The Guardian

by Angus Wells

  Ryadne—cloaked and hooded that none recognize her—accompanied us to the East Gate. Our farewells had been said within the confines of the palace, and when we reached the gate she only ducked her head and raised a hand, then turned her horse away and left us to wait for the opening.

  I did not see her again.

  I felt a great sadness, and a curious excitement. I am no sorcerer—no seer or mage—but I sensed that I rode out toward some great adventure, and must I find it in company with the sullen girl who fidgeted irritably alongside me, then still it was as the gods willed. I only hoped Andur had been wrong when he told me the gods had forsaken us.

  The dawn-bells tolled and the gate was opened; we rode through. I heeled my mare to a trot, glancing back at Ellyn. She scowled ferociously, but she came with me, and we took the East Road to whatever fate awaited us.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Talan Kedassian, Lord of Danant, stood admiring his reflection as servants buckled on his golden armor. He made, he thought, a splendid figure, impressive and suitably military, as befit the conqueror of Chaldor—which soon enough, he had no doubt, he would be. He savored the title as he savored his own image: the Lord of Danant and Conqueror of Chaldor. Or perhaps, more modestly, the Lord of Danant and Chaldor. The armor was contoured to his slender frame, a snarling lion’s head embossed upon the breastplate and reproduced in smaller size upon the greaves and pauldrons. In the light that shone through the cabin’s window, the bejeweled eyes glinted ferociously. Talan beamed as his sword was belted around his waist, the jewels in the hilt matching the rubies that shaped the lions’ eyes.

  He nodded approvingly, then shook his head as his helmet was lifted. He was too handsome, he decided, to hide his features beneath the casque, and opted to carry the helm; that would be more suitable. After all, he came ashore as conqueror, and there could not be any threat left in Antium—Nestor’s Vachyn magic and the blades of the advance guard had surely seen to that. So he tucked the helmet beneath his left arm and turned about, admiring himself from all angles, then bowed mockingly to the head floating pickled in a glass jar.

  “Think you I look well, Andur?”

  The head offered no answer. The skin was very pale, like that of a drowned man, and the yellow hair and beard floated like tendrils of riverweed. The eyes that stared blindly back at Talan began to grow milky, spilling out cloudy streamers of ichor where the little fish Nestor had set in the jar nibbled. Talan chuckled. Andur of Chaldor had made a grave mistake when he invaded Danant.

  “I am ready.” He waved the anxious servants away. “Nestor, do you accompany me?”

  Across the luxurious cabin, the Vachyn sorcerer ducked his head, folding long-nailed hands into the cuffs of his robe. “As you wish, my lord.”

  Talan smiled. The gods knew that Nestor cost him sacks of gold—but all worthwhile for the power of his magicks. Talan adjusted his expression to one of stern resolve, checked his image a last time, and strode to the opened door.

  Trumpets blew a clarion as he came on deck, and his personal guard—all armored in lesser versions of his own splendor—raised their spears and shouted his name. On the dockside, soldiers clattered swords and spears against shields, and for a while Talan basked in the accolades.

  “Hail, Talan the Conqueror!”

  “Hail, the Lord of the River!”

  “Hail, the Destroyer of Chaldor!”

  “Hail, Talan!”

  He paused at the gangplank, then raised a hand, bidding them be silent. His officers had assured him the town was emptied of defenders, so he felt safe. And Nestor was at his back. The Chaldorean army had fled wounded to the east, doubtless to mass behind the walls of Chorym, and what resistance had been left behind was slain. He could smell the sweet odor of the bodies burning in the torched houses, and beyond the harbor could see the palls of smoke rising into the morning air. He smiled and spoke.

  “Well done, my faithful soldiers. You have fought bravely, and I thank you. Now we shall go on to Chorym and raze that enemy city, and the land’s plunder shall be yours.”

  That promise was met with a great shout of approval, a further clattering of blades on shields. Talan smiled wider and strode manfully down the gangplank to the fire-glazed cobbles of the wharf.

  Nestor followed him, and Talan could not resist whispering: “It is safe, no?”

  The Vachyn sorcerer answered, “None shall harm you here; my word on it.”

