“NICKY!"
Nick smiled as he started down to the water where Gilly, D'Lyn and Brownie were waiting for their menfolk. He wondered what Kaelan was going to say to Gilly about the Curse she'd laid and the other little thing she'd managed to accomplish while he was away.
Kaelan was at the rail, waving. He'd already spied Brownie running along the waterline, yipping at the breaking waves, and felt a great contentment welling up in his heart. Revenge was here, as well, for he could make out that magnificent black steed pawing at the sand over by the dock.
There was Nick, standing with his arm around a fat woman....
Hesar's eyes grew wide. Fat woman? Hell, no! That was his Gilly!
“I believe congratulations are in order, Kaelan,” Thècion quipped.
“She'll lose that gods-be-damned weight very quickly now that I'm home!” Kaelan snapped.
“Oh, I'd say it'll take a month or two more before she'll do so, though,” Diarmuid chuckled.
“I'd say three,” his Serenian friend injected.
“She will start exercising. I'll have her running...” Kaelan began only to have Lumley interrupt.
“After that brat of your'n she's carrying,” the old salt laughed.
“And she'll stop stuffing her mouth with...” Kaelan stopped, slowly turned his head toward Lumley. “B ... brat?” he stammered.
“Aye, son,” Lum nodded. “She ain't fat, Your Grace. She's with child."
“C ... child?” Kaelan questioned, his face chalk-white. “H ... how?"
Thècion chortled. “Well, if you don't know, Stormy, I believe we need to sit you down and explain about the birds and bees."
Kaelan ignored the nickname Quinn had given him and the others had taken to calling him to annoy him. “You can't get with child from a bee sting!” he said stupidly.
“Nor from bird droppings, either, I'm thinking,” Diarmuid put in only to make a ‘whoof’ sound as Thècion's elbow dug into ribs.
Kaelan shoved past the two young noblemen and swung down the ladder into the rowboat. Not even waiting for the others to join him, he barked at the lone rower to ‘get the hell over there!'
“He don't look happy,” Nick observed.
“He looks dumbfounded to me,” D'Lyn put in. She cast a look at a very pregnant Gillian who was smiling broadly.
“He's happy,” Gilly stated, nodding emphatically. She walked a bit further on the beach until the waves were lapping at her feet. She could see her husband's face plainly and the high color that infused his complexion made him even more handsome to her way of thinking.
Thècion braced his elbows on the railing and watched as Kaelan Hesar bounded from the rowboat even before it had struck land. He smiled as the Viragonian ran to his wife and swooped her up his arms. Even from where he stood on the deck of the Vengeance, he could hear the mighty whoop of joy and the answering giggle of pleasure.
“I've got to get me one of those,” Diarmuid sighed, feeling the tugging of generations of Chalean ancestors toward fatherhood.
The Serenian prince threw an arm over his friend's shoulder. “Well, Dear Mutt, I don't think Marid will be able to give you..."
Nick looked toward the ship from which a mighty splash had come. He saw men standing at the rail, looking down, pointing. “I wonder what happened?” he questioned.
“My beloved Lord Raven opened his mouth one time too many,” D'Lyn sighed.
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AFTERWARD
Ten years ago, I sat down at my old Western Auto manual typewriter and began writing The Keeper of the Wind. Luckily for me, I discovered computers by the time I finished the first draft of Keeper, but by then the manuscript was over three feet tall! Realizing that not too many people would like to drag around a forty-pound book, I began whittling the manuscript into a more manageble size. What I eventually wound up with was six novels: Keeper and five sequels. In 1991, I wrote the seventh book in the series and in 1992, I wrote the eighth. I'm still tweaking number nine. The series is called The WindLegends Saga and if you haven't read The Keeper of the Wind, you came into the movie in the middle! :o)
WindFall is a prequel to The Keeper of the Wind and it is the first book in The WindTales Trilogy. In WindFall, you were introduced to Occultus Noire, who will play a major part in Book Four of the WindLegends Saga and shows up again in Book Six, Eight and Nine. Most all of the characters in WindFall have ancesters in both series.
