WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (4 page)

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"No," Chase answered for his friend. "He isn't." Before Conar could speak, the Ionarian drew him into his strong arms and held him. "He's going to hug us goodbye and then we're going to gather our belongings and head for the ship."

"I'm not so sure …," Paegan started to say, but Chase had released Conar and was pulling the young Viragonian toward their friend.

"Say goodbye to him, Paegan," Chase ordered.

Conar brought the young man to him and gave him a tight embrace. "Look after my little brother Dyllon for me when you get home, eh, Paegan?" he asked.

Paegan nodded, overcome by the emotions that were boiling inside his gut. Dyllon McGregor, Conar's youngest brother, was Paegan's best friend. How was he going to explain to Dyllon why he hadn't been able to bring Conar home?

Wyn watched the two Princes leave the room, neither looking back at his father. He saw Ching-Ching bow respectfully to the true King of Serenia and then walk gracefully to the door where he turned and smiled warmly at Conar McGregor.

"Baby bird will be careful?" Ching-Ching asked in his sing-song Chrystallusian.

"He'll try," was Conar's answer.

"All I can ask of him," Ching-Ching replied before exiting the room.

Prince Kalli Jaborn rose from his seat and bid Catherine a good morning. "If you should need me, I will be outside." His young eyes crinkled with happiness. "Enjoying my freedom!"

The men of the Samiel also slipped quietly from the room, the warriors of the Outer Kingdom following, leaving Conar alone with his wife and his eldest son. The silence was loud in the room as the door closed behind the last man.

"Are you sending me away, also?" Catherine asked, fearing what Yuri had warned her about might well come to pass.

Conar shook his head. "No. If you would, I would like you to stay until I can take you back to St. Steffensburg, myself."

"You're going to the Outer Kingdom?" Wyn questioned.

Conar came from behind the chair and sat down again. He let out a long, weary exhalation of breath. "There are five coffins lying in the throne room, Wynland. As soon as Balizar's men bring Storm's body here, there will be six. I can not, nor will I, allow those men to be buried in Rysalian soil." He looked down at his hands. "Nor can Serge transport them back to Serenia." A look of pain crossed his face. "The journey takes too long and the bodies would not......"

"We would be honored to bury them in the Field of Honor outside St. Steffensburg, milord," Catherine interrupted, saving her husband from explaining to his son that the bodies of the men he loved would be long-since decayed and posing a health hazard before reaching Serenia.

"I would like that," he answered, glancing up at her. "It is a very beautiful place."

Catherine stood up, smiling shyly at Wyn. "If I do not see you again before you go, Lord Wynland, I bid you a safe and pleasant journey home."

"Thank you, Your Grace," Wyn replied, taking the hand she offered him and bringing it as gracefully and sensually to his lips as he father ever had. "And I pray for a safe delivery for you."

He glanced down at her burgeoning belly. "And maybe a little sister?"

Catherine's face split into a wide smile. "We'll see," she said, standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. She turned and looked at her husband. "I will be in my room, milord, if you should need me."

Conar nodded, thanking her silently for the time she was willing to give him with his son.

He watched her until the door closed behind her and then lowered his head, putting his hands up to Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 17

his temples.

"Papa?" Wyn asked, kneeling down before his father once more. "Will you please let me stay?"

His father looked up and it was obvious to the young man that another agonizing headache had come to claim his parent's attention.

"Wyn," Conar said with mild exasperation, "of them all, you would be the last I would allow to stay."

"But why, Papa?" Wyn whined. "I am your son. Of them all, I should be the very one to be at your side!"

"Of them all," Conar said, leaning forward so that he could put his hands on his son's neck,

"you are the one I love the most. You are the one it would kill me to lose." He laid his forehead against Wyn's. "I may not have shown you how much I loved you when you were growing up, I might not have given you the time with me you wanted or needed or deserved, but Wyn …," he drew his son's head down and put an emotional kiss on the young man's head, cradling that head against his chest. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, "you are my favorite son and I love you more than you will ever know."

