WINDREAPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "I will not do to you what I do to them, Amber-lea," he had yelled.

  "What is it you do to them you will not do with me?"

  "I like hurting them!"

  Her stricken face told him more than words what she thought of his dark need.

  "For some reason, the girl feels an obligation to you," Legion had said. "She says you will need her."

  Conar shrugged. The pain was going to be bad, but if gentle, tender arms could hold him while the pain was at its worst, maybe, just maybe, he could live through his coming ordeal. He had nodded his acceptance of the girl's request.

  Now, he knew why she wanted to go to Ivor. It wasn't to be with him, but to be with Brelan Saur.

  "When did this happen? Why didn't I see it coming?"

  He turned away from the window and sat heavily on the bed. He stared at the floor, wishing with all his being that he had some of Sern's magic elixir. Not looking up as the door opened, he told the intruder to go away.

  "If ye ain't hungry, it ain't no skin off my nose!"

  He looked at Sadie MacCorkingdale and grimaced. "Put the tray on the bed and leave me alone. I'm in no mood for your damned snide remarks."

  Sadie's eyes flared with hatred, but she did his bidding, placing the tray with its tall glass of milk on the bed beside him. "Ain't gonna say another word to you! Eat it or not, I don't care!"

  He didn't look up as she left. He wasn't hungry, didn't want the pork chops and stuffed potatoes she had left. He picked up the frosty glass of milk, took a sip or two, and sent the glass hurtling across the room. As soon as he did, two guards rushed in and hurried to pick up the pieces.

  "Shouldn't have given him a glass to begin with!" one hissed as he bent to retrieve the shards.

  "That vile temper ain't no better now than it was three days ago!" the other commented. "It's like Lord Saur said—he's getting worse!'

  "Don't talk about me as though I wasn't here!" Conar shouted, and was rewarded with, not the shock and despair he had hoped to see, but annoyance.

  They took the broken glass and left, not bothering to speak to him on their way out.

  "Bastards!' he spat under his breath and plopped on the bed. When the door opened again, he was ready to do battle with whoever had dared to bother him. He sighed. "Go away."

  Amber-lea ignored his stiff, staccato burst of rudeness and closed the door behind her. "I am packed, Milord. Is there something I may do for you before we leave tomorrow?"

  He looked at her lovely, innocent face and felt an anger building in him that would have torn the shingles off a roof if he had been a gust of wind. "What the hell do you want from me?" He stood and faced her. His hands doubled at his sides and he knew his face was tight and ugly.

  Used to his rudeness, arrogance, and foolish questions, she shrugged her dainty shoulders and smiled. "I thought I was here to help you, Milord. If you do not want me to go with you—"

  "I don't!" he snarled, shoving the tray of food from the bed. It landed in a heap on the carpet.

  Amber-lea looked at the waste of food. "Why must you act like that, Milord? Does it make you feel more in command?"

  His eyes bore into her. "It makes me feel vindicated, mam'selle!"

  "Vindicated from what? There are those who would kill just to lap up the food from that carpet. And yet you waste good food with a childish, school-boy tantrum that proves nothing."

  Having her scold him made matters worse. He turned his back on her before he could lash out with the hand he wanted so desperately to smash across her lovely cheek. "I don't want you with me at Ivor or anywhere else. Get what belongings and don't you ever come back to this keep." He turned and fixed her with a look of fury. "Do you understand, bitch?"

  "You saw me with your brother, didn't you?"

  He squinted at her.

  "He said he had seen you at the window, but when I looked I saw only frosted glass. But you did see us, didn't you?"

  "It's not the first time I've seen Brelan Saur through a window with one of my women in his arms!"

  Amber-lea shook her head. "I've never been your woman. You wouldn't let me."

  "No, but you're his, aren't you?"

  "Not in the way you mean."

  "Get out!" he hissed, angry and hurt by her lies. No two people could hold one another like he had seen and not be lovers.

  "Believe what you want. That is your way. But I have not lain with Lord Brelan. The only man who has known my body is you. Now that I carry your child—"

  "Get rid of it!" Though he stared at her with fury, he had said the terrible words from pure instinct and anger. The moment he spoke, he regretted it.

