WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (49 page)

"Aye," Nick snorted. "That is does!"

Now, after the two men had had time to think about it, that explanation didn't seem all that plausible. The woman hadn't looked pregnant to them a month before when they had been at her keep. But after a quick calculation, putting her at no less than three months, they thought it could be possible that she was, indeed, carrying a kinsperson of theirs.

Which had brought on Nick's intense brooding.

"I could throttle him," Nick grumbled.

"The question is," Nate asked, "do we tell her brother what we suspect or not?"

Nick looked over at him with a brow cocked in speculation. "And have the bastard go after the brat with one of them scimitar things?" He snorted. "I think not."

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"I don't think Sajin would do that." Nate leaned back on his cot. "Conar is his only friend, Nicky. If anything, I think the man would be happy about obtaining a niece or nephew of our brother's."

"Or two of each or one each of the other," Nick mumbled. After all, twins ran in their family.

"Let's just wait a while and see what happens," Nate advised. "If she is carrying Conar's child, we'll know soon enough I'm thinking."

"I want to go see him," Nick snapped, pounding his boot heel into the loose sand scattered about the floor of the tent.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Nate warned. "By now, she's told him we were there." He looked a little hurt. "If he'd wanted to see us, he'd have sent word somehow."

"If he could," Nick reminded him.

Nate thought about it. "Aye," he said, worry creeping into his voice. "If he could."

Wyn listened very carefully to what his young brothers had to say. There was a tight frown on his face when they had finished, but a steady gleam in his pale blue eyes. He glanced at the other men who had been permitted to listen in on the meeting and saw that they, too, were scowling heavily.

"What do you think?" Wyn asked one of the men.

Sentian Heil unclenched his jaw, cast a quick look at Andre Belvoir, then spoke with a voice that was thick with anger.

"I believe he's gotten himself in trouble again," Sentian agreed. "And I think the Domination's behind it somehow."

"I've been feeling edgy for awhile now," Belvoir, the ex-Master-at-Arms, told them.

"Sentinel-edgy. Like just before I'd get a call from my Lady to go on an errand for her."

"As have I," Sentian admitted. "I thought it was just this thing with Chand, but now I can see that it isn't."

"It still could be," Tristan warned him. "He's been missing for nearly a month and for nearly a month now, Regan and Bre and I have been having these dreams of the sea." He looked to his brothers, who nodded gravely back at him. "We thought it meant Holm was coming to visit, but now, we're not so sure."

"You mean you think Chand could have somehow gotten on a ship bound for the Inner Kingdom?" Wyn shook his head. "Not possible, little brother."

"I don't see how he could have gotten out of Baybridge," Belvoir said to no one in particular. "They kept him locked in his room most of the time." His face betrayed his care for the last of the Wynth line. "And he use to just sit there, staring into space, unmindful of them what came to see him." He shook his head. "I just don't see how he escaped the sanitarium."

"Either he wasn't as immune to his surroundings as the Healers thought or he played a damned good game with them," Sentian commented. "Knowing him as I do, I'd say he waited until they weren't watching him as close as they had been and then made his getaway."

"As enraged as he was with Papa," Tristan said, thinking about the terrible things his uncle had said about his father, "he certainly doesn't mean the man any good. If he could have found a way to contact the Domination, to gain their assistance, he would have ...." He couldn't say it, but Regan, never one to let emotions cloud his thinking, finished for him.

"Betrayed Papa to them." He looked at Wyn. "He's as liable to hand Papa over to that bunch on a silver platter as not if he can get revenge for Grice's death."

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"And I think that may be what's happening," Tristan breathed. "If so, we need to strike back before anything happens to our father."

Wyn chewed on his lip. Their father had expressly forbidden him to stay in the Inner Kingdom out of fear for his, Wyn's, safety. He'd made Wyn promise him not to disobey, but this was a different matter altogether.

"All right," the oldest of Conar McGregor's sons said at last. "Let's just suppose we call the Force together." Wyn swung his glance from brothers to Sentinels. "And we take the Ravenwind back over to the Inner Kingdom." He pointed at Sentian and Belvoir. "You men have no powers over there."

"Neither does Papa," Little Brelan reminded him.

