated Sybelle to stand over him, hands on hips, eyes glaring at him with murderous intent. She had brutally kicked him in his battered ribs and he had nearly passed out with the pain of it.

"Infidel dog!" she had screeched at him, kicking him once more, following him as he tried to roll away and planting the toe of her riding boot in the small of his back as he lay helpless on the floor. "If you ever make me have to send my men after you again, I’ll sure as hell make you wish you hadn't, McGregor!" She kicked him again, this time landing a vicious blow to his right shoulder blade.

Hot bile had bubbled up in his throat from the pain. Swallowing around the constriction of the gag jammed between his teeth was difficult and he was afraid he would choke on the vomitous should she kick him again. But that had not been her intent.

"Get him up!"

They had dragged him, two men he didn't know, from the floor. He tried to jerk away from them, but they were too strong and he was too weak from a day spent without water and food. He fought them as best he could as they pulled him from the cell, yet even as they bent him over a table and he realized what she was going to do to him, he could not break free of the men holding him. His shouts of denial from behind the gag were useless.

"This is going to hurt you, McGregor," he heard her say behind him as her nails raked down his back, ripping his shirt and exposing his back. "I can promise you it will!"

The first hit of the riding quirt had brought back the memory of the Tribunal Square and the intense pain he had endured there. He had not thought he would ever relive that agony for his back had been so savaged during that day of pain and humiliation, and through all the years he had spent in the Labyrinth, that there was no feeling left, all the nerve endings having been severed. But as Sybelle's wicked quirt trailed hot leather kisses down his spine, he realized that with her healing of his back, she had made it possible once more for him to feel the brutal caress of the whip. The pain was acute and brought with it the same sense of hopelessness he had felt that day when Bent Armitage had flogged him. His bounds hands clenched, his teeth ground over the constriction of the gag, and he squeezed his eyes shut to keep from making even one single hiss of sound.

"I will have you obey me, McGregor!" Sybelle had shouted at him as the lash came down for the tenth time. "Do you understand that?"

He had waited for the next blow, and when it did not come, he became aware of her issuing orders to have his bonds cut, the gag removed. When his hands were free and he had worked his tight jaw back into place, he staggered against the table, turning so that he could face her. Bracing his bruised and battered and then-bloody body against the table's edge, he had lifted his gaze to hers. What he had seen on her face made his blood run cold.

It was well within her rights to punish him, Sybelle had told him. After all, he belonged to her, now. "If you ever run again ...."

"I wasn't running," he said from between clenched teeth. He could feel the blood trickling down his back and flexed his shoulders, wishing he hadn't for the pain was so intense he nearly groaned aloud with it.

"Pay heed to me, McGregor," Sybelle had warned him. "I will not be so tender with my punishment the next time should you ever try to leave me again."

He had almost laughed at her description of the beating. If she thought she had been 'tender'

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with him, what would her 'brutal' be like? He knew he didn't want to find out.

"I wasn't trying to escape, Sybelle," he said. "The horse got away from me."

Her snort had been furious and unladylike. "There isn't a horse in the entire world you can't control, McGregor! Do you think me so besotted with you that I would believe you lost command of that beast?"

Conar knew it would be of no use to argue with her. She wanted to think him capable of going back on his word and no amount of denying that would do any good. He understood her and kept his mouth shut although every inch of his masculinity screamed at him not to give in to her.

"From now on, there will be guards posted outside your door, beyond the garden walls, and at every entrance to this keep." She had thrown the quirt to one of the servants. "Cross me again and I'll flay you alive. Do you understand me?"

His pride stung him and he wanted to shout his denial in her face, but common sense told him he'd be better off to accept what she said and be more careful in the future. He doubted if he would ever be given the chance to venture past the walls of his prison again so the point was moot.

"
Do you
?" she had fairly bellowed at him.

"Aye, Milady," he'd answered. "I understand you."

Rapping loudly at her door, he wondered why she'd sent for him. It had been over a week since she had whipped him. They had not seen nor spoken to one another during that time. At least, he thought with a grimace of satisfaction, he had had a respite from her incessant lust. He doubted he could have borne it with any grace at all with his back having been laid open by her viciousness.