  “Good.” Talan struck a posture and shouted for his chariot to be brought ashore, then turned to his generals. “Have we left any decent accommodation standing?”

  Egor Dival, who owned twice his liege’s years, said bluntly, “No. What the Vachyn’s magic didn’t burn, the defenders did.”

  Talan frowned. “Then where do I sleep this night? Where shall I find my breakfast?”

  Dival wiped a hand through a greying beard that was stained with recent blood and said, “Tonight, in your pavilion. Now? Why, I suppose you might go back on board and eat there, or here with us.”

  “Here?” Talan gestured at the wreckage of Antium. Now that he saw it closer, he could see that little was left standing other than smoking hulks ready to topple under the weight of their own smoldering and charred timbers. “What’s left here?”

  “Little enough,” Dival said. “My advice is that we see the army ashore and move inland. Make camp beyond this place.”

  “But I’m hungry,” Talan complained.

  “Then eat on the ship,” Dival returned.

  Talan’s frown grew darker. “I’ll eat with my loyal men,” he declared. “I owe them that, at least.”

  On the dockside, where Nestor’s magefire had scoured the cobbles and men had died, tables were set up, chairs around them. Linen cloths were spread, platters of silver and gold, goblets of cut glass, ornate cutlery. Decanters of wine were brought from the ships, and great plates of meat and eggs, bread, cheeses and fruits. Talan ate with Nestor seated on his right, Egor Dival to his left. The men who had fought the battle—the ordinary soldiers—were gifted with ale, and small measures of bread and meat. And were those measures insufficient to fill their hungry bellies, then they must forage through the ruins of Antium for what they could find; the commanders ate well. And before them, on a small table, stood the jar containing Andur’s head.

  “How do you do that?” Talan stabbed a fork in the direction of the little fishes gnawing at the dead face. “How can they survive in there?”

  Nestor smiled and stroked his black beard. “Magic, my lord.”

  “But he’s pickled. And no living thing can survive in that liquid.”

  “Perhaps,” Nestor said, “they are not alive. Indeed, perhaps they are only illusion. Or can live—thanks to my magic—in such liquid as must kill all else.”

  “So are they dead or alive?” Dival asked through a mouthful of roasted meat and scrambled eggs.

  Nestor shrugged.

  “Can you,” Talan asked, “defy death?”

  “I am a Vachyn sorcerer,” Nestor answered. “And life and death are not so much different—perhaps only alternate aspects of existence.”

  “Dead’s dead,” Dival grunted. “There’s surely a large difference.”

  “Is there?” Nestor turned his saturnine face to the grizzled general. “Shall I show you?”

  Dival scowled and shook his head.

  The wind had turned as the day aged, and the debris of Antium blew across the harbor, the air gone grey with the detritus. Dival swilled rich wine around his mouth and spat onto the cobbles.

  Talan laughed. “Does the taste of victory offend you, Egor?”

  “No, my lord.” Dival shook his head again. “But there are better places to eat.”

  “Where?” Talan spread his splendidly armored arms. “We sit in a vanquished town, ready to conquer the land beyond … where better to take our breakfast?”

  “In Chorym,” Dival answered.

  Talan’s smile faded; his face grew dark. “We shall take Cho
rym,” he said. “We shall confront the walls, and does Ryadne deny us, then we’ll siege the city and tear it down around her.” He turned to the Vachyn sorcerer. “Eh, Nestor?”

  The Vachyn smiled. “Magic shall bring her to heel.”

  “And I’ll have her for my bride?”

  Nestor said, “Yes, my lord,” and cast a sly glance at Dival. “Can might of arms not give you what you want, then my magicks shall.”

  Talan nodded approvingly, then beckoned a servant to wipe his armor where falling ash discolored the gold. He wondered if it stained his hair. Perhaps he should have it washed again, then thought that that was not seemly in a conqueror. No; better to go dirty into battle. He tossed his cutlery aside and rose, signaling the end of the meal.

  “We advance! My chariot?”

  Two grooms brought up the prancing horses, both stallions, matched for their jet hides. The chariot was all beaten gold, with jagged daggers jutting from each wheel. It bore nine javelins and a jewel-mounted quiver in which stood seventeen silver-headed arrows and a bow of lacquered jet. Ceremoniously, Talan Kedassian settled his golden helmet on his dark-oiled hair. He latched the cheek pieces and took a spear in his hand, raising it dramatically as Nestor clambered in.

