Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2)

by Jordan MacLean

  Bakti looked earnestly at Aidan and murmured quietly to him. Aidan nodded.

  “The chief asks, and with this he asks your absolute candor: do you believe they might follow you here?”

  Again, the knights looked one to another.

  “No,” answered Dane. “I’m no great scout, but I served under Gikka of Graymonde at times in the war. I learned me right well how to clean a trail. So we know they do not follow. We should be safe.”

  “No,” said Tero quietly, looking into the fire. “We only know they did not track us here. We do not know their objectives, so we cannot know where they go next.” He looked up at Bakti. “Best we prepare and hope it is for nothing.”

  Bakti nodded without waiting for the translation.

  Fourteen

  Landbridge

  Glasada’s ears pricked forward and he slowed his step as he neared the top of the hill, alerting Dith to the danger ahead. Dith was pleased that his horse had learned quickly that he did not need to sough or nicker or make any vocalization to signal danger to his rider. He touched the horse’s thin shoulder gently, acknowledging what he had already felt on the strands and what he’d been dreading since he left Pyran: the mages were massing ahead.

  “The Lacework, as I suspected, although it’s substantially larger and higher than it was when last I saw it.”

  Indeed, the image of the Lacework which Galorin had placed in his thoughts was delicate by comparison to what he saw before him. Great towering coral reefs ranging in color from white to dark brilliant purples cut upward from the ground below the sea, piercing through the crevasses in the original gray stone lattice and climbing above it by hundreds of feet in places. Between the jutting spires of dying coral, the stone was surprisingly clean. Whether it was because the coral itself had shunned the stone or whether the mages had cleared a path, he could not know, but the blotchy rainbow reefs had held aloof from the bland rock, leaving gaps in places along the way. Most were only of a size to break a horse’s leg, but a few he could see were large enough for a man to drop through to the sea below.

  “Have a care. Even before I sank the landbridge, this was already the most difficult part of the journey, but now…. As I told you before, were I planning an ambush, this is where I would place it.”

  Dith blinked away the exasperation that filled his thoughts. Of course Galorin had been telling him all along that they would ambush him at the Lacework, and of course Galorin was right. But neither of those facts had been useful before since he could not very well port past it, and neither was of particular use right now, especially since the Lacework bore no resemblance to what they had both expected.

  He had left the main road before he was even out of sight of Pyran, and once he had felt secure enough to stop his headlong flight, the first order of business had been to dig his gold robes and his seamless Bremondine boots out of his rucksack. He was quite cold by that point and in spite of the comfort of his seamless robes, he found himself missing the scratchy heavy velvets and wools that his power had flashed out of existence like so much spider silk.

  To say nothing of the sword. Not that he’d ever really learned to use one, but given his present situation, he wished he’d been able to keep some weapon about him.

  By far, his biggest concern thus far had been that the provender he’d brought along for Glasada would not be enough. He had bought only as much as Glasada could carry, enough for perhaps a tenday, thinking to provision more completely once they had secured passage aboard ship. He could provide for himself, taking fish from the salt water ponds they passed or even catching a sea bird if necessary, and of course he could distill fresh water for himself and the horse easily enough, but for food, Glasada was completely at the mercy of the feed bags since he could not eat the sea plants. Every option that presented itself to find food for him this far from either shore required a bending of probabilities. As soon as he’d touched the strands, he’d known the mages would be upon him and all would be lost. So he’d been rationing the feed carefully to stave off the worst of Glasada’s hunger pangs, his heart breaking as his horse grew thinner with no end to the landbridge in sight.

  Several times, he had ridden near enough to the road to see a few of the mages on hilltops along the way, looking out over the bare muddy terrain and then vanishing, whether porting away to wherever their forward camp was or merely running away. No doubt they had regular patrols, and no doubt he’d managed to be in the right place to see them only a fraction of the time, but it was enough to know they were looking for him. He had watched them bind their clumsy beacons to the strands to detect any movement, any presence, that might disturb them, and each time he’d ridden by them undetected.

  Still, their calculations with regard to his speed of travel had been surprisingly accurate—accurate enough that he worried that, for all his care, they might know exactly where he was. If so, they were not so much looking for him with their little scouting trips as they were tracking him or even herding him in the direction they wanted him to go. An unsettling prospect.

  The broad miles north and south he had taken for granted, and only as they’d narrowed approaching the Lacework had he begun to feel constricted. Now, with but a half mile of width over twenty miles of blind roadway cutting between great towers and canopies of coral reef and areas with no cover at all, he would alternate between being utterly blind and having nowhere to hide. He had no way to port past it since one side was not visible from the other, and he had never seen the other side. Whatever he did to cross the Lacework, he would be vulnerable to their attacks.

  “Vulnerable? No more so than you were in Pyran.”

  “They were completely disorganized in Pyran,” Dith muttered under his breath, “and we were bloody lucky. Besides, they have had time to gather reinforcements.”

