Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2)

Published by Raconteur House

Manchester, TN

Printed in the USA through Ingram Distributing.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

GUARDIAN LAST

Lords of Syon Book Two

A Raconteur House book/ published by arrangement with the
author

PRINTING HISTORY

Raconteur House ebook edition/August 2013

Raconteur House mass-market edition/August 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Jordan MacLean

Cover by Monica Ras

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For Mike and Jericho

On the landbridge, east of Pyran,
in the year of Byrandia, 11483

“Move ahead.  Keep going!” the mage shouted over the gusting
wind and waved the refugees on. “It won’t be long now.” 

Ahead of them, he could make out the fire in the Pyran lighthouse
far north by northwest––a  dim prick of light, no brighter than a star set low
on the horizon, but he took heart in seeing it.  The last crude beacons he’d
set for them during the night winked and foundered in the freezing ocean wind. 
They would all blow out completely by daybreak, but that was of no matter now. 
He knew his way from here, having led men and women of the Art along this route
a hundred times before.  By the end of this dawning day or perhaps on the
morrow, they would be within Pyran’s walls, warm and dry and, above all, safe.

Most of the trek across the wide strip of marshland had been
cold, windy, and wet, and the terrain offered very little cover against the
weather.  Weedy trees and grasses huddled here and there in desperate looking clumps
seeming to count themselves lucky to get sips of fresh water amidst the salt. 

The landbridge did not differ too much from the coastline of
either Byrandia on one side or Syon on the other, save for the single broad
road that connected Hadar’s Bluff to Pyran.  Inns and provisioning shops
clustered in tiny villages along the road were separated by about as much
distance as a man could travel in a day.  Behind these, likewise kept to a
narrow band along the road, were the homes of those who lived and worked in the
villages and their farms.  At places along the way, a man standing in the road
would see no water either to the north or south, so broad was the strait.  More
than a mile or two either north or south, the land was wild and mostly
untraveled, a haven for bandits and con artists and those who would avoid being
seen.  He supposed the north and south coasts of the landbridge probably held
storm harbors for the fishing ships, though he’d never come near enough those
coastlines to see them.

The only place where the land’s service as a bridge was
unmistakable was around the Lacework.  The half-mile-wide bottleneck of
delicate looking stone lattice arched upward about ten feet above where the
marshland disappeared below the water for nearly twenty miles before it
rejoined the landbridge on the other side.  The Lacework was the most dangerous
part of the crossing, in part because the main road was the only way across it.

The main road broadened at the Lacework to take up the
entire width of the treacherous stone lattice for all that it actually narrowed
to only half a mile in width.  It had always seemed to him the ideal place for
an ambush.  The season’s snow and freezing rain made the slickness of the iced
rock and the great eroded fissures that led straight into the sea even more
treacherous than they were the rest of the year.  So he had always approached the
Lacework with extreme caution.

The journey was even more difficult this time.  They had had
to cross in small groups by night when the ice was at its worst, when no others
would dare.  Luck alone had carried them all across the Lacework and into the shelter
of the trees before the ice storms hit.  But even so, what should have taken them
a day or two to cross had taken them five, lengthening their entire journey to
well over a month.  To make matters worse, the weather was not improving.

All the rest still in Byrandia, the ones still in hiding,
waiting their turn…  He sighed.  They would have to hide a bit longer, most
likely until the Feast of Didian.  He would not risk the Lacework again until
the thaw and surely not with so many.

He crouched beside the path to conserve his body heat,
blowing over his hands to warm them as the refugees passed.  His seamless
platinum robes flapped and rippled around his body, wet, icy, clinging to his
thin shins, no more able to hold his body heat than it was to stop the flow of
his power—an uncomfortable but necessary trait for mages’ clothing.  Only his
feet were warm, for which he supposed he should be grateful, kept so by folded
layers of Brymandyan silk lining his seamless boots.

The temptation to loose a single white-hot spark into the
dampened scrub near him to warm himself and the others was almost overwhelming,
in spite of the dangers of being discovered.  He marveled that of all those on
the landbridge, none, not even the smallest child, had yet given in to
temptation on this trip.  He had warned them not to use their powers in the Art
until they were safely in Pyran, and because he was a Guardian, they had
trusted him.  Or perhaps they merely feared him.

This near their goal, the line of refugees had relaxed and
spread out across a full mile, some carrying children on their shoulders, some
stopping by the wayside to hike up their robes for calls of nature before
running through the storm and wind to catch up with their groups.  For already
a month and a tenday, they’d had to be watchful and wary.  They’d had to move
like a military unit, eating when they were told, sleeping when they were told,
rising and marching when they were told.  They’d shared and rationed their
supplies without complaint, and they’d followed his every order without
question.  Soon that trust would be rewarded.  He wished he could allow them
this ease now, but with the dark turn in the weather, he could not.