  Her chin came up. "This babe is as much mine as it is yours. If you do not wish to claim it, Milord, you need not. But I will have this child no matter what you say. I am not Gezelle. I will fight you for this babe!"

  He was stunned that the girl knew of his long-ago affair with Gezelle, shocked she knew of the babe he had forced Gezelle to abort. But he didn't let her see the pain the knowledge caused him. Instead, he dismissed.

  "I have not betrayed you except with a few stolen kisses." Her voice was calm, but sadness filled the tone. "Lord Brelan has denied us both what we truly want so no further hurt would be done to you."

  He looked over his shoulder. "Then go to him! Go to your lover! You have my blessings to screw him 'til his heart's content!"

  "Foul language does not make your point any clearer, Milord."

  "Get out of my gods-be-damned room, woman!" he shouted, each word growing louder and more forceful.

  She looked at him for a long moment. "I wish you well, Milord. I really do."

  "Get out!" He picked up an apple from the floor and threw it at her, intentionally missing her.

  "Goodbye, Milord." She opened the door and left, never looking back.

  * * *

  She hadn't been gone but a few minutes before Brelan Saur thundered through the door, his face filled with rage. "Why?" he yelled.

  Conar was sitting on the bed, his knees up, encircled within the perimeter of his arms. He gazed at Brelan. "I have kept you from one woman. I'll not keep you from this one."

  Brelan had been prepared to shout, scream, hit, if necessary, to make Conar change his mind about Ambie accompanying them to Ivor. As much as he loved the girl, he was willing to give her to Conar so his brother's time in "withdraw hell" would be less severe. Now, he understood all too well what Conar had done. "You knew?"

  Conar shrugged. "Not until today."

  "We haven't—"

  "I know."

  "Ambie will still gladly go with you, Conar. All you need do is ask."

  Conar's smile was tired and filled with infinite denial. "What kind of man would I be if I kept the two of you apart?" The smile wavered. "What kind of brother?"

  "I love her."

  Conar looked into Brelan's eyes. "Then go to her, stay with her. There's no need for you to go with me to Ivor."

  "I will be with my brother."

  "Your brother doesn't need eight babysitters." Conar tugged on the iron manacle around his ankle. "I don't need to be chained like an animal, either."

  "It's there so you won't run," Brelan said. "You would, and you know it."

  Conar's smile filled with threat. "In a heartbeat!"

  Brelan chuckled. "And so the band stays where it is." He turned to go, wanting desperately to say goodbye to Ambie in a way he knew Conar would expect. He paused at the door, craned his neck over his shoulder, and grinned. "Thank you."

  Conar snorted. "Save it. You're going to wish me back in the Labyrinth before this is all over."

  Brelan shook his head in denial. "Never there—ever again."

  * * *

  Alone in his room, Conar stared at the iron band, wishing himself free of it. A sly, wicked grin touched his lips, but he shrugged away the spite and leaned back against the headboard.

  It was time he soared with the eagles once more.

  He needed to find out
if he could.

  Chapter 27

  * * *

  Teal looked up as Roget slammed through the kitchen door at Ivor Keep, muttering dire predictions, then shouting for a servant boy to fetch him a raw beef steak. Teal smiled, lowered his head, and continued to eat his eggs and bacon. The table shook as Roget sat heavily in a chair beside him.

  Roget grabbed Teal's tankard of milk and drained it. "You know what he needs?"

  Teal kept his attention on his plate, afraid if he looked at Roget, he'd laugh. That was the last thing his brother needed and it could well be a potentially lethal mistake. He hid his mouth behind a napkin. "What?"

  "He needs his ass kicked, that's what!" Roget grabbed the raw steak from the servant boy and slapped it on the purple bruise forming beneath his left eye. He glowered at the boy, whose grin vanished as soon as Roget hissed. But the boy sputtered laughter as he ran from the irate man.

  "Ill-mannered little piece of dried snot!" Roget bellowed after the retreating boy. It was his favorite epithet for anyone who displeased him.

