WINDREAPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

"He got a little drunk, that's all," Roget said.

  Brelan gave a disgusted snort and turned to Thom. "Get that dead man buried before the whole Temple Regiment comes down on us!" He pointed a finger at Roget. "And get his ass upstairs and out of sight!" He swung around to fix Shalu with a murderous glare. "This guard's name is Zeb. See that he's sent through the undercurrent to Chrystallus. If I hadn't come in when I did, you bastards would have lost us a valuable man!"

  Shalu ground his teeth together. "It got out of hand."

  "It got out of hand?" Brelan sneered, "or he got out of hand?"

  "We were watching him."

  "Watching him?" Brelan bellowed. "He drew a sword to the throat of a Temple Guard, Rook! One of Kaileel Tohre's personal guards, at that! You have no way of knowing how important this man is to us. His information will be invaluable! What if Darkwind had been just a bit less sober? Huh? There were two to his one. They could have cut him down. Drunk as he is, it's a wonder he's still alive!"

  Shalu grunted. He folded his arms over his massive chest and glared back at Brelan. "You know only his own weapons can harm him. And nothing happened to him."

  "Nothing…" Brelan took a step forward. "Aye, and you're damned lucky, Rook!"

  "He's a grown man, Wren," Sentian snarled. "He does as he pleases. We have about as much authority over him as we do the wind!"

  Brelan lurched around and stepped up to Sentian. They had never liked one another and still didn't. "You've got a short memory, Sparrow. Was it not you who said, although he is a man full grown, he has the temper of a little boy? Would you let one of your sons point a naked blade at a Temple Guard and do nothing to stop him? You have as much authority over him as he has over you! You think he would knowingly let you do something so damned stupid?"

  "Nothing happened," Sentian snapped, but his face turned a lighter shade. "We would have protected him. Don't ever doubt that, Wren!"

  "I have no doubt you would have tried!" Brelan headed for the stairs, motioning the men of Conar's personal guard to follow him, although, at that moment, he would have liked to run them all through with his sword. He stopped on the steps leading to the bedchambers and fixed Shalu and Sentian with a furious glare. "Maybe I expect too much of you."

  The Necroman and the Serenian warrior exchanged looks of outrage, but neither spoke. Thom snaked out a hand and took the Temple Guard's forearm, bringing the man with them up the stairs.

  In the bedroom, Roget du Mer stood up from the mattress where he had removed the Raven's shirt and boots. "I'm sorry, Wren."

  Brelan let out an angry breath. "It's a little too late for apologies, Hawk."

  "He has no care for the danger! We do all we can to stop these situations—you know that—but we can't watch him every minute. He has this knack of disappearing on us."

  "Just like his lady used to," the Temple Guard murmured. The men turned stunned faces to him. The guard's expression turned solemn. "I know who he is. I almost croaked when I recognized him, but he's the reason I am betraying Tohre. Why do you think I joined the Wind Force? I don't give a damn about Serenian independence from the Tribunal. I cared about him! I wanted to do something I thought he would have done if he'd still been with us." He pointed his finger at Conar. "I was one of the men taking his coffin to the ship when Legion A'Lex stopped us. I got my back lashed for showing him homage by wearing a mourning band on my uniform!"

  Brelan turned an even angrier face to Shalu. "You see? If Zeb recognized him, anyone else could, too! What provoked this tonight, anyway? What did he want repeated?"

  A guilty look passed over Shalu's face. He looked to Roget for guidance. Obviously seeing no salvation, he shrugged his wide shoulders. "The other guard made a vulgar remark about the Queen."

  "What kind of remark?" Brelan inquired.

  Shalu looked away, apparently not wanting to repeat viciousness either, especially to a man he knew loved the woman.

  Brelan swung his gaze to Loure. "Well, Thommy? What did the bastard say?"

  Thom cleared his throat and ducked his bald head. "I'd rather not say."

  "I'd rather you did!"