So get out your score sheets and start taking notes. You never know whom you might encounter in WindChance, the next novel in The WindTales Trilogy available now from Twilight Times Books!
[Back to Table of Contents]
Excerpt from
WindChance
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter One
“Sail ho!"
The strident cry broke the morning air like a blast of the arctic air that had been at their heels since dawn.
“Where away?” The Captain raised his spyglass and swept the rolling vista before him.
“To the starboard, Cap'n. Thirty yards off the bow. She's lying dead in the water."
“Making repairs?” the First Mate asked as he joined his captain at the rail.
Catching sight of the unknown vessel lying off their weather beam, the captain shook his head. “Don't see anyone on her decks.” He raised his eyes to the crow's nest. “What do you see, Haggerty?"
“Nary a soul moving on her, Sir. Looks deserted,” was the boyish reply.
“Ghost ship,” the First Mate mumbled, crossing himself.
“Stow that talk, Mister!” the captain snarled, shoving his First Mate aside as he strode away. “Mister Tarnes!” he called out to the Second Mate, who was at the helm, “bring her about. Let's see what we've got over there!"
“Aye, aye, Cap'n!” the sailor replied and swung the brass-rimmed teak wheel in a lazy arc to starboard.
Genevieve Saur pushed away from the taffrail of her brother's brigantine, The Wind Lass, and strolled on legs well accustomed to the rolling dip of the seas, to the quarterdeck where her brother and his First Mate were arguing. A smile dimpled her small face and she thrust her hands into the pockets of the cords she wore when on board her brother's ship.
“You going to board her, ain't you?” Mr. Neevens, the First Mate, was growling.
“Aye, we're going to board her!” Genevieve's brother growled back.
Neevens shook his shaggy gray head. “Not this old tar! I ain't going aboard no ghost ship.” He screwed up his weathered face and stuck out a pugnacious jaw to emphasize his point. “I ain't boarding no ghost ship!"
Genevieve grinned when her brother cast her a furious glance. She shrugged in answer to his silent plea for help. She watched his gray eyes hardened with pique.
“We're going aboard her, Neevens, and that's the end of that!” Weir Saur shouted at his First Mate. He fixed his winter gray eyes on his sister. “You coming?"
“Naturally,” Genevieve replied, eyeing Neevens with a pretend look of admonishment. “I don't believe in ghosts."
“And what about beasties?” Neevens snapped. “You afraid of them, missy?” The old man held her gaze, his whiskered chin thrust out, his watery eyes steady.
“There are no beasties on that ship!” Weir shouted. “Ghost, either!"
“You'll see,” the First Mate shot back. “You'll see!” He spat a thick stream of tobacco juice over the rail and squinted his fading eyes at his employer. “You come back without a head attached to them smug shoulders, Cap'n, we'll see who was right about beasties and such! You ever heard the tales of the NightWind?"
A vicious crosswind, aided by a troubled sea which was beginning to show signs of a coming blow, heeled the Wind Lass over on the starboard tack and cold waves broke over the knightheads, shot high in the air and dropped with a roar onto the forecastle as the brigantine made for the unknown vessel.
“See?” Neevens grumbled. “NightWin
ds don't like to be bothered!"
Looking windward, the Captain frowned and his voice was a curt bellow as he looked up into the shrouds. “I want those topsails close reefed.” He turned his eyes down to his sister. “I don't like the looks of that sky."
Genevieve turned her head and saw what had her brother concerned. The sky was a mottled gray; darker streaks of yellow were shot through the lower section of sky, making the flesh of the horizon appear bruised and sickly.
“Gale?"
Weir nodded, his mind on the nimble-footed sailors scurrying up the rigging. “Take in the topgallants while you're at it!"
The Wind Lass slipped effortlessly over the heaving waves, a steady hand at her helm. She slid in beside the unknown vessel and dropped anchor, riding the sea with a rolling pitch that left no doubt as to the turn of the weather.
