WindBeliever (15 page)

“The boy’s dog ran into the forest. The noise must have frightened him. The boy doesn’t want to leave without it.”

There were tears coursing down the child’s lean face, his eyes pleading as he found Conar’s locked with his own. His trembling little mouth formed the word ‘please’ even as his mother WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

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dragged him forcefully backward toward one of the carts.

“Please!” the little boy screamed. “I love him! He’s my best friend!”

He was no older than this boy, he thought with a sharp prod of pain. Seven, eight, maybe. No older. He had been small like this one, thin, emaciated. He had begged, too. Begged a man who did not heed the cry. Who fed on the agony of a little boy, a man who turned a small boy’s love into a misery that had lasted into adulthood.

“Don’t let him die, sir!” the boy shrieked. “Please don’t let my dog die!” His misery and grief bored into Conar with such force it made the older man flinch.

The puppy had been only a few weeks old, fat, wiggly, his little pink tongue lolling from the side of his moist mouth. He’d had spots on his belly, irregular patches of pale brown. Soft, shiny blond fur covered his pudgy little body and his long, floppy ears smelled of soap and powder.

“Save him, sir! He’s just a little dog!” the boy cried in hitching sobs that lurched his body.

“He ain’t never hurt no one!”

The Bishop of Ordination for the Brotherhood of the Domination, Kahlil Toire, had brought the pup to him, laying it down on the altar. He’d looked down at a young Conar McGregor with vicious, malevolent eyes.

“Strangle it, Conar,” he’d ordered in his ugly, hateful voice.

“Please!”

At first he’d refused, cringing away, trying to run. He’d begged, tearfully, promising to allow things, the memory of which still haunted him, if the puppy were only set free.

“Either you strangle it with your own hands or I shall put out its eyes then cut off its paws one by one before I slit its belly and pull out the innards!” the priest had promised the boy.

Conar shook himself, looking down at his hands where he could still feel the warm little body, trusting and loving, in his child’s hands. He flinched as the memory of that pink little tongue had flicked over his arms, as the little tail had thumped joyfully on the altar slab. He could still hear the tiny whine of surprise as his fingers had closed around the silky neck and he had ....

Watching the play of emotions crossing the Serenian Prince’s face, Alexi knew what was about to happen. Even as he reached forward to stop him, Conar McGregor had turned and was running for the woods behind the boy’s hut.

“Conar, no! Don’t! It’s just an animal!” Alexi yelled, seeing the flames already beginning to show through the trees there. He would have stepped forward, to go after his new-found friend, but one of his men shouted there was a problem with the explosives. “Damn it!” he snarled, his devotion torn between the man and the bigger problem--the raging inferno.

Marie Catherine felt her heart lurch when Conar ran into the forest. She knew where he was going. The little boy’s plaintive appeal had sprung the Serenian into action. “God, help him,” she heard herself say.

The forest was black and thick with smoke. The heat was nearly unbearable. Flames crackled loudly around him as Conar bent forward, bracing his hands on tree trunks, his watering eyes on the ground, his acute hearing tuned for any sign of a whimpering animal. He searched the ground, pushing shrubs out of his way, his head swinging from side to side. If he had heard the name of the boy’s mutt, it hadn’t registered and he wished with all his heart that it had. He tried whistling, clicking his tongue, but his mouth was so dry, his spittle had evaporated, making it difficult to bring any sound out.

But he had to find the dog.

He had to.

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The little boy’s childhood depended on him doing so.

His own childhood screamed out for him to make restitution for an act he had been forced to do long, long ago, an act that had seen no pets in Boreas Keep when he had returned from the Monastery.

“I don’t like dogs in the keep,” he had told everyone and there had been no pets.

At least none until Liza had brought her menagerie into the keep at their wedding, most of them adoptees from Ron and Emmie Lou Tucker’s kennels.

“Where are you, little one?” he called out.

Sidestepping a pile of leaves that were beginning to smolder from the heat, he peered into the gathering darkness of the trees. He was fast losing hope of finding the dog and hoped with all his heart the mutt hadn’t already succumbed to the roaring conflagration that was rapidly advancing on him

“Alel, please!” he whispered, his heart aching with remembered childhood pain. “Help me find it.”

