WINDREAPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Conar went still as death. "Egret!" he called. "Take these other men inside the cave and keep them there."

  "Aye, Lord Darkwind!" Egret shouted, motioning his men to herd the others into the cave. He came up short when Conar called out once more.

  "Take this with you. I won't be needing it." Conar's hands were on the buckle of the baldric that held his lethal-looking blade.

  "Are you sure, Milord?"

  "I need no weapon against this motherless bastard." Conar handed his sword and belt to Egret, drew off his black gloves, handing them over as well. "Keep the men inside with you. Keep them well away from the entrance. I want no one to view what goes on here."

  Kullen whimpered and sank to his knees.

  * * *

  After Egret left with his men, Tymothy Kullen watched as the black fabric came away from Darkwind's bearded face. His brows drew together. There was something vaguely familiar about that cold, hard face looking down at him.

  "Take a good look at me, Kullen," the Darkwind ordered. "Take a long, hard look at me."

  Kullen knew deep in his soul he would never live to tell another human being what this man looked like. There was strength and purpose in the Darkwind that would have stopped any man from going for his sword.

  "Don't you remember me, Kullen?"

  At the Dark Overlord's words, spoken so calmly, so matter-of-factly, Kullen knew his death was imminent. "I don't know you, man!" he hissed, anger surfacing from his fatalistic knowledge that he was going to die.

  "Then you'd better look closer."

  Kullen was aware that there was no longer an alien accent to the man's words. He was speaking in a soft, cultivated Serenian drawl. In tones such as the royals used.

  "Imagine this face without the beard, without the scars. Imagine it eight years younger, eight years less harrowed. See it with the eyes of a man bent on destroying it, then I think you'll remember!"

  At first Kullen couldn't fathom what the Darkwind was talking about, but as he stared into the hard midnight-blue pupils, the eyes seemed to change color. They became lighter, much lighter; they sparkled a clear, cornflower blue. He peered closely at the long blond hair that had been hidden beneath the mask, imagined it short, could almost feel what that hair would be like in his fist. He looked at the straight nose, saw it twisted, could almost see blood spurting from it. He shook his head to clear away the image and envisioned the cruel, grinning lips split and bleeding.

  When the tawny brow raised in challenge of what he was being made to see, Kullen knew. "No," he whispered. "No!"

  Conar's mouth stretched into an evil, knowing grin. "What's wrong, Kullen? Is there too much left of the face you tried to destroy to know for a certainty who I am?"

  "It can't be," Kullen mumbled, shaking his head. "McGregor is dead. You ain't him!"

  Conar's cold, deadly smiled faded. He took a step closer. "By the time I am finished with you, you whoring bastard, you will wish to every god that I was dead!"

  He lashed out with his right fist, catching Kullen across the nose, breaking it and sending a gush of red blood out of both nostrils.

  * * *

  Less than fifteen minutes later, the same amount of time it had taken Kullen to batter Conar McGregor into unconsciousness, Tymothy Kullen lay dead. What was left of his face was a red, pulpy carnage of broken bone and cartilage. With Conar's hands clamped tightly across his lips and nose, he had choked to death on his own blood.

  Conar donned his mask and joined the others inside the cave just as the moon began to show itself over the crest of the Cave of the Winds. He took the sword Egret silently handed him and buckled it on. He could feel Egret looking at his cracked, bleeding knuckles and knew that was why the man didn't bother handing him his gloves.

  "Have some men take care of the body. Tell Condor I am on my way to Eagle's aerie. I will be there if he needs me. Take the shipment of goods with you. And as for these prisoners…" He eyed the men sitting along the cave wall, their hands tied to their ankles. He nodded toward the one who had informed him of the leader's identity. "Let him go and do whatever you like with the rest." He turned to go.

  "Did you avenge him, Milord?" Egret asked.

  "Who?"

  Egret smiled sadly. "We loved him well, Lord Darkwind. The young Prince from Serenia, I mean. He was a good man. He might not have been our liege lord, but each of us had met him at one time or another."

