WINDHEALER (16 page)

Roget du Mer sat on the edge of his cot and watched the doorway. It was later than usual for Conar to have returned from the rock field.

"Could Brelan have called for him?" Chase asked.

"That's probably where he is," Rylan Hesar said.

"All of you, get to sleep!" Shalu mumbled. " I can't rest with all your mumbling!"

Roget, resenting Shalu's harsh bass grumbling, stared at the rough timber beams overhead. He was uneasy and he didn't know why. He wanted to casually saunter over to Brelan's hut, but there was a guard posted near his own hut and questions would be asked if he got up in the middle of the night to check on Conar's whereabouts.

"I gotta piss," Chand announced, ignoring the mumbles his enlightenment brought the others. As he passed Roget's cot, he bent close. "I'll look around."

Jah-Ma-El threw back the covers and turned on his cot, trying to get comfortable. He, too, felt an unidentifiable unease. But he felt uneasy every time Brelan made one of his unscheduled
calls
for Conar. It was so the brother's could talk, so Brelan could try to undo some of the damage Conar's internment had caused him. But the guards and inmates who hated the young Serenian Prince joked with vulgar innuendo about the overnight stays in Saur's hut.

"He gave it away to them priests at that monastery, I hear!" a guard had blabbed, starting the rumor. "Guess he's giving it to the Chief Warden, as well!"

Jah-Ma-El ground his teeth. Brelan had done nothing to squelch the rumors even though Roget and Grice had tried to warn him that such talk was getting out of hand.

"If they think he's my…" Brelan's face had turned bright red with anger or embarrassment, "my…property, then maybe they won't dare try to hurt him."

"Careful, Bre," Chase warned. "If they think he's available—"

"I can take care of my brother!" Brelan snarled, ending the discussion.

Jah-Ma-El hoped so.

* * *

Arch-Prelate Kaileel Tohre woke from a terrifying nightmare. Perspiration drenched his white-blond hair; his pale eyes stared wildly from the sunken depths of the bruised sockets. His skin had turned a pasty yellow and sweat, soul-smelling and slick, rolled in waves from his body, oozed from every pore. He clutched the quilt stared into the night. His hands trembled. His entire body ached, quivered in fear.

He ran one hand over his face and felt the long, pointed nails scrape across his skin, but it was the pain in his mind, not the pain on his flesh, that caused him to gasp with agony. He clutched his belly, bringing his knees up to his chin, holding his legs as if he was trying to conceal himself in the smallest space, but he felt his legs, his body moving of its own accord.

His legs and arms shot out. He flipped onto his belly, grasping the sheets, shearing off each of his long nails as he drove his fingers into the material. He dug his toes into the mattress, pushed himself as far up in the bed as he could go until his head was pressed firmly to the headboard. He felt something tight around his wrists, his ankles. A wild keening came from his parched throat before it was choked off as though a hand had been placed over his mouth.

Kaileel turned his head to the blowing, gusting snow beating against his window and he shivered. He was naked, colder than he had ever been. His entire being felt numb, detached from his existence. The beating of his frightened heart came in heavy rhythm to his labored breathing.

He felt something hot, something moist move over him, pinning him to the bed. He threw back his head, screaming against the confinement covering his mouth.

"
No!"

His teeth clenched into the fabric of his dream with impotent rage. He flung a curse across the distance that separated him from his enemies. Piercing agony shot through Tohre. His long hair whipped back and forth on the satin pillow.

"
Don't!"
he screeched as another ripping pain gripped him. He bellowed in anger and fear and disgust. Another pressure settled on him, and another, and another, and another.

His scream rent the night and hung like the death knoll of an obscene bell:

"
Conarrr!"

* * *

Brelan awoke with a start, gasping for air, his arms gripping his pillow for all he was worth.

He had been dreaming of Elizabeth. He trembled from head to toe, feeling as though he were drowning, suffocating beneath a thundering mass of tumbling, swirling waters. He heard his blood pounding in his head and instinctively realized such a sound would account for the resemblance to rushing waters. The pillow had felt like the lush curves of the woman he loved. Staring at it, he felt a loss so great, he flung the offending object as far across the room as he could.

