Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1)

by Jordan MacLean

  The cardinal, already close to death, convulsed only once and lay silent. His terrible shield of heat collapsed to leave only the vengeful flames that leapt up from his body and Pegrine’s until even they subsided.

  Then, in the full light of the winter’s sun, the little girl sagged and fell to the ground beside him.

  Renda sank into the hot, dry dust and cradled the poor charred little body to shield it from the sun. Pegrine’s beautiful black ringlets were gone, burned away, as was a great part of her skin and flesh, but in her last moments, her hand reached up to touch the tears on Renda’s face.

  “Don’t cry, Auntie,” Pegrine’s hoarse voice rasped, “I told you. It was only for a little while.”

  “You won,” Renda smiled through her tears. “You protected Damerien, freed B’radik.” She looked up into the morning sky and blinked back her tears, searching for all the things she wanted to tell Peg of honor, of duty, of heroism, and finding only her tears.

  The child drew a difficult, gurgling breath so she could speak. “I only wish…”

  “What, sweet?”

  “…it could be over for you, too.”

  Then she was gone.

  Renda held her close for a moment, as close as the cumbersome metal of her armor would allow. Then she settled the child’s poor burned body to the ground, and in a merciful flare of sunlight, it was gone to ash and dust.

  She stared at the ground for a long time, not thinking, not feeling. The dust that had been her niece’s body spread itself on the cold Bilkarian wind until at last it was gone.

  After a while, she rose to her feet. “Chul,” she said quietly and nodded toward her father, “help me get him to the horses.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Colaris stood irreverently on the scrollwork of the duke’s headboard, snapping and clawing at the handful of Keepers who tried to take his message case from him. Below him in the cold darkness lay Trocu Damerien, with what was left of his dark gold curls bathed in sweat.

  “Easy, Colaris,” soothed Nestor quietly, drawing his hand back after the bird gave it a sharp nip. “There’s a good lad. Very well, for the duke and no other, your message, aye.” He turned to the other Keepers who surrounded the duke’s bed. “Sure there’s no helping it. We shall have to wake him. Lord Daerwin would not have sent Colaris if it were not urgent.”

  One of the others, a woman, shook her head. “It’s too much a danger to wake him.” Out of habit, she switched to their ancient tongue, just as she always did when speaking to him in private, as if to keep secrets from the others. Or, perhaps superstitiously, from the sheriff’s harrier. “As it is, we should be already away from here, preparing for the Succession before it’s too late.”

  “Idiot!” seethed Nestor. “Fiona, have you been asleep this many a year? Does this endless watching dull your wits? He’s yet to see his thirtieth year, Trocu is. To put him through the Succession now would raise even the dullest man’s brow, to wonder how it is that our unmarried duke could already have a son grown near as old as he.”

  Fiona raised her chin. “I for my part should rather take my chances with whisperings and gossips than face what comes without Damerien’s strength for ours.”

  “He has survived this many a thousand year by not allowing the least credence to be given to such whisperings and gossips. Now you would risk that by giving the doubters proof?”

  “An Trocu should die, what then, Nestor?” She whispered, but her fear and anger were unmistakable. “Sure Trocu’s heir can find answer and ease their minds. After the Succession. Repeat a thing often enough, it becomes truth, this thou knowest. But dost remember how near a thing it was with Brada, how we very nearly lost him before he could complete the Succession to become Trocu? I’d not risk it again.”

  “That was a different thing entirely, Fiona. Brada was mortally wounded, barely alive.”

  “Yes! One and all could see exactly how it fared with Brada. Sure there was no question! But with Trocu, we know he lives only by the steam of his breath on a mirror. Verilion could steal him away in his sleep even while we speak!”

  Nestor snorted. “I doubt even Verilion would like His odds an He tried it…”

  “Damerien could slip away,” she insisted. “What then! It could be a hundred year ere he regain strength enough to return, if at all, and us without him for the nonce, without his essence to give us power, in the midst of the coming maelstrom. An we lose him now, we lose all.”