  Behind the mask, Conar smiled. "That was why you were chosen for this particular mission."

  "We are loyal to him and his. If you made it right for his widow and family, we are obliged," one of the others called.

  Conar walked toward the cave entrance. Over his shoulder, he spoke softly. "I only did what Conar McGregor never had the chance to do."

  Chapter 20

  * * *

  Kaileel Tohre stared at the messenger. "Repeat what you said."

  "Holiness, please don't be angry at me. I—"

  "There is no entrance into the Labyrinth?" Kaileel buried his hands in the messenger's tunic and shook him. "There has to be an entrance!"

  "We spent two days trying to find a way in, Holiness," the man whimpered. "The spot where you had marked on the map was there, but it was sealed shut. We couldn't open it." Spittle drooled from the corner of the messenger's mouth.

  "Did you find either of the transport ships?" Tohre shouted.

  "They have vanished, Holiness. But there is that ship—"

  Kaileel shoved the man away. "Don't tell me tales of that damned ship!"

  "But, Holiness, it is black. If it isn't the Vortex or the—"

  Tohre struck the messenger's mouth. "I won't hear of it!"

  "If you will but—"

  "Get out!" Tohre screamed.

  The messenger backed out of the room. Tohre stalked to his window and flung open the portal.

  "Who could have sealed the entrance? Saur?" He leaned out of his window, his attention caught by a shooting star coursing across the heavens. "Has he returned after all? Are the rumors true?"

  He closed his eyes, sending his thoughts far to the south, to the arid land of Tyber's Isle. He crossed the hot sands, ran his hands along the bluff's hidden entrance, and found nothing.

  "But why was the entrance sealed?" he repeated, gulping in breaths of cold mountain air. "Why?"

  He tried again, sending his mind out over the ocean, seeking an image, a voice, a feeling. When nothing came, he realized what must have happened. He clenched his fists so hard that he drove a nail into the palm of his hand.

  Kaileel Tohre threw back his head and let out an inhuman bellow of rage that echoed over the snow-covered mountains and hung in the air like a death knell.

  "You're free, aren't you?" Tohre whispered, his heart skipping beats. "Saur found you and has set you free! You're home, aren't you?"

  He gathered the velvet drapes in his hands and began to rend the material. His teeth ground against themselves; his lips drew back in a vicious snarl. "Damn you! Damn you!"

  With his full attention on the velvet he was shredding, he didn't hear his captain of the guard enter the chamber. When he became aware of the man's presence, he turned and screamed. "What the hell do you want?"

  "Perhaps I should come back, Holi—"

  Tohre leapt over the distance separating them and closed his hands around the captain's neck.

  "What is it?" His thumbs pressed hard into the man's throat.

  "Holiness—please!" the man gasped, trying to drag the hands from his throat. "It's about—the Darkwind!"

  Tohre's breathing stilled. His hands came away from the man's body. Turning his back, he stared sightlessly out the window. "Leave!"

  The door opened and closed almost within the same moment.

  It made sense now. All of it. Corbin's disappearance. The shipments of gold stolen. The sacrifices retaken. Ships lost at sea. That damnable black ship called the Ravenwind. At that moment, all of it made perfectly logical sense.

  Tohre's ha
nds trembled. He brought them up to his face and looked at them. A low moan escaped his parted lips and he sank to the floor.

  Alone in his chambers, Kaileel Tohre began to cry.

  For the first time in his long life, he was afraid. Everything he had planned, schemed over the years, was on the point of destruction.

  And he knew who to thank for that.

  Aye, he thought in panic—someone had set him free.

  Conar McGregor was back.

  And back with a vengeance that had a name—

  The Dark Overlord of the Wind: The Raven!

  Chapter 21

  * * *

  Bent put his feet on the rich, fertile soil of Chale and smiled. He had been riding for three days and was tired, dusty, hungry, and sore. He was looking forward to a night spent in the Nighthawk's aerie before leaving the next morning for the long trip back to Serenia. Hopefully with Conar in tow.

