Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Hunger's Harmattan

Chapter One

Lieutenant Colonel Shanee Iphito glanced
sideways at her image in the full-length mirror and she liked what she saw.

Her uniform tunic and trousers fit her
perfectly with not one wrinkle or smudge on the slate gray serge fabric. Her
black boots were polished to a high gloss and the brass anchors pinned to the
collar of her tunic gleamed. Her fourragère—the braided black cord with a
hanging brass tip that hung at her left shoulder—drew her eye and as it always
did, made her heart swell with pride. The cord was given only to those
Guardians who had been seriously wounded in action for it symbolized a
hangman’s rope and coffin nail. It was there to remind her that her life as a
Primary Riezell Guardian could be forfeit at any moment.

Putting a hand to her sleek braided chignon
to ensure no hair was out of place, she straightened her shoulders, ignoring
the tug of pain that pulled at her arm.

“You pass muster, Iphito,” she said to the
mirror, chin lifted. She liked the way her white hair shone in the light and
though her eyebrows were that same color, the natural darkness of her Amazeen
complexion and the deep gray of her eyes only heightened her appearance. She
knew she was a beautiful woman.

Pivoting with military precision, she left
her quarters for her appointment with the new head of Command Central General
Maximillian Strom.

Miriam Quillan glanced up as Shanee entered
the office and frowned. She looked back down at the file she was reading.
General Strom’s secretary did not care for the Amazeen warrioress who had been
given the coveted rank of Primary Riezell Guardian. Of all the Primes before
her, Iphito alone rubbed Miriam the wrong way.

“I am here,” Shanee announced, knowing her
declaration would annoy the mousy little secretary.

“Take a seat,” Miriam said through clenched
teeth. “You’ll have to wait.”

Bristling at what she considered the
secretary’s insufficient respect for her rank and position, Shanee remained
standing, folding her arms over her chest. Her gray eyes bore into the top of
Miriam’s head, and if the look the Amazeen directed Miriam’s way could have killed,
the secretary would have burst into flame.

Ignoring the other woman, Miriam made a
notation in the file, laid it aside and picked up another just as the door to
General Strom’s office opened.

“What the hell’s keeping you? Get your ass
in here, Iphito,” the general growled.

Shanee did not miss the humorous twitch of
the secretary’s lips. She narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits, and when Miriam
looked up at her with a smug smile, the Amazeen literally hissed at the other
woman. She took a step toward Miriam only to have the general come out of his
office and grab her arm in a hard grip.

“Stop that!” General Strom snapped. He
pulled Shanee into his office and slammed the door behind her. “This animosity
between the two of you women will stop. Today!” He released her arm.

Shanee snapped to attention. “Aye, aye,
Sir!” she said, though her jaws were clenched tightly together—not merely from
the anger she was feeling but because the man had aggravated the wound that had
nearly cost her her life.

Strom cursed under his breath as he
realized what he’d done. His blue eyes were stormy as he skirted his desk and
sat down. “I did not mean to hurt you,” he apologized.

“You did not, Sir!” Shanee stated.

“Liar,” he countered then waved a hand
toward one of four chairs sitting in front of his massive desk. “Sit down.”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” Shanee sat down primly in
the chair with her back ramrod straight, her knees and ankles pressed together,
hands folded properly in her lap.

“At ease, Colonel,” Strom said. “It’s too
late in the day for such rigid posturing and it pisses me off.”

Shanee’s shoulders sagged only a little in
response to his order. “Aye, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

The general leaned back in his form-fitting
chair and put his fingertips up to his temples where a nagging headache had
been plaguing him all morning. “And drop that lame-ass military protocol. I’m
not Alphon Morrison so I don’t require having my ego stroked with all that
bullshit.” He made tiny circles against his temples with his index and middle
fingers. “We will be working together and not against one another. Is that
understood?”

Shanee relaxed, sitting back in the chair.
She’d heard nothing but good things so far about the man who had taken over the
reins of the Riezell Guardians though—like nearly everyone else—she knew very
little about him or from where he’d come to assume the head of Command Central.

“Your shoulder is healing?” Strom asked.

“It is,” she replied.

“Had that Gearmánach blade struck another
few inches down, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said.

“The Gearmánach wasn’t as skilled as he
thought he was,” Shanee said.

“And paid for that mistake with his life,”
Strom said.

Shanee shrugged. The mission upon which she
had been meant to die had been assigned to her by the man who had been interim
head of Command Central. Apparently in league with what was now known as the
New Coalition, General Renaldo Sicar had sent the new Primary Riezell Guardian
to
an Ghermáin
and into an ambush. Shanee had been sent to
an
Ghermáin
to die.

“You do know Sicar was one of O’Shay’s
henchmen and the assassin as well?”

“I figured as much,” she said with a sneer.
“If that’s the best he has, no wonder he’s still running with his tail tucked
between his legs.”

Despite the throbbing pain in his temples,
Strom chuckled. “He can run but eventually Bakari will run him to ground. It is
simply a matter of time.”

Shanee nodded. Ryden Bakari—the warrior who
had temporarily resigned his position as Burgon of the Aduaidh Alliance—was on
the trail of the man who had ordered the destruction of the Burgon’s palace and
who had caused the deaths of his family. Once his vengeance was completed,
Bakari would return to his position as the supreme leader of the Alliance.
Though another man held the title for the time being, out of respect for
Bakari, he was still given the exalted designation by those who knew him.

“It’s a good thing Morrison took his own
life. I have no doubt with his newly enhanced abilities, the Burgon would have
come after him,” she said.

“Oh I know he would have,” Strom said. “And
drained Morrison as dry as aged parchment.”

Shanee thought of Bakari and wondered what
it must have been like to have a revenant worm placed inside him so he could
become a Reaper—one of the most feared warriors in the megaverse.

