WINDWEEPER (23 page)

"Pass out," Sentian begged. "For the love of Alel, pass out!"

Another lash descended.

"Pass out, Conar," Brelan prayed.

Still another.

"Let go, little one," Hern mumbled.

And another.

It was all he could stand.

Throwing back his head, Conar filled the air with an unearthly, piercing scream. It echoed around the Tribunal Square, washed over the suddenly still crowd, flooded the souls of every man and woman and child.

Brelan flinched. He wondered how Conar had lasted this long. By his count, the whip had landed sixty-one times. He had been slammed repeatedly into the post with such force it was a wonder he was still conscious. And yet Conar had kept the scream at bay.

As yet another blow reigned down on him, another uncontrollable scream came from the young man's parched throat. Another lash, another scream. Two lashes, two more screams. With each descent of the lash, Conar's howl rent the air. Ten more lashes fell in quick succession and Conar screamed with each blow.

"
That was seventy-five!
" a voice yelled.

"I counted 'em, too! Bent got him seventy-five times!"

"No more!"

Kaileel skirted the post and shouted at the crowd. "Did you forget the extra forty blows you caused him?" He turned to Bent. "
Forty more, Armitage!"

Staring at the lunatic before him, the executioner shook his head. He extended the whip to the High Priest. "I will
not
be the one to do it!"

The crowd had grown still, straining to hear what the giant said. Tohre now held the blood- and skin-flecked leather whip and the giant stalked off the platform. A cheer went up as the crowd became aware of Bent's refusal.

Brelan stared up at Tohre. Drool ran down the thin, slitted lips and a nameless evil filled his red face. He was looking at the whip in his hand with a strange look of excitement as though he were gazing at a lover. Brelan shivered as Tohre turned to the crowd.

"Who will finish this?"

Tymothy Kullen started forward, but a strong hand clamped down on his shoulder. He looked up into the dangerous eyes of Thom Loure.

"Don't even think about it," Loure warned.

"
Who?
" Kaileel shouted again. His anxious gaze fell on Brelan. "You! Saur! You have no love for this man. Take the whip and finish the forty blows!"

Brelan looked to where his brother hung. "No!"

Tohre spun around, thrust the whip toward Legion.

"No!" came the immediate reply.

Turning once more to the crowd, Kaileel held up the whip. "Is there not one among you who has the courage to give this man his due?"

From somewhere in the back of the crowd it began. It was a faint voice, a woman's voice. It was repeated off to the far left, echoed from the right. Then in the middle. Someone in front took up the sound. Then several voices were speaking in unison. Then a few more. Still more, until the entire crowd began to chant.

Their voices were no longer weak. The volume was growing. The anger was growing. The hatred was growing. Hands began to clap slowly, loudly. Feet began to stomp, pounding the flagstone square and the Temple and Tribunal steps like the hooves of a mighty herd of wild stallions. The chant filled the square, every voice in unison with the slow, prolonged clap as the words rang out clear and strong:
"
Conar! Conar! Conar!
"

Brelan looked around, his the only silent voice among those of his friends and Conar's, among the people loyal to his brother. His arms had been crossed over his chest, but now he put them down.

He glanced up at Legion and saw his brother clapping to the chant's slow rhythm, saw his mouth moving to the words. He looked at Conar's torn body, his brother's head hanging between his blood-streaked arms, a pool of blood beneath his feet. He saw his father standing on the balcony slumped against Hern Arbra, turned back to the platform where Tohre was holding the whip, trying
furiously to get someone to finish the job.

A movement on the platform drew his attention and he saw Conar trying desperately to raise his head, watched the head loll to one side.

It was all he could stand.

Slowly, hesitantly, Brelan Saur clapped once. Twice. Three times in counter-movement to the other clapping.

He saw Legion grimly smile for the first time in more than a week as he met Brelan's gaze. He looked at Sentian, saw understanding. Glanced at Thom, who nodded. He clapped again and then again, joining now in the rhythm where before he had added counterstrike to the clapping. He saw childhood friends staring back at him—Storm Jale, Marsh Edan, Ward Summerall, Lin Dixon, Roy Matheny—and the men smiled. Then his lips formed the word the crowd was saying.

"Conar," he whispered at first. Then louder, then louder still, until his voice was as strong and as passionate as those around him. "Conar!"