“Use your power.”

He stopped, his heart slamming painfully into his chest, his mouth sagging open in stunned surprise.

Where the hell had the voice come from? He spun around, searching the trees, brows drawn together with both fear and confusion.

“Use your power,” the voice spoke once more.

“Sweet Merciful Alel,” Conar breathed. He looked upward, up past the arching branches high above his head, seeking the blue of the sky, finding only blowing ash and billowing smoke. He shook his head. “I don’t have the power anymore!”

“Try,” came the gentle rebuke.

Time was running out.

For

him.

For the dog.

For a grown man trying to right a grievous wrong.

For a little boy whose best friend was lost to him.

“Conar, try!” The command was stern.

He didn’t question the voice, but instead concentrated on hearing the low thrum of the little animal’s life force.

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The wind was whipping down from the tall timberland to the north. The sky was darkening, day fading, but the harsh red-orange flames were lighting the way across the horizon, glowing, pulsing, as the straggling people from the village made their way down the roadway to the palace. Most kept looking behind them, watching the men poised to light the explosives as soon as the Outlander came out of the woods with young Niki Teranova’s mongrel. That he would, none of them doubted. There had been a grim determination in the Outlander’s face that all those who saw it understood.

“That boy’s had him a might of pain in his lifetime,” the old woman had commented as Peter Steffensburg lifted her into one of the last carts to leave. “Did you see his face, son?”

Peter had, and he didn’t like what he’d seen. “Yes, Grandmother, I saw.”

“He’ll get your doggie, Niki!” the old woman had called to the crying boy. “He will.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Catherine had admonished.

The old woman had turned a hazy, smug expression to the younger woman. “Have a little faith in your man, dearie,” she’d snapped.

“He’s not my man!” Catherine had snapped right back.

A bony, arthritic finger punched toward Catherine. “You tell him that, dearie! I seen the way he looked for you when he come in.”

Catherine turned her head away. “He wasn’t looking for me,” she mumbled, ignoring her brother’s lifted eyebrow.

Alexi chewed on his lower lip. He scanned the forest. One part of him wanted to run pell mell into the conflagration in search of the Serenian, while another part of him knew it would be useless. Even lethal. If the man wasn’t already overcome with smoke, or lying in a ditch burning to death, Alexi would be if he went in search of him. Two men losing their lives over a worthless mutt was insane.

“What’ll we do if he don’t come back soon?” one of Alexi’s men asked fearfully.

Alexi let out a long, shivering sigh. “Let’s give him ten more minutes. We can’t wait much longer than that or the fire will be on us.”

Ten minutes didn’t seem like a long time. But to the men who stood before the loosely covered explosives in the ditch that had been dug earlier, it seemed a lifetime. Nerves were fraying, catching on fire with the oncoming heat, searing the men’s souls as they waited. Gazes flicked fearfully from the flames higher up the hillside to the darkening woods behind the little boy’s hut.

“We can’t wait no longer, Alexi.”

Alexi Romanovitch nodded. His face pinched with misery. “Get ready to light the fuses.” He looked around him. “You men go. Polin and I will take care of the charges.”

“What about the Prince?” someone asked.

A dull ache started in the region of Alexi’s heart. “He’ll understand.”

“But he’d be a might pissed if he got blown up, nevertheless, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Alexi spun around, grinning from ear to ear as he saw Conar stumbling toward them, a wiggling, slurping half-breed clutched tightly to his chest. The little dog’s long neck was arched backward, affording his tongue a good lick at the dirty neck of the man carrying him.

“Will one of you take this mutt?” Conar grumbled, although his expression belied his ill humor as he scowled down at the whining dog. “He’s licked the skin off me now.” The little mutt yipped and slurped his pink tongue across Conar’s chin. “You brat!” the Serenian chuckled.

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Andrei rushed forward, taking the squirming little ball of fur from Conar’s hands. He looked up quickly at the slight moan that issued from Conar’s mouth. “Milord?” he questioned.

