WindSeeker (16 page)

into pinpoints of hate; his hands clenched into fists. He wasn’t even aware of the man who had walked

his horse over to him, sliding from his steed to take a position beside him.

"Raphian," Prince Chase Montyne from Ionary breathed as he stood beside Conar.

"Aye," Conar acknowledged. "Who else?"

The rank smell of vomitus suddenly washed over the men and made them gag. A frigid wind, silent,

killing, settled over those assembled. The light was suddenly extinguished from the sky as the veil loomed

overhead.

"He wants me," Conar told Montyne without looking at the Ionarian prince.

"That would be my guess," Chase agreed, glad it wasn’t him the demon was after.

With a suddenness that left the men breathless, the wind picked up in velocity and sent them crashing

into one another with the gale force of a hurricane. Sand flew up from the desert floor pelted their eyes,

stinging the flesh even as the cold pierced their clothing. The wind brought with it sound, sound such as

the men assembled had never heard. The din created by the howling, moaning, keening wind made it

impossible for anyone to hear over it. It was an eerie, wailing grind that grated on the nerves and made

the men cover their ears as the pressure increased.

Unable to see above the base of the keep for the sand and black mass of cloud that now hurled itself

upon his men, Conar flung his arm over his face, shielding himself from the sting of sand. He stumbled

against Chase and felt his friend’s hands steadying him.

From out of the deepest, darkest black of the sky came an even darker patch of ebon. It came with the

sound of a million hissing vipers, a million buzzing insects, a million rustlings of arachnid limbs. An image

too horrible to imagine, too vile to ponder, emerged from the veil of cloud. Raphian, the Storm God, the

Destroyer of Men’s Souls, looked out of the swirling mass of sky. Its long, leathery neck bent and

twisted. The slavering gap of Its mouth opened to reveal row upon row of sharp, pointed teeth that

clicked together as the giant maw of Its mouth opened and closed. A thin drool of noxious

phosphorescent green fluid dripped onto the desert sand and hissed as it struck, bubbling, boiling. The

triangular green head that resembled a viper’s glistened with glowing scales the color of a dead man’s

flesh; the beady red eyes flashed the firelight of evil so immense, so infinite, that those who looked into

them were lost, falling to the sand, their minds gone forever.

A forked tongue shot out of the gaping mouth and struck Conar a glancing blow on his shoulder. Fluid

seared through the prince’s shirt. He howled in pain, grabbing his shoulder as he went to his knees.

Chase reached to help him, but a blast of frigid air threw him back.

Raphian laughed, Its breath so foul it overshadowed the other noxious smells.

Conar held his injured left shoulder. He could feel the split skin throbbing, burning, tearing. His teeth

were pulled back in a feral line of pure rage. He had fought this enemy before.

And lost.

"I will not let him have her!" Conar shouted. He tried to raise his head, but the sharp wind and blowing

sand pelted his face, and he lowered his head again.

"
She is lost to you
," Raphian barked and Its voice seemed to slither over Conar like the filth of a privy,

but allowing no others to hear. "
Only the Domination could have returned her to you, but since you

are no friend of theirs, the bitch is lost to you forever. Give me your soul, Conar, and she shall be

returned, unscathed, to her brother
." The triangular head grinned, Its teeth flashing a dull yellow in the

dark recesses of Its gaping maw. "
But you, I will take with Me.
"

Conar struggled to his feet in the crippling wind. "I will defeat you!" he yelled, trying to bring his head up.

"I will send you back to the hell in which you were spawned!"

The laugh was vile; the chortling an insult. "
I have no fear of you! You have no power to joust with

me!
"

"Then fight me! Fight me and see who wins!"

Raphian slithered Its neck down so that Its huge head was only a few inches above Conar. The smell of

It took Conar’s breath away. It was a thick, cloying smell like rotting flesh and made the young prince’s

eyes water.

"
You never took your initiation, did you, Conar?Only one of My own can do battle with Me and

even hope to win!
"

"I will get her back!" Conar felt a freezing blast of wind fall on him and he went to his knees again, his

arm flung over his face to keep the sand from blinding him.

