Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Pleasure's Foehn (11 page)

Obviously unaccustomed to having a woman get in his face and from his own shocked expression understandably taken aback, the security man nevertheless met her challenge with a smirk.

“I’ll bet you two months credits that you’ll still be chasing your wide-load tail when we find him and put his ass to bed,” the security man sneered.

“Oh, yeah?” she growled.

58

Pleasure’s Foehn

“Yeah!”

She stuck out her hand. “You got a deal, Morris,” she said, glancing down at his nametag. “If he’s still on this ship, I’ll find him!”

Morris took her hand and shook it. The strength of her grip must have shocked him further for he glanced down at their joined hands with a puzzled look on his beefy face. Davan jerked her hand from his and spun around, resisting the urge to touch her ass for his wide-load comment had annoyed her no end.

Forgetting all about eating, she went back into the sickbay, ignoring the corpsman that was ignoring her in turn and rummaged around in a box until she found an oldfashioned handheld infrared thermometer among her personal belongings. Thankful her things had been begrudgingly delivered a few hours earlier, she thumbed on the instrument’s switch, pointed the laser head toward her patient and when the pale green pulse of his life force registered on the IT’s screen dropped the instrument into the pocket of her lab coat.

“Has he eaten?” she asked on her way out.

“Not yet,” the corpsman growled.

“Then feed him and be damned quick about it!” she threw over her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the corpsman’s head pop up like a turtle’s from its shell.

Having no idea how many decks encompassed the
Foehn
, her first stop was in engineering where she demanded a schematic of the ship’s interior. Though the engineering officer started to question her at the strange request, he stopped when he saw the narrowed, steely look in her eyes. Shrugging, he went to a computer terminal, typed in what he needed and a page printed within a few seconds.

“If you wanted to stay cool,” Davan said. “Where would you go?”

The engineering officer cocked one shoulder. “That depends on what you wanted to cool,” he said in a bored tone. “Yourself? A side of Bhrasil beef? A computer system?

What is it you want to cool, lady?”

“Doctor,” she corrected. “And I would like to keep my body cool.”

“Try the ice deck,” he mumbled.

Davan looked down at the schematic and blinked. “You have an ice lake on the
Foehn
?”

“We have
an Ísiltíris
coming in from the war zone,” the engineering officer snapped.

“Those cold-blooded bastards like to swim in the frigid waters of their homeland and take walks during blizzards. Go figure.”

She started to leave then turned back. “Do you have a desert as well?”

“Of course we do!” he stated. “We have Araibis troops here from time to time!”

She looked down. “How would I find the desert?”

“Ever try looking under hot zone?” he inquired with a smirk. 59

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Oh, yeah. There it is.” She glanced up. “How hard would it be to track a heat signature in the desert?”

“Nigh to impossible,” the man answered. “Now if you don’t have any other stupid questions, I have work to do!”

Smiling to herself, Davan left engineering. She didn’t think she’d need the instrument in her pocket as she followed the schematic to the area marked hot zone. Unless she missed her guess, that would be where she would find the Deathwielder. 60

Pleasure’s Foehn

Chapter Seven

Cair was shit-faced drunk. He was so drunk he could no longer sit up and was lying with his back to a large boulder, watching a viper winding its way through the deep sand past his boots. The jug of brandy in his lap was a swallow away from being drained but there were two more lying unopened beside it—more than enough to keep him numb for hours to come unless Seamus finally figured out where he had run off to. Overhead, the sun beat down mercilessly and the dunes undulated with heat ghosts. His shirt was unbutton to the waist, thrown back to reveal a chest glistening with perspiration, the thick pelt of wiry hairs sparkling with droplets. Arming the sweat from his forehead, he winced as a drop of the salty moisture slid down into his eye, stinging him. Not that it mattered. The pain in his heart was a thousand times greater than any physical pain he could ever imagine experiencing. He lifted the jug to his lips and finished off that soldier, so inebriated he couldn’t throw the empty away but rather letting it slip out of his fingers. He snorted, remembering an old Meiriceánach saying about being too drunk to hit the side of a barn—whatever the hell a barn was!