  If he hadn't caught Roget's woebegone expression, Teal wouldn't have laughed. As it was, the look on Roget's unsmiling face was so comical, so unlike the self-possessed, stoic Roget du Mer, Teal laughed, spraying eggs and bits of bacon over the table.

  "I'm so glad you find this amusing, Tealson. I do not!" Roget's palm painfully cuffed the back of Teal's head.

  "Knock it off!" Teal sputtered, ears ringing, head aching. He scooted out of his chair. The raw steak sailed past his head. "Roget, enough!" A banana flew past his ear. "Enough, I say!" He sobered as an apple hit his shoulder with enough force to bring tears to his eyes. "Damn it, that hurt!"

  "Aye, well his left hook hurt, too!"

  Roget's heavy scowl sent Teal into a fresh spasm of laughter.

  "You despicable shit!" Roget shouted.

  Scraping back his chair from the table and sending it crashing to the floor, Roget ran after Teal, who made tracks down the hallway and into the keep proper.

  * * *

  Shalu Taborn watched Roget sprinting after his brother and grunted in sympathy. He gingerly fingered the lump on his jaw, knowing exactly how Roget felt. Sentian Heil did, too, he thought. That one had a broken nose!

  "Good morning, Shalu!" Jah-Ma-El called cheerfully from the library door. He carried a huge tome of poetry under his arm. "Have a good night's rest?"

  The Necroman turned a fierce glare at the warlock. He was not a morning person and Jah-Ma-El's unfailing good cheer annoyed him. He trudged into the kitchen where he shouted at the servant boy to stop the infernal laughter.

  * * *

  Jah-Ma-El shook his head. Everyone was like a cat with a sore tail in a roomful of foot soldiers with spiked boots. If someone wasn't speaking to someone else, they were shouting. If they weren't shouting, they were glaring. After only three days at Ivor, a killing might well take place any minute.

  Sighing, the sorcerer lifted the book of poetry closer up his side. Since he didn't have duty until six that evening, he planned to spend his leisure time as far away from everyone else as possible. Opening the door to the drafty solarium, he heard a loud crash overhead.

  He winced. It was going to be another one of those days.

  * * *

  Legion stood in the doorway and watched Brelan, Sentian, and Marsh struggle to hoist Conar onto a bare mattress in the center of an equally bare room. Marsh held both of Conar's ankles together while Brelan and Sentian each held a wrist.

  "Damn you, Conar! Be still!" Brelan bellowed. When he heard Legion's snort, he craned his neck. "You think this is funny?"

  "Do you see me laughing?" Legion looked at Brelan's soiled clothing and deduced what had happened—Conar had thrown the contents of his chamber pot over Brelan and, more than likely, made a mad dash for the door before Sentian and Marsh caught him. Conar's screaming and cursing had caught Legion's attention and he came to investigate.

  "Get him down on the gods-be-damned mattress!" Sentian shouted. "I can't hold him all day!"

  Snarling under his breath, Brelan yanked hard on Conar's right arm as he bucked and twisted. Wearing piss and offal was doing nothing for his humor. "I'll break your damned wrist if you don't stop it, Conar!"

  Heaving Conar onto the mattress, Sentian and Brelan opened his arms wide and forced them to the corners. The soiled, overly-ripe smelling mattress rested on the floor instead of a frame, and they battled to slip his wrists into manacles nailed into the floorboards.

  "Let me," Legion spat. As Brelan held Conar's right wrist to the mattress, Legion slipped the manacle in place, locking it.

  "Son-of-a-whoring bitch!" burst from a spitting-mad Conar.

  "Takes one to know one," Legion quipped.

  As Sentian restrained Conar's hand long enough for Legion to lock that manacle, Conar managed to free one of his ankles from Marsh's hold. Conar's foot caught Marsh in the center of his chest and sent him crashing to the floor.

  Legion chuckled as Edan came to his feet in a clumsy, painful crouch.

  Conar up drew his legs and kicked at both Brelan and Sentian. His heel caught Brelan on the shoulder. A gleam of triumph lit the midnight eyes. But his revenge was short-lived. Sentian and Legion lunged, pinning his legs to the mattress, spreading them apart while Marsh rushed forward to manacle them to the floor.

