WINDSEEKER Read online

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  WINDSEEKER

  by

  CHARLOTTE BOYETT-COMPO

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  http://www.amberquill.com

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  Windseeker

  An Amber Quill Press Book

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  P.O. Box 50251

  Bellevue, Washington 98015

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2002 by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  ISBN 1-59279-023-2

  Cover Art © 2002 Trace Edward Zaber

  Rating: R

  Layout and Formatting

  Provided by: ElementalAlchemy.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Also by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  At Grandma’s Knee

  BlackWind

  BloodWind

  DarkWind

  In the Heart of the Wind

  In the Teeth of the Wind

  In the Wind’s Eye

  NightWind

  Prince of the Wind

  ShadowWind

  Shards Anthology

  WindChance

  WindFall

  The WindLegend’s Saga

  Book I: Windkeeper

  Book II: Windseeker

  Book III: Windweeper

  Book IV: Windhealer

  Book V: Windreaper

  Book VI: Winddreamer

  Book VII: Windbeliever

  Book VIII: Winddeceiver

  Book IX: Windretriever

  Book X: Windschemer

  Dedication

  To: T.M.D.

  Thank you to all the readers

  who have been pleading with me for the sequel.

  Sorry it took so long.

  I hope you’ll love Brelan as much as

  you’ve loved Conar!

  PROLOGUE

  * * *

  "He was considered to be the greatest warrior Serenia had ever known," the Talespinner agreed. "His was the stuff of legends, they say."

  "Tell us about him, Grandfather," the child asked.

  "Aye!" another little boy said. "Tell us about the Prince of the Wind."

  The old man smiled, his watery eyes crinkled with amusement. "Don’t you boys ever get tired of hearing about him?"

  "No!" the children, all boys under the age of twelve, shouted in unison.

  He shook his mane of thick white hair and gazed up at the stars over their campfire. It was such a clear, beautiful night, just a hint of fall in the air. He could hear the waves breaking on the shoreline not far away and, if he tried hard, could smell the tang of salt spray.

  "You were a friend of his, weren’t you, Grandfather?" someone asked.

  "Aye, that I was, Jordie," the old man sighed.

  "A good friend, weren’t you, Grandfather?"

  The old man’s lips twitched. "One of his best friends, boy." He ran his hand over his wrinkled face. "One of his very best friends."

  "Please, tell us about him."

  Sniffing, the deep dimples in his cheeks quivering with emotion, the Talespinner sighed and began, his ancient voice breaking with memory.

  "He was a golden man, was our Prince. Tall, slim. He had eyes the color of the sky; so pretty a blue you’d think they belonged to a girl. He wasn’t muscular, not at first, anyway; that came later. But he could wield a sword almost as well at Prince Tyne Brell of Chale, who was considered to be the best swordsmen of his time until the Raven came.

  "His people loved him, for he was a just man, a good man and he was ever loyal to those who were loyal to him." The Talespinner’s eyes grew dark with long-ago shame. "Even when you did not always stand by him, he stood by you."

  "And he rallied the people against the evil of the Domination, didn’t he, Grandfather?" one of the boys whispered.

  "Aye," the old man answered, his thoughts coming back to the boys at his feet. "He did at that."

  "Did you fight beside him, Grandfather?"

  A half-remembered laugh, the laugh of a free-roaming gypsy, the wicked laugh of a man who had narrowly escaped many a trap, came from the Talespinner’s lips. "I tried, at any rate," he said.

  "What about his lady?" a little boy asked, his head dipping in embarrassment as the other boys moaned in mock exasperation.

  "Ah, his lady!" the Talespinner sighed. His fading eyes closed for a moment, picturing the lady in his mind. "She was a goddess, she was. All midnight dark hair and eyes the color of emeralds. A little thing she was, trim and fit." He winked. "She could wield a crossbow better than any man in the Prince’s Elite Guard."

  "You’re joking!" a little boy said, as if on cue.

  "No, I am not!" the old man gasped. "She saved my hide a time or two with that wicked bow of hers!"

  "Tell us about the priest," came a shuddering voice.

  The old man sobered. "Why do you want to hear about him?"

  "He’s part of it, isn’t he, Grandfather?" the youngest boy asked.

  The Talespinner nodded. "Aye, he was the worst of it, he was."

  "Tell us!"

  "His name was Tohre, Kaileel Tohre, and he was the most evil man to ever draw breath on this planet or any other. He was a viper in the midst of the doves."

  "What about the others, Grandfather? What about his brothers and the men of the Elite? Tell us how it all started. We want to hear it again!"

  Chuckling softly to himself, the Talespinner nodded and looked up to the garden wall, his watery gaze straying over the seagate to the vast expanse of darkness beyond where even the stars seemed hidden.

  "Well, it began when he made a pact with the demons," the old man said. He shook his head. "When the Prince of the Wind became entrapped by the very evil he had always fought…"

  PART I:

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  "What the hell are they doing now?" Teal asked, squinting up to look at Thom.