  “Time, perhaps, yes, but inclination? I tend to think not, since gathering reinforcements would mean making a report, a thing they might not wish to do, hard on the heels of defeat. You have so little faith in yourself, boy. Fortunately for us, they have immense faith in you, and it keeps them at bay. Do you suppose the fact that you decimated them with only your protections in Pyran is lost on them? Or the fact that that they stand upon ground which you raised rather readily and could sink again if the mood struck? I wager half will break and run the moment you show your face.”

  “Have you forgotten that this same army killed you in your own keep?” he seethed. “I will not underestimate them the way you did.”

  “Then do not. But likewise, do not so overestimate them that you defeat yourself with panic. Yes, there are many of them, and yes, their power magnifies with their numbers. But understand: you are a single man, and they are many. In any other context, you would be at a disadvantage. But not here. Not on the Lacework. At least, not if you’re careful.”

  Dith slid quietly from the saddle and moved up the hill ahead, slipping slightly in the mud as he climbed. From the hilltop, he could see the easy grade of the Lacework rising and narrowing still further, even as the land beneath it disappeared under the water. At the near side of it, men and women of the Art were slogging about in the swamp surrounding the base of the coral and stone lattice. Behind them, a tapestry of bent and twisted strands led to illusions, protections and even latent attacks they’d readied for him, as if they’d expected him to ride right up the road––something he had not done since he left Pyran––and straight up the Lacework without a thought. They could not be that stupid. Could they?

  “I suppose they could, but given your fear of underestimating them, I would err to the side of caution. This whole scheme is meant to draw you into overconfidence, I think.”

  Dith nodded and slipped back down the hill to mount Glasada. They no doubt expected him to ride straight through and weaken himself by holding off all their silly nonsense. Of course, in their zeal to embroider the edge of the Lacework so carefully, they had necessarily had to leave the areas beyond them unprotected, areas they apparently did not expec
t him to be able to see from the road, but areas he could see quite well from the hilltop. He considered only for a moment before he and Glasada––

  “No! What are you doing?”

  ––ported to a clear space on the Lacework.

  * * *

  “Ro brimina, brimina,” Chul murmured to reassure his horse and urged him just a bit faster over the flat. Between the slick patches of mud and the constant ropy tangles of dying seaweed and stinking kelp that grabbed at the horse’s hooves as he moved, he’d had to go carefully, but now with a length of the ancient stone road ahead of him, he could afford to let his horse stretch his legs a bit.

  Each morning before dawn when they broke camp, Jath reminded him to ride with caution. His words said that it was a wonder that they’d not yet lost a horse to injury, but what he meant was that it was a wonder Chul hadn’t lost his horse yet. Of all the horses they’d brought along, including a fair number of those Jath had gathered at Brannford, his had had the least training. Now and again, to let this horse rest and clop along the easy road with the others, he’d taken one of the rescues from Brannford, but all that had served to show him was that this horse, this white horse he’d thought hopelessly stupid for so long, was his horse after all.

  So he’d taken Jath’s further advice, and, rather than ride along the road with the others along the much safer stone of the ancient roadway, he’d ridden with Gikka to scout ahead, using the opportunity to give his horse the training he needed––proper Dhanani training, as he’d promised. To his joy, the horse drank the training up, as if he’d been thirsting for it all his life. Already, he could feel a difference in the horse’s confidence and his own. Between the Dhanani training and what Chul was incorporating of the way the knights trained their horses, by the time this horse earned his name, he would be, indeed, a proper Dhanani warhorse.

  Chul had left the heavy blacksmith’s saddle in Brannford, his gift to the new Baron to go with Jath’s gift of one of the spirited young geldings he’d rescued. Poor Tagen knew as little of riding as he did of being a nobleman, but the horse was good natured if a bit oversized––a fine and patient mount for the Baron of Brannford––and Tagen would learn quickly.

  So now Chul rode with nothing but his own leathers between himself and the horse. He had strapped a very light rope-knotted mesh, more of a belt than anything, about the horse’s belly which served to let the horse carry Chul’s bundled belongings, including the strange Hadrian bow the sheriff had given him, low and tight to his sides instead of high on his back or higher still, on Chul’s back. As a result, he was faster and much more nimble over the treacherous terrain than the other horses.

  The bow had done precious little but vex him, and it was not a weapon he enjoyed using, though per the sheriff’s command, he had worked with it. Perhaps it was his own fault because he knew it was Hadrian made, but he simply could not seem to work it as readily as the knights, not even as readily as Nestor and Jath, and the humiliation of trying over and over to knock over an apple core had worn on his good nature. It was not until Gikka pointed out to him that most all the knights had been bow hunting since childhood that he forgave himself his newness to the art even a little and was able to relax enough to learn. He’d finally knocked over an apple core. Once. He still preferred his sling.

  Within only a few miles of Pyran, Gikka and Chul had come upon Dith’s trail, surprisingly far to the south of what remained of the ancient roadway. The trail had been completely unhidden, either by magic or by conventional precaution, as if he had no fear of who came behind him but only of what lay ahead. Or, as Gikka had suggested, perhaps he’d used so much of his power in the raising of the landbridge that he had none left to cover his tracks. Another possibility rose in Chul’s mind, the idea that this was a false trail, but that seemed a lot of trouble, especially if the mage was conserving his power. In any case, his trail was not difficult to see, what with his horse’s prints being the only ones ahead of them and drying into the mud as they were.