  Thom looked up. He seemed to be seeking courage, then blurted it out in a rush of child-like petulance. "The two of them"—Thom pointed at the remaining guard—"came through the door talking about the lady. They were laughing and joking and I don't think the other guard saw Coni until it was too late. He was telling this one that the royal belly was near to bursting with another bastard brat. Conar took exception to the remark. He asked the man how a babe born within wedlock could be considered illegal. That dead man turned and, when he saw us sitting at the table, swaggered up, looked at Conar, and I think he must have known who he was. His eyes got all funny-looking."

  Zeb shook his head. "He didn't recognize His Grace. I heard him say 'Darkwind' and he thought we were going to arrest the man we'd been told to find at all costs. He fancied himself a great swordsman and he thought to insult Lord Darkwind, then fight him." The Temple Guard glanced at Brelan. "It was a fatal mistake, wouldn't you say?"

  "That wasn't his only mistake, but it got Conar's attention," Shalu admitted. "The guard said the Darkwind ought not to be fighting for the likes of the royal family. He said the lady wasn't truly married to Legion A'Lex because Legion was bastard-born. He said she was still the property of King Galen and shouldn't have joined with A'Lex."

  "And he said as much to Conar?" Brelan asked, now understanding how the man had signed his own death warrant with Conar.

  "Well, that and a bit more," Thom added.

  "How much more?"

  When no one answered, a lengthy silence ground to a stop when Conar's slurred speech shot over the still room. "He said, 'The bitch should have been slain with her first treasonous husband years ago so no brats, legal or otherwise, would have slid from between her whoring thighs!'"

  Brelan flinched. "I understand now."

  "Do you?" Conar shouted, coming to his elbows in the bed. He turned a hateful smirk to his brother. "Then how about explaining it to me! Why the hell should I care what is said about that faithless slut? Tell me why I risked my life to defend her so-called honor?"

  "Because you still lov…" Sentian couldn't finish, for he found himself in Conar's hard grasp, pinned to the wall. He hadn't seen the man leap from the bed and reach for him. Drunk or not, power emanated apparently from those muscled arms.

  "Be careful, very careful, what you say," Conar hissed, shaking Heil as though he were a rag doll.

  "Leave off, Coni," Brelan warned. "You know why you did what you did. Let it go. It isn't important now. I have news from Boreas Keep."

  Conar grunted his disinterest, let Sentian go, then stumbled to the bed. He plopped down with enough force to rattle the headboard.

  "Has something happened?" Roget asked.

  "I couldn't get in, that's what happened!" Brelan snapped. "They've increased the guard four times over. Something has made them cautious. From what I have learned from Rylan's men, Legion and the rest of his court are under what can only be termed 'house arrest.' I think someone has gotten wind of the fact that he's aiding us."

  "So?" There was contempt in Conar's voice.

  Exasperated with his brother, Brelan glared. "So, they could all be in grave danger. Tohre suspects something."

  "Aye, but he can't prove it," Zeb said. "He doesn't know exactly what His Highness has been doing."

  "His Highness!" Conar mimicked. His upper lip raised in scorn. "His Royal Highness, King Legion, the Bastard!"

  Brelan ignored the outburst. "If Tohre thinks Legion and Liza are behind this rebellion, he might—"

  "It doesn't matter why Kaileel thinks!" Conar snapped. "There's nothing he can do to stop us. He won't harm A'Lex or his whoring wife because he needs them. He knows how the people would feel if their precious monarchy was harmed. They'd revolt. He'll not harm the bastard offspring, either. The slut is in no—"

  Brelan leapt across the distance between them and slammed his
brother against the headboard. "I won't have you speaking of her like that!" He thudded Conar's head against the wall. "If you can't keep a civil tongue in your mouth regarding her, don't say anything at all!"

  Steel glints came from the dark blue eyes as they narrowed. Conar's smile was lethal. "I forgot she was your whore once, too."

  One moment Conar was sitting with his back to the wall, the next he was sliding sideways down it, due to the hard, vicious punch Brelan administered. He sat where he landed and glared up at Brelan.

  "If you ever, ever, open your mouth and call her that in my presence again, brother or not, I'll beat the shit out of you!"