  He made his way to the temple only to be told that Nighthawk had gone to Oceania with a friend, a masked man in black who had a rather strange accent. His head shaking back and forth with exasperation, Bent wearily remounted his horse and set off for the sea land of Oceania.

  * * *

  While Bent was urging his horse to a faster canter along the border between Chale and Oceania, four men were sitting down to dinner in the newly reconstructed palace in the capital of Oceania.

  Wine flowed freely, too freely for one of the men, and the others regarded him with mild alarm.

  Chand Wynth was doodling on a scrap of paper, but his attention wandered often to the man sitting across the table. He would follow the man's hand from table to goblet to mouth to table. He had followed that hand so often the count soon eluded him. He was sure it was well over forty, since there were four bottles of spent wine on the table before his friend.

  He looked at what he had been writing and winced. What Kaileel Tohre wouldn't give for a look at this, he thought. He crumpled the paper and tossed it into the nearby fireplace. The paper landed in the flames, and burned with more speed than it should have. Perhaps, he thought with a giddy laugh, the gods, Themselves, didn't want even the flames to read what he had written.

  It had been a list of the men involved in the Wind Force, the powers behind it, their real names, their code names, the aeries, or keeps, where these men and their troops trained. It wasn't even wise to put on paper such vital information, and Chand shuddered.

  Tyne Brell, the Nighthawk, slumped in his chair. "What I'm saying, Grice, is that he may have to be terminated. If he breathes a word of what we are planning, we are all done for."

  "There has to be another way. He's been a good man until now. I hate to kill a man for one slip of the tongue. We've all made mistakes when we were angry. He meant nothing by it. He just got carried away."

  Grice's attention was caught by a servant who brought a fresh bottle of wine to the man seated beside him. He frowned, but kept his mouth shut.

  "Tyne is right," Chand said. "We might get carried away on our shields if Nightingale opens his mouth again."

  Grice sighed. "I disagree. We'll give him one more chance." He looked to the man beside him. "What do you think, Conar?"

  There was a burst of arrogant laughter. "I'm in no condition to think anything. He's one of Tyne's men—let him make the decision."

  Grice looked at Tyne, but spoke to Conar. "You should be the one to decide the man's fate. You are the commander of the Force."

  Conar laughed again, and his words were slurred, cold and unfeeling. "I can't even command my fucking legs to move. How the hell am I supposed to sit in judgment?" He tried to stand to prove his point and bumped into the table before he crashed back down into his chair. He blinked, then fell forward, unconscious. Grice barely had time to put out an arm to keep him from banging face first onto the tabletop.

  With a hard edge to his voice, Grice glanced at his brother. "Help me get him upstairs, again."

  After Conar had been put to bed, the three men sat around the fireplace, the late spring day having turned unseasonably chill. They held their hands toward the flames.

  "Something is going to have to be done about him," Tyne ventured.

  "I know," Wynth sighed. "It seems like the only time the man's sober is just before a raid. An hour after that, he's deep in his cups again."

  "It's as though he can't abide being aware of the things going on around him," Chand said.

  "Did I show you the note from Chase?" Tyne asked. When the others shook their heads, he told them what had been written. "He found the man he was looking for. What was his name?"

  "Kullen?" Chand asked.

  "Chase said his men buried Kullen when Conar was through with him."

  "I'm almost afraid to ask what he did," Grice said.

  "He gave tit for tat," Tyne mumbled. "He beat the man to death with his bare hands. There wasn't anything left to recognize when Conar got through with the bastard."

  "How many men has he killed from that sick list of his?" Grice asked.

  Chand looked at the ceiling. "At last count, he had four names left. That was before Kullen." He turned his backside to the fire. "We all know who's at the top of that list."

  "Well, he's added one more," Tyne quipped. "Chase got word from Conar to send an inquiry to Rylan concerning a High Priest named Robbie MacCorkingdale. Any time Conar wants information about a man, he ends up on that list."