“It is not pleasant,” Strom said as if he’d
read her mind, and when she gave him a quizzical look, he waved aside his
remark and sat forward, his fingers threaded together on his desk. “Are you up
for a new assignment?”

Shanee thought of the nasty wound in her
shoulder that had been inflicted by the poisoned Gearmánach blade aimed at her
heart. Though the cut had been painful and her recovery slow—more from the
poison than the wound—it was now healing nicely with only a minor twinge now
and again to remind her it was there. Knowing Sicar had been executed for his
part in her near-death went a long way in helping her to get over the entire
incident.

“I am not in top physical shape,” she
replied honestly, “but I am ready for reassignment.”

“It’s nothing dangerous,” Strom said.
“Actually, it’s more along the lines of a vacation, if you will.”

One perfectly tweezed white eyebrow lifted.
“A vacation to where?”

“A veritable paradise if what I hear is
true,” the general replied.

A chime sounded and he looked up at the
vid-com screen that was to the left of his desk. His secretary’s pleasant face
appeared.

“Vice-Counselor Jost and his wife are here,
Sir,” Miriam said.

“Would you ask them to wait just a moment,
Miriam?” Strom asked.

“Certainly, Sir.” Miriam’s face faded from
view.

“Do you know who Vice-Counselor Jost is?”
the general asked Shanee.

“I believe he was the councilman whose life
was saved from a Storian assassin by Major Neff,” Shanee replied.

“Aye, he was and now he has been elected to
the Riezell Conclave in a very prominent position of power,” Strom said. “A
position he has a tendency to abuse.” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “Add to
that his recent Joining to the widow of Duke Keifer Harmattan and you have the
beginnings of a real problem.”

Shanee was not familiar with the duke and
said as much.

“Harmattan was a very rich and powerful man
on Riezell,” Strom explained. “He came from a very influential family whose
wealth—I’m told—is so vast it would rival that of the Supreme Legare.”

The Primary Riezell Guardian whistled
beneath her breath. “That would be vast indeed.”

“Harmattan was also an admiral with Fleet
Academy, a highly decorated warrior who died during a battle over Diabolusia
about twenty years ago. The
Abroholos
, the ship that he and his eldest
son Ailyn were on, went down with no apparent survivors.” He leaned back in his
chair. “At least we didn’t think there were any survivors but now we’re not so
sure.”

Once more the chime of the vid-com intruded
but the general didn’t turn to look at the vid-com screen. “Aye, Miriam?”

“His excellency the vice-counselor wanted
me to remind you he is waiting, Sir,” Miriam reported.

“Tell him I am aware that is the case and
am finishing briefing the Guardian who has been assigned to his case.” He
reached over and turned off the vid-com so there would be no further
interruptions.

Shanee could not keep from smiling. She
liked this new head of Central Command. He was a man after her own heart.

“Before I invite the impatient
vice-counselor and his lady-wife to join us,” Strom said, his face hard as
flint, “I want you to know that Elspeth Harmattan-Jost is the reason you have
been given this mission. It is to appease her that the vice-counselor has asked
us to get involved in what is basically a Fleet Command problem. As you can
imagine, being the widow of a national figure such as Kiefer Harmattan, she is
not without influence of her own.”

“I can imagine,” Shanee said.

“The woman lost five sons to the war. Her
surviving child was an ensign aboard Lord Taegin Drae’s ship the
Revenge
.
As you probably know, Lord Taegin resigned his commission and retired a few
years back but during the situation concerning Rory Quinn, the Tiogar took over
command of his old ship and when the state of affairs ended, it was Drae’s ship
that took home to Theristes certain warriors who had aligned themselves with
the Burgon.”

“You mean the Reapers?” Shanee asked.

Strom nodded. Absently, he put his
fingertips to his left temple. “It was during the time those warriors were on
board the
Revenge
that young Harmattan swears he saw his eldest brother
Ailyn.”

“If that’s true, then Ailyn Harmattan more
than likely had been incarcerated on Riezell-Nine,” Shanee said.

“And that means he is now a Reaper.”

“Did the younger Harmattan speak to the man
he believed to be his brother?”

“He…”

There was a very determined knock on the
general’s door and Strom’s eyes flashed blue fire as he pushed his chair back
and got to his feet. He stalked around the desk, jerked open the door to face a
small man bedecked in the formal robes of a vice-counselor.

“General Strom, we do not have all day to
sit in your outer office,” the vice-counselor said. “As you know my lady-wife…”

“Come in,” the general interrupted him. “I
haven’t finished my briefing but since you could not wait, you can fill Colonel
Iphito in on the rest of what I would have given her!”

Not bothering to escort the vice-counselor
and his wife into the office, Strom stomped back to his desk and took a seat.
“Stay where you are, Iphito,” he commanded as Shanee made to rise out of
deference for a high government official.

Vice-Counselor Jost held out his hand to
his wife and when the woman joined him in the doorway, Shanee was hard-pressed
not to stare.

Elspeth Harmattan-Jost was a weak, stooped
woman whose flesh bore the unmistakable stamp of impending death. Her body
quivered with palsy as she painfully made her way into the office and to the
chair to which her husband led her. Sitting down gingerly, she cast Shanee a
look that belied the older woman’s apparent frailty. There was fire and
brimstone in that glance and the frosty brown eyes that delivered them were
filled with acute hatred.

Taken aback by the strength of that glare,
any degree of compassion Shanee might have otherwise felt for the woman
evaporated. She turned her attention back to the general whose gaze fused with
her own. When he cocked one dark brow—mentally challenging his Prime’s
opinion—the Amazeen almost smiled.

“How much have you told her?”
Vice-Counselor Jost demanded as he took a seat beside his wife.