  As if finally realizing he was drunk and that his recent words were things he would not ordinarily say, Conar kept his mouth shut. Standing up against the wall, he put a hand to his jaw and continued to stare at Brelan.

  "I'm returning to Boreas," Brelan told Roget. "Maybe if I can get word to Teal, I can find a way into the keep." He looked at Thom. "Take Zeb to Gull's place. Make sure he stays healthy on the way, eh?"

  Thom nodded and he and the Temple Guard left.

  "Have you tried going through the grotto?" Conar asked, his voice quite, subdued.

  Brelan looked at him, his mouth open in shock. "By the gods, but I'd forgotten about that!"

  Conar shrugged as he sat on the bed. "Be careful. That's where Galen died and where I lost what life I had." He laid down and turned his back to them.

  Brelan looked at Shalu. "Keep an eye on this child, Taborn. Keep his ass out of mischief." He strode to the door, jerked it open, and fled before Shalu could answer.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  Torture, nor exile, nor imprisonment had brought Conar McGregor to his knees. For a short time he had risen again and the things that had happened to him, the pain he had suffered, strengthened him into a man fully capable of crushing anyone foolish enough to defy him. The years of abuse had shaped his willpower. It had toned down his arrogance, but the hot streak of sick fury coursing through his veins made him incautious at times, and his friends worried about his recklessness.

  Yet danger held no concern for him. If anything, it seemed to excite the man he had become and he thrived on the rush of adrenaline that coursed through his body when danger confronted him.

  His vengeance against the Domination had begun in Necroman with the arrival of a group of men trained to war without thought, to assassinate without conscience, to murder with little regard to the outcome.

  In Necroman, the Shadow Warriors had arrived.

  Misha Kharchenko had been sent to the Labyrinth at the same time as Sentian Heil, and Grice and Chand Wynth. The Outer Kingdom warrior from the Tzar's palace at St. Steffensberg had been among those who had accompanied Conar to freedom aboard the Boreas Queen. When he brought five men he called "his cousins" to the training camp outside Jhakar that day he had not bothered to introduce them to the Darkwind.

  "They will guard your back, Milord, but no one will ever see them," the reticent man had told him. "Do not even look for them, for not even you will see them lurking behind you. They will be your Shadow."

  These men from the Outer Kingdom taught the Darkwind how to kill. They taught him not to brook resistance from his men, not to tolerate excuses, not to accept half-measures, not to allow compromises where commitment was concerned or to give no quarter to those who had been unwise to cross him.

  And he hadn't seen them, though he had felt their presence many times. They finished what he started, killed men he had left wounded, but he didn't care. Those killed were his enemies and he gloried in their deaths.

  During times when he met the challenge of the Temple Guards he found in various towns, he shone in his men's eyes. It was then when he killed with abandon, leaving nothing behind for his Shadow Warriors to destroy, that made the people afraid of him. Ignoring his own welfare, though concerned with the lives of those around him, he would slice and stab, laying waste to every life his sword could drain, laughing in the face of death. He was his most cruel during those forays with the men who had been responsible for his torture in the bowels of the Tribunal Inquisition Hall, and he looked into the face of every guard, keeping watch for one in particular. No guard ever struck blades with him and lived to tell the tale.

  "Do you know Tymothy Kullen?" he would ask them before they died.

  It was not only his volume of bloodletting on the battlefields that he did to excess. Everything was beyond the normal: drinking, fighting, whoring. It seemed to his men as though he was trying to cram those seven years of hell into the one he was presently living. On occasion, his eyes would go dull, and he would cocoon himself even deeper in his self-inflicted web of silence, his manner even more forbidding, morose, and he would defy anyone to impugn on his withdrawal under penalty of pain.

  It was during those times when he would turn toward the distant crenelated walls of his birthplace, to the sand-colored stone of Boreas Keep, and his hands would clench into fists by his rigid body as he stared for hours at the keep. When the mood broke, he would find the nearest female and release his pent-up, frustrated lust on her, often calling out a name that meant nothing to the woman, but that held a world of dark feeling for him.