  "I’m not sure you want to know," Legion sniffed. He was sitting on the ground, his back to a large boulder, his ankles crossed, arms folded across his massive chest. "Whatever they’re doing doesn’t concern us, du Mer."

  Thom Loure scampered back down the ledge, sat on a rocky outcropping, and took the wedge of apple Teal du Mer handed him.

  "You know," Loure said, taking a large bite out of the juicy flesh, "I don’t remember ever being that horny when I was Coni’s age." He grinned around the mouthful of apple. "How ’bout you, Legion?"

  Legion snorted. "I don’t think anyone in the history of the world has ever been as horny as Conar McGregor." He made a wry face. "You’d think he had invented sex all by himself."

  Teal turned, pulled himself up the ledge, and peered down. His eyes went wide with wonder. "By the gods! They’re still at it."

  Legion reached out to tug at du Mer’s shirt. "Will you get your ass down from there before he sees you?"

  Teal slapped away his hand. "He can’t see me."

  "All right," Legion warned, "if he catches you spying on him, you’ll wish he hadn’t."

  Looking up at the brilliant spring sky, the sun sending rays through a few scudding white clouds, Thom stretched out his long legs in front of him. He followed a careening sea gull as it made its way across the heavens, dipping and soaring, its wings bar
ely moving in the stiff breeze.

  "He’s as free as that gull." The big man mused. He scratched his bald pate where bristly black hair was beginning to show. "It’s good to see him happy."

  Legion nodded. He took a deep breath and looked at the high-flying gull. "Liza’s the reason. She’s made him content."

  Thom brought up his lanky legs and circled them in the perimeter of his equally lanky arms. He squinted, lowered his rubbery forehead into a frown, and pursed his thick lips; signs the big man was thinking.

  "They’ve been married, what now? Two years almost?" Loure nodded. "Aye, two years, and the bloom is still on their marriage. No fights, no arguments, no spats." He turned his big head toward Legion A’Lex. "Is that normal?"

  "No," Legion said, "not as far as I can tell."

  "Highly unusual," Teal du Mer mumbled. "Or so I’m told."

  Legion craned his head around and reached up to tug on du Mer’s cambric shirt. "Damn it, Tealson, will you come down?" Teal slapped away his hand and Legion took in the unwavering stare on his friend’s dark face. "Just what the hell’s so gods-be-damned interesting, anyway?"

  Thom, his curiosity aroused, pulled himself back up the ledge. "By the sweet mercy of Alel! What is the man doing to her?"

  Legion scampered up beside him and let out a slow whistle. "Wouldn’t you think that would hurt?"

  Teal shook his head, a faint blush beginning to form on his dark gypsy face. He plowed long fingers through his chestnut hair, ruffling the thick curls. "Do you think he’d tell us where he learned that trick?" the half-breed asked.

  "Aye, and just how will you explain to him how we know he can do such things as that?" Legion sneered, his bearded face tight with impatience. He gawked down the ledge. "Merciful Alel! How is that possible?"

  Thom’s large mouth dropped open and he blushed. "I don’t believe I would like to try…"

  Teal and Legion put rough hands on Loure’s shoulders and jerked the Elite captain down the ledge, for Conar’s head had swung toward the ledge above him.

  * * *

  "They’ve been there all morning," Liza said, her sweaty cheek now resting on her husband’s bare shoulder as they lay on the chill beach beneath a soft fleece blanket.

  Prince Conar McGregor turned to the rock ledge and a gleam of menace lit the pale blue depths of his wicked eyes. "Have they really?" he asked in a low growl.

  His wife laughed. "It’s not the first time they’ve been near when we’ve made love, Conar. They do know we do it, Milord."

  "I’m not inclined to have them spying, lady."

  Liza pulled a long tress of ebony hair over her shoulder and tickled his nose with it to erase the stern lines on his handsome face.

  Conar’s voice was tight with annoyance. "And it will be the last time they do so."

  "I care not how much they know this woman loves her man, Milord."

  Despite the protection of the blanket, he felt ill at ease with other people viewing their moments of passion.

  "Well, I care." He sat up and shook his golden mane of hair. "They’ve got no business tagging along behind us, anyway."

  A tiny frown marred the perfection of Liza’s forehead. Her sweet oval face puckered in echo with her coral lips. "Are you going to say something obnoxious to them?"

  "Not necessarily," he answered as he leaned over and picked up his cord breeches. "But I’ll be gods-be-damned sure they don’t spy on us again." He wiggled his lean flanks into the tight garment.

  " ’Twas probably your father’s doing," his wife reminded him. "With all the problems your twin, Galen, has been causing of late, I think your King fears for your safety." She frowned, her husband’s safety uppermost in her own mind as well. She took the gown he handed her and wriggled into it under the covers, pulling it on over her feet and hips. "Your father thinks Galen may try to do you harm, Beloved. I agree."

  "The two of you had better be worried for Galen’s safety," Conar hissed. "That ill-begotten brother of mine has always plotted against me in one fashion or another. That’s nothing new. He’s just pissed off now that I’m happy with my Toad."

