WINDDREAMER (26 page)

Conar's lips drew back in a fiendish snarl. "Let me go to my woman!"

"No." Shalu's large hand gently caressed Conar's scarred cheek. "Your lady is gone, son. She is lost to you. A Daughter has returned to the Sea."

A scene from long ago rushed up to spread before Conar's wild eyes. The moldy smell of Norus Keep, the colors of the coverlet on the bed in which Liza lay, the texture of her silken hair as he stroked it came back to him as though it was happening at that moment...

She clung to him in her nightmarish sleep. Her hands clawed frantically at his shoulders and she gasped for air as though she was drowning. "Conar! Help us! He can't hold me much longer! The ledge is going to give way!"

"I am here, Beloved. You are safe, now!"

She awakened to stare at him. "Conar?"

"I am here, Sweeting," he said and kissed her.

He had soothed her fears, calmed her with soft caresses and whispered words until she calmed.

"You have had this dream before?" he asked.

"Many times..."

Now, Conar whimpered. "She knew...she knew..."

A nightmare of his own pushed against him. He sagged in the arms of his captors, his teeth clenched against the agony of the memory....

He heard seagulls careening overhead. They seemed to mock him with taunting cries--"Come and see, Conar. Come and see!"

Ahead of him in the breakwater, a dark mass lay in the waves. A chill shot through Conar's body and he walked like a condemned man toward it. He tried to turn away, but found he could not.

He saw Brelan lying with Liza in the sweep of the breaking waves, his lean, taut body completely covering hers. Her black hair undulated in the moving water as it washed over her and her lover. One long, wet tress curled lovingly about Brelan's right forearm as though holding him to her forever. Her slim, white arms wrapped tightly around his back, pulling him ever closer.

"She is his, now," the gulls taunted. "She is lost to you! Gone, forever...gone forever..."

Throwing back his head, a howl of ungodly despair came from the depths of Conar McGregor. He jerked brutally in the grips of his captors, his keening turning to screams that went on and on until Montyne stepped in front of him.

He barely saw Chase's fist coming toward him.

Scattered about the dirt floor lay body after body of Domination followers, guards and priests alike. Sentian shook his head, looking at the men who had fought hard to keep their evil way of life intact. The smell of spilt blood and exposed entrails turned his belly.

"How many men did you lose, Bent?" he asked, surveying the dead.

"None," came the heavily-accented rumble. "The gods were on our side in this thing." Bent glanced toward the five hulking men leaning against the wall. "Those fighters from the Outer Kingdom are vicious." His hooded gaze slid past Sentian. "Is he all right?"

Sentian shrugged.

"Take some men and scout the place," Roget suggested. "There's bound to be gold stored here, precious gems, whatever. The booty we find will go a long way in feeding the poor and homeless of our countries."

"Anything else, sir?"

"You might also check the library and judicial offices," Jah-Ma-El said in a tired voice. "There may be papers that will be of interest. If it looks official, we'll want to read it."

The giant nodded. His eyes filled with moisture when he looked at Conar. "Is there anything I can do--for him?"

Roget squeezed the big man's thick shoulder. "There's nothing any of us can do. Just be there if he needs you."

A grunt of grief tumbled from Bent's large lips. He spun around, and stomped back through the cavern. His heavy treads seemed to shake the very stone walls.

These were all brave men, Sentian thought, standing among his fellow warriors. Blood still dripped from his own sword, as it did from many of the others, but not a one among them had nerve enough to speak to the man who mattered most. What was there to say? What words of comfort could one give when one's own heart was breaking? What could one say that would make anything better?

Sentian had let loose his sword on his Overlord's enemies, hacking his way through temple guards and priests with mindless abandon until none remained standing within his line of vision. Repeatedly he had thrust his sword into bodies of the fallen evil scattered at his feet until the bloodlust in his veins had cooled. With hands and forearms saturated with blood, he had finally slumped against a wall in a dark section of the battleground, running befouled fingers over his face and into his hair. He drew his legs up to his chest and had given in to the wild grief that tore at his innards like a rampaging bull.

