WindSeeker (15 page)

touched and stroked brought Liza to climax—he knew true bliss.

He withdrew his hand and rose above her, settled himself between her milky thighs and positioned his

shaft.

There was only a tiny pull at his conscience as he took her.

He had not missed a night coming to this room to lay with her. Each morning brought a raw shame he

had never known when he thought back to what he had done, but the guilt did not overshadow the raging

hate for the man who truly had the right to the lady’s heart and body. If anything, it sweetened the taste of

revenge.

* * *

sand and sending mirages into the air. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed and bit; reptiles and arachnids

slithered and crept closer to the encampment. The storm had lasted for three days with blinding rain,

buffeting winds, and hail the size of hen eggs. Small streams were now beginning to dry up around the

tents and lean-tos over which the cook fires had been put away. The carcasses of several horses and the

bodies of five men had been buried, all victims of the vicious lightning that had severed the skies and

rained down death.

Three dozen men had tried to scale the keep’s walls, but burning pitch, arrow, spear and sword met

them. They had fallen to the fetid moat where hungry reptiles had made meals of their screaming bodies.

Legion’s archers had picked off a dozen of Galen McGregor’s men, but a full score had replaced them in

a matter of moments. When a man fell from those battlements to his death in the snapping hell of the

moat, the besiegers roared, drowning out the poor soul’s screams.

Legion A’Lex was supervising an all-out attack on the northern wall where flaming arrows arched high

into the air to land behind the crenellations. Every now and again came an agonized scream as an arrow

hit its mark.

Grice Wynth, the Prince Regent of Oceania and Liza’s brother, held the southern sector of the keep with

two catapults, his men hurling stone after stone against the wall that had shown the most crumbled state.

Teal du Mer’s men were on the eastern side. One contingent kept the archers on the battlements busy

while another unit took spear and arrow to the inhabitants of the noxious moat.

Thom Loure led the Elite on the western side. With the sun at their backs, their arrows flew high over the

walls and found many a slow-moving, unsuspecting body with which to make contact.

Conar sat in his tent, going over a makeshift floor plan of the keep. The plans he had brought from

Boreas had somehow been misplaced. Or stolen. He knew his twin had spies among his men.

The young prince looked up. Grice Wynth stood framed in the harsh light, a look of intensity on his

bronzed face. "Conar, he’s calling to you from the battlements. He has Liza with him."

No one spoke as Conar hurried from the tent. Every eye was trained on the high tower where the

personal pennant of Galen McGregor fluttered in the stiff breeze. The dark blue triangle with its gray

sparrow snapped in a sudden gust of wind and sounded like the pop of lightning.

Conar’s jaw clenched as he saw his brother on the high wall. His twin was holding Liza’s limp body, her

long hair sweeping over his left arm, her bare feet dangling over his right. Conar took a step closer, but

Grice took hold of his arm, restraining him.

"Be careful, brother," Wynth said urgently. He pointed to the archers on the battlements.

Conar away jerked his arm. "What is it you want, Galen?" he shouted.

There was reasonable complacency in Galen’s mirthless laugh. "You’re not dense, Conar! You know

gods-be-damned well what I want!"

Legion hurried to join Conar. "Think before you speak."

Conar’s hands were sweating as his fists opened and closed at his sides. He heard Legion’s warning,

noted it with a hasty nod. "Bring me my wife, Galen. And when you do, I’ll make sure you spend what

little time you have left in this world in the bowels of Tyber’s Isle!"

Legion groaned. "Well thought, Coni. That should make him hand her over right away."

Galen’s laughter rang out over the still air. "It’s not me who’ll be going to prison."

"What is it you want?" Legion yelled.

"I want nothing from you, bastard," Galen shouted. "I have what I want here in my arms."

Conar stiffened; his face turned red with anger. He snarled like a savage beast preparing to strike as

Galen shifted Liza’s body closer to his. "If you think holding Liza for ransom will get you the crown,

Galen McGregor, you are badly mistaken. It will only get you hanged!"

