PRINCE OF THE WIND (26 page)

"Hurry!" Dolan demanded and grabbed his brother’s arm, jerking him the rest of the way inside. "I’ll get this door. Make sure the main one is locked and bolted!"

Brice ran as fast as his dirt-caked boots could take him through the darkened room. He vaguely noticed Suzanna de Viennes on the floor, barely heard her wild laughing as he thundered by. Dropping the bar in place over the door, he looked wildly about him, realizing the kitchen would be a prime entry for the stiffs coming their way.

"You can’t escape them, fool!" Suzanna chortled.

Wishing he could send his boot into the bitch’s mouth, Brice gained the kitchen just in time to see the back door opening and a mud-smeared body lurching into view. Even without benefit of a light, he knew whatever had entered was not human. He shrieked and turned, running for the library. "They’re inside! They’re inside the keep!"

Dolan met him at the library door and threw his brother a shovel. "Aim for their heads. Decapitate them!"

Brice caught the sharp-edged implement and spun around, dazed by the sight of the raven flying up the marble stairs. He shook his head to rid himself of the image. With his brother at his side, they moved into the main hall just as the first of the beings shuffled into view. In the faint light, the things that came at Brice were mere nightmare shadows, but he knew all too well what visages were behind the upraised claw-like hands and dragging steps.

"By the gods, brother," Dolan whispered. "We’re in deep—"

It was the most horrendous sound Brice had ever heard. A cacophony of ripping, tearing, grinding, slurping echoed through the cavernous room. And to the accompaniment of the piercing noise was added Suzanna’s cackling, until she realized the creatures lumbering toward the two warriors had stopped and were turning to meet an unseen force behind them.

"Kill them!" Suzanna shrieked. "Kill the Chalean trespassers!"

From the library behind them, Brice and Dolan heard glass breaking. They spun around, fearing they would see more dead ones struggling to get through the barred garden doors. Instead, they were stunned to see the golden eagle hopping through a broken section of the portal. Before either man could react, the eagle disappeared before their eyes and became a tall, muscular warrior with a thick mane of shoulder-length black hair.

"Get the hell out of my way," he demanded, shoving them from his path.

Brice got a good look at the warrior’s steel-gray glower and knew he’d looked into one of the windows of hell. He grabbed his brother’s arm and held on.

Suzanna’s face became distorted with fury as she watched the warrior advancing on the retreating creatures. She began screaming for Raphian’s help, flinging incantations at the warrior’s broad back.

The warrior cast the witch a look that would have quelled the bravest man, but it had no effect on Suzanna. With offhanded ease, he swiped a long arm clad in a spiked gauntlet behind him, neatly ridding one revenant of its head and taking a soul-mortal bite from another, who walked into the forward swing as those dead ones came at him.

"Damn," Brice breathed as the giant waded into the fray with gleeful abandon—snapping off a head here, knocking off another there, punching his spiked fist through body after body and ripping out backbones.

Her shrill cries growing hoarse, Suzanna thrashed wildly, rolling over and over in an attempt to free her hands and feet.

"Where is the bantling?" the black-haired warrior asked as he turned to the Loures.

Brice exchanged a glance with Dolan. "M…McGregor?" he managed to ask, staring at the blood dripping from the man’s arms.

"Cree," the giant snapped. "Where is Riain?"

"He’s here?" Brice whispered, memories of childhood tales of the Cree clan’s ability to shapeshift speeding through Brice’s mind. "The raven!" He pointed to the marble stairs.

The giant grinned. "Much obliged, humans!" Spinning on his heel, he headed for the stairs.

"Humans?" Brice echoed, swallowing. He yelped as light flared in the room. He and Dolan plastered themselves to the wall.

There were four tall, thin males standing in the archway that led to the kitchen. One carried a lantern and the others stood slightly behind, licking their lips.

"Not them!" the warrior called. "They belong to the Reaper."

The man with the lantern seemed to sigh with disappointment, then he turned his avid gaze on the woman rolling about the floor.

Suzanna scooted around until she could see what was happening. When she viewed the nomads advancing on her, she let out an ear-splitting scream.

