WINDREAPER by Charlotte Boyett-Compo Read Free Book Online

walls of his birthplace, to the sand-colored stone of Boreas Keep, and his hands would clench into fists by his rigid body as he stared for hours at the keep. When the mood broke, he would find the nearest female and release his pent-up, frustrated lust on her, often calling out a name that meant nothing to the woman, but that held a world of dark feeling for him.
    His moods were not always somber and self-destructive. There was still a vestige of chivalry left in him, a holdover from his childish days as an untried youth, but it was as ethereal as a will-'o-the-wisp: coming and going as quickly as a rainbow after a storm. Children could still bring out that side of him, but his gaze would follow them hungrily and be unusually bright.
    He was gallant, courteous to the common folk, and it was that quality in him they sensed which caused them to write ballads about him. It was the essence of him that fashioned legend, but none of his men ever saw that side of his nature. He viewed it as a weakness. The knights of legend of whom ballads and sonnets and plays were written, who could slay dragons for their damsels in distress, who fed the poor and righted every wrong, were only myths.
    Darkwind was real.
    His fury was real.
    The core of the Brotherhood of the Wind, men like Roget and Shalu and Brelan and Grice Wynth, feared for him. They prayed for him. They carefully watched his back. But none of them could make the pain in his eyes go away. None could quench the fury in his face when a certain name was spoken in his hearing. None could give him back the peace of spirit he had lost.
    Only one person could do that, and she, like his peace of mind, was lost to him forever.
    * * *
    "Holy shit!" the man shouted. "It's a ghost!"
    The man ran as fast as his pigeon-toes could carry him down the alley, his hands in the air, his legs pumping furiously.
    "You see?" Brelan screamed at Ward Summerall. "See what I've been trying to tell you numbskulls!"
    Sentian and Thom were supporting Conar's dead weight between them. The Raven had come to long enough to look into the man's face. He smirked. "Hello!"
    The man's turned white under the light of the torch overhead. "A ghost!" he shrieked, backing away, his hands up to ward off the evil confronting him.
    "A drunk ghost!" Conar agreed.
    " Help! Help!" The man nearly slammed face first into a brick building, but swerved at the last moment. " A ghost! A ghost!"
    "I think they heard you!" Conar shouted after him, then his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped in his men's hands again.
    "Go after that fool and silence him!" Brelan snarled at Ward. " Now, Summerall! Now!"
    * * *
    Storm and Thom smiled at one another as the balladeer sang. Now and again they would blush, look down at the table, or cock a surprised brow. Their feet tapped out the song's rhythm, their fingers beating a tattoo on their table.
    "Sing it again!" a tavern patron shouted as the balladeer finished.
    The tall Ionarian songwriter grinned and began to strum his guitar once more, nodding as men filed past his stool and plunked silver coins into the earthen jug at his feet.
    Thom nodded in time to the beatas the balladeer began repeat the tale of the Dark Wind.
    "He'll bust a gut laughing when he hears this!" Storm remarked.
    Thom grinned. "Think the singer will let me copy down the words?"
    Storm snorted. "You'd better not!"
    The singer began his tale in a crisp, heavily-accented Ionarian blend of romance and excitement.
    ——
    "On a steed as black as the darkest night,
He rides forth like the Wind.
His sword will flash and his arrows fly,
To death, his enemies he'll send, he'll send;
To death, his enemies he'll send.
    His midnight eyes will pierce your soul,
His gaze can stop your heart,
With courage strong and honor bold,
His aim has never missed its mark, its mark;
His aim has never missed its mark.
    Ride, Darkwind, ride, the Wind Force at your side,
Your whereabouts we will hide.
Ride on through the night, past the