Galen shrugged. "I have no need of the crown anymore." He chuckled. "I have found a treasure far

greater than the golden circlet of Kings."

Conar started forward, but both Grice and Legion blocked his way. He had to shout over their

shoulders. "If you’ve touched my lady—"

"What can you do if I have?" Galen called. "Go away. Keep your gods-be-damned crown!"

"We will take this keep and put every warrior inside it to the sword for what you have done," Legion

shouted. "But if you send the princess down to us, you will be granted safe passage out of the country. I

swear that as Vice-Commander of the Serenian Forces."

Galen snorted in derision. "Go to hell, A’Lex! You’ve no authority over me! You’re nothing but a

random squirt from the king’s loins. If your mother hadn’t spread her whoring legs, you wouldn’t be

standing where you are, thinking to give me orders!"

"You’re a dead man!" Legion threw back.

Conar glanced at A’Lex’s face. Who was it that had cautioned care? When Legion’s hard eyes met his,

Conar shrugged. "Works for me," he drawled.

"Try reasoning with the bastard, Conar," Grice snarled. "Making the fool angry will accomplish nothing!"

Looking up at his twin, Conar backed away from Grice and Legion’s blockade. "Send my wife down to

me, Galen, and I’ll let you leave peaceably. If you don’t, I swear to the gods, the halls of Norus will run

deep with your treacherous blood."

Grice threw his hands up in defeat. "That’s not reasoning, McGregor; that’s threatening!"

"Do you honestly think I believe your promise of safe conduct, Conar?" Galen sneered. "I’d have an

arrow in my back before I could cross into Diabolusia."

"You have my word, something I do not give lightly! Let Liza go and you’ll be safe."

Laughter, harsh and brittle, floated down to the besiegers. "If I go, Conar, my brother, it will be with this

lady at my side!"

Again Conar started forward. It took both Grice and Legion to tear him away from the place where one

of Galen’s men could easily have hit him with arrow or quarrel.

"You won’t keep her, you sorry ass!" Conar screamed, struggling with his brother and brother-in-law.

"You won’t!"

Walking closer to the edge of the crenellation, Galen raised Liza higher against his chest. Even from the

distance that separated them, Galen could see the agony on his twin’s face. He placed a soft kiss on the

gleaming black hair. When he heard Conar’s shout of fury, laughter escaped him.

"She has hair like silk, Conar! It’s almost as soft as the flesh along her back and as sleek as down

between her satin thighs!"

Animalistic rage filled Conar. He strained against the strong arms holding him. He opened his mouth to

let fly the fury mounting in his throat just as Galen stumbled, pitching forward against the wall, colliding

with the waist-high stonework, nearly losing his grip on the woman in his arms.

Conar lurched against the hold on his arms, his knees nearly giving way beneath him. He stumbled,

himself, catching the men off guard and managed to pull free of their restraint. "Keep your hands off me!"

he shouted as Grice reached for him. He tried to go between the two men, but Legion placed himself in

front of his younger brother, shielding him from the line of fire.

Galen stared with horror at the wall into which he had collided. A thin crack was coursing upward from

the stone ledge floor and snaking out in a multitude of directions along the mortared joints. The sound of

cracking stone made his heart beat like a hammer, and he, too, lost his normal color as the wall began to

crumble downward to splash in the moat. A gust of wind pushed against him and he staggered, coming

perilously close to the opening on the battlement.

Conar sucked in his breath, his heart ceasing to beat. He screamed at the top of his lungs, shoving

Legion out of his way. "For the love of Alel, Galen! Be careful!"

Galen stumbled back from the opening. He clasped Liza closely, fearful of her falling to her death. It

mattered not at all to him that he might die in the fall, as well. His main thought was of her and her safety.

He barely heard Jah-Ma-El’s roar of fury.

"Give her to me!" Jah-Ma-El snarled, forcibly taking Liza out of Galen’s trembling arms.

Legion’s voice was filled with intense hatred. "Jah-Ma-El! You’re a dead man, too!"