"True," Wyn answered. "But Meggie does." He looked about him. "You know she'll go."

"We were counting on it," Regan snapped.

"All right," Wyn said again, thinking about the logistics of it. "Nothing's happening in the kingdoms right now ...."

"Except for looking for Chand," Belvoir put in.

"True," Wyn agreed, "but anyone can do that. We send word to the Force, explain things, get only those of the fighting units together." He shook his head. "That means Coron and Dyllon stay here as well as Legion and Teal."

"You're going to have problems there," Sentian piped up. "Legion is going to want to come along this time."

"So will du Mer," Regan said. He clucked his tongue. "And that bastard Edan. He'll insist on going."

"He should," Wyn declared. "He knows the place and he's been there many times. We'll need him."

"How many of the original unit should we take?" Belvoir asked. He held up his hand.

"Shalu, of course."

"Of course!" the others said in unison.

"Chase and Paegan," Belvoir counted. "Thom, me, and Senti." He nodded at Wyn. "You."

His brow crinkled. "Who else?"

"Misha," Tristan responded. "You couldn't keep him here if you tried."

"Aye, Misha," Belvoir grinned. He looked around. "That's only ten of us. We'll need at least twelve."

"There's Holm," Sentian answered. "Don't forget him."

"And the deadliest one of them all," Regan snorted.

The others looked at him, then in one voice added the last name:

"Ching-Ching!"

High overhead, the moon sailed through a turbulent sky. Dark gray clouds, hanging low from the heavens, flitting across the skyrail of the brigantine. An occasional flare of lightning lit up the starboard horizon and the brisk stormy wind whipped the sheeting, snapping it, making it sound like firecrackers during the new year's celebrations. The brigantine listed sharply for a moment as the great ship tacked westward and the passenger at the rail wondered if the hull would grind against the jutting rocks which thrust up to either side of the speeding vessel. The craggy walls of stone were close, too close for comfort, and the heavy clang of the ship's bell as it tolled eight of the clock set the passenger's nerves on end, for it was almost like that of the death knell.

"We're making good time," the captain informed him as the man joined his passenger at the Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 220

rail. "We should reach Serenia by dawn tomorrow."

His passenger nodded. "Sooner, I hope."

The captain hunched down into his great cape and leaned against the rail. "You never did say why we're in such a hurry."

The tall, thin passenger looked out over the moon-clad waves and tried to see past their churning depths. For once in his life, he could not hear the siren call of the depths that had alternately taunted, then calmed him, over the years. That, in itself, was not a good sign.

"They'll be leaving for the Midworld at the end of the week," the passenger finally answered. "I must have Ching-Ching there to go with them."

Holm van der Lar, the captain of the brigantine The Ravenwind, the flag ship of the Wind Force's mighty navy, winced. "Why are we going back?"

Occultus Noire smiled to himself. "Why else, Captain?"

Holm let out a long sigh. "The lad."

"Yes," Occultus agreed, looking around. "The lad."

"What's he doing now?" Holm asked with exasperation.

The smile slipped from the aging sorcerer's thin mouth and unease filled his dark gaze. "It's not what he's done, my friend, but what will be done to him if we do not stop it."

The captain felt a chill finger of fear scrape down his spine. "By who?"

"The Domination," Occultus whispered, hating the sound of that damnable word on his lips.

He had thought his fight with that evil sect over with when Conar and his Wind Force had destroyed the Monastery, but now, once more like the many-headed dog of legend, another head had sprang up to cause more trouble.

"You reckon Conar's aware of the danger he's in?" Holm asked.

Occultus shook his head. "He won't be able to sense it, Holm." And that thought terrified the sorcerer. "It will be on him before he can do anything to stop it."

"Bad?" Holm asked, suddenly very worried about the young man he thought of like a son.

Occultus nodded silently, his eyes bleak with a fear that had come to him on a still, chill night, and had stayed to turn his blood to ice. There had been little sleep since that dream had invaded his bed and roused him, gasping and sweating, from his deep slumber.

"Very bad, old friend. The worst thing that could ever happen to him."

"Death?" Holm whispered, praying that wasn't the case.