"
Cowards!
" Kaileel shouted, his words drowned out by the crowd. He looked at Conar and a deep, abiding insanity gripped him like the steel talons of a nightmare creature.

Conar was groaning, whimpering softly as he hung loosely from the beam. His mind was swirling in and out of consciousness. He could not hear the crowd's litany. He could not see Legion's tearful face smiling sadly at him. He was rapidly losing his touch with reality. Life had become one long searing pain, torching his flesh, ripping the flesh from him, stripping his body bare, crippling him, tearing him apart.

From out of the depths of his consciousness, a name was forcing its way through his soul. He'd tried to latch onto it before now, but it kept flitting away as his body burned in this hell.

He had even ceased to pray for death because he knew it would soon take him. He could feel it coming, calling to him, waiting. His blood was flowing like water down his legs, his life draining away. Intuitively, he knew his mortal body could not take any more and felt his strength and stamina giving way to a blissful oblivion that called to him with open arms. He closed his eyes and waited for death to claim him.

"
You are all cowards!
" Kaileel shouted.

Kaileel rushed toward Legion, shoved him as hard as he could, laughing hysterically when Legion plummeted from the platform, knocking over three men in his fall. Before anyone could stop him, the High Priest shot the whip forward with a stinging, retaliatory slap that was twice as strong and twice as terrible as any blow Bent had given. It connected hard with Conar's flesh, dragged down the torn and bleeding mass, tore open his back in a gash that split before the horrified eyes of those watching.

"
God!
" Conar screamed, his head going back, his eyes bulging in their sockets.

Unable to help, those assembled watched with stunned disbelief as Conar's body quivered, from the limp, sweat-soaked hair to the bare toes that did not touch the wooden platform. The force of his convulsions had started the post moving, the beam wobbling in its socket. The whipping post seemed to throb as it shook from top to foundation with Conar's violent convulsions.

Before Conar could bury his face into the post to choke off the scream tearing through the air, Tohre aimed the whip at his head and caught him on his left cheek. Two of the barbs gouged twin four-inch-long gashes from the inside corner of his left eye to just below his left earlobe. Crimson strips of skin flew into the air and blood spurted, splattering Tohre's grinning face.

An unearthly, piercing, bloodcurdling shriek of agony erupted from Conar's mouth like a putrefying sore. Urine flooded his already stained breeches and puddled at the base of the beam. The scream began again of its own accord, louder, more wavering, and the beam began to shake faster. Fast on the heels of that scream came another, sliding upward nearly an octave. Then another and another and another until the last howl died into a jumble of gibberish, half-phrases and whimpers and pleas.

"
Scream you bastard!
" Kaileel taunted. "
I want to hear you scream!
" He hefted the whip and made to strike out once more.

Brelan spat out a filthy curse. He dove for the edge of the platform, scooting under the railing and rolling on the wooden planking. He came to his feet just as Tohre started to hit Conar.

"
No!
" Brelan screamed and reached for the whip as it sliced backward over Tohre's shoulder. The leather slid through his hands, opened a long cut in his palm, then slammed into Conar's back, narrowly missing Brelan's face as it shot forward.

Luckily, Saur careened out of the way and caught the rawhide before it could be snapped back. He jerked the whip from Tohre's hands, rushed forward, and sent Tohre crashing into the railing. Wood cracked, but the railing held. Tohre's body bent backward over the top.

As hard as he could, Saur threw the whip into the crowd. "You'll hurt my brother no more!"

A middle aged woman snatched up the whip as it landed, then hid it under the billowing flare of her shawl. Before anyone could stop her, she pushed her way through the crowd and disappeared.

Legion climbed the platform. His mouth was a white line of horror as he looked at the horrible gashes down Conar's face. He turned to Brelan.

Saur rushed to their brother's side. When he saw the same carnage, he lost control and took long strides to Tohre. The priest backed away from Brelan's rage.

"You spiteful bastard! You didn't need to do that to him!"

"You have no love for him!" Kaileel hissed. "What do you care what happens to him?" He knew Saur would not dare lay hands on him for fear of what might happen to Conar.

"Because he is blood of my blood!"

Tohre made plans how to best hurt this man who had dared to interfere. He would see him in a living hell for this. "The punishment must be fulfilled!" Tohre railed, backing further away from the menace that was Brelan Saur. "He has to be branded!"