"Then let me stay with you, Papa!" Wyn cried, pulling back and fusing his gaze with his father's. "Let me be at your side where I belong!"

"Your place is where I send you, Wyn, and I am sending you home."

The young man knew it would be fruitless to continue pleading with his father. Not only was there a warning of parental authority in his father's face, there was a hint of a royal order in the firmness of his parent's voice.

And a steadfast spark of denial in the too-bright sapphire eyes.

Wyn lowered his head. "Is there anything you want me to do when I get home, Father?"

"Father?" Conar questioned, not sure he liked that title. When Wyn shrugged, without looking up, he figured it was his son's way of letting him know he hadn't agreed with his decision but would abide by it anyway.

"Is there anything you want me to tell Uncle Legion?" Wyn stressed.

"Aye," Conar said, his voice turning just a bit cold. "You can tell him to mind his own damned business from now on and that if I see his ass over here, I'll sell it to a breeding farm!"

Wyn looked up, his face piqued with interest. "A breeding farm?" At his father's nod, Wyn smiled. "They really have such places?"

Conar's lips twitched although he did not smile. "Aye, they really have such places." He ruffled his son's hair. "Once you are on board ship, you might ask the Lady Sabrina all about it.

She'll be going back to Ionary with Chase. And," Conar slid his hands to his son's shoulders, "You will see to Mistress Ruck for me. I've already told her she'll be going back with the men and she's not happy about it."

"But you're her Overlord, too," Wyn chuckled. "She has to do as you say, doesn't she, Papa?"

Conar didn't answer. "Make sure she stays in Serenia once she gets there, Wynland. That is the only thing I ask of you."

Wyn's face lost its smile. "I will miss you, Papa."

"I will miss you, too."

"And I love you, Papa!" The young man put his arms about his father and hugged him only briefly, then leapt up from the floor and was out of the room before Conar could answer.

Conar McGregor, the rightful King of Serenia, the Dark Overlord of the Wind, the man Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 18

freedom fighters on three continents called Commander, sat where his son had left him and stared across the still room, his hands loosely gripping the arms of his chair. He could not remember a time in present memory when he had felt so alone, so cast away from those he loved. He had sent his son and the men of the Wind Force back to his homeland. He had ordered Meggie Ruck back, as well, even though it had been a hard-won battle between Mistress and Consort. Now, he thought, as he sat there, his heart aching inside him, he had just one more person's safety to insure before he could begin his fight in Rysalia.

And that was the one person in all the world he wanted least to send away.

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"Do you think he'll come to say goodbye?" Holm asked as he looked out over the yarboard rail of the Anna Katrine.

"Not a chance," Thom replied, squinting as he gazed up at the crow's nest where Wyn had climbed aloft to view Asaraba. "You know how he feels about goodbyes."

"Aye," Holm sighed. "That I do." He turned his back to the rail and leaned against it, folding his beefy arms over his wide chest. "I ain’t so sure we're doing the right thing in leaving him here."

"It is what he wanted," Ching-Ching reminded the captain of the Ravenwind. "We must abide by his wishes."

"Even when you know he's making a mistake?" Paegan grumbled.

"Even then, young one," Ching-Ching answered.

Prince Lares Taborn, the youngest son of King Shalu knocked politely on his father's cabin door and waited patiently for the command to enter. When no such order came, he knocked again.

"Papa? It's me, Lares."

"I've already tried talking to him," the Lady Sabrina told the young man. "Your father is most rude. He did not even show me the courtesy of answering."

Lares looked down at his boots. "Sometimes he can be a bit …." He searched for the right word, could not seem to find one adequate to the situation and shrugged. "He's just angry."

"And hurt," Sabrina replied, putting a gentle hand on the young black man's back. "Maybe even a bit disappointed."