"He won’t hurt her," Conar snapped, his breathing and heartbeat returning to normal as he watched

Jah-Ma-El disappear from sight. "He’ll watch over her."

"The bastard’s a warlock!" Legion snarled. "He brought the damned storm. He—"

"Won’t hurt her!" Conar finished, turning to glare at Legion. "I know my brother."

"You’d better hope you do."

Conar could barely breathe. Fear parched his lungs. He had come so close to losing her. So very close.

His warrior’s mind seethed with a variety of the most vile tortures he would like visited on his twin; his

lover’s mind filled with the red-hot poker of jealousy; his princely mind calculated the consequences of

Galen’s acts. Combined, he was of a mind to see Galen McGregor hanged.

He took a deep breath and made his voice steady and emotionless as he called up to Galen. "Let

Jah-Ma-El bring her down, Galen. Not one single man will come through that gate after you."

"She stays with me! You will never get her back!"

"I’ll gut you, you miserable shit!"

"I’ll see
you
in hell!"

"Not before you swing from the tribunal’s scaffold!" Legion barked.

"How quaint," Grice complained, looking to the heavens. "You McGregors are such a thoughtful family."

"Give her back to me, Galen!" Conar bellowed.

"Liza is mine. I have taken her, and I will keep her!"

Before Conar could snarl a reply, a cry from the battlements stopped him, drawing everyone’s attention.

He looked behind him at the place where the lookout was pointing. A solid cloud of dust stretched as far

across the horizon as the eye could see. The sound of many hooves vibrated over the distance; the

rumble of war wagons filled the air with the clamor of a death rattle.

"Who?" Legion asked Grice.

"I sent for your cousins Rylan and Paegan Hesar. I would imagine they brought Chase Montyne and

Tyne Brell with them, from the looks of that war party," Wynth answered.

Grice was speaking of the three young Princes who ruled the lands of Virago, Chale, and Ionary,

principalities that bordered Serenia and Oceania. All four men had attended Conar and Liza’s wedding.

All had strong ties to the Serenian prince.

"No matter the amount of men you gather," Galen shouted, "you will not have her back! Ever again!" He

raised his chin. "I may never wear the crown of my homeland—"

"Count on that!" Legion screamed.

"—But he," Galen said, pointing to Conar, "will never have Liza to Queen, either! Look elsewhere for

your heirs, Conar, for it will be
my
seed that springs from Liza’s beautiful body!"

Conar leapt forward, coming up hard against the brick wall that was Legion and Grice. He bounced off

Grice’s strong chest and bellowed with insane rage. "I am going to turn you inside out, Galen McGregor!

I will geld you and stuff that filthy piece of flesh you love so much down your perverted throat!" He

struggled to get free of his brothers’ hold, cursing them as he did his twin, but they pulled him toward his

tent, trying to reason with him.

"He’s not going anywhere," Grice reminded him.

"Let up, Conar!" Legion shouted, pulling on his brother’s arm. "We’ll get her back!"

"Look!" someone called from the battlements. Grice glanced back to see what the man was yelling

about. He stopped, his own body jerking as Legion’s momentum pulled Conar toward his tent, taking

Wynth off balance. "A’Lex," he whispered, unable to speak above that level.

Legion cast an annoyed look to Wynth, glanced back, and stilled.

A huge black veil filled the entire vista of the southern sky. Green and yellow shapes swirled and

blended within the black mass as though the bruise of the horizon was alive with maggots trying to infest

the wound of the heavens. Silent lightning flared through the blackness, forked in a multitude of directions.

A red tinge crept along the definitive line between earth and sky and seemed to be burning the heavens

with hellfire. A low moaning, keening sound came from the depths of the blackness, echoing across the

desert, filling the ears with an unpleasant pressure.

The riders of the advancing war party, and the men staring up at the tower, those defending the keep,

turned as one, taking in the sight that loomed toward them from out of the south.

Conar freed his arms from Legion’s hold and turned to face the rapidly advancing veil of black. Only a

handful of men there knew what it was, and he was one of them. His stomach turned; his eyes narrowed