* * *

Amardad took the stairs two at a time. He thrust his head into several rooms before he found Riain. "Has she turned him?"

Riain did not look around. He was checking McGregor for bite wounds. "It appears not."

"He’s in a deep sleep, then?"

"Aye."

"She must be nearby, but we haven’t found her hiding place. The Dead One would not be far from her revenants."

"Dearg Dul’s whereabouts are unimportant now. How do we wake him?"

"We don’t," Amardad snorted. "Only the one who cast the spell can wake him, and she’s being crunched and munched right about now."

Riain cursed and strode from the room, brushing rudely past Amardad.

* * *

"Do not touch her!" Riain thundered from the top of the marble steps.

Nomads hunkering beside Suzanna jumped, stumbling into one another in their haste to put distance between the woman and themselves.

Suzanna’s eyes flared, then narrowed dangerously when she realized the man strolling deliberately down the stairs was the man she had given up her immortal soul to have. "Cree! You will pay for harming my servants!"

Riain descended the stairs with a nonchalance that had all eyes glued to him. His footsteps were firm, measured, and carried with them a purpose that left no doubt of his authority.

"Release Raven," Riain commanded. "This is between you and me."

"He also belongs to me!" She giggled insanely. "Are you jealous, lover?"

"The only emotions I have ever expended upon you are fear and hatred."

"You are right to fear me. Even now Raphian is on His way to punish you."

Riain glanced up the staircase at Amardad, who nodded in agreement.

"You’d best hurry, bantling," Amardad suggested.

Riain’s attention shifted to the Loure brothers. A begrudging smile twitched at his lips. "You have always been men who marched to your own drummer, have you not?"

Brice blushed. "Good to see you, too, Your Grace."

Riain sighed, feeling his nerve endings coming alive as something evil sped toward them. He strode heavily up the stairs.

Suzanna cackled. "You can not outrun him, Cree!"

"Take my men to safety," Riain said as he walked past Amardad. "Get them home to Chale in one piece, everything still attached, will ya?"

Amardad nodded. "What are you going to do?"

"I’m taking McGregor with me."

Amardad’s thick black brows shot upward into his shaggy hair. "You are?" He fell into step behind Riain. "This I gotta see."

Riain stopped, put a stiff arm to Amardad’s chest. "The lives of my men are very dear to me. See to them."

"It will be so." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "What of her?"

"Leave her to Raphian to deal with." He headed for Raven McGregor’s room.

"Where will you take him?" Amardad called.

"To the Windweaver!"

* * *

With the servants of Vent du Nord beyond doing damage to anything living—or dead—Amardad, his followers, and the Loure brothers ventured out into the cool night. Behind, they left a madly-screaming woman rolling about the floor.

"Just how the hell is he going to carry an unconscious man out of this keep?" one of Amardad’s followers asked and smirked.

Amardad laughed, pointing skyward. "Like that!"

In the pale glow of the newly-risen moon, the men beheld a sight that would be the stuff of legends for generations to come. There, in the auric light, a shimmering white horse with a wingspan that could easily measure thirty feet across, galloped across the firmament on argentine hooves, a human male draped over its magnificent back.

Rhiannon pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and stepped into the night. "Bring him inside, Milord."

Riain chuckled. "I think not, lady." In his arms, he carried Raven McGregor. "Can you wake him?"

"Perhaps. Lay him there."

Riain laid the unconscious Serenian on the ground at the Windweaver’s feet, then straightened. "She did not turn him."

"I sensed as much."

He looked to her belly. "How near are you to your time?"

"Two months. Perhaps less." She rubbed the distended mound. "This one is anxious to be born."

He wanted to ask, but pride prevented it.

"Daemion," she said softly.

"A male child." He looked at her for a long moment, then turned to go.

"She’ll be after you before sunup."

"I know."

"The closest portal of the Maelstrom is in Diabolusia. You should make for it, Riain. Leave this world and flee to another. Go where the Maelstrom’s Waters will take you."

He acted as though he hadn’t heard. "What will become of McGregor?"

Rhiannon looked down at the Serenian. "I will take him in."

"And never let him leave."

"And never let him know his love was murdered."

