Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2)

by Jordan MacLean

  Powerful? What kind of power? Did Galorin mean kings and princes as opposed to peasants, or…?

  “Not exactly. Through experimentation, they found the richest supply in those who were powerful in terms of magic, hence their orgy of death against their fellow vivemancers. Obviously one such as yourself…well, suffice it to say, you would be quite a prize to them. We cannot let them get so much as a glimpse of you or they will hunt you relentlessly.”

  Vivemancy. He turned the word over in his mind. He looked ahead of him, toward Byrandia, and behind him to where the Witcher mages must be. Suddenly the formidable army of mages he’d faced before did not seem nearly as terrifying. He looked below them at the now very human camp and its small fires, then across the strands at the magic the terrified mages had set down to protect themselves, and he felt a twinge of something––was it guilt? Pity? What had seemed to him such a formidable array of power now seemed rather pathetic, coated thickly as it was in fear.

  “Best you keep perspective. Both enemies are deadly.”

  Yes, but one enemy will likely kill the other, and then I can escape.

  “Most likely the mage army is thinking the same. Notice how little effort they expend now to hunt you. But you both make the same error.”

  Ah, well. These mages would serve to slow the Wittister mages down, at least. In any case, his path lay toward Byrandia, and as soon as he made that determination, Glasada started gratefully down the hillside.

  “Their deaths will feed the Wittisters and strengthen them. You know that, yes?”

  Glasada blew out a sharp breath that fogged in the cold air, but his step did not falter.

  Dith shook his head. What did Galorin expect of him, that he should face both, here and now? That was simply not possible.

  “By no means! No, I have said since the beginning that you should make your way to Byrandia at all speed. But you must know the cost of leaving these behind.”

  The horse slowed for a moment as the full realization of what Galorin was saying struck Dith. Hours before, these mages had been the enemy. He had struck a Thrum against them and watched almost gleefully while they tore each other apart, thinking to kill off the last survivors one by one. But now, the thought of killing them offended him on some level he did not understand fully.

  “It’s one thing to face an enemy in honorable battle, skill against skill, wit against wit. But this no doubt feels to you like hire and murder, shooting your esteemed opponent in the back, as it were.”

  Dith swallowed hard. Yes, he supposed it was something like that, as absurd as it seemed to him. No, it was more than that: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Suddenly, they found themselves on the same side against a far greater threat.

  “They are not on your side! Do not forget, they tried to destroy you and would again!”

  “They did destroy you,” Dith snapped. But even as the words left his lips, he knew Galorin was right. Even assuming he could manage to parlay with them and offer even a temporary truce so they might join forces, the eventual outcome would be the same: either they would die here against the Wittister mages, or they would die trying to kill him somewhere in Byrandia.

  He shivered suddenly, recalling something Galorin had just said.

  The Wittister Mages never achieved Syon: I saw to that.

  If they’d never managed to get to Syon…why were they following behind him on the landbridge? Coming from Syon?

  “Strange, but I cannot feel the Wittister mages on the strands,” he murmured. He directed his attention down toward those at the edge of the Lacework. “I see those below me and the curls of power streaming from them.” He looked up and peered intently across the Lacework and beyond it across the landbridge. “But I do…not…see…”

  “No, nor will you, not until they attack. That is part of what makes them so deadly. Their energy does not leak out about them the way ours does, and for this reason, they can move freely amongst livestock like horses and cattle. One of them could walk right up to you, and you would never know until it was too late. But if you were ever to see the signature of the Wittisters’ power on the strands and survive, you would never forget it.”

  You have seen it. Show me.

  “You know right well it would be meaningless. My experience of the strands and yours are not the same. Suffice it to say, when you see it, it is unmistakable. Above all, the sense of it is of death and wasting.”

  He looked down in frustration. How could he know he was not getting carried away with assumption and fears? Witcher mages, after all! Nothing more than a pile of bones had been enough that he’d let himself be scared back into his childhood by legends and myths of vampire mages to the point where he’d actually found pity for mages who until only hours ago had been trying to kill him.

  “The body was unmistakable. The dead zone in the grass around it indicates he was still in their grasp, still in the process of being drained, when he ported back. He must have hoped it would save him, but it did not. There is no doubt.”

  Below them in the plain, the air erupted with lightning and fire. Something, a bat perhaps, was flying over the mages near the edge of the Lacework, dodging between the bolts and missing them, for the most part. It flew with grace and skill, but a flickering glow about the tiny shape said that it had not escaped unscathed.

  Dith blew across his fingers. The flickering glow was gone, and the little creature vanished into darkness. He would not have a creature burn to death. Now at least it would stand a chance of survival.

  “So sentimental. First the horse, now whatever that was. I suppose it isn’t any wonder that you feel pangs of guilt about killing the mages who tried to kill you. But as you see, they have no such softness about them.”

  No, and that is what separates me from them, he mused. He sniffed the air. A faint odor of burning hair or feathers reached his nostrils, growing stronger. Whatever it was, it was nearing him. To move that quickly, it could not be a bat.