  “Lose all…?”

  She looked away. “I’ve already long since lost all sense of how to work the strands that bind this world without his strength. So it is with us all, I fear.”

  Nestor laughed grimly. “Then it is your weakness, not his, that speaks for the Succession. You care only for yourself and your own need for his power, Fiona. You’d have a new duke, hale and strong, throwing all five thousand years past and the prophecy ahead into chaos to feed your need,” he spat. He turned to the others, mocking them. “‘I can’t lace mine own boot without Damerien,’ quoth he. ‘I can’t poach mine own egg of a morning without Damerien,’ quoth she. I wonder, can any of you walk up a stair or down without you call upon his power? Are you—the very ones to whom he entrusts his life, cycle upon cycle, his keepers, his bodyguards—are you all grown so feeble that the merest babe has now more power of himself when he wets his swaddling than all of you combined? What use are you to him or to yourselves? What use were you when the cardinal attacked him?”

  The Keepers shuffled uncomfortably. “But we would not betray ourselves to him, Nestor,” answered Fiona. “Can you imagine what he would say, what he would do? The child Pegrine stood to guard the duke, and she was enough.”

  “What luck,” he muttered. “I’d hate to think you’d have to raise a finger to protect your lord as you’re sworn to do.”

  “That is unfair. As it was, we drained the Hadrian of his strength so we could see to Damerien.”

  “Before or after he attacked?”

  They stood in silence, staring at the floor.

  “Before or after Renda herself came into the room to defend him? Have you any idea how your cowardice put the future of this land at risk? And what of Damerien? The Succession would weaken him at his very core at a time when he may be all that stands to protect Syon. Not just this body, his very bloody core! Have you spared a thought to that?” He pushed harder. “What of the land? What of the people?”

  They stared at Nestor, unmoving, silent.

  Colaris bobbed his head and hissed impatiently, whacking the foot with the scroll case against the headboard at his feet. Finally, he leaned down and called sharply right at the duke’s ear. “Kek! Kek kek kek!”

  For a moment, there was no movement from Trocu, and Colaris moved his head closer to call again, but presently the duke’s eyes opened to see wide owl eyes and a sharp beak looking into his face upside down and rather quizzically.

  “Kek…” added Colaris softly.

  “Colaris?” The duke’s voice was hoarse and barely audible. “How now, little one? What brings you…?”

  Trocu sat up weakly and drew the blanket up. Beside him, on the night table and on the dressers lining the walls, candelabrum flames flickered softly to life, until the room was bathed in a gentle glow of candlelight. Trocu looked around at the Keepers, noting the expressions on their faces as they looked at him.

  Colaris hopped gently down to the blanket and lifted his foot so the duke could open the case. The duke fumbled with the clasp, and Nestor stepped forward to help, but the bird fluttered his wings and glared. The old Bremondine stepped back.

  “It’s all right, Nestor.” Trocu smiled weakly at the crowd of keepers around his bed. “A bit of rest seems to have done me good. I must have given you quite a scare, for all of you to be hovering over me so,” he said. He rubbed at his dry throat and reached for the cup of water next to his bed to take a drink. “Fear me not. There will be no talk of Successions, not for quite some time.” He cast a meaningful look at
Fiona and set down the cup.

  “So what’s this about, Colaris?” He scratched the bird’s head for a moment. Then he slid the tiny scroll from its case and read it. So they had discovered the Hadrian cardinal’s treachery, good. He was afraid they would not. But it was as he feared, then. The plague was no more than a distraction, and far more was at stake than he’d imagined. Ah, prophecy, he mused darkly to himself. Such a delicate thing.

  “Nestor,” he said, his voice gaining strength even as he spoke. “Fetch me some riding clothes, something unobtrusive, and gather provisions, see to the horses. We leave before sunrise, as soon as all is prepared.”

  The Keepers, strengthened by the duke’s waking, raised a cacophony of protest as Nestor opened the duke’s armoire and began gathering the duke’s things.

  The flames on the candles flared. “Silence, all of you, or have you forgotten your place?”