  "Cowards!" he screamed. "You sniveling, backstabbing turds!" He bucked against the chains, arching his back, and head off the mattress. The flesh on his wrists and ankles was already raw and bleeding from earlier attempts to get loose. He started hurling horrible obscenities at them, at their mothers, parts of their anatomies. He hissed and spat like a fighting feline. "I'll get you for this!"

  "Not any time soon," Brelan said.

  "Get out!" he screeched, his voice breaking with the force of the yell. "Get out and leave me the hell alone!"

  Legion headed out the door, the other men following. Once closing the door behind them, Legion leaned against the wall, listening to the vile curses coming from the room.

  "The anger will leave sometime tonight or tomorrow," Marsh said. "That is when the real ordeal will begin. Right now, he has his anger and frustration at what he feels is being unjustly done to him—that anger is overriding the withdrawal pains. When the anger dies, his cravings will set in." Edan ran a hand through his hair. He shook his head as a vitriolic curse toward him rang out from the other room.

  "What do we do when his real pain starts?" Sentian asked.

  Marsh let out a long breath. "You'll have to be strong. Believe me, it won't be easy. He'll beg. He'll make promises. He'll humiliate himself in order to get you to free him, to give him something for his pain. You'll have to ignore it. Be stronger than you've ever been, because it's not going to be easy to witness, nor easy to deny him."

  "It's just so hard to see him like this," Sentian said in a hurt voice.

  "The real horror hasn't even begun."

  Chapter 28

  * * *

  He no longer knew if it was day or night.

  The pain in his gut grew intense, and the position in which he lay made the agony worse. He was twisted to his left side, his knees drawn tightly to his chest. His arms were flung wide, secured to the floorboard, and he was unable to rub the aching, cramping belly. His eyes squeezed shut, and tears escaped from beneath the lids. He was wet with perspiration, oily from it, and smelled terrible.

  There were times when the pain was so great, he wet himself with his bodily fluids and excrement, and fought the helping hands that came to clean him. He howled his anger, or laughed hysterically as they fought to control him. He flung his body about, making contact with an unsuspecting nose, jaw, shoulder. He kicked out and sent someone grunting to the floor until they could secure his legs.

  But that had been yesterday, he thought.

  Or was it the day before?

  He didn't know.

  He didn't care.

  All there was in his universe was excruciating torm
ent.

  He didn't recognize any of the men. Their faces were blurred, distorted. He heard them calling to him, speaking to him, commanding and demanding of him, but he couldn't understand their words.

  Didn't try to.

  Didn't want to.

  Had no intention of doing so, either.

  All he wanted was for them to unshackle him so he could find the flask that would take away the pain. He groaned at the thought of the seeping sweetness flowing down his throat, calming him, soothing him, taking away the godawful agony in his gut, salving the furious rash on his body.

  He jerked against the iron bands around his wrists, wanted to unlock them with his magic, knew in his mind that he could, but forced himself not to. He flinched as a hand touched his brow, hissed at the man, called him an obscene name and lashed out with his feet. But the man had no doubt anticipated such a move, for he stepped nimbly out of the way. Frustrated, he tried to kick again, only to have his legs grabbed by hands that materialized from out of the darkness of his pain.

  "Get your filthy hands off me!"

  "Should we chain him again?" someone asked.

  The question penetrated Conar's red-hot pain. The thought of being secured spread-eagle while burning agony ate at his exposed stomach terrified him. "No! Don't chain me again!"

  "It will hurt him the more, but it has to be done," someone else remarked. "No one will be able to get near enough to restrain him in a few hours. The drug is leaving his system faster now and his pain will be worse."

  "Don't chain me!" Protests did him no good, for the men dragged his legs apart and slipped his ankles into the manacles. He shouted his fury.

  * * *

  "He doesn't understand what we're doing," Sentian said. "He thinks we're torturing him." Easing his hands from Conar's legs, he sat back on his haunches. "And maybe we are."

  Marsh shook his head. "You can't look at it that way. If you do, you'll weaken. He needs you to be strong."

  "I don't know how much more I can take." Legion reached out to caress his brother's face, only to have a string of filth erupt from Conar's mouth.