"
You lost once before. You are as chaff in the wind to me.
"

Conar brought up his watery vision to the demon. His eyes moved over the glistening, scaly face until

they found the slitted viper’s eyes. The elongated pupils flared, squinted, tried to impale him, to destroy

his soul, but Conar held its malevolent, fusing glare.

"I will win this time! I have an amulet too powerful for you, Raphian! I have love!"

For a moment, the demon seemed to diminish, to back off. Its eyes filled with uncertainty; Its face took

on the look of the hunted instead of the hunter. But a brief surge of fear crossing Conar’s face brought

the demon’s leering mouth into a vicious, triumphant grin.

Conar felt something strike him hard. He fell to his back, his arms and legs spread wide as though he had

been staked to the ground by invisible hands. Sand swirled all around him, hiding him from his men, but

the place upon which he lay was free of sand and obscuring black cloud. Above him, the Storm God

hovered in a clear patch of glowing gray mist.

"
You are what you are
," Raphian cooed. "
You can never escape the retribution set upon you by the

Domination, Conar McGregor. No magic is as powerful as Ours
." The demon’s voice lowered in

volume to the insinuating whirl of a mosquito. "
You want her back?Then go to Tohre. Only Kaileel

Tohre can get her back for you and you know the price he will require!
"

The demon’s tongue flicked out. The split in the forked appendage dragged over the juncture of Conar’s

spread thighs. Caressed him. Lingered only a fraction of a second before withdrawing.

"
You belong to Me
," the demon hissed. "
Come to Me or lose the bitch forever.
"

Cringing, expecting an agony of unbelievable proportions, Conar felt only a thick slime of wet, saturating

heaviness along his manhood.

With a gurgling, sucking sound, the Storm God withdrew Its long neck into the black mist of cloud. In

the twinkling of an eye, it scattered the mass across the sky until only a few wisps of gray streaks

remained against the vivid blue.

Conar felt violated in the worst way. He jerked, pulling his body into a fetal position in defense, curling in

on himself, protecting his very soul. He gagged, bile flooding his dry mouth. He blocked out the normal

sounds that returned. He didn’t feel the hands on him, lifting him, carrying him to his tent. He didn’t see

his twin’s shocked face peering down from the battlements. He didn’t hear Chase Montyne’s prayer that

followed in his wake.

"The gods help you, Conar," Galen muttered as he watched his brother being taken away. He turned, his

eyes going to the heavens. "What have I done?" he whispered. "What have I set into motion?" He

blanched at the scream that tore from Conar’s tent.

Legion and Grice held Conar to his cot, listening as the primitive scream bubbled out of the young

prince’s mouth. The sound was filled with defeat and hopelessness. It filled the air and wafted across time

and space until it came to the ear of another.

Kaileel Tohre set back in his chair in the Temple sacristy. He made a steeple of his fingers and let his

chin rest on their tips.

"I have you now, Conar," he whispered to the silent room. "I have you now."

Jarod Chaseton Montyne of Ionary, a small principality that borders Serenia to the southeast, was a

quiet man with a gentle smile and easy laugh. He was a shy man whose face could instantly turn red when

he became embarrassed. He was not as adept as other men of his rank at hiding his feelings; his fair

complexion and light blue eyes gave his secrets away in the blush and in the way his long, tawny lashes

swept timidly downward over the pale orbs.

Chase had come by his station of power when his eldest brother, Morgan, had fallen from an overly

excited stallion and had been forever crippled, unable to move or speak. The crown had rested securely

on Morgan Montyne’s golden head, but it rested lightly on Chase’s. The real power behind the throne,

the true hand wielding that power, belonged to Chase’s mother, Genevieve.