  His moods were not always somber and self-destructive. There was still a vestige of chivalry left in him, a holdover from his childish days as an untried youth, but it was as ethereal as a will-'o-the-wisp: coming and going as quickly as a rainbow after a storm. Children could still bring out that side of him, but his gaze would follow them hungrily and be unusually bright.

  He was gallant, courteous to the common folk, and it was that quality in him they sensed which caused them to write ballads about him. It was the essence of him that fashioned legend, but none of his men ever saw that side of his nature. He viewed it as a weakness. The knights of legend of whom ballads and sonnets and plays were written, who could slay dragons for their damsels in distress, who fed the poor and righted every wrong, were only myths.

  Darkwind was real.

  His fury was real.

  The core of the Brotherhood of the Wind, men like Roget and Shalu and Brelan and Grice Wynth, feared for him. They prayed for him. They carefully watched his back. But none of them could make the pain in his eyes go away. None could quench the fury in his face when a certain name was spoken in his hearing. None could give him back the peace of spirit he had lost.

  Only one person could do that, and she, like his peace of mind, was lost to him forever.

  * * *

  "Holy shit!" the man shouted. "It's a ghost!"

  The man ran as fast as his pigeon-toes could carry him down the alley, his hands in the air, his legs pumping furiously.

  "You see?" Brelan screamed at Ward Summerall. "See what I've been trying to tell you numbskulls!"

  Sentian and Thom were supporting Conar's dead weight between them. The Raven had come to long enough to look into the man's face. He smirked. "Hello!"

  The man's turned white under the light of the torch overhead. "A ghost!" he shrieked, backing away, his hands up to ward off the evil confronting him.

  "A drunk ghost!" Conar agreed.

  "Help! Help!" The man nearly slammed face first into a brick building, but swerved at the last moment. "A ghost! A ghost!"

  "I think they heard you!" Conar shouted after him, then his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped in his men's hands again.

  "Go after that fool and silence him!" Brelan snarled at Ward. "Now, Summerall! Now!"

  * * *

  Storm and Thom smiled at one another as the balladeer sang. Now and again they would blush, look down at the table, or cock a surprised brow. Their feet tapped out the song's rhythm, their fingers beating a tattoo on their table.

  "Sing it again!" a tavern patron shouted as the balladeer finished.

  The tall Ionarian songwriter grinned and began to strum his guitar once more, nodding as men filed past his stool and plunked silver coins into the earthen jug at his feet.
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  Thom nodded in time to the beatas the balladeer began repeat the tale of the Dark Wind.

  "He'll bust a gut laughing when he hears this!" Storm remarked.

  Thom grinned. "Think the singer will let me copy down the words?"

  Storm snorted. "You'd better not!"

  The singer began his tale in a crisp, heavily-accented Ionarian blend of romance and excitement.

  ——

  "On a steed as black as the darkest night,

  He rides forth like the Wind.

  His sword will flash and his arrows fly,

  To death, his enemies he'll send, he'll send;

  To death, his enemies he'll send.

  His midnight eyes will pierce your soul,

  His gaze can stop your heart,

  With courage strong and honor bold,

  His aim has never missed its mark, its mark;

  His aim has never missed its mark.

  Ride, Darkwind, ride, the Wind Force at your side,

  Your whereabouts we will hide.

  Ride on through the night, past the morning light,

  We'll keep you safe from the bounty hunter's sight.

  He robs from the rich and he gives to the poor,

  Gold taken from the local treasury.

  For those who betray us, he has a cure:

  His blade will cut out the treachery, the treachery;

  His blade will cut out the treachery.

  By the wagon load, the ladies he does save,

  The orphans he clothes and feeds.

  He sees to the old and he frees the enslaved,

  He knows what his countrymen need, what they need,

  He knows what his countrymen need.

  Ride, Darkwind, ride, the Wind Force at your side,

  Your whereabouts, we will hide.

  Ride on through the night, past the morning light,

  We'll keep you safe from the bounty hunter's sight.

  There are men at his side who guard his back,

  Men as deadly as Darkwind's blade.