  Liza giggled at his wagging brows as she pulled the gown over her arms. "Very happy if this afternoon was any indication, Milord."

  Conar grinned. "Besides, Galen won’t try anything for awhile. After the last raid I sent my Elite troops on, he lost face."

  His wife turned her back for him to do up her buttons.

  "Running off all his sheep and cows was a bit much, Conar." There was humor tugging at her lips.

  "I sent them back, didn’t I? It was a harmless enough trick. It made him aware of just how vulnerable he is to me. I believe he thought himself immune to retaliation. I proved the bastard wrong." He wedged his hand inside the back of her gown and cupped one naked breast, pulling her against him. His lips found the pulse point at the juncture of her neck and shoulder and he nibbled on the sensitive flesh. "After all, I have the Outlaw’s blood in me, you know," he whispered.

  "Conar!" she gasped, wiggling away from him. "Stop that!"

  Conar withdrew his hand, returning his fingers to her buttons. "Why is it you deliberately arouse me, Liza, and then leave me wanting?" He sighed. "You do it all the time."

  "I do no such thing. You just can’t seem to keep your hands to yourself, Milord."

  "I have no desire to. You’re mine to play with as much as I like."

  Her eyes went to the rock ledge where she had seen movement. "He wasn’t happy when he found it was me that you had married."

  "Who?" Conar asked, glancing at the ledge.

  "Galen," she said, her brow furled. "He was very upset."

  Conar shrugged. "He wanted you and he thought that, once I was wed to The Toad, he’d make you his mistress."

  "Let him find his own Toad," she mumbled as she turned into her husband’s arms and linked her lips with his. "I like well my master."

  Conar drew back his head and looked at his wife. "I thought you once said you had no master, Liza."

  His wife shrugged. "Things change, Milord."

  He tightened his arms around her. "That they do, Milady." His lips swept down to hers.

  * * *

  "Do you think it’s safe to see what they’re doing?" du Mer asked his companions.

  "One of us should. It’s getting late," Thom quipped. "You do it, Legion."

  Mumbling, the Vice-Commander of the Serenian Forces pushed his way up the ledge and froze. Legion A’Lex’s eyes widened, he grinned, and then slipped back down the ledge to sit.

  "What are they doing?" Teal inquired as he looked at Legion’s smiling face.

  "We’re slipping, my friends." Legion grinned and then stood, dusted off his cords.

  Looking at one another, Teal and Thom also stood and gazed at the beach below. What they saw made their faces turn beet red with humiliation.

  There in the sand where Conar and his lady-wife had lain was a sand drawing of a naked man complete with a somewhat out-of-scale erection. Beneath the drawing were the words: What you didn’t see.

  "He’s going to kill us," Teal said miserably.

  "Or maim us," Thom agreed.

  "Or both." Legion chuckled.

  * * *

  "Are they still there?" Liza asked as she and her husband wound their way up the pathway to the seagate.

  Conar glanced behind him and out to the jut of jagged rock where his brother and friends were standing, talking.

  "Aye, they’re there." He reached down to sweep away her gown from one of the sharp thorn bushes that lined the pathway. "They’ll be expecting me to come after them."

  Liza stopped on the narrow stone riser and looked back at her husband. "You aren’t going to do anything silly, are you, Conar?"

  Tawny brows lifted in surprise. "Me?" He grinned. "What would I do?"

  A fine black brow crooked. "What, indeed, Milord?"

  * * *

  The three men kept waiting for Conar to do something, to say something, to acknowledge
their transgression against him, but he didn’t. Instead, he constantly walked by them, whistling and smiling, eyeing them with humor, and never once opened his mouth. None of them dared draw a breath of relief, for with Conar you never knew what he’d do next or when; how he would attack you; usually when you were least expecting it and were at your lowest level of defense. They felt sure he’d eventually get around to punishing them for spying on him so they kept well out of his way as much as possible.

  Legion, Teal and Thom might not have continued following Conar and keeping an eye on him, but others of his Elite like Storm Jale and Marsh Edan, and even some of his father’s personal guard kept a careful watch. King Gerren took seriously the threats on Conar’s life, and the men of Boreas Keep were taking no chances.

  "It’s not just that disgraceful twin of yours," the King fumed after hearing once more of the nasty threats Galen was making against Conar, the future king of Serenia. "It’s that damned Hasdu thing, as well."

  "They wanted me for ransom, Papa," Conar answered, referring to the attack that had been made on him and his men where Thom Loure’s own twin, Rayle, had been slain. "I seriously doubt they would have done more harm to me than injuring my pride."

  "That Hasdu sword barely missed your dangly, Conar!" his father snapped. "Does that sound like they meant you no harm?"

  But his son only shrugged away the incident. "The bastard talked a good threat, Papa, but he was expert enough with that curved sword to have actually maimed me if that had been his intent."

  "I’ve heard things, Conar! Rumors that the Hasdu want you, not to hold for ransom, but for their prisoner. They mean to lock you away for life, for whatever reason they see fit. Does that sound like idle threats? I am worried!"