"You'll kill him!" Legion snarled. "They didn't order his death!"

"He has to be branded the traitor he is! That is Tribunal law!"

Conar was semi-conscious, mumbling incoherent sentences. Sweat dripped into his eyes and stung him. He blinked. Blood cascaded down his brutalized cheek. He smiled. His life was ebbing away. He chuckled softly. It would soon be over.

Legion saw the will-'o-the-wisp smile on Conar's scarred face. "He's out of his mind with pain, Brelan."

Brelan shoved Tohre toward the steps. "Get off!" he bellowed, blocking the man's attempt to once more position himself in front of Conar, the better to see the young man's agony.

"It is my official right—"

Brelan grabbed the priest by the collar and threw him.

The crowd parted as Tohre came tumbling down the steps to land in a heap. When he tried to rise, several burly men rushed forward and hemmed him in. "Stay where you are, priest," one said, "or you'll never walk again!"

"Brelan, he is hurt bad," Legion called. "If they brand him–"

"I will be damned if I'll let them brand my brother!" Brelan hissed.

Conar's eyes suddenly focused, lost the glaze of madness that had been there moments before. The name was still trying to find its way out of his depths, but like a skipping butterfly, it floated just outside his rational thought, hovering in the darkness waiting to claim him.

He felt, rather than saw, Legion lean down to speak to him. He felt intense heat behind him and knew what was to come. He whimpered with a fear he couldn't control and tried to turn his head to look at his eldest brother.

Legion's heart lurched painfully at the sight of his brother. Yet he saw in Conar's eyes a faint glimmer of love and recognition.

"Don't let them burn me, Legion," came the ragged request.

Brelan shuddered. "We won't, little brother," he swore through clenched teeth.

"He must be branded!" Tohre shouted.

"
No!
" the crowd roared.

Legion lay a trembling hand on Conar's head, wincing at the sheen of sweat saturating his hair. "We'll get you down, Coni."

Brelan saw instant terror pass over Conar's face and started to speak, but Legion had already lifted one of their brother's arms to try to unhook him.

The pain! Oh, sweet Merciful Alel, the agony of it! Conar screeched like a banshee. Legion jumped back, the color fleeing his normally ruddy complexion.

"For the love of the gods, don't!" Sentian Heil shouted as he lunged for the platform, shoving people out of his way.

The name was rolling faster and faster up Conar's throat. The pull on his shredded muscles was an excruciating agony that shot through every inch of his body. The name was almost to his lips now.

Legion again reached for the chain, intent only on relieving the godawful pressure stretching his brother's body.

"
Don't touch him!
" Brelan bellowed and shoved Legion aside.

As Conar's body sagged down the post, nothing could have prepared him for the pain. No word could describe its intensity. He clawed at the beam, dug in his nails until they pulled free of his flesh. He gouged a large section out of the wood with enough force to pull one of his wrists free of an iron manacle. His entire body convulsed in one massive spasm as the searing heat registered from shoulder to hip to thigh. He shuddered, lurched sideways, his right wrist still held by its manacle as he swung into Brelan's suddenly upheld arms, his face to the crowd now, his eyes like that of a trapped animal.

The people gasped, seeing the horror of what Tohre had done to Conar's face. A loud moan came in a wave from the crowd and people began dropping to their knees. They covered their faces to blot out the sight.

The name came rushing out of Conar with a violence unlike anything nameable in humankind.

It wasn't a scream.

It wasn't a bellow of agony.

It was one long, stabbing shrill of release that poured from him in echoing waves.

"Lizaaaaa!"

Liza stirred in her drug-induced sleep. Her body lay in a fetal position, her hands clutched around her pillow. She was dreaming, dreaming of an approaching storm.

Off in the distance, thunder started rolling across the mountain range, lightning forking viciously down from an angry gray sky. Silver and black streaks clouded the midday sun, swirled about it, hiding it. The air grew cold, the haze thick and vaporous.

Fitfully, she turned onto her stomach, her arms outstretched above her head, her forehead pressed tightly against the wooden headboard.

She was running down a long dark tunnel filled with the gathering clouds. They swooped away from her feet as she ran and closed in behind her as she passed. She could hear the thunder booming, magnified all around her. The white-hot flashes of lightning bounced from one side of the tunnel to the other in front of her, crackled down the walls, spread across the ceiling like a million fiery, slithering vipers.