  The mage had ridden a meandering serpentine course, sometimes moving in close parallel to the road, sometimes riding miles to the north or south, moving from one clump of dying kelp to another to make his way east. It made sense that he would go that way. What remained of the road was obviously the most direct route, but it was also the most open and vulnerable if he’d thought himself in danger, which apparently he had.

  So while Gikka and Chul rode each day along his winding path, the main body of riders and the spare horses rode the more direct route, straight up the roadway. The few surviving plants had not taken heavy root in the stone, which meant it was more or less clear, both for riding and for fighting if the need arose. The last thing they would want would be for them all to be fighting their way through tangles of seaweed and kelp, if they were suddenly beset.

  Ahead to the east and about a hundred yards south of Chul, Gikka had reappeared on the top of the hill. She looked back to find the boy and signaled to him that all was well, then dipped below the hilltop again. She was following Dith’s precise trail while Chul had what seemed to him the more difficult task––finding the occasional places where seemingly out of nothing, seamless boots had left tracks in the mud and then vanished again.

  He’d seen the occasional beacons they’d left, especially along the main road, and he’d taken pains not to come too near them. Gikka assured him that they were meant to be tripped only by magic, so he had nothing to fear, but still, they worried him. He did not much care to be seen by the unseen. Besides, for all that they might not concern themselves with anyone but Dith, still, they might be inspired to mischief if the mood struck. So, as she’d instructed him, he had carefully marked the beacons off with red flags for the riders following hard upon because some of them actually were mages.

  In the last day or two, the ground had begun congealing into a mud pudding beneath a fragile crust of salt deposits, ice and drying clay. The broken crust and the hoofprints drying into the mud beneath told her that Dith had passed this way only a day or so ahead of them, and they were clearly catching up to him. This did not surprise her since in the tenday since they’d left Pyran, she had led the knights along the straightest route while he had gone many hundreds of miles of meandering north and south.

  Gikka rode carefully, watching the tracks turn this way and that, working their ways around the sinkholes and sharp coral outcroppings. The path chosen was surprisingly elegant, almost expert. Occasionally, seeing the mark of a particularly brilliant bit of horsemanship, she found herself wondering again how the rider could possibly be Dith, but then again, as unlikely as it was that he would come riding, it was no less likely that such a horse as would suffer him to sit would have a care to his own footing. Otherwise, she should have come upon them already over a cracked hoof or a thrown shoe, or worse.

  All along the way, sea birds had flocked to gorge themselves on the unlucky sea creatures who could not make their ways to water and the dying sea plants that froze by night or withered in the weak Bilkarian sunlight, and the loud muss and muddle they created had helped to hide him from casual eyes as he moved, at least from those who had no eye to track anything but magic. But he could not have left a clearer path for her to follow. She only hoped they would all get across before the silt dried to dust and began throwing up great plumes to mark their passing, or this could get very dangerous indeed.

  Most of the time, she skirted wide of them, only staying near enough to keep Dith’s tracks in sight, but once in a while, she had had to get near enough that the birds noticed her. Then birds quieted for only a moment as she neared them, then resumed their cries and gossip once they determined that she was no threat, no matter how close she came. Only this time…this time, she might well have missed it had she not been paying attention. The birds had just quieted again. And now, startled, they flew off.

  She drew the hood up on her cloak, feeling the slight weakness and dizziness that went with its sudden draw on her strength. Zinion snorted wi
th disgust at the feeling of the cloak’s strange magic around him, a feeling he’d learned to tolerate for the sake of stealth.

  Then, concealed as she was against her surroundings, Gikka drew her dagger and rode forward, listening carefully, watching for movement. Within only a moment, she found what had startled the birds.

  “Cwara!” Behind a clump of coral not far away, she saw a terrified man in seamless robes, bathed in a glow of his protections, his hand upraised against her. He was looking right where she sat, directing this strange word at her. That and another: “Wyt’stra!” He tightened his hand, and she readied herself for his attack. But none came. He was too frightened. She edged Zinion nearer to him, and still the man’s gaze followed her, his hands raised now more in fear than in threat. Zinion tensed beneath the cloak, disliking the power emanating from the mage. A low growl rose in his throat that Gikka felt more than heard.

  Damned mages. Whatever his protections were, they were going to hurt when she set them off, but she could not let him get away, not now that he’d seen her. Sooner or later, his desire to escape would overwhelm his fear, and he would port himself away to safety. Or to gather the other mages. Well, that settled it. She could not leave him lie.

  He was not any bigger than she, and he was certainly not as well trained in combat. She sprang from her horse, drawing her dagger, and sank it in just below his collarbone, cursing at the surge of crackling pain and numbness that flowed through her arm. Zinion, now clear of the cloak, bucked and backed away from the crackle of power.

  “Cwara wyt’strachya!” The mage tried to get out from under her, tried to back away. He stared at the knife sticking out of his chest and reached up to pull it out, but she stopped him.

  “Oh, but listen to you whine!” she barked at him, and fell atop him. “You’re not even bleeding…much. But you’ll not be raising that hand to me again today, I reckon.”