  “Kek,” the bird called out weakly, wracked with pain. A few feet from Glasada, a little shape tumbled to the ground and lay still. On his foot was a tiny scrollcase.

  “Colaris?” Dith jumped to the ground and ran to the bird. The sheriff’s harrier was still alive, but barely, having had the feathers on his wings and on his back burned mostly away, leaving the skin singed and blistered. His breathing was very rough and fast, and as Dith picked him up, he lay very still, his eyes staring far away. But that Dith could feel his tiny heart racing, he would have thought the bird dead.

  He slipped off one of his boots and withdrew from it some of the folded Bremondine silk that lined the inside. He bit a corner of the silk and tore off a strip that he lay across the bird’s back and wings to speed the healing. Then he wrapped the little bird gently in the rest of the silk to keep him warm, having a care not to bind him too tightly and avoiding the sharp talons that lay so disturbingly lifeless. He would need to get Colaris into some light to see the extent of the injuries, but assuming the burns did not run deeply into the bird’s flesh, he should live if he could survive the shock.

  Dith looked back toward Syon, not so much to see but to consider. Colaris would not have flown here all the way from Brannagh, and even if the sheriff had sent him to seek Dith, he would more likely have sent him into the Hodrache, not here. More likely still, he’d have sent Gikka herself to cover such a distance. So had the bird flown from Pyran, perhaps? News of the landbridge could not possibly have reached Brannagh so quickly, so why would the sheriff be anywhere near Pyran, and if he were, why would he have Colaris with him?

  He stroked the bird’s head gently, soothingly. “There, there, little one,” he breathed. “All will be well.” Then he slipped the little scroll from the case and unrolled it.

  Chul ran as fast as he could back to the knights’ camp without a care to noise or leaving behind his bare footprints in the sandy dried sea floor. Behind him, the sun had just risen clear of the horizon, and the reddish light of dawn was becoming go
ld.

  Earlier, as he had always done, he’d risen to greet the first rays of dawn, and almost as he’d sheathed his hunting knife, the worried sheriff had sent him to see if he could find any trace of Colaris, who had not yet returned.

  Lord Daerwin had been sitting beside the dying embers of the night’s fires watching for the bird to return, almost from the moment Chul had come back from releasing him. Now he jumped up as Chul stopped before him.

  “How now, boy,” asked the sheriff. “Any sign of him?”

  The Dhanani shook his head, recovering his breath. “I sought beneath the Lacework as far as I could go. There is no sign of him.”

  Daerwin frowned. “Not…in the water, either? You’re sure?”

  Chul nodded.

  Daerwin sighed. “Well, that much is a relief at any rate, small comfort though it be.”

  “Aye, my Lord, but I’ve more to tell as concerns the mages’ camp.”

  Chul had retraced his path from the night before, listening and watching for the mages, but he’d seen no one. No sentinels, no loud crashing about from the rest. Not a single soul anywhere. He’d made his way closer to the Lacework, conscious that they might be trying to lure him in. But no, their camp, their latrines, everything was gone as if it had never existed. He’d crouched behind a clump of coral within view of the ancient stone roadway peeking up above the powdery blowing silt, perhaps a hundred yards from the edge of the Lacework, and from there, he’d crept along the edge of the roadway, watching, looking above him on the high stands of coral, looking ahead and behind, watching for the ambush. But none came. Before long, he’d found himself walking directly down the central roadway, in the open. Still nothing.

  They were gone.

  “They must have moved on during the night,” the duke suggested when the boy repeated the story to him. “So what we should be asking is what this mean for us going forward. Did they perhaps retreat to a position deeper into the Lacework?”

  Gikka crouched beside the drawing of the mage camp’s layout Chul had made in the sand. “How near the Lacework did you go, lad?”

  “About here,” he said, indicating the edge of the Lacework on his dirt map. “I did not enter, but I did come near enough to look well in and to throw a stone. Not a spark. A mage should look and be sure, but I believe they cleaned their magic off the Lacework, as well. It’s like they want us to think they were never there.”

  Renda shook her head. “I am certain it has nothing to do with us. Did you have a sense from them when you took Colaris last night that they were aware we were camped here, or that they were concerned?”

  Chul laughed. “If they knew we were here, they were braver than I thought. They made more noise than Hadrian whores on Market––” he cast a self-conscious glance at the duke and Renda. “A…lot of noise, like men unaware they were being watched. It was as if they were marking time. Like their part was done, and they were awaiting orders.”

  Lord Daerwin nodded. “So unless their sentries suddenly learned ambition and extended their patrols substantially, they were unlikely to discover us. But why clean their camp so carefully? As Chul says, it’s as if they would not let anyone know they’d been there at all. But surely Dith already knew.” Daerwin looked worriedly across the Lacework. “Who are they expecting? Surely not us…”

  Damerien stroked his chin thoughtfully. Behind him, Chul could see Nestor serving a quick breakfast to the rest of the knights. “We can concern ourselves with the why of it when we have leisure, but I think we should take advantage of this opportunity to cross the Lacework unimpeded. We cannot know if they will return or when. It could be an ambush, of course, so we will need to move carefully.” The duke clapped a hand on Daerwin’s shoulder. “Peace, Uncle. Colaris will find us, no matter where we are. Come.”