Idly he watched as a scorpion climbed up his pant leg then scampered across his knee and jumped onto the other knee before climbing down again and going on its way. Frowning, for one of the things he hated most in life were insects, he was so intoxicated, he couldn’t have shooed the evil thing away even to have saved his life. He had just enough energy to reach for another jug and struggle to uncork it. An eagle screamed as it flew above him and he let his head fall back to follow the path of the magnificent bird as it sailed upon the thermals. Squinting against the bright glare of the sun, he wished he could be as free as the eagle and take flight, soaring as far from the
Foehn
and the hurt in his soul as the megaverse would allow. Mumbling to himself for he knew already his mother was setting into motion the reassignment that would take him back to Amhantar, he pulled at the stubborn cork until he managed to pop it free of the jug, splashing some of the liquor onto the back of his hand. Licking the brew off with his tongue, he thought he saw movement out on the desert floor and tried to focus.

Aye, he thought something—someone—was coming toward him from the shimmering folds of the hot desert waves. Perhaps a mirage, a figment of his imagination or one of the troopers from the Tribunal sent to fetch him home.

“To rule the roost!” he blurted out, his words slurred. He hiccupped. “To rule the fucking roost.” He put a finger to his lips. “Shush. Shush!” His voice became a whisper.

“To be the pissant king whether I like it or not!”

61

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Rippling like a building wave, the figure came steadily toward him. If it was an enemy, he thought as he took a long swig of the brandy, he was screwed. Weaponless, unable to put up a fight, he could do nothing but lie there and accept his fate. Whatever that was.

Once more the eagle screamed and Cair turned his sweaty face up to the raptor. The sight of it so free, able to go where it would, when it would, filled him with such sadness, tears filled his eyes. When the shadow of the one who had joined fell over him, he hung his head, expecting the worse.

“Are you having fun yet?”

Cair cocked his head back and looked up but all he could see was the dark outline of the person standing over him. The voice had been remarkably young sounding so the trooper must be but a babe in arms.

“
Ta me are meisce
,” he said in his native tongue.

“If that means you’re drunk, I can see that.”

“I ain’t going back,” the Scythelord protested.

“You’ll have to eventually,” his companion replied.

“Nope, don’t have to if I don’t want to.” He thumped his chest. “For I am the king!”

“Are you now?” the youthful voice asked and Cair could hear humor in the question.

“Fucking straight, I am!” He screwed up an eye to try to make out the face but the glare of the sun prevented him for seeing anything save the trooper’s shadow.

“Won’t Prince Bennick have something to say about that?”

Before Cair could answer, his companion squatted down in front of him and he was pleasantly surprised to see a very pretty—nay, a lovely—woman hunkered before him.

“Who’re you?” he inquired, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Davan,” she replied. “Your new healer?”

His face screwed up and then relaxed as memories fell into the place. “Aye!” he said, pointing the jug at her. “I know you. You’re the wench with the shitty-looking hair!”

She sat down on the sand and crossed her knees. “May I have a sip?”

He pulled the jug to him as though it were the most precious commodity in his world. “No. Get your own!”

Davan spied another jug and reached for it. She uncorked it with ease and lifted the brew to her lips. Wincing as she swallowed the fiery liquor, she sat it between her legs.

“Aren’t you hot?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Roasting like a pig o’er a spit,” he replied.

“It’s cooler inside the ship.”

“It’s safer out here,” he mumbled and took another hearty pull on his jug. 62

Pleasure’s Foehn

“Safe from what?”

He closed his eyes. “Pain.”

Davan re-corked the jug in her lap. “Where do you hurt, Captain?”

Cair put his free hand to his chest. “My heart,” he whispered. “My heart hurts.”

Thinking he was grieving over the loss of his mistress, Davan’s lips thinned. “You are a young man. You’ll survive.”

“Will I?” he asked, opening his eyes to look at her.

She was stunned to see tears streaking down his sweaty cheeks. The sight touched her in a way she hadn’t felt in many years.