“Get him to his master, Andrei,” Conar ordered. “We’ve got work to do here.”

Alexi knew Conar’s hands were paining him. The bleak look of misery in the man’s dark face came from the blistered, running, raw flesh of the palms which were curled slightly at the Serenian’s side.

“We’ll get those hands looked at,” Alexi promised.

“When we’ve done what we have to,” Conar agreed.

“We’ve got a salve that will take away the pain,” Alexi assured him.

“By Alel, I hope so,” Conar murmured. His palms hurt so bad he was shivering despite the raging inferno behind him.

“Count on it!” the Outer Kingdom man swore.

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Wind rushed toward the group on the road, shoving against them as gray ash swirled in dervishes around them. The sound of the explosion was louder than most would have dreamed possible, ear-splitting successions of booms that shook the ground and frightened the already terrified horses and mules. It took brute strength to keep the animals in control as the aftershock reached the straining beasts.

“Here they come!”

Peter Steffensberg glanced around and saw Alexi and the Serenian walking side by side, heads down, shoulders sagging and knew the men were bone-weary, hungry and more than a little held in awe by the villagers who had stopped to wait for the two men. He looked beyond the men and saw the fire, knew it had been stopped by the intrusion of the explosion in its path and smiled with relief. Bringing his hands up, he began to clap his thanks. Soon every hand available had joined the young Tzaravitch in his praise.

Alexi glanced up and grinned. His strong white teeth shone in the blackened halo of his face.

He nudged his tired companion and chuckled. “We’re heroes, Outlander.”

Conar looked up, saw the crowd, scanning the gathering until he found the one face, the one pair of hands that were giving him their approval and he let out a weary sigh.

Marie Catherine stopped applauding when Conar McGregor’s gaze dropped away from her.

She watched him stumble with fatigue, saw Alexi’s hand go out to steady him, noticed for the first time that his hands appeared to be injured. Burned, no doubt, she thought with annoyance.

She was about to step forward, to gather her supplies to go to him, when she saw her mother rushing forward, her arms going up to embrace the startled man.

“Conar!” she heard her mother gushing. “You have saved the village, son! How can we ever thank you?”

A deep red blush swept furiously over Catherine’s face when those tired sapphire eyes seemed to automatically leap to hers at her mother’s inane question. That alien gaze held for a fraction of a second then lowered to the woman whose arms were around him. Catherine didn’t hear his reply, but she heard Alexi’s and her attention lowered to the quarry foreman who had dropped to one knee at her mother’s approach.

“He’s hurt, Highness,” she heard Alexi tell her mother.

“Hurt?” Charlotte Steffenovitch’s screech of dismay caused every voice to cease. “Where?”

“His hands,” Alexi informed her.

“Conar, let me see!”

The Serenian held his hands out, palms up.

Catherine let out a deep breath as she saw her mother examining the Serenian Prince’s hands, winced at the small cry of shock her mother uttered. One of her sisters rushed forward with salve and bandages and before Catherine could take another breath, Conar McGregor was sitting on the back of one of the carts having his hands tended to.

“Such a fuss over a minor thing like scorched palms,” she muttered.

When the small procession of stragglers finally reached the Palace of the Tzars, servants rushed out to help those who would be staying the night. Cots and pallets were hastily laid out in spaces available within the keep. An aromatic stew was already bubbling in a large cauldron in the inner bailey. Plank tables made from slabs of timber and sawhorses had been erected to feed the mass of people. Jugs of ale and cider sat off to one side along with a small table piled high with loaves of freshly-baked bread. Hampers of apples and pears flanked the steps leading up to WINDBELIEVER

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the guard house. Queuing up, the villagers began to pile tin plates full of the piping stew.

“Hungry, Cat?” Mikel asked his sister. He’d been busy all day supervising the procession of villagers into the keep.

“I’ve had some sandwiches,” she answered, arming the sweat from her brow. “I’ll get something later on.”

Mikel thrust his chin toward Conar McGregor who was climbing down from a cart which had just rolled into the inner bailey. “How’d he do?”