  Grice shot out his long legs to the fire. "We should return him to Boreas. Brelan's had men looking for him. Holm and Paegan are bringing the ship into the harbor at the end of the week. I suggest we put him on board and ship him to Brelan."

  "You wanted to go see your sister. Now is as good a time as any. Why don't you accompany him?" Tyne asked.

  "Why don't we all go?" Chand remarked. "We can get word to the others and they can be there when we arrive."

  "That's rather dangerous, don't you think?" Tyne asked. "All of us gathered in the same place at the same time?"

  Chand shrugged. "Not with Occultus' help. We'll send word that Conar is in trouble. Tell Occultus that we need to sit him down and talk with him before he gets his bloody self killed. I think Ching-Ching and Pearl should come, too."

  "He sure as hell won't like us ganging up on him," Grice reminded his brother.

  "It's better we are the ones ganging up on him than some of Tohre's men!"

  * * *

  The huge ship that lay at anchor in the harbor of Sea Drift Keep awed Bent. He stared at the soaring masts with their burden of black sail being furled. The ship's sleek hull, black as a starless night, rode the gently lapping water with a majestic insolence that made him sure it was a fighting ship that had no equal. He looked at the red Raven insignia on the topmast and his heart filled with pride.

  One of Grice's bodyguards hurried over. "Be ye the man they call Bent?"

  Bent smiled. "I was expected?"

  "No, but ye be needed!" The guard jerked his head toward the keep. "Best ye hurry, man."

  As he entered the keep behind the guard, Bent heard shouts and vehement curses. The voice making all the noise became music to Bent's ears. He laughed and followed the sound of breaking glass. He came up short in the doorway leading to what had to be an office. Stunned, his mouth dropped open. If the black ship had put him in awe, what he was now seeing was something akin to a religious experience.

  Standing on top of a long desk, totally minus his clothing, Conar brandished his sword at the men gathered around him, who were obviously attempting to get him off the desk and the deadly weapon out of his hands. He lunged at Paegan Hesar, and the boy backed off with a grin.

  "I'll gut you, you little tadpole!" Conar shouted at the youngest Viragonian Prince.

  Rylan laughed. "If he doesn't fillet himself first."

  "Get off that desk. I'm not going to tell you again!" Grice Wynth was obviously losing his temper.

  "I'm not going!" Conar took a wild swing with the sword and nearly slipped off the polished edge of the desk.


  "Papa would roll over in his grave if he saw you up there. Get down. Now!"

  Bent had been through similar scenes with Conar and knew how to handle him. Taking a deep breath, he strode forward, his huge hands raised to show he was unarmed. "Come down, Milord," he said quietly. "Or I'll pull the table out from under you." And he could, too.

  Conar turned a mean scowl to this new intrusion. "Stay away from me you over-sized troll! I'll take your lopsided head off this time!"

  "No, you won't, Your Grace." Bent smiled at the immediate fury in Conar's face at the use of his former title, which he absolutely hated. "You'll shout and you'll bluster, but in the end, you'll topple off the desk and into my arms like you've done a dozen times. I'll tuck you in bed real nice-like, and you can go to sleep—"

  "I won't do it, Bent!"

  "But you will, Your Grace." Bent spoke to him in a tone usually reserved for little boys who had gotten themselves into mischief.

  "I'll not be condescended to, Bent. I won't!"

  "You have no choice, Your Grace."

  "Stop calling me that!"

  "There are six of us to your one. You can't take us all on. Put down the little weapon before you get hurt."

  Bent knew just the right words to make Conar so angry he forgot about the other men. In his raging fury, he flew off the table and onto the giant, knocking them both to the floor. It was only a matter of seconds before the others had Conar securely wedged between them on the floor.

  Kicking out with his bare feet, he likely hurt himself more than he did the men, but he struggled anyway. He was caught fast in their strong hands. "Damn your crossed eyes!"

  "You can damn the man all you want," Grice snapped "but we are taking your ass back to Boreas. You can go clothed or with all your glory hanging out. Which will it be?"

  Glowering at the men, Conar lowered his head a fraction, but the hot anger continued.