“Do you know what it is to lose a member of your family?” he asked. Davan nodded. “Aye, Captain. I do.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Truly?”

Looking away from the sorrow etching Cair Ghrian’s handsome face, Davan looked out over the desert. “Both my parents were lost while serving on a medivac transport, shot down by an Aduaidh Skyraider. My brother Mason—my twin brother—died off the coast of
an Ghréig
five years ago when the shuttle he was piloting lost power and plunged into the Muir Sea. My oldest brother Roman was killed when his fighter flamed out over
an Ostair
.
I have a sister and a brother imprisoned on Amerigen and another brother who has been listed as MIA.” She looked back at him. “Yes, Captain. I know all too well what it is to lose your kin.”

Cair began counting on the fingers of his left hand when she’d finished speaking. He lifted his head. “Four dead, two in prison and one missing.”

“And that’s of those whose fates I know,” she said. “I’ve four siblings I’ve had no word about since the war bled over to Eurus Quadrant.”

He lowered his hand. “My pain can not compare to yours,” he said.

“But it hurts all the same.”

“It hurts so bad I want to lie here and die.”

“No woman is worth that, Captain,” she snapped.

Cair screwed up his face. “Hell, no. I agree.”

“Then why are you sitting her feeling sorry for yourself because you sent Amethyst away?” she challenged.

He blinked. “I sent her away?”

Davan’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t remember?”

“Don’t give a damn about her but didn’t know I’d sent her ass away,” he said and swiped at the tears that were dripping from his chin. “Glad I did, though.”

“Then why are you crying?”

It was as though that one word released all the turmoil that had been building in Cair Ghrian. His pain and loss, and terrible grief welled up and poured forth like a 63

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

lanced wound and the howl of anguish that overtook him pitched him sideways into the sand and he drew up in a fetal position and began to shake with his sobbing. At a loss to know what had caused such a reaction, Davan uncrossed her legs and crawled over to him to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad,” she said, stroking his arm. She was not prepared for him to grab at her, wrapping his arms around her hips, and to lay his head in her lap. Like a little boy—hurt and seeking maternal soothing—

he held on to her and cried so hard it seemed as though his heart would break.

“Shush,” she crooned to him, putting her arms around him. The sound of his crying rent her spirit, pulling it forcefully apart as he sobbed. His quaking shoulders, the tears of a strong, virile man, touched her in a way she could never have explained and made her feel so protective of him her arms tightened their hold. She was still holding him—though his crying had ceased—when she looked up to see Seamus Rawls and two other men coming toward them through the wavering heat. She was smoothing back Cair’s damp hair from a forehead dotted with sweat. His eyes were closed and she thought he had slipped into a drunken sleep. Seamus’ lined face was filled with concern as he walked up to them. He hunkered down to keep Davan from having to squint up at him through the harsh sunlight. “How is he?” the older man asked quietly.

“Grieving,” Davan replied. “But it can’t be because he sent his whore away. There has to be more to it than that. Did he lose one of his brothers?”

“Aye,” Seamus replied. “The baby boy.” He motioned one of the men with him to pick up the captain.

Davan nodded. She released her hold on Cair as the man stooped, slid his arms under his captain’s back and legs and lifted him easily, shifting the weight against him before he turned and headed back to the entrance to the desert deck.

“He’ll be dehydrating,” Davan said. “I suggest you take him to sickbay and I’ll get some fluids in him.”

“Drunk as a pissant, is he?” Seamus inquired, surveying the brandy jugs lying about.

“He’s not going to feel all that well when he comes to,” she replied and started to get up.

Seamus put out his hand and helped Davan to her feet. “I wouldn’t have ever thought of looking for the lad here but after the engineer told me you’d been nosing around asking questions about heat sigs and such, I realized this had to be where he was hiding.” He fell into step beside Davan. “I appreciate your help, Doc.”

Smiling at the title, Davan wiped the sweat from her face with her sleeve. “How did his brother die?”

“I don’t know the particulars of it for I just learned of his death today but he’s been gone for weeks now.”

64

Pleasure’s Foehn

“And he just learned of it,” Davan said.