"Hell!" Brelan spat, and got up. He ran a nervous hand through his thick crop of brown hair, tugging at it as though the slight physical pain would wipe out whatever had frightened him. Mentally shaking himself, he poured a tumbler of water, making a sour face as the tepid liquid clogged his throat as he swallowed. By the gods, but the spring water tasted like brimstone!

He walked to his door and opened the portal, looking into the wild blaze of dawn creeping over the tallest bluff. It was going to be another scorching day. In Serenia it would be winter and snow would be falling. Here, it would be hot, sticky, and dry. No matter how long a man stayed in this desert hellhole, he never got used to the days of blazing sunlight and the nights of chilly blackness.

A movement at Roget's hut caught Brelan's attention.

Conar was framed in the open doorway, in profile. He was simply standing on the threshold. There was a slant to his shoulders that hadn't been there of late and the blond head was bent, the long, shoulder-length hair covering most of his face.

Brelan saw no guards. Conar had no business being out by himself. A special chamber pot had been placed near his cot so he could not leave the hut once he was inside for the night. Brelan was about to call out, in the appropriate harsh and nasty voice, when he saw du Mer speaking with Conar from inside the hut.

"Dammit, du Mer!" Brelan snarled, "You know better!"

Someone could see and report it, and Conar would be the one to suffer. Brelan ground his teeth as Roget reached out to touch Conar. He sucked in his breath, opened his mouth to shout, then stopped as Conar cringed away from the offered contact.

Roget made eye contact with Brelan. He held up his hands in confusion. He stepped inside the hut and let Conar enter.

Brelan knew something was wrong. He yanked his shirt over his head as he stepped out of his hut. Mindless of who saw him, he headed straight for du Mer's hut. He came up short as he saw men clustered around Conar's cot. Placed apart from the others, the cot was off limits to everyone. Now, all who lived in the hut, plus several who didn't, surrounded it.

"What's happened?" Brelan pushed Thom and Storm aside. No one answered, only moved silently out of his way so he could get to Conar. "What?" His head felt light and there was sweat in his palms. A jagged finger of fear seemed to scrape down his spine.

Conar sat on the edge of his cot, head lowered, fingers twitching. A livid bruise marred his right cheek; his lower lip looked swollen.

"Look at his wrists, Saur," Roget said.

Hunkering before his brother, Brelan lifted Conar's wrist.

"
Don't!"
The one word had been spoken quietly enough but had the authority of a shout.

Brelan looked up at Chase Montyne. "Why not?"

"Just give him time to adjust."

Brelan eyed his brother's wrists, studied the red, chaffed lines on Conar's flesh. "Rope burns."

"On his ankles, too," Sentian told him.

Brelan went livid with rage. "Where's he been?"

"We thought he was with you," Rylan Hesar answered.

"Didn't any of you think to find out for sure?"

"It would have looked suspicious if we had inquired," Roget answered, flinching as Brelan turned a stony stare his way.

"When he didn't come back until now—" Paegan began.

"He's been gone all night?" Brelan felt pure terror. "I want to know what happened!"

Shalu sat alongside Conar, his massive bulk making the cot's rope plaiting shriek with protest.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Brelan snapped.

Shalu silenced the younger man with a tilt of his hawk-like nose. Giving Conar time to adjust to his nearness, Shalu didn't make any attempt to touch him. Instead, he kept his head down, aware every nerve in the room was stretched thin. At last, he sighed. Then in a firm voice, a voice no one in the room had ever heard come from his rumbling throat—a tone as soft as though telling a bedtime story—he spoke to Conar.

"They want to see us crippled, to crush our spirits, to dehumanize us, to turn us into animals. We can't afford to let that happen. If we do, that means the bastards who put us here have accomplished what they set out to do."

Shalu laid his large hand over Conar's, who flinched, but didn't withdraw. The Necroman drew Conar's fingers into the protection of his huge black hand.