  Eighteen

  Kharkara Plains

  Lady Glynnis watched Lwyn thump his fist approvingly against the hard Dhanani battle leathers as the women cinched them around him and laced them closed with a leather thong. Like the Dhanani leathers, it left his arms bare, but with hardened leather layered with thin plates of stone over his chest and back. Similar plates covered his groin and his legs. These would not be as strong as the plate riding armor he’d lost at Castle Brannagh, but they were perfectly serviceable, and they certainly gave more protection than he’d had in his shirtsleeves. Besides, he seemed pleased at the freedom of movement they allowed.

  “Four deer,” one of the older tribeswomen had said, gauging his size, and the others had laughed at her. A large man of the tribes would take two for a suit of leathers, three for the battle leathers. Then again, he was half a head taller than the chief and half again as broad top to bottom, so in the end, she had been right: four deer, and they’d had to supplement with scraps besides.

  Tradition held that as a warrior, he was expected to kill the deer for his leathers himself, and so he did, fashioning for himself, after several abortive attempts, a proper Anatayan hunting bow to do so. Eight deer later, the tribe was well fed, and he had his regular leathers to wear day by day as well as these battle leathers.

  Having the skins was not enough of course. The pieces they would normally cut from a single skin with very little waste instead had had to be cut from two and then had had to be joined in odd places with scraps here and there. They had had to mind where they put the extra seams so as not to cause him to chafe while still allowing for the plates, and they had fussed over the appearance of the extra seams, as well. In the end, however, the Dhanani women were rewarded with the sight of an Anatayan, even a half-Anatayan, as he was, dressed in Dhanani battle leathers, a thing no one would ever have thought to see. But just as the tribe had welcomed him among the other knights at war’s end, Anatayan blood or no, they’d welcomed him again as a refugee in Lady Glynnis’s company and taken him in, as Chief Bakti put it, “as a son of our brother Brannagh.”

  Glynnis had been speechless with gratitude. Lwyn’s mother’s people would never have been so accepting of outsiders––they had not even been accepting of him, being not of pure Anatayan blood. But then, she supposed there was a reason he no longer lived among his mother’s people. She’d watched with pride as he bowed in thanks to the Dhanani women, and she herself, acting as his ka, had tied the storyskin on his bare arm, his own Dhanani storyskin to be embroidered one day with the tales of his exploits.

  Tero and Dane were likewise fitted with battle leathers made from the skins of deer of their own hunting, though their leathers did not require nearly as many and were much easier to come by. Tero had taken it upon himself to learn to use the xindraga, the curious Dhanani horse flail, making it a point of pride to get his deer with that weapon.

  She had been ka to them as well, tying on their storyskins.

  For Sedrik, one of the older men offered an old set of leathers he had outgrown in his prosperity, and a few women were able to offer up their old doeskin leathers for Greta and Nara. Greta in her own very practical way settled into the strange feeling of wearing these odd leather bloomers out in the world fairly quickly and seemed quite at home in them. Nara adapted to them, as well, but Glynnis found the strangeness of seeing Nara wearing anything but her white cassock a little unsettling. Like the knights’ need for new armor, it could not be helped. The thin cloth B’radikite habit she’d worn through the final battle at the castle and throughout their time in the forest had simply given out.

  Her own clothing was another matter. The women had surreptitiously taken it upon themselves to study her now filthy and tattered silk gown, a thing they’d never before seen, to try to understand how it went together. Then they’d surprised her with a remarkable copy of that gown, crafted from all the doeskin they’d hoarded to make themselves new leathers. Of course, they’d had no conception of the undergarments she wore beneath it since they’d only studied the gown as they could while she’d worn it, so they’d worked quite hard to make the skirts and bodice to hold their own weight and shape without anything beneath,
using the same stone layering as the men’s battle armor, only to discover when they went to dress her that her destroyed silks had all manner of underpinnings beneath to hold them up.

  The baffled looks on the women’s faces as they’d helped undress her layer by layer, stripping away the filthy stays and corsets and all the sundry petticoats and such that held up her skirt, had been enough to bring the first sparkle of laughter from her throat in the longest time. The gown they’d made for her could literally stand on its own. By accident, her new gown was almost as armored as knights’ battle leathers.

  The gesture touched her soul deeply. These women had known she was in deep pain at the loss of everything she’d known, and they’d worked hard to welcome her and to ease her sorrow, to give her something of the life she’d known as best they could. Secretly she wondered if they understood that she was not Renda, their hero from the war, but even if they did not, she supposed that was all right because it gave her one last connection with her lost daughter, and through her, to her beloved Daerwin.

  Even though she would rather have retreated into the tent the Dhanani built for her and never come out, she made an effort each day to rise with the sun as they did, and to walk among them and to smile and play with the children. She made herself useful helping to cook or gather herbs. When she’d come to the cookfires with some rabbits she’d killed with a sling, they’d been quite grateful and only mildly surprised, considering that she was, after all, Renda’s mother.