“You going with us or not?” Weir asked his First Mate as the old man peered cautiously over the distance between the two ships as though something would lurch across the spans to take hold of his scrawny body.
Mr. Neevens snorted, spat, and looked at his Captain. “Might as well,” he grumbled.
Genevieve hid a smile as she turned to study the other ship. There was no name on her bow, no identification markings. Her hull had been painted black but here and there along the wood, great gouges of paint had flaked away leaving gray streaks where the weathered wood shown through. Her rails were tarnished, the wood chipped in places, some of her rigging flapping loose in the freshening wind. Her sails had been furled, lashed down to the yards and masts, and the creaking timbers and the rub of the shrouds were the only sounds that greeted the boarding party as they boarded her at a quarter to nine on that Friday morn.
“Where the hell is the crew?” Weir asked as he studied the decks, which looked as though they hadn't been sluiced in a good many days. Salt was caked in the cracks of the decking, splashed up the masts. The hatchway stood open, the darkness from below decks a sinister gash of silence.
There was a smell about the ship, an alien, somewhat malevolent aroma which seemed to make the eerie quiet all the more prevailing.
“You ever smelled anything like that?” Mr. Tarnes, the Second Mate, asked his captain.
Weir shook his head. “Smells almost like burnt flesh, doesn't it?"
“Do you suppose the beasties had a barbecue last eve?” Genevieve quipped, elbowing Mr. Neevens in his scrawny ribs.
“That'll do, Genny,” her brother cautioned, giving her a stern look from beneath his chestnut brows.
“Well, let's go on below and see what we can find,” the girl quipped, unconcerned by her brother's fierce scowl. “There's nothing up here."
“You afraid of anything?” Mr. Tarnes snorted. He looked at the young girl with the look of a man long-accustomed to dealing with precocious females.
“I'm not particularly fond of snakes,” Genny admitted.
“Well, I'll venture to say there are no snakes on board,” Weir growled as he walked to the hatchway. He looked down into the darkness, and then with a deep breath, stepped gingerly down the companionway.
The cabins were empty, the galley devoid of provisions, and the captain's stateroom almost denuded of both furniture and nautical charts and equipment.
“Pirates,” Mr. Tarnes said, nodding. “They was hit by pirates.” He looked around the great cabin. “Took everything that wasn't nailed down and then some."
“Shanghaied the crew?” Weir asked, trusting Tarnes’ knowledge of the subject.
“That'd be my guess, Cap'n.” He poked among a pile of scattered papers on the captain's desk and lifted a single sheet of parchment. Squinting his eyes, he read the paper, drew in a quick, troubled breath and then handed it to Weir as though it were poisonous. “Sailing order, Sir."
Weir scanned the parchment. His brows drew together and he looked up at Tarnes. “A prison ship?"
“Ain't marked as such,” Tarnes told him, “but that there order says she was carrying prisoners bound for Ghurn Colony.” A wry grin settled over the man's rugged features. “Looks like the pirates got them some additional workers if this here lady was carrying prisoners."
Genny shivered. It wasn't that she was bothered by the mention of pirates; after all, wasn't that what she and Weir had decided to take up now that they had lost their family holdings? Wasn't that why they were out here in the middle of the South Boreal Sea learning the ropes from Tarnes and Neevens? What bothered Genny Saur was the mention of the penal colony at Ghurn. If things didn't go right for her and Weir, that was where he was bound to wind up. As for her, she'd swing from the nearest yardarm since there were no prisons for women, only nunneries, and she knew gods-be-damned well she wouldn't let them place her in one of those hell-holes.
“Did you hear that?” the First Mate suddenly squawked as he pushed up hard against Nathaniel Tarnes. He grabbed the other man's arm in a punishing grip and plastered himself to Tarnes.
“Hear what, you old fool?” Tarnes snarled, pushing the First Mate away from him. “All I hear is your teeth chattering!"
“No,” Genny replied, looking at her brother. “I heard something, too."
“Like what?"
“A thump. There! Did you hear it?"