"No one should have to go through the things you have gone through. And no one can feel the pain you are feeling now, but there are sixteen men here who will help you get through it. They will help make it bearable. They love you. They respect you. They are loyal to you. There is nothing that has been done to you, or that will ever be done to you, that will change how we feel.

"We know you're hurting. You were hurt and we are hurt for you. It doesn't matter what they did to you. What counts is that you get on with your life."

"We're here for you," Chase whispered.

"We understand," Jah-Ma-El added.

"Look at me," Shalu ordered.

Slowly, Conar turned his face toward Shalu. He didn't seem aware of anyone else.

"Your Grace," Shalu said, ignoring the slight gasps as he spoke the forbidden title, "it hurts me, as it does every man here, when you won't look at us. If anything, we should be the ones to show you such respect." The Necroman's voice broke with emotion. He was unaccustomed to showing deference or humility to another, but he had never met a man who deserved it more.

The sad eyes lifted, wavered, then held. There was such misery etched in the lonely face that Shalu felt the sting of tears.

"Shalu?" Brelan whispered, his gaze on his brother's breeches, at the juncture of the thighs where a bright red stain had formed.

"Who did this to you?" Shalu asked.

It was a whisper, fleeting like the wind. "Lydon."

Shalu moved his fingers to the chaffed burn on Conar's wrist. "Any others?"

Conar nodded.

"How many?" The Necroman stroked the ravaged flesh, patted it lightly, lovingly.

"Don't remember." The answer was almost inaudible and terribly ashamed.

Shalu eased his arm around Conar. "It would help if we knew who they were," he said in a soft, caressing voice, feeling the jerk of the young man's body as he tried to shy away. Shalu firmly, but gently, gripped the slumped shoulder. "Was Marcus one of them?"

Conar nodded.

"Axon?"

Again the miserable nod.

"Shelby and Herts and Briggs?" Tyne spat viciously.

"Aye," came Conar's soft voice.

Brelan was shocked to the core of his being. "Six?"

Rylan's face was hard with rage. "All cronies of Lydon's."

"Where?" Shalu asked.

Conar shivered, his blood soaking the mattress. "The equipment shed…"

"I want you to go with your brother," Shalu commanded. "Stay in his quarters."

Conar looked at the Necroman. "You know what they did, don't you?"

"I know." Shalu stood, easing Conar up with him. "You go with Brelan."

Conar looked at the men surrounding him. He didn't seem to be aware of anything.

"Go on with Brelan, son," Shalu urged, easing Conar into his brother's arms. He grasped Brelan's arm in a punishing grip. His voice was hard as steel. "This may be the one time when you're needed more than any other. Be careful what you do, what you say, how you say it. The wrong thing could destroy him forever."

Brelan nodded, unable to speak past the anger and pain in his throat. He walked with Conar to the door, flinching at the way his brother moved, knowing Conar was hurting, but knowing he couldn't let anyone outside the hut see his concern. He let Conar cross the threshold, then with teeth clenched and fists doubled, Brelan moved ahead, making for the medical hut.

In a near insane rage, Brelan spent the next twenty-four hours in his hut while Xander cared for Conar, relieved that his worst fears had not been realized—Lydon Drake had not done to Conar what Conar had once ordered done to Drake.

"He could have, you know!" Xander fumed when he came to give Brelan a report. "He could have gelded him!"

"Enough!" Brelan yelled, his hands itching to strangle Drake.

"We'll get them. Every last whore's son of them! They didn't just rape him. They—"

"I said enough!" Brelan covered his ears, flung himself on the bed, curling into a fetal position.

"You can't hide from it! If you don't do something, they'll eventually kill him or push him beyond the point, where it won't matter if he lives or dies!"

Holm lay in his bunk, praying to every god he knew that everything he and Brelan Saur had planned would be seen to its completion. As the ship drew closer to the wild tangle of deadly coral reefs blocking the entrance to the island, Holm began to fidget. His eyes constantly roamed the horizon, his ears listening for the change in the wind that was a sign the entrance was near. Tonight as he lay awake in the great cabin of his home away from home, he went over every detail again as though it was the first time. There could be no mistakes, no margin for error. Lives depended on it, even his own.