He had rocked against his sorrow, his low whining sounding more like an animal than a man. His heart breaking, his soul bleak and barren without the shining light that was his lady's presence in this dark-lit world, he allowed tears to flow until all that was left was a warrior numb to the surrounding scene.

"What will he do now?" Sentian whispered to the gods Who seemed to have turned Their eyes and ears from the Prince of the Wind. "How will he survive?"

He thought of Liza's smiling face and shivered.

"How will any of us survive...?"

Chase Montyne tread angrily toward the others.

"Well?" Roget asked.

Montyne snarled, throwing his bloody dagger to the ground. "That bastard guard I tried questioning didn't open his mouth! He died saying nothing!"

Roget caressed the hilt of the dagger strapped to his thigh. "We'll find the remainder of those loyal to the Domination. There'll be others who
will
talk!"

"Aye," Chase spat, reading Roget's thoughts like a road map. "We'll find and kill them." At the grunts of agreement from his fellow warriors, he swung his attention to the far side of the cavern and sighed.

"Conar hasn't spoken since he came to," Roget said.

Chase's shoulders slumped, and he walked to where his friend sat. Conar, with head bowed and staring at the pebbled ground, looked pitiful. Chase took in the droop of those mighty shoulders, the way the hands were clasped and thrust rigidly between the spread V of thighs. He hunkered beside his friend, loath to touch the man for fear of shattering the fragile composure being held so tentatively in place.

"We lost no other men, Conar," he whispered. "We've done what we came to do. We can go home now."

Conar's lids fluttered. Slowly he raised his head.

Chase flinched. In the twin depths of those dark sapphire eyes a soul-shattering sorrow welled, glazing the brightness, dulling the life in them. The pupils dilated with pain, sheer and unadulterated grief. No expression creased the ravaged, bruised face.

"Let's go home," Chase repeated, gently laying a hand on Conar's shoulder. "We've done all we can here."

Conar's finely chiseled lips remained closed. He stared fixedly, blindly at Chase, and barely moved as Shalu joined them. When Chase and Shalu reached down to help Conar to his feet, he stiffened as though he refused to leave this horrid place of death and destruction.

"Let us help you," Shalu said. "Let us take you home, son."

Conar allowed them to support him through the corridors and into the sanctuary of the monastery. He barely noticed the carnage sprawled around him, nor did he look at the rooms he passed on his way to the front entrance where Belvoir's men had horses waiting. He kept his vision straight ahead, glued to the massive iron doors leading to the outside world. The harsh gray of a storm's light made him squint at its intensity. He blinked, turning his head.

He barely felt the weight of the great cape Sentian flung around his shoulders to block off the chill wind blowing down from Mount Serenia, or Heil buttoning the wool garment around him. And he hardly felt the rain falling on his face as they ventured into the open, or the hands that helped him mount his steed. Instead, he numbly obeyed their instructions to put his foot in the stirrup, to pull up, and settled in the saddle like a creature of habit. Sentian put Demonfire's reins in his hand, but the rawhide strands slipped through Conar's fingers as he forgot to grip them.

"That's all right," Sentian said. "I'll lead your horse, Milord."

Though Bent and seven others remained inside the monastery, those who had made the hard climb up the northeast face of Mount Serenia had mounted. Their jobs done, their attention turned to the steep, winding path that led five miles into the cusp of the valley--and home.

Belvoir's face was puckered in sorrow, red from crying. When he and his men had come striding confidently through the secret chamber from which years before Belvoir, Hern Arbra, and Sentian Heil had taken Conar to safety, Queen Medea Wynth's Sentinel had been given the news of Liza's fate.

"By the gods, no!" the old warrior whimpered and staggered away to vent his grief in private. After more than an hour he returned, seeming to have aged ten years.

Now, his jaw clench and rigid, he swung up onto his gray stallion and jerked hard on the reins. The horse, as if sensing the warrior's frame of mind, sidestepped away from the other mounts. "Damn your hide, you son-of-a-bitch! Stand still!" he bellowed.