  The roar of Damerien’s power, even muted by his body’s weakness, was unmistakable, and they fell silent, chastised certainly but relieved to feel the warmth of his life energy flowing over them. Trocu might not be as strong as he had been, but neither was he on his death bed as they had feared.

  “Nestor, only you and the boy Jath will accompany me,” he continued. “The rest of you will keep to the castle and present all outward appearance that I am within but indisposed, just as I have been for the last many a tenday. Nothing has changed. Is that understood?”

  The rest of the Keepers nodded.

  “You may find yourselves defending the castle, so I suggest you plan accordingly. Now away with you. We all have much to do ere I depart.”

  Almost at once, they melted into the walls and were gone.

  “Nestor, come,” he said. “We’ve no time to waste.”

  * * *

  She sat in the early morning darkness on the third step of the family mausoleum scratching the unusually long nails of her little fingers on the stone step beside her. Her head would not peek above the sides of the stairway unless she chose to look, so she was in no danger of being seen from the main house if anyone was within.

  She’d made peace with what she expected to see long before she set out from Farras, and in truth, what she’d found was not as bad as she’d expected. She had her Hadrian miners to thank for that, as anxious as they were to take up housekeeping in her estate, but it would not buy them an ounce of mercy. She’d already seen to that.

  The main house still stood. Maddock and his men had set it burning right before they left with her sword, but being as it was an ancient hall from the earliest days of Syon and all stone and mortar, it did not burn well or long. She’d lost some furnishings and draperies, things—just things—and easily replaced. Everything irreplaceable she’d either hidden or taken with her. Barring that, she had a good mind where to go to recover it.

  Only charred piles of old timbers and ash remained where the stables, the mews and the barn had been. The servants’ house had been vandalized and had not a single door or window intact, but, like the main house, it was built of stone and did not burn well. If Maddock and his men had noticed that the both the servants’ quarters and the stables were empty, it had not seemed to give them pause on their rampage.

  Gikka had fetched up her papers from beneath the rubble in the crypt where she’d hidden them, those absurdly flimsy weapons for securing one’s belongings that were only of use in a world not at war. She only hoped that she would need them again one day. She’d also taken the opportunity to empty the crypt of the miners’ stashed gems as well. They’d be furious when and if they found out, and they might even guess it was she who had robbed them, not that it would matter. They would soon have much larger problems.

  Four modest shrines lined the mine roads between the miners’ shanty town and the mines, all shrines to the blue-eyed Hadrian child god Limigar—Limigar, whose outermost shape could change but whose eyes were ever an icy blue. Limigar, the spoiled brat who would ease His boredom with cruelty, especially against those who took risks if He did not have a steady supply of new toys and games to entertain Him.

  So, once a tenday, Gikka’s miners, as well as Hadrians elsewhere who would climb mountains, sail seas, gamble, give birth, open a shop, or do anything involving risk, would fill Limigar’s shrines with offerings of games and puzzles, signed with their names or the names of those they wished to favor, to buy his distraction. How those lazy Hadrians managed to come up with clever new toys for him every tenday was a mystery to Gikka. If they’d ever turn half that ingenuity toward their work, they should own all of Syon in a trice.

  She’d considered simply smashing the toys in the shrines to pieces, but remembering herself as a child, she decided Limigar would likely find it more frustrating to get toys that were nearly perfect, that almost worked but for a single missing piece. So slowly, painstakingly, she moved from one shrine to another, taking key pieces from each of the toys and games.

  Only one of the puzzles in one of the shrines would be intact when the offerings vanished in the morning, one maddeningly simple collection of curved wooden rings the size of a man’s wrist that had to be fit one within another in exactly the right order or they would go all awry. The set of rings was beautifully carved with Chul’s own hunting knife, a brilliant diversion he’d made in his idleness in Farras, and here was a use for it. It was surely something Limigar had never seen—a Dhanani puzzle for a Hadrian god. She wasn’t one to cling to Hadrian superstitions, nor any superstitions in truth, but right now, she would take any advantage she could get, especially for the boy. She’d only hoped it would shield them from Limigar’s wrath when he discovered the toys she had broken.