"You can do that?"

She nodded. "World’s End is as big as the universe, Riain Cree. There are as many mansions in my world as there are grains of sand on a beach. I will set aside a world for him in which he and his love will never know hunger or pain or suffering. There is another whose joyless life I had hoped to turn around. I can entice her here and make her look like Miyoshi Shimota. Neither will know it is not Raven McGregor’s true love who has joined him. There will be nothing but happiness and youth for them for as long as there is time."

"A boring way to live."

"Yet one you will eventually seek."

Riain shook his head. "I will never venture past those doors, lady."

She smiled. "Not these doors, but mine are not the only doors to happiness and eternal youth, Milord."

He cocked one shoulder in answer.

"Take care, sweeting," Rhiannon advised. "She will come after you with all she has learned from Raphian."

"I’ll be prepared."

Rhiannon looked as if she was about to say something, then must have thought better of it. She looked past him, toward the forest.

"Will I know when the boy is born?" he asked.

"It would not be in your best interests to know, Milord."

Riain frowned. "Why is that?"

A tender looked passed over the Windweaver’s face. "You might wish to meet him one day, and come back this way. You must never do that."

He lowered his head. "I know. I can never return to my homeland."

"Go now. Go before the hag is up and about."

Riain nodded and turned. One moment he was striding through the tall evergreens, the next he was soaring into the spiraling clouds, dipping his wings in gratitude of her help.

* * *

Earlier, Rhiannon had wanted to say something to Riain, but when she had looked past him and into the forest, a shapely form stood glowering at her. The Morrigù had stopped her from saying more.

Now, Rhiannon watched his departing shape. "The Peace of the Wind be with you, my warrior."

And when she looked once more to the forest, the Morrigù was gone.

"Watch o’er him, Maeve."

"I will…" came back to the Windweaver on the shifting breeze.

* * *

He flew straight to Deiman Province in Rysalia. Near Helix was the keep at Djebel ed Kjinn, and he swooped low over the sprawling sandstone building, seeking the twisting mountain road that would lead him to The Djinn’s Nest. Inside was another portal into the Maelstrom. He did not trust Rhiannon’s advice to go to the Diabolusian portal. He would not have put it past the Windweaver to conjure a place that looked like the one in Diabolusia. Once inside, he might well find he had entered World’s End, despite all his precautions. He trusted the Windweaver only a fraction more than he trusted Raphian!

As the moon began to sail the night sky, he saw the cliff face, behind which he knew he would find the portal. Stretching his wings as taut as the feathers would allow, he dipped toward the craggy ledge. Perching on one sharp outcropping, he folded in his wings and peered at the rippling fissure that drove downward from the top of the cliff. The fissure was just wide enough for him to slip through in his corvine shape. He turned his head from side to side, his long neck stretching. He hopped closer and placed one keen eye to the crack, viewing the shadows within the fissure. At last confident he would not get stuck in the split, he waddled inside.

He heard the rush of water as soon as he entered the cave. A tumultuous noise rose from the depths of the darkness. He stilled on the inside ledge until his night vision sharpened and he could make out the craggy rocks surrounding him. A light wind buffeted his feathers. He turned his beak toward the freshening wave of air, sprang from the ledge, and dove toward the sound of crashing water.

Gliding gracefully on the thermals that arced over and under his body, he kept his eyes on a faint glow deep beneath him. He flapped his wings once, then increased speed as the glow broadened from a tiny sliver to a crescent. By the time he felt the mist of water on his feather, the glow had spread to encompass a globe nearly four feet in diameter. As light blossomed across his destination, he felt the thrill of the unknown rippling through his soul.

It was an eerie sight that greeted him as he flew into the cave of the Maelstrom. Crashing waves leapt from the bowl of the cauldron and splashed high along the stygian rocks. The sound of the vortex drawing downward into the center of the Earth made the blood in his veins grow cold.

He landed on a sharp overhang that stretched over the tornadic swirl of the waves and hopped to the end. Peering into the lapping water, he shuddered. It was through that teeming rush of water that his destiny lay, but he could not seem to spread his wings and dive into the churning vortex.