WINDWEEPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Before the week was out, the princes of Chale, Ionary, and Virago, in addition to the king of Oceania and the Emperor of Chrystallus, as well as those small Emirates along the Diabolusian border that had become friendly during King Gerren's reign, swelled the ranks of the freedom fighters with combat-hardened veterans from their own regiments. In the name of Conar McGregor, the resistance fighters raided caravans, slaughtered Temple Guards and Tribunal agents, rescued victims destined for sacrifice and burned to the ground any Temple not highly protected.

  In retaliation, the Brotherhood gathered together Conar McGregor's children at their monastery high atop Mount Serenia and murdered them. Their mutilated bodies were sent to each of the countries involved in the rebellion. Only the dead prince's oldest son, Wynland Luz, escaped the massacre.

  And then the holocaust began.

  Utilizing brutal sorcery and unstoppable demonic forces, the Brotherhood of the Domination managed to effectively grind the rebellion to a halt. Men and women suspected as being part of the resistance forces were pulled from their homes and executed on the spot. Citizens brought in for interrogations were never seen again.

  Those who held any kind of alliance—or were even suspected of complicity with the rebels—were summarily imprisoned or hanged. Land was confiscated, animals were seized, personal property was taken.

  The jails soon began to overflow. Hangings became a daily sight in every town and village. Severed heads were stuck on poles outside Temples as a warning to others not to balk at the even harsher restrictions that were now placed on the people. Taxes went higher and more and more children began to disappear until the body count of sacrificial victims rose to staggering heights.

  The rebellion lasted only six months. The Tribunal, in league with the Brotherhood of the Domination, began invading the surrounding countries and wrecking the same horrible vengeance on the citizens of those lands as they had upon Serenia.

  The first of the countries to feel the boot heel of the Tribunal was Virago, situated to the north of Serenia. It was the tenth day of July, almost at the stroke of midnight, that the troops crashed down upon the unsuspecting town of Haelstrom Point and slaughtered all but the two royal sons of King Marcus Hesar. The royal heir to the throne, Prince Rylan, and his brother, Prince Paegan, were wounded in the fray, but managed to escape with a contingent of their rebel followers.

  The Principality of Ionary was the next to fall. Prince Chase Montyne ruled alone since his mother and older brother had been poisoned only the day before. The attack of his homeland came while he was burying his kin. It was only through cunning and ingenuity that the personal guards of the young prince were able to hide him from the slaughter. With a troop of two dozen loyal men, Prince Chase Montyne fled to Necroman.

  Chale Principality fought hard against their invaders, but their Prince, Tyne Brell, a swordsman of some note, was deathly ill at the time of the attack and was taken into custody by the Tribunal guards. A week later, he managed to escape, but was not able to return to his homeland. Thankfully, he had not been there to see his wife and children slain, his family home of Briarcliff Keep laid to waste.

  Chrystallus, alone, never fell into the hands of the Tribunal.

  Much has been written about the invasion of Oceania. Why Queen Medea was not able to use her considerable magik to stop the destruction of her country will forever be a mystery to historians. There are many theories as to why she had not foreseen the terrible danger lying in wait for her and her people. One such theory has it that, during that particular time, Queen Elizabeth of Serenia, Queen Medea's daughter, lay near death while striving to give birth to King Galen's second son. The child did not survive and the Queen, herself, nearly succumbed.

  Such being the case, it would seem likely that the Queen of Oceania, no doubt concerned about her daughter's safety, had been unmindful of her own. Had her sons, Prince Grice and Prince Chand, been home at Seadrift Keep at that time, they, too, would have met the fate of their parents and sisters.

  On the seventh day of April of this year, the rebellion was put down with the capture of the last two remaining rebel leaders. History will show how devastating the war has been for, even now, the damage is still being repaired throughout the kingdoms. Most of the rebels are in prison, some have died, many are still missing. Among those are the two youngest sons of King Gerren McGregor, Princes Coron and Dyllon, and Wyndon Luz, the oldest illegitimate son of Prince Conar McGregor.

  It is a harsh rule under which we live and the times are growing harsher still. Should you be reading this history, pray for us. Pray, also, that one day there will come another Overlord to lift us out of this terrible darkness.

  Written this 14th day of May

  In the Year of the Raven

  Chapter 2

  * * *

  The dream came again. She awakened, her black hair plastered tightly to her sweating neck, her heart racing as she gasped for breath. He took her in his arms and crooned to her. She bent her head against his shoulder and cried.

  Cried for her losses; cried for the losses to come.

  She had never thought her homeland with its mighty military and shrewd leaders could ever be invaded. She had thought Kaileel Tohre to be swallowing up the lesser, least-protected countries surrounding the borders of Serenia. Whatever it was she had thought, or not thought, at the time, she had not suspected anything of what was to follow until she was in her bearing-down pains with Galen's son.

  In her pain, she could see the great battlements of her family keep, Seadrift. Could hear the arrows sing, see the burning pitch flow from the walls. She flinched as the thud of heavy stones catapulted to land. She could sense her mother's entreaties to their ancient goddesses for help, could feel her warrior-mother's despair when no one answered. It had come too late. Perhaps too much had already been asked of the Great Lady.