"He thinks of Lord Raven as one of his own," Lares mumbled. "Sometimes I think he loves him better than any of us."

Sabrina smiled. "I would not think so. Perhaps he just gives him more notice than he does the rest of you." She rubbed Lares' back. "Isn't it usually the child who gives the parent the most trouble who gets the most attention?"

Shalu's son thought about that for a moment and then grinned. "Aye," he agreed. "I see your point."

"Give your father time," Sabrina advised him. "He will adjust to the situation. It is never easy for a parent to admit his child has grown up under his very nose."

"HE AIN’T GROWN UP!" came the thundering boom from behind the cabin door.

Sabrina's smile widened and she shook her head. "Neither, it seems, has the father."

Captain Serge Nickolayevich Kutuzov glanced once more to the wharf. He strained to see the one face he hoped might be there. He had held back their sailing time by nearly forty minutes in the hopes the Serenian would appear. Now, he had to admit Prince Chase had been right: the man would not come.

"You might as well hoist anchor, Serge," Holm advised him. "If the lad was gonna show, he'd have done so by now."

Serge nodded and reluctantly gave the order to cast off. His blue eyes were disappointed for he had wanted to try one more time to talk Conar McGregor into letting him leave a large company of warriors behind.

"And I told you no," the Outlander had said in a stern voice. "Take them home with you, Serge. All of them."

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Two other Outer Kingdom ships lay in the harbor, awaiting the sailing of the Anna Katrine before tacking north. Their captains were no less concerned than Serge was with leaving the Tzarevna and her husband behind.

"The Tzar will most displeased," Serge had informed the Serenian.

"Let him be," McGregor had answered. "Tell him I will protect his daughter. If he had worries about my ability to do that, he should never have desired the union between us."

"Will we be sailing up to St. Steffensburg?" Chase asked.

Serge glanced at Holm and then shook his head. "The Ravenwind is docked in Odess. We will drop you off there and then the rest of us will travel on to St. Steffensburg."

"Once they're assured we have hoisted anchor and are beyond the reef," Holm grumbled.

"Once we're committed into the North Boreal sea lane, we can't turn around. I've no charts for that part of the ocean."

"A precaution, Captain," Serge told him. "His Grace asked that I make sure you did not attempt to …."

"Foil his bloody plans!" Holm snapped.

Chase looked up as the shrouds filled and the winds grasped the Anna Katrine. He turned his attention back to the docks where a steady stream of humanity was hawking its wares and thieving and insulting one another. His gaze traveled over the shiny bulbous roofs of the Rysalian towers and slid past the warehouse where his life had changed so drastically.

"It is best to think of the future, not dwell on the past," Sabrina told him as she joined him at the rail.

"Aye," he answered. "I know." He drew her to his side and cradled her against him. "What will be, will be, eh?"

"Yes," she agreed. Resting her head on his shoulder, she looked out over the city where she had spent most of her life and was not unhappy to be leaving. She was with the man she loved, who loved her, and she was traveling to a new part of the world she had only glimpsed in Liza's letters.

"Do you see the man in black standing by the basket maker's stall?" Chase asked her quietly.

Sabrina narrowed her vision and finally saw the man he was referring to. "McGregor?" she asked.

"Aye."

"So he came to bid you farewell, after all," she said.

"When he knew we couldn't do a damned thing about it," Chase grumbled.

She looked up at her lover. "Will you wave to him or pretend you don't see him?"

"He knows I see him," Chase answered.

Looking back to the wharf, Sabrina watched the man in black turn his back on the ship and then disappear into the bustling crowd around him. No one seemed to notice his passing.

"May the Wind be favorable to you, Lord Khamsin," she heard Montyne whisper.

From the porthole of his cabin, Shalu followed the man in black until he could no longer see him among the crowd. The Necroman laid his head on the cool porthole glass and cried.

Conar ran his hand down the steed's front legs, lifted his hoof to inspect it, then patted the Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 21