Occultus gripped the railing. "Sometimes there are fates worst than death, Holm." He felt a tear careening down his cheek. "And that is what the Domination has planned for our young warrior."

Robert MacCorkingdale regarded his guest with ill-disguised contempt, but listened to his wild tale, his rambling lunacy with a polite expression on his handsome face. Now and again he would nod courteously, mumble a word or two of condolence, and shake his head at the sad tale his guest was telling. All the while, he contemplated how best to kill this stranger to their midst, this enemy who had somehow stumbled his way into the secret place where MacCorkingdale and his followers had been forced to hide for three years. Pain, horrible exacting pain, was uppermost in MacCorkingdale's mind when one rambling comment caught, then held, his attention. He leaned forward, his gaze sharply fused on the man before him.

"Repeat that," MacCorkingdale ordered.

There was a slight pause, then a knowing smile. "He trusts me," the man said.

MacCorkingdale stared at his visitor for a long time, then leaned back in his chair, regarded Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 221

the man with an arched brow. "And do you know where he is?"

"Aye," came the immediate reply. "And how to get to him."

Robert MacCorkingdale, Arch-prelate of the almost defunct Brotherhood of the

Domination, grandson of Sadie MacCorkingdale, the deceased cook of Boreas Keep, Serenia, slowly smiled. "Do you really?" he asked.

"Close enough to stick a dagger between his lying, cowardly ribs!" the man hissed. He fished in his tattered coat and withdrew a black obsidian blade, snagging the razor-sharp blade on the material and renting it further, before fumbling it from its hiding place. He held the dagger up.

"I can slit his gullet with this and leave him lying in his own blood on the floor." He turned the blade so that the light from the oil light flashed along its lethal surface. "He won't survive a cut from this!"

A rare chuckle came from MacCorkingdale's mouth. There had been little to laugh about since the Monastery had been burned to the ground. "No, I would venture to say he wouldn't."

The man replaced the dagger in his coat and squinted at MacCorkingdale. "Do we have a deal, then?"

Looking into those insane eyes made MacCorkingdale uneasy, but he knew hatred when he saw it—fierce, unadulterated hatred that could kill. And would kill, given the right encouragement.

"How do you propose to find your way to him?" MacCorkingdale asked and was amused to see the first hint of uncertainty, insecurity flash through the man's wild stare.

"I thought you could take care of that," the man answered. "That's why I came here, Robbie."

MacCorkingdale's chin lifted. He hated to be called by that childish, insulting nickname.

Especially by a man his own age who looked twice as old in the throes of insanity. It showed little respect for his authority and importance. He would have said as much but he doubted if the neurotic, psychotic fool standing in front of him would understand the reprimand.

"For the sake of argument," MacCorkingdale said instead, "let's say I provide passage for you to this place you mentioned." He tapped his finger against his bottom lip. "And let's say you find your way to him, get even so far as being alone with him so you can carry out your revenge."

He pointed his finger at his visitor. "How will you escape once the deed has been accomplished?"

Chandling Grice, the last surviving member of the Wynth family, the heir to the throne of Oceania, the ex-brother-in-law of the man he wished to kill, shrugged indifferently.

"Once McGregor is dead, I don't care what happens to me." His eyes glowed feverishly. "I will have avenged my sister's and brother's death and that is all that matters."

"Even knowing they will probably turn you inside out, Wynth?" MacCorkingdale chuckled.

"McGregor's allies will make you pay for killing him."

"It doesn't matter," Chand said stubbornly. "All I want is to see him dead!"

"As do I," MacCorkingdale assured him. "He has much to atone for in my family, as well."

Chand could have told the Arch-prelate that is had been Storm Jale, not Conar McGregor, who had been responsible for the death of MacCorkingdale's mother. He could also have told him what a drunken Sern Jorn had once confessed on a long, winter night that it had been Meggie Ruck who had poisoned Sadie MacCorkingdale for the old woman's part in nearly killing Conar McGregor. But he didn't say any of that. It didn't matter. If Conar wasn't guilty of the crimes MacCorkingdale laid at his doorstep, he was still guilty of being the cause of Liza's and Grice's deaths. And Conar McGregor had to die to atone for that sin.