Only once had they encountered trouble, three days before.

There was no doubt in Holm's mind, as there was in some of his crew's, that they had sunk the prison ship, the
Borstal,
a black-masted, black-hulled hell ship, as it made a deadhead run from Ghurn Colony. They had broadsided the bitch, laid her over, and not a survivor remained to tell the tale. Some of the crew had sworn they had seen a longboat rowing out to sea, but Holm knew better. When he aimed his guns at a ship, he meant business. The
Borstal
lay at the bottom of the sea, her crew nourishment for the denizens of the deep.

Holm chuckled. He'd gotten a good look at the captain's face, that son-of-a-bitch who ran the
Borstal.
There'd been fear in that face. It was a fear the bastard had no doubt seen on many a face he had carted off to Tyber's Isle.

"I bet you would trade places, wouldn't you, you motherless ass?" Holm asked the dead man's screaming face as he remembered seeing it.

Van de Lar put his hands behind his head and grinned at the swaying lantern in the center of his cabin. This was going to be the last trip for him. No more carrying goods halfway around the world; no more lengthy trips away from Mary and Jenny; no more lonely nights spent with a bottle, longing for the comforts of his seaside hut near Ciona. His old bones were starting to feel their age these last few months. He reckoned his eyesight was about useless for reading the sextant and such. Hell, he thought with a snort, he couldn't even read his pocket watch! He had almost convinced himself to retire before Lord Saur had called, needing him for this trip. Even if he'd retired, nothing in this world, or the next, would've prevented him from doing this in memory of the Prince Conar.

Nodding, Holm lost his smile.

There was one more thing he and his beloved lady, the
Boreas Queen
—that regal lady who had taken him many miles and put as many miles on him—had to do before he gave up the sea.

"And we'll do it, won't we, girl?" he whispered to the creaking timbers. "It was our destiny."

In the ship's hold was a special place reserved and respected by all on board. Scattered along the teakwood planking was a thin layer of Serenian soil laid for a special purpose. To cushion the coffin that held the mortal remains of that fine man who had been denied burial in his home soil. In loyalty to the McGregor family, Holm meant to see that coffin carried back to the shores of Serenia and laid to rest, secretly, on the seaside farm where he and his family lived.

"Aye," Holm pledged to the heavens, "home where me and Mary and Jenny can see to him." The image of Jenny laying daisies on the Prince's grave brought tears to his eyes. "Home with us, Your Highness. I'll take you home with us."

* * *

"If Lydon Drake comes anywhere near my property again, I'll kill him! Understand?"

Appolyon looked at Brelan with an amused look of disdain. "What is all the problem, Saur? It's not as if the bastard has never been had!" There was a titter of laughter. "You do it all the time."

Brelan leaned over the man's ornate desk and fixed him with what he knew had to be one of the fiercest sneers he had ever formed. In a voice deadly quiet, lethal with intent, Brelan explained. "If he so much as comes near him, I'll stake out Drake in the courtyard, gut him myself and pull out his innards, inch by inch. I'll stuff 'em back in and pull 'em out again and again until that son-of-a-whoring-bitch is nothing more than running mush!"

Appolyon blanched. He managed to temple fingers that tried to shake. "I see."

"I hope so. If Tohre finds out Conar was gang-raped, and you let it happen…"

Appolyon's teeth clicked together. "I let it happen?"

"
You!"
Brelan shouted, his face a flaming suffusion of fury.

"He'll be kept away," the fat man stuttered, spreading his hands in apology. "I promise."

"And those other maggots!"

"Of course." Appolyon stood, following Brelan to the door. "Ah, there's no reason…that is to say, no urgent reason…to, ah, let Tohre know." His face crinkled in worry. "Is there, Lord Saur?"

"Keep that mad dog away from my property!" Brelan slammed through the door. He shouted at a passing guard to have Conar brought to his hut as soon as the Healer was finished.

Appolyon slumped into a chair, fanned himself. He flinched as his door opened.

"You let that worthless shit scare you, didn't you?" Lydon sneered.