Weir cocked his head to one side, listening. His eyes narrowed. “Aye, I heard that."
“Sounds like it's coming from the hold.” Tarnes shoved Neevens out of his way and ducked out of the Captain's cabin and walked to the forward companionway which led the lower deck. He stopped, listened. “Aye. It's coming from the hold."
“Could they have locked the crew down there?” Genny asked.
“We've been on this ship nearly an hour. Don't you think they'd have heard us board and have made some noise before now?” Neevens inquired, his eyes jerking about for the beasties he expected to see at any moment.
“Could have thought the pirates had come back,” Tarnes told him.
“I ain't going down there,” Neevens informed them. He pushed himself against the cabin wall. “I just ain't, that's all there is to it."
“Fool!” Tarnes called him.
The hatchway down into the hold was battened down, locked with a heavy padlock that appeared to be newer than the hasp into which it had been fitted. It took both Weir and Tarnes’ combined strengths to pry the padlock open with a crowbar Genny found above decks. Once the padlock was off and the hatch opened, an overbearing stench assaulted the boarding party's nostrils, making eyes water and stomachs roll.
“By the holy ghost!” Tarnes gasped, covering his mouth and nose with a hastily-drawn kerchief. “What the hell is that smell?” He gagged, swallowing a rapidly-rising clump of bile which was threatening to erupt from his watering mouth.
“If that's the crew, they've been down there awhile,” Genny murmured, holding her nose and breathing heavily through her parted lips.
“I've never smelled such foulness,” Tarnes mumbled, his eyes watering from the stench.
“Ho, there!” Weir called into the blackness of the hold. “We're from the Wind Lass. Is anyone there?"
There was silence from the ebony depths.
“It could have been rats we heard,” Weir said.
“Mighty damned big rats to have made a thump like we heard.” Tarnes squinted his eyes, leaned over the hatchway and peered into the darkness.
“I can't see a bloody thing."
“Genny, go find us a lantern or something. I'm not going down there without a light of some kind.” Weir Saur was a brave man, but darkness was not something he was comfortable with.
Genny nodded at her brother's request, well understanding his one weakness, and left to do his bidding.
“Ho, there!” Weir called out again. “Is anyone there?” Only more silence and a horrible waft of the stomach-churning stench greeted his hail.
“God, but that's a right offensive odor!” Tarnes said. “What the hell could cause such a smell?"
Weir didn't know and he wasn't so sure he really wanted to
find out. The smell had an evil about it that bespoke the very bubbling pits of hell. “Whatever it is, there sure can't be anything human living in it. I can hardly breathe up here."
A flicker of light washed over the men and they looked over their shoulder to see Genny striding forward with two lanterns swinging in her hands. The light from the amber-tinted shades cast her small oval face in an ivory glow, lighting her forehead while the area below her nose was lost in deep shadow. If Mr. Neevens had seen her coming at him like that, he would have bolted for sure.
“When I was in the galley, I found something very interesting, Weir,” she told her brother.
“What?” Weir Saur accepted one of the lanterns from his sister.
Genny handed the other lantern to Tarnes. “There were a lot of herbs and roots lying scattered about the cook table and there was a crucible of quinine on one of the shelves."
“Sounds like they had fever on board,” Tarnes said.
Genny nodded. “There's a lot of that at the penal colonies, I hear. Looked as though they were brewing a remedy for malaria."
A sound from behind them made the three turn in surprise, but upon seeing who had joined them, they relaxed.
“Find anything?” the newcomer asked.
“We're about to go down into the hold. We heard a sound earlier, but there wasn't any answer to my call,” Weir said.
Genny looked at the newcomer and smiled, as she smiled every time she was within eyesight of Patrick Kasella. Her gray eyes twinkled, her ivory complexion ran a peach blush and her heart skipped a beat or two every time her brother's best friend and partner looked her way.
“What is that godawful smell? Is that coming from the hold?” Patrick asked, smiling briefly, brotherly, at Genny before turning his attention to Weir. “Surely that can't just be bilge water."
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