"Ease up, Belvoir," Sentian said, seeing Conar's eyes flicker with tension. He jerked his head toward Conar.

The warrior reddened with guilt.

"Everyone ready?" Roget called. "Then, let's ride." When he looked at Sentian, a silent plea passed without a word being spoken.

Nodding, Sentian steadied his hands on the big black stallion's reins. As Roget headed down the trail, Shalu closed in behind him, then Sentian kicked his own mount forward to put himself between Conar and the others.

Although the Serenian warrior wanted desperately to check, he never once turned to look at the man trailing in his wake.

Sentian thought that would be an insult.

Along the black sand beach, three men walked, leaving heavy footprints to be filled in with swiftly flowing waves. The sky turned an ominous metal gray, with low flying clouds rushing from horizon to horizon, boiling through the heavens like the contents of a witch's cauldron. A lone gull shrieked a warning as it sailed in the tumultuous current overhead.

One man frowned at the bird's piercing intrusion into his thoughts. He turned his attention to the distance, where black churning clouds rolled toward the beach and a ship that lay at anchor a few hundred yards off shore.
The Ravenwind
bobbed heavily in the rough seas, straining against its anchor, the sails furled close to her masts. On board, men leaned against the railing, watching the three men as they trudged wearily up the lava-strewn rock of the beach.

A sharp crack of lightning issued from the heaving skies. An answering boom of thunder followed, while a sudden sharp bend in the weather signaled a fiercer change.

The men remained silent, their faces grim. One walked ahead of the rest, his attention never straying from a portion of beach where humpbacked black rocks jutted from the violently cresting sea. He stood ramrod straight, his mouth set in a hard, uncompromising line. Pure hatred--seething, festering, controlling--consumed him. He took long, purposeful strides, outdistancing the other two men. Lightning forked in the sky, spat to land in ear-piercing brutality, but he didn't even flinch.

The metal sky turned black with fury. The wind felt as cold as any glacier on Mount Serenia. Shrieking its deadly chill through the heavens, it moaned in cadence with the crashing, pounding waves greedily lapping at the shoreline. The lone gull had disappeared to a safer harbor, but its cry lifted on the ghostly wind.

Only forty feet separated the men from what lay in the breakwater. The leader's footsteps faltered as he got a good look. He stumbled to a stop, his heart filling with pain. Unable to move, he let the other men pass him. It felt as though quicksand encased his feet, dragging him down in a deeper, darker despair than the one that had found him earlier that day when the news had reached Boreas.

Grice and Chand Wynth looked back at him. Water broke over the bodies, shifting them in the sand, seeming to settle them tighter into each others arms--into the arms of death.

Legion turned his head, looking toward the heaving swell of the ocean. A sad, fatalistic smile touched his face as he saw the churning, rolling wave forming in the distance, slowly bearing down on the black sand beach. Though he heard Chand sobbing, he only watched the tidal wave surge toward them. The ship might be able to ride out the swell, he knew, but he and his companions wouldn't, for only a distance of a about one hundred feet lay between the shoreline and steep cliffs that led up to the ruined monastery, still smoldering from the fires Bent's men had set three weeks earlier.

With his heart breaking, Legion told the others, "Go away."

Chand looked at him. "We'll rig a gurney. We'll carry them back to Boreas." He obviously hadn't seen the threat far out to sea.

But Grice obviously did and pointed out to sea. "Chandling!"

Chand turned and stiffened, but he stubbornly shook his head. "I'll not leave her here to the mercy of the damned sea!"

"You've time to get up the cliffs, Wynth," Legion said. "The sea's coming to claim her daughter. It is as it should be. It is the way Liza would have wanted it. Leave, now."

Grice turned, horrified. "You mean to stay?"

"They wouldn't allow me to be with her in life...I'll be with her in death. Conar will understand..."