"Keep away from McGregor. I mean it!"

Drake's lip lifted in taunt. "Wasn't it you who said I could have him?"

Appolyon's hands covered his face. "No…no…"

"You did! Now that it's been done, you ain't got the stomach to see it through." He glared down. "It was you who wanted him broken in, tamed, wasn't that what you called it? It was your bed you wanted him in, not Saur's." Drake looked out the window and stiffened as he saw Conar walking alongside a guard to Saur's hut. "Aye, well he be broken in, all right. I saw to that!"

"Saur'll kill you," the Commandant warned.

A dry, mirthless laugh twisted Drake's mouth. "Not if I kill him first!"

* * *

Brelan nodded, giving the guard permission to usher Conar inside.

"The Healer said he was still not healed properly." The guard's stare crawled over Brelan with distaste. "He said to leave him alone."

Brelan bit his tongue to keep the humiliation and the denial from erupting from his lips.

"Stay here," the guard said gently to Conar, then looked at Brelan. "I better not hear of nothing happening."

Brelan lifted one thick brow in challenge.

"I mean it," the guard spat through clenched teeth. "Them men will pay for what they did."

"Get the hell out of here," Brelan ordered in as pleasant a voice as he would have used to coerce a virgin out of her burden.

"I don't take kindly to threats and—"

"Take your ass out of my room"—Brelan smiled—"so my brother can get to bed, or do you plan on him standing in the middle of the floor all night?"

The guard's face colored with rage.

Brelan pointed his sword at the guard's chest. "I appreciate your loyalty. However, if he is to be cared for in the way our King—your King—requests, you'll have to let me decide what rumors are flitted about concerning what goes on here. Rumors, I might add, that Lydon started."

"I don't like you, Saur."

"I'm supposed to care?" Brelan flicked his wrist; the laces of the guard's shirt fell away.

A tiny flicker of life appeared in Conar's eyes. He turned toward the guard. Their gazes met briefly and the man saw no fear, only detachment.

"Get gone!" Brelan said with exasperation, waving the sword.

"You'd best remember me, Saur. My name is Daniel Pauley."

"I'll engrave your name in the palm of my hand!"

"Hurt this man, and I'll carve it on your heart!" The guard cast a look at Conar and left, slamming the door behind him.

Brelan tossed his weapon to the settee. He'd been warned about how to handle Conar and wanted to do what was best. He pointed to the bed. "Lie down, Coni."

Conar moved obediently and sat down. He looked up to Brelan for further instructions.

If someone had whacked him with a heavy meat mallet, it couldn't have hurt Brelan more than the one reflexive action that had been ingrained into his brother's tormented psyche.

"I'm not going to hurt you, little brother."

"I know…"

"Then lie down." He watched as Conar stiffly stretched out on the bed. "You won't be comfortable like that, will you?"

Conar drew his knees up to his chest, winced, and clasped his hands between his thighs.

Brelan turned, tense and stiff, staring wide-eyed at the wall. He lit a candle and carried it to the bedside table. "Do you want to undress?"

Conar violently shook his head.

Brelan took off his shirt, tossed it to the chair and walked to the other side of the bed. He sat, pulled off his boots and socks and leaned against the headboard. He crossed his bare feet, wondered when he had picked up this habit of sleeping with his pants on, knew it had been since returning to the Labyrinth, and shook his head. One had to be ready at all times in a place like this. Going about with your bare arse waving in the breeze was a limitation a cautious man tried to avoid. He chuckled, felt Conar tense, and stopped.

"I was thinking about when I got caught without my clothes at Sherind's. Remember? Over at Felias Spiel's farm? I'll bet my keep at Ciona that Sentian Heil doesn't know all there is to know about his sweet wife!" Deep laughter spread up out of Brelan's chest. "Wonder what that stiff neck would say if I was to tell him about the games Sherind taught me."

"Better not tell…"

Brelan nodded, pleased that his brother had spoken. "Wouldn't be wise, eh? You're probably right." Brelan yawned, and casually let his arm fall above Conar's bent head. His fingertips touched freshly washed blond hair and he was content to stroke the strands. "But it would do my heart good to tell him about that time when I lost my clothes." He moved his hand into the thick tumble of Conar's hair and watched his brother's lids close. He rested the palm on Conar's head. "Sleep, little brother…just sleep."