  “Onward, to Chorym and victory!”

  Ryadne paced the walls of the inner city, wondering how long it should be before Talan’s army came.

  The day was warm, the sun halfway to its zenith. The sky was a pristine blue, save where the darting shapes of swallows punctuated the azure. High on the walls, she could hear their calling; below, she could hear the lowing of cattle and the muted voices of all the folk looking to her for protection, for safety.

  Chorym was readied for siege. All those farmers and vintners and herders who’d come into the city were gathered. There was food aplenty. The walls were manned by the army Gailard had brought back; the catapults were prepared, well armed with missiles and balefire, great buckets of water and of oil set ready. She could do no more. Her scrying magic seemed dimmed now, likely fuddled by the workings of Talan’s Vachyn sorcerer. She could not discern the outcome or the time. She only knew it was vital Ellyn be gone, and that Gailard go with her daughter.

  Ellyn was Chaldor’s only hope, and without Gailard that hope was lost.

  Beyond that she could foresee little, save her own death.

  She looked at the bright summer sun and blinked away tears.

  Then, out of the west, she saw a brightness, a glowing that came along the West Road like approaching fire, and knew it for the glitter of sunlight on polished chariots and shields and spearheads, even before the scouts came back shouting warning that Danant’s army came.

  She sighed and turned to her last duties.

  Kerid held the Blessing close to the Chaldor shore, his eyes firm on the river ahead—save for the nervous glances he cast at his lookouts. The water ran shallow here, sandbanks and rocky shoals a constant danger to the unwary, and he would usually have held to midstream. But thrice since quitting Antium he had encountered Danant’s god-cursed river raiders, and the Blessing was sore hurt. Her forrard mast was down, and catapults had stove holes in her port side that threatened to ship enough water to sink her should the weather shift or a high tide run. Worse was the loss of the Pride, which had gone down at the first encounter with all hands, or so Kerid assumed; he’d had no chance to try a rescue, but could only run as best he could from the sleek war-boats. He wished he commanded one of those craft. The Blessing, for all her greater size, was no match for those swift hunters. Indeed, he believed that had they not been called to the invasion, and thus not had the time to complete their task, his own vessel would now add its wreckage to the detritus of the Durrakym’s graveyard bed.

  Nor had he seen any other Chaldor craft—save for the smoldering wreck of the Glory, and the masts of the Revelation jutting from the river—since leaving Gailard on the shore. He wondered where the other boats had gone. Anchored and waiting for Talan to seize them? Fled south? He did not know, and could only curse the coward captains who’d desert the Bright Kingdom in its hour of need. For himself, he was determined to fulfill his promise to the Highlander and return to smite Danant on the river as he believed Gailard would strike from the land.

  But to achieve that aim he must survive and bring the Blessing safely north. He could not resist shouting at the lookouts, asking what they saw ahead.

  “Clear water,” was the answer. “No sail, no mast.”

  “Only shoals and sandbanks and eddies this close in, and few mad enough to risk them.”

  Kerid turned to the swarthy man who joined him on the raised steering deck. Nassim was a Bordersman, his mother of Chaldorean stock, his father from Naban. He was Kerid’s first mate, and no less familiar with the river than his Chaldor-born captain; in some respects, more familiar.

  “I’ll not chance the deep river,” Kerid grunted, holding the wheel against a sudden swirl that threatened to spill more water into his flooding hold. “The gods know, she’s hurt enough already. How do the repairs go?”

  “As well as we can hope.” Nassim opened a sodden pouch and extracted a pinch of wet tobacco that he chewed awhile before grimacing and spitting. “We’re patched as best we can be, and I’ve men on the pumps. But we need to put in and find sound wood.”

  “And have some Danant boat find us?” Kerid shook his head. “No, we’ll sail this tub to Hel’s Town and sell her for what we can get.”

  “And then what?” Nassim emptied his mouth over the side, inspected his pouch afresh, and stared sadly at the contents before tucking the pouch back inside his shirt. “What will a damaged cargo vessel like this fetch there?”