Her name was being called from the very end of the tunnel and she was desperate to get to the source before the storm erupted.

Somewhere ahead, Conar was waiting, calling to her, needing her. She had to reach him before the storm destroyed them both.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, grimaced as though in great pain, and then started to run toward his voice.

But something was wrong with her feet. They were not moving as fast as before. Something was pulling at them, trying to make her fall. She looked down. The quivering, pulsing tunnel floor had turned to the white and shriveled color of long-dead flesh, cracked and foul-smelling. She tried to pull her feet out of the slimy floor only to find a withered, dead hand clawing its way up her leg.

She cringed away from the questing hand, desperately trying to pull free, but the harder she pulled, the more she sank into the flesh of the tunnel.

"Conar!" she screamed, but her voice echoed back in a grotesque version of her own name, a screech that called for
Liza
.

She felt herself sinking deeper, felt clammy hands snaking up her thighs, other clammy hands reaching for her arms and waist, trying to pull her down into the pit. She called to Conar, but there was no answer.

Suddenly the ice-cold hands were gone and she felt fire licking around her as the tunnel began to glow and crack open from its own self-generated heat.

Pieces of the tunnel began to fall away. Blood ran in thin streams down the criss-crossed sections of granite. She felt the flesh on her arms and legs blistering from the fire's intensity and her left cheek began to sting. She heard her name called again, but the voice was weaker, less distinct.

"Conar!" she screamed, her body trembling so violently the bed began to vibrate, the legs actually leaving the floor.

* * *

Gezelle sat by the window watching her mistress toss and turn. Damp tendrils of hair curled around Liza's pale temples. She moaned as though in terrible, unearthly pain. Not even the ice-cold compresses Gezelle had used to wipe away her sweat had cooled Liza's fevered flesh.

The servant wondered if the drug Healer Cayn had given her mistress to keep her sedated during Conar's ordeal had been too strong.

Liza had fought Brelan and her brother Grice, had tried to keep them from giving the potion to her, but in the end, with Legion's help, Brelan had managed to pour a small amount of the purple liquid down Liza's throat.

"Damn you," the distressed woman had shouted as her eyes began to close. "Damn you all to hell!"

Another scream came from the Tribunal Square. Gezelle put trembling hands over her ears. She could not bear to hear the man she loved cry out in pain. Conar's pain cut as deeply into her soul as it did his wife's.

Liza's hands clawed at the oaken headboard, dragging her nails into the wood, scoring the finish. Gezelle's eyes widened in shock. Where had such strength come from? The entire bed trembled, the four posts bouncing as though with a life of their own.

* * *

"Conar!" Liza screamed. "I am here! Here I am! Come for me!"

Only the crackling fire answered. Backing away from the hottest part of the flames surrounding her, Liza felt her right shoulder touch the tunnel's hot wall. Searing pain burned its way down her side, her hip and spread along her thigh.

"
God!
" she shrieked, her lips pulled back in snarling rage.

* * *

Another scream vibrated from the Square and Liza's name was called in an eerie, wavering howl.

"Merciful Alel!" Gezelle shouted to the heavens, falling to her knees. She covered her face and rocked on her heels. "Make them stop hurting him! Please make them stop before they kill him!"

As though in answer, loud booming thunder echoed over the mountain and lightning flashed through the air above Mount Serenia. As the thunder's roll died away, a sound so unearthly, so animalistic, shot through the still air that the very walls of the keep trembled with terror.

From the Tribunal Square, Conar's last, agonized cry came flooding into Liza's chambers. Liza sat bolt upright in the bed. "Conar! Don't leave me!"

Gezelle stared at her. Liza's face had gone chalk-white. A thin trickle of blood oozed from her left nostril. Her left cheek was bright red and her forehead was bruised from the hard contact with the headboard. Her nails had been sheared off in her attack on the wood, while her body was slick with sweat.

"Milady?" Gezelle whispered, advancing on the bed with terrified eyes. "Are you all right?"

When the wails, the groans of despair and sorrow, began in the Square, when the lightning forked over the keep, when black shadows swept down from the heavens and icy torrents of winter rain began to fall, an answering scream was ripped from Anya Elizabeth McGregor's constricted throat…

"Conarrrr!"