  That seemed a lifetime ago. She looked up at the horizon, where the sun was almost ready to crown. The miners had left hours ago to head for the mines. They should be arriving there soon, and not long after that…well, she hoped to be well away from here by then.

  Where was Chul? A worried frown crossed her brow. He should have delivered his warning to Brannagh and been back hours ago. Something must have happened. She stood, considering her options. She could ride to Brannagh and take her chances with what she might find there, or she could go straight on to Brannford, as they’d planned in Farras, and hope he had the wit to seek her there. The boy had protested when she said she would leave him in Brannford while she sought Dith, but she had made clear that she was not taking a Dhanani into the Hodrache Range, into a land infested with Hadrians.

  Hadrians.

  She cursed under her breath. All it would take is for the boy to see one of those cursed Hadrian clerics at Brannagh, just one, and he’d lose control. She’d planned so carefully, sending him in as far from the chapels and the guest quarters as possible, straight to the family’s private quarters. She’d warned him not to be seen by anyone, and she’d even given her cloak to him. Most of all, she’d warned him about the Hadrian priests.

  Her mouth felt dry. She’d seen what happened when Aidan saw his first Hadrian. Maybe she should have ignored Renda’s orders and gone herself.

  She felt the rays of the sun cross over the stone and touch the top of her head, and she wondered if he’d raised his knife to catch the first ray or if today was the day the sun would sneak up on him.

  Twenty-Nine

  At B’radik’s command, Nara had not stirred from her bed in the nursery since Valmerous arrived at Brannagh. She’d eaten nothing, drunk nothing, moved not at all lest he know she was there. Her body was asleep to the point of death, cold and quiet, sipping only tiny amounts of her goddess’s strength to keep her alive, while her spirit kept silent vigil in Pegrine’s sacred place of life.

  She had allowed herself only one departure from B’radik’s orders. Last night, she had sent her spirit to Renda in the chapel to ask the blessings of B’radik and to set protections over her. It had been quite a risk—Valmerous could have come to the chapel a moment earlier, or he might have decided to try attacking the nursery again before entering the crypt. Either way, Pegrine wo
uld have been in danger. But without Renda, Damerien would not survive. Nara had failed the duke once; she would not fail him again.

  Her hands flexed irritably under the bedclothes at the strange spreading warmth that began in her palms and poured through her veins like warm cognac. Suddenly, her sips of power became frantic gulps as the thirsting woman nearly drowned in the sudden burst of B’radik’s power. Her bedclothes began to smoke and smolder until she regained herself enough to damp the tremendous glow of power emanating from her body. Her spirit soared. She had not felt this luxurious rush of the goddess’s power since the war’s end: B’radik was free.

  “Nara!” Lady Glynnis was pounding at her door. “Nara, open at once! Please! The castle is in danger!”

  Minutes later, wrapped in a dark gray mantle to conceal even the controlled glow of her habit, she shuffled up the battlement stairs alone and looked down over the churning mass of bodies below. Would that she could have taken Arnard and his priests away from their patients to help her, but they were trying to save as many of the knights as possible now that B’radik’s strength had returned to them, too. Arnard had even ventured aloud that they might have the strength to stop the plague, but Nara had hushed his optimism. First, they would have to survive.

  So, alone at the top of the castle wall, Nara took a deep breath and raised her hands over the enemy army massing below.

  “Nara.”

  She paused, lowered her hands. “Praise B’radik,” she murmured. “I greet You.”

  “And I, you.”

  “It is as I’d hoped, then. You are free.” Nara bowed her head. “Lord Daerwin and Lady Renda were victorious?”

  “It was a near thing, but Valmerous is dead, and Damerien is safe. The sheriff and his daughter live.”

  The old woman nodded, her eyes focused in the far distance as she watched the battle in her mind’s eye. “Lord Daerwin,” she gasped. “He is injured. Badly.”