“Let’s move a little faster, shall we,” he called waving the
stragglers along.  “The line is stretched too thin.  You’ll be warmer if you
stay together.”

Had they been able to travel the main road all the way, they
could have made the trek in just over half the time they’d already spent.

This he’d proven to himself with the first few lots of
refugees he’d taken across.  The first he’d disguised as farmers and taken
along the main road, stopping at the hostels, provisioning at the shops and
stalls, but this had led other farmers to try to join them, usually leading
horses and donkeys into the group.  A horse’s reaction to a mage was
unmistakable.  Worse yet, in common clothing, the mages had been all but
hobbled, unable to use their power if they’d needed it.  They’d survived the
journey, but the risk had been too great.

The next group he had taken had been but a trio of very
powerful mages, a group he trusted to be mentally agile, able to withstand
attack.  Against every instinct in his soul, he’d taken them across openly,
traveling by day as if they were any other travelers.  But they had been turned
away at the hostels, and most of the merchants had refused to do business with
them.  So they’d had to make their ways quickly, sleeping on the ground,
supplementing their provisions with plants and animals they could take along
the way, and above all, avoiding confrontations.

The farmers and other travelers had despised them openly and
bit curses at them, but for all that, no one had come to capture them.  This
group had managed the crossing in only eighteen days, but it had been quite
harrowing.  Only the hardiest of mages could make such a trek, and that was
unacceptable to him, not with families and elder mages among those Cragen had
marked for slaughter.  The Guardian had to get them all out.

So, beneath Cragen’s very eyes and with no help from the
other Guardians, he had created a network for getting mages from all over Byrandia
organized, provisioned and prepared to cross into Syon.  He’d kept his network
completely underground; so well hidden in fact, that at one point, Cragen had
declared with his characteristic pomp: “The people were now safe.  No mages
remained in Byrandia.”  Whether Cragen actually believed it or not was
irrelevant, as he’d made clear to those following him.  What mattered was that
the people could believe it and the king could relent in his pursuit of the
mages.

Since Cragen’s absurd proclamation, the Guardian had crossed
the strait at least a hundred times, each occasion seeing several hundred mages
to safety, each time worrying that Cragen might have moved his forces past them
to ambush them.  Whether by skill or by sheer luck, they’d managed to make it
across safely each time.  Still, he could not afford to let himself get
complacent.

They’d occasionally come across a few bandits or hucksters
along the way, but these were readily scared off by the sight of so many mages
in one place.  The slower of wit had needed to see him actually raise a hand
and mutter impressively before they departed, but always, his charges had
managed to get away without incident and more importantly without giving
themselves away by actually using their power.  Had the bandits known the mages
were forbidden to use their power, things might have gone very differently.

He doubted that King Cragen was unaware of his actions, but
given the lack of official resistance, he supposed the king must not much
mind.  Yes, Cragen had spent decades hunting mages down and killing them, but
whether his soldiers killed them all or whether the mages simply removed to
Syon mattered less to him perhaps than simply being rid of them.  So his lack
of engagement with them time and again implied an unspoken gentlemen’s
agreement.  After all, as powerful as Cragen was, even he would not cross the
Guardians lightly.  Not all of them nor even just one.

At the same time, the king might perceive a spectacular
moving display of light and heat sparkling over the landbridge from the hands
of hundreds of mages as an ungrateful thumbing of their noses at the king’s
patience and might precipitate a confrontation.  If somehow he did not yet know
they were there, it were better he not find out.  So the Guardian had forbidden
the refugees even the least use of power until they were safely in Syon. 
Besides, if they should need their power to defend themselves, better they
should hold it in reserve.

As always, this near the end of the journey from Byrandia,
he felt a certain anxiety rise in his heart in direct response to his feeling
that they were nearly safe now and could drop their guard.  It was his caution
against overconfidence, and he would heed it. The growl of the storm only made
it worse.

“Guardian.”

The familiar voice mingled so softly into the wind that,
until he turned to look, he was not certain whether he’d heard it or merely
hoped he had.

The man before him was an imposing presence even without the
elaborate woven armor he wore.  His green, gold and ermine mantle barely moved
in the stiff wind, so heavy did it fall about his shoulder.  He carried his
helmet under his left arm, leaving his right hand free to grasp the sword that
hung sheathed at his side.  His shoulder length hair, wet and blown by the wind,
was the peppery gray of a seasoned warrior in his middle years, and his gold
eyes shone brightly against the predawn sky behind him.  Not far away but
comfortably clear of the refugees, a blue-black horse in gold and green tack
stood absolutely silent, nearly invisible against the dark western sky.