  It didn't matter now, she thought with hopelessness.

  As her dead son was thrust from her body, she had seen her precious mother fall, an arrow through her chest, a black crystal dagger, the sacred weapon of the Multitude, still clutched in her small hand. She could hear her sisters' chilling screams as they were raped, torn apart by Kaileel Tohre's army of hand-picked brutes. She could almost smell her father's and brothers-in-law's blood as it flowed scarlet red over the rich marble of her family home. She had closed her eyes and wept, the babe still attached to her by its umbilical cord. Her grieving was stilled by the death all around her—her family's and her child's.

  The nightmare had began that night and she suffered through it every night since. Ironically enough, Galen's nightmares ceased that very same night.

  "I am so sorry, Liza," Galen told her.

  She clung to him. Not out of love, for there had never been love for this man and never would be. She clung to him for the strength his betrayal gave her. She thought of him coming to her on the day her family had been massacred, and she could not hold back the bitter resentment that flowed through her.

  Galen had entered the room, pain and fury etched on his handsome face. He had known what Tohre had planned for Serenia, had been a party to everything the man had done over the six months of the war. He had actively supported most of it, for he craved the power promised him by the blending of the lesser kingdoms with his own. But knowing how the fall of his wife's homeland would effect her, effect their unsteady marriage, he had been against the invasion of Oceania. He had argued to no avail, and when he learned of the slaughter of his father-, mother-, sisters-, and brothers-in-law, he had screamed his outrage to the Tribunal.

  "I knew nothing of what they planned, Liza!" he told his wife later. "I swear. They never once said anything about invading Oceania!"

  She had lain in her blood-soaked bed, her dead son lying on her belly and stared at him, the knowledge of his complicity in her family's death stamped on her pale face.

  "Liza, please!" he begged, falling to his knees beside the bed. "You must believe me! I had nothing to do with what happe
ned to your family!"

  Healer Cayn looked down at his king with hatred. "Get out! She does not need your lying mouth to worsen her pain!"

  Galen glanced at the man standing above him. "You have to make her understand, Cayn! I didn't know anything like this would happen!"

  "You could have saved them," she accused.

  "Liza, no," he moaned, reaching for her hand. It was cold as ice as he brought it to his lips. "I swear on Conar's life…"

  She jerked her hand from his grip, her lips drawn back in a snarl. "Get out!" she screamed. "Get out and stay out!"

  Cayn jerked Galen to his feet. "You heard her! Get out!"

  It was while she glared at her husband with murder that the first pain ripped through her belly and she turned white as snow. Her hands dug into the coverlet and her eyes jerked to Cayn.

  Without realizing he did so, Cayn shoved his king as hard as he could and bent over his patient.

  "Cayn?" she cried, feeling as though her insides were being torn from her.

  "Oh, my god!" Cayn whispered. "There's another babe!"

  Galen had been smashed into the wall beside his wife's bed and he stared down at her with horror on his face. He could not credit what he was seeing as Cayn spread Liza's legs. Galen watched his son thrust into the world.

  "It's alive!" Cayn cried as he guided the babe onto his mother's belly. "This one is alive, Highness." He looked into his queen's face.

  Liza could not move. She was panting from pain and barely heard the words.

  "Don't let him die, Cayn," she begged. "Don't let this one die. It's the gods' will he live!"

  Galen slumped down the wall and buried his face in his hands. "Twins," he whispered through his fingers. "Twin boys." One dead, one alive.

  Liza named the babe that had died Nathan; her surviving son she named Codian.

  "The same dream, sweeting?" Galen asked her now as he stroked her damp forehead.

  Liza nodded and pushed away from him. She turned her face into the pillow.

  Galen understood. He no longer slept with her, had not since the murder of her family, but he came to her room when the nightmares struck, as it had this night, and held her. It was the only comfort he could give. The only comfort she would allow.

  "Will you be all right?"

  Liza nodded again, but would not speak.

  He sighed. "Call me if you need me."

  Liza stared into the darkness after he left. She had never needed him. Not really. She had married the bastard thinking he would help keep her son—Conar's son—safe.

  "I hate you," she whispered. "I wish you dead."

  Her thoughts went back to the one and only time she had lain with him since their marriage four years earlier. It had been on a wild and weather-rampaged night when she had been terrified of the howling, clashing thunder and rain outside her window. She screamed as a bolt of lightning struck the side of her wall outside and he had come running.

  She clung to him, molded herself to him in stark horror as the lightning hit all around the keep. She did not notice his hands on her body, did not feel him moving aside her clothing. She felt his entry, but her mind had been on the storm. With little awareness of what he was about, she felt him moving against her, blinked at the moment he spurted into her rigid body. Her sorceress' instinct told her she had been seeded. For a wild moment, she meant to dispel it as soon as she could, but then her woman's heart dismissed the notion. Abortion was not something she could do. It was morally wrong…murder.

  So she had carried his child in her for nine months, six months of which had been war and hatred and destruction. Death had come to her family; life had also come. She would raise this surviving son of Galen McGregor's to be the man his father never would be.