"This isn't what she'd want!" Grice shouted above the deafening roar. He pointed to the bodies in the waves. "Look at her, A'Lex! Will you cause her pain even in the Other World?"

Legion gazed at his beloved Elizabeth, her head nestled on Brelan's shoulder. Her long black hair flowed around the both of them. Brelan's arms were wound tightly around her, protecting her, keeping her safe from the worries and fear of death. His chin rested on the top of her head; the fingers of his right hand were threaded through her hair. Saur's face looked serene, content, happy, and infinitely satisfied. They looked like lovers who had fallen asleep in each other's arms.

A'Lex wanted to touch them, but knew if he did, he couldn't leave them to the sea to whom they belonged. He studied Liza's face, committing to his mind the image of what he loved dearest.

"Think of your children," Grice said, eyeing the approaching wave with apparent trepidation.

Legion shuddered. "It's the only way I can be with her."

"And how will you answer her when she asks why you didn't take care of Conar for her?" Grice yelled. "The man's a broken wreck! He doesn't eat. He doesn't sleep. How will you explain to Anya Elizabeth that you let her beloved waste away in his grief?"

"I loved her!" Legion shouted, burying his face in his hands and sobbing.

"You weren't the only one! Think what her death is doing to your brother!" Grice's voice softened, cracked with emotion. "You aren't alone. We all miss her, A'Lex. Make up your mind. Now!"

Legion's shoulders slumped. He looked at the tidal wave roaring down on the ship and prayed to every god who listened that
The Ravenwind
would not capsize. Then he turned toward Grice, silently begging for help. He felt lost, alone. Nothing seemed to matter.

"You
aren't
alone," Grice said.

A'Lex peered down once more. "Goodbye, my lady..."

How he had loved her, he thought as he turned, his chin trembling. He led his brothers-in-law toward the rocks where they could climb to safety, out of the way of the advancing wave.

Liza had been his dream when he had first met her that day at the pond. He watched with envious eyes as her love for Conar had shown like the sun. Seeing her unveiled the morning after Conar's wedding had snatched away all hope that she would ever be his. But he had never stopped loving her, and his love had grown with every passing hour.

When she married Galen, Legion had been beside himself with anger and jealousy, rage and brutal disappointment. He had accused her of betraying Conar's memory, and for a while, had hated her as his queen while lusting after her as a woman. Yet, his love for her had never wavered. He knew in his heart he would never love another woman as he had loved her.

Scrambling up the black rocks, he didn't look back as the wave heaved forward and ran up his boots. He kept his back to the sea even after he gained a place of safety, even when icy water spewed foam up the cliffs and spread under his feet, for he could not bear to see Liza taken away from him this last time.

Once, she had been his. Keeping her had become his obsession. She had been his all, his every waking thought, his very reason for living. Having lost Conar, the brother of his soul, he had poured his love into Liza and reaped a bounty of love and respect in return.

Now, he had lost her forever.

"And it is written," Chand said, "that the Sea Lady's mount will rise up from the depths of the ocean, carrying her on its snow-white back." He looked up. "Into the heavens." He turned and gazed at the tall peak of Mount Serenia. "Up to the highest point of the Serenian Alps."

"Where she will once again greet her earth-bound lover," Grice finished. He, too, turned and stared at the tall peak. "And the Windrider and his lady will be reunited to fight the evil of this land."

"Don't!" Legion commanded. "That shit you're muttering is just that...shit! Liza and Conar aren't the lovers of legend. No rose is going to bloom from a dead bush, either!"

Even after they climbed down to a waiting jolly boat and rowed toward
The Ravenwind,
Legion's fury and guilt rode him hard like a cruel master. He gazed straight ahead, wanting no comfort. Once he stiffly climbed the rope ladder to the ship, he went to the aft deck, braced his hands on the rail, and stared into the settling sea. As night lowered in the western sky, he still stood at his post. Even long into the chill evening, as the ship tacked toward Boreas Harbor, men stood in silent vigil around him, as if silently vowing to see he did no harm to himself.