The Queen Mother feared her son would never be the dynamic ruler his father and brother before him

had been. Chase was far too sensitive and dreamy to make a stern monarch. He was given to writing

sonnets to comely lasses and, the heavens forbid, to trees and mountains and such. His charity was

well-known, but so were his astonishing fits of handing out the monies of the treasury without properly

ascertaining whether the person, or persons, deserved such good luck. His mother was often heard to

say: "Chase would give away the key to the strongbox if one but asked for it!" It took a diligent watch

over the young man to see the principality did not bankrupt itself.

But in one thing, Chase Montyne truly excelled. He was the best archer in the Seven Kingdoms. His

expertise with crossbow was common knowledge. As he stood beside Grice Wynth outside Conar’s

tent, Chase’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. He had not a mean bone in his body, but when his friends

were threatened, Chase Montyne would move heaven and earth to help them. Listening to Conar’s snarls

of outrage as Legion tried talking sense to him, Chase understood perfectly well his old friend’s feelings

toward the Domination. After all, he had had dealings with the bastards, himself. His early childhood, like

Conar’s, had been spent in the Great Abbey of the Domination, high atop Mount Serenia. Had it not

been for his brother Morgan’s ill-starred destiny, Chase would have remained there to be initiated into

the evil that had been reserved for him. Like Conar before him, Chase left the monastery a few months

shy of his thirteenth birthday.

"By the gods, but I hate that son-of-a-bitch!" Grice snarled, glaring up at the battlements where Galen

McGregor stood looking down at them. "It galls me to see him gloating. It makes me want to scale the

gods-be-damned wall and pull his fucking head off!"

Chase chuckled softly. "As good a wrestler as you are, Wynth, I don’t believe you could do that even if

you were given the chance. But he does need to be incapacitated."

"And do you think you can incapacitate him?" Grice snapped, eyeing his friend’s calm face.

"I think so."

Grice snorted. "How? Gonna write him a nasty limerick?"

Chase turned surprised eyes to his old friend. "Who told you about that?"

"About you being the author of that dirty little ditty Conar recited at my sister’s wedding?"

"I was a bit intoxicated when I did that." He blushed to the roots of his fair hair. "Does Liza know?"

Grice grinned. "What do you think?"

Chase would have answered, but the young Serenian prince stormed out of his tent, Legion A’Lex close

behind.

"Norus is impregnable, Conar!" Galen shouted when he saw his brother emerge. "The walls may

crumble, but the portals will hold. You’ll never make it across my moat!"

"How’d you like to swim in that moat, Galen?" Conar snarled, knocking aside Legion’s restraining hand.

As the two brothers swapped insults, Chase kept his eye on the distance between himself and where

Galen McGregor was positioned on the battlements. Furtively, he tested the wind, the height, the

trajectory, and the attention of those on the crenelated walls.

"Can you really hit the bastard from here?" Grice asked softly, not even turning to look at Chase, but

more than aware of what the young man was planning.

A lethal smile appeared on Montyne’s lips. "If I can’t, no one can."

He eased a bolt from the quiver slung over his left shoulder. As casually as though he was killing time,

Montyne stretched the gut on his weapon and slid a bolt into the tiller’s groove. He slowly lifted the

crossbow, almost absentmindedly, and rested it on his left hip.

"No one seems to be looking your way," Grice said, smiling.

"That’s just fine by me," Chase said as he brought the weapon up, sighted it, and crooked his finger

around the trigger.

"Go back to Boreas and find you a new wife, Conar!" Galen taunted. "Your old one is in far better

hands!"

Conar jerked away from Legion’s hold and almost stepped into the line of Chase’s fire, but Grice

shoved him hard, toppling the smaller man.

"Damn you, Wynth!" Conar yelled. His vision leapt beyond his brother-in-law to the crossbow in Chase

Montyne’s steady hands.

What happened next seemed to take place in slow motion. Legion watched as the quarrel flew from the

crossbow, turning his head to follow the high arc in the air. He heard Galen’s shout of stunned surprise as

the blue-vaned missile buried itself in his shoulder, only a few inches from his heart; heard Chase’s snort

of disgust that a rambling gust of wind had altered the quarrel’s course; heard Conar’s groan of despair