  Now, alone in the darkness, her thoughts of hatred and revenge on Galen, she dug her nails into her palms and began the incantation for his death.

  * * *

  Galen could take no more. When he left his wife's room, he went to the Temple where Kaileel Tohre was in residence. He waited impatiently for Tohre's personal assistant, Robert MacCorkingdale, to admit him into Tohre's office, and when he entered, he found the High Priest, now Cardinal of Law, sitting at his desk, a smile of pure evil on his cadaverous face.

  "You captured Brell, Montyne and the Hesar brothers today," Galen began. "I demand you spare their lives."

  Kaileel steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the apex. "Their lives, like their property, is forfeit to the Tribunal. You know that."

  Galen bent over the desk. "They are dear to my wife, Tohre. You have slain her family. Is it necessary to kill these men, too?"

  Tohre shrugged. "I need no royal heir to rally their scattered countrymen against me, Galen."

  "Then send them to the Labyrinth!" Galen shouted. "I would rather see them incarcerated than hung!"

  Tohre leaned back in his chair and stared hard at his old pupil. "You would rather send them to a living hell in that cesspool than see a quick end to their misery? Your revenge is far more brutal than mine." The evil man's smile grew wider. "I think such punishment can be arranged, Majesty."

  "That's not what I meant and you know it!"

  "Nevertheless, that is the way it sounded." Tohre lifted one blond brow. "And I am sure your precious wife will see it that way, too."

  "By all that is holy, Tohre, I will see you brought down!"

  Tohre shook his head, clucked his tongue. "I don't think you will take the chance of something happening to Conar's son, now, do you?"

  Galen's face drained of color. "What…what do you mean?"

  "Did you think I wouldn't know? The bitch thought I wouldn't, but surely you must have realized I would know the difference between your spawn and your brother's!" The skull-like face beamed. "Of course, she will soon know I am aware of who Corbin's true father is. I had my revenge on her long ago. I let her marry you thinking she was making the supreme sacrifice for her child."

  Galen sat in the chair before Tohre's desk, stunned. "You wouldn't hurt the boy."

  Tohre stood and adjusted the sleeves of his robe. "He will soon be under my thumb. That should keep you and your wife in line. You have another son. Conar's would simply be a nuisance."

  "You can't do that!" Galen gasped, standing to confront the Priest. "She'll never forgive me!"

  Tohre laughed. "And you think I will lose sleep?"

  "Kaileel, please!" he begged, going to his knees, clutching Tohre's robe to his lips. "I'll do anything! Anything! Just don't take Corbin away. It'll kill her! It'll drive a wedge between us!"

  Tohre put a gentle hand on Galen's head, patted the coarse blond hair. "I don't care."

  Galen stared into Tohre's hate-filled visage. He understood at that moment exactly what the evil man had planned for his brother's son. "You can't."

  "I can, and I will. He will be mine in his father's stead!"

  "I won't allow it," Galen snarled, coming to his feet. He reached for Tohre, but was stunned as the man raised a hand and sent him flying backward across the room. He landed with a hard thud against the wall.

  "You can't stop me, Galen," Tohre told him pleasantly. "Soon, you will be replaced." He turned to his door, his hand on the knob, then glanced disdainfully down Galen's trembling body. "Your usefulness is coming to an end."

  Galen watched Tohre leave, heard the door click firmly shut with a finality that set his hair on end, and knew his days were numbered. "Oh, Liza," he cried, his heart breaking. "I have failed you again."

  Days later, swallowing his pride after the child was taken, he went first to Brelan and then to Legion at Ivor Keep, begging for their help in getting the boy back. He didn't need to tell Brelan how important it was. Legion and Du Mer promised to return to Boreas, but Galen doubted there was anything either of them could do, and although Liza wept and raged against it when told her son had been taken by Tohre, there appeared to be nothing she could do, either.

  "You are responsible!" she yelled, her hands curled into
claws. She would have gone for his eyes had Brelan not grabbed her. "You son-of-a-bitch!"

  "We'll get him back somehow," Galen promised.

  "How?" she screamed.

  He shook his head. "I don't know, yet, but we will."

  "What do we do?" Legion asked when he arrived at Boreas that next day.

  "I don't see anything we can do," Brelan answered.

  It had taken Galen a long time to realize how much both his half-brothers loved Liza. Once he had, his jealousy had almost signed a death warrant for the two men, but his conscience would not allow it. He had simply hired extra spies to watch them. Never had anything untoward happened when Liza was with Brelan, but Galen's jealousy was ripe and hot in his gut.

  "Tohre gave me warning that I might not be around to help you find a way to retake Corbin," Galen told his half-brothers. "I think he means to have me assassinated."

  Brelan shrugged. "You're useless, anyway."

  Galen looked up at the room he and Liza had first shared when they had married, and then his gaze went to Brelan. "I know why you spend so much time here, Saur. I know how you feel about her."

  "I've never tried to hide it."

  Galen turned to Legion.

  A'Lex met his gaze. "She's an easy woman to love."

  Galen nodded. "I know your love for her will sustain her when I am gone." He lowered his head. "She has never wanted mine."

  "There was only one man whose love she wanted," Legion said. "You helped destroy him."