  “I don’t know.” Kerid shrugged. “I’ve never sold a boat before, and you know those pirates better than I.”

  “Pirates?” Nassim affected a look of outrage. “Some of those pirates are blood kin.”

  “Then I’ll let you handle the sale,” Kerid declared.

  “And then what?”

  “We get a raiding craft and attack every god-cursed Danant boat we find.”

  “Ha!” Nassim leaned against the rail, staring moodily at the mist swirling across the wide expanse of the Durrakym. “We’ll be lucky to reach the islands before we sink. And even do we, think you we’ll get enough for this broken sow to buy us a raider?”

  Kerid said, “I made a promise.”

  “And I swore to serve Chaldor,” Nassim said. “But what poor navy Andur built is destroyed or fled. What can we do?”

  “Any man who wishes to quit my command may go.” Kerid stared at his mate. “Shall you?”

  “No.” Nassim shook his head. “My father told me I was mad to seek service in Chaldor when I could have been a Hel’s Town pirate, but still I did. Like you, I gave my word.”

  Kerid grinned. “Then we’d best pray we reach the islands, eh?”

  • Nassim opened his mouth to answer, but the forward lookout shouted: “Sail ho!”

  “What colors?” Kerid yelled back.

  The lookout hesitated. The mist swirled thick. They’d sailed the last two nights and anchored—nervously—by day. Now the sun was but a promise along the horizon and the moon’s light lost in the grey of dawn.

  Then: “Danant’s. And they’ve seen us!”

  Kerid made an abrupt decision. He could take the Blessing closer in to the shore and hope the Danant boat went by for fear of foundering on the same sandbanks and shoals as might well destroy his own craft. Or …

  “What is it?” he bellowed. “A warboat?”

  “Larger,” came back. “A two-master.”

  “Ready for battle!” Kerid swung his wheel, bringing the Blessing over farther shoreward. “We’ll take her!”

  “You’re mad.” But there was a light in Nassim’s eyes that matched and met the excitement in Kerid’s. “You’ll ground us and we’ll be a sitting duck.”

  “Exactly.” Kerid held his course. “Tell the men to act dead. And light some smoky fires.”<
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  “The gods be with us now,” Nassim said, and sprang from the steering deck to convey Kerid’s orders.

  Kerid swung his wheel, aiming the Blessing’s prow at a sandbank. It was not difficult to make the stricken craft wallow, and with her downed mast and holed side, she surely looked dead in the water. And the more so for the fires Nassim lit, that sent ugly streamers of smoke drifting to join the mist.

  Kerid ran the bow onto the sandbank, almost stumbling as the boat grounded. The gods be with me now, he thought, for she’ll not come off. He watched the lookouts scurry down the rigging and take their places on the deck. He could not yet see the Danant boat.

  Then it came out of the mist: a solid-built two-master, with an arbalest mounted forrard and another aft, Danant’s hated pennants fluttering limply. She slowed, coursing in toward the foundered Blessing, and sent a shaft from the forward arbalest thudding into the grounded boat’s flank.

  Kerid cursed and called, low, “Hold steady and we’ll take her.”

  The Danant boat came closer, sending a second shaft hurtling through the Blessing’s rigging, then drew alongside. Kerid spat curses and ran to the rail, sword in hand.

  “May all the gods damn you! May they damn your parents and your children and send your wives into whoredom!”

  He staggered a little, for greater affect, then fell down as arrows whistled through the dawn air. He picked one up from the deck and tucked it between his arm and ribs so that it thrust out as if he were hit, then clambered up again and shouted, “You’ll not take my boat!”

  Laughter and a fresh volley met his sally, and he slumped to the deck.

  He waited as commands drifted across the river and he felt the vibration of the Danant craft striking the Blessing’s side. Then grappling irons landed on the thwarts and the Danant men swarmed aboard.

  They were met with steel and fury. The first onto the Blessing died as Kerid’s men rose up and vented their anger on the attackers. Then the Blessing’s crew clambered over the thwarts and dropped onto the Danant boat, sweeping across the deck like ravaging pirates. Kerid went with them, leaping from his own steering deck into the rigging of the attacker, swinging down to confront the startled captain.