After a while, he found himself staring into Conar's eyes. In that brief look, something revealed itself. Brelan recognized it as the certainty of a world gone suddenly, irretrievably to pieces for the man. It was all Brelan could stand.

"It's going to be all right." Brelan drew his brother into his arms, and cradled Conar's head against his shoulder. He wanted nothing more than to protect Conar from the dark recesses that were trying to lay claim to his sanity. "I promise."

The self-denial he had willed himself to endure was centered around Conar, along with the love he had denied his younger brother. It wasn't as hard as he thought to relinquish that part of himself he'd held captive. No one could help Conar but him. Love was the answer, would be the way to bring Conar out of his nightmare and into the soul-saving light.

"We're going to leave this place and never look back," he said. "I'm taking you back to where you belong. We are blood—brothers." His arms tightened. "Two of a kind."

Words from the past shot through Brelan like lightning. He heard them as clearly, saw the characters moving across the stage of his memory, as though he was watching a play.

It had been a stormy day at Boreas. The three brothers—Legion, Brelan and Conar—had been to Ivor Keep and were trying to get back to Boreas before the storm could make roads impassable. Conar's horse had thrown a shoe. The boys had dismounted, hovering in a shelter of spreading live oaks to get away from the worst part of the lashing rain. Drenched to the skin, sneezing, furious that he would not be in time for supper, Conar had ranted that it was Brelan's fault.

"How?" Brelan, all of seventeen, had bellowed, hostile as he gazed at his antagonist.

"It is!" Conar snarled in his heir-apparent voice. "You're supposed to see to these things!"

"I'm supposed to see to your horse?"

"You are, by birth, my servant!" Conar snapped with the arrogance of a would-be monarch.

"Your
what
?" Brelan lunged at his brother, knocked him to the ground in a free-for-all that had bloodied both boys' noses, along with Legion's.

It was then all the trouble began. Brelan left Boreas, vowing never to visit again, as long as Conar was heir to the throne.

"I'll never be that twerp's servant!" Brelan shouted.

"The trouble with you two," Legion told Brelan years later, "is you're both cut from the same pattern. You've been fashioned from corduroy: tough and sturdy, rough around the edges when you get unraveled. Conar is sewn from fleece: smooth, strong, polished, yet durable, finely stitched together as a Crown Prince should be. You're just too damn much alike. Your faults are his, and his faults are yours."

Brelan had known that all along, but refused to admit it.

Conar had wrapped his world around Elizabeth Wynth, and when she had been forced from him, his life had been rent apart. The material of his world now lay tattered, dry-rotting in the arid wilderness of the Labyrinth. Brelan's world had revolved around his love for the same woman. The material of his life was coming apart at the seams, just as Conar's, and Brelan wondered if any amount of thread could ever stitch their lives together again.

Aye, he thought, hearing Legion's words again. The patterns were the same: two lives cut from different clothes but coming unraveled in a similar way.

Looking at Conar, at the purple bruise along the right cheek, the rope burns on the wrists, Brelan knew an insane rage that shook him to the very core. It hurt him so deeply he found it hard to breathe. What they had done to Conar, to his flesh and blood, they had done to him, as well.

"I'll protect you, Conar," Brelan swore. "With my last breath, if necessary."

Conar had been so numb, so deep in his own pain, he had forgotten about the danger to those who would dare show him a smattering of kindness. His memory suddenly returned. He pushed away from Brelan, rolled from the bed and stood beside it, swaying, wincing at his pain. His only thought was to put distance between him and Brelan, to protect his brother so he would not be dragged into the same quagmire of misery.

"Come back to bed," Brelan said, gauging the reactions, the emotions flitting like wildfire across Conar's pinched face. "You need to lie down."

Hopelessness played across his face, then fatigue, then loneliness, bubbled to the surface, then fear, confusion, and finally, total despair.