Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (39 page)

Ander watched them carefully.  They were afraid, yes, and
obviously bewildered, but, they still had not panicked, not quite yet.  More
bodies fell from the trees, faster and faster, until there were heaps of bloodied
flesh and death around them.  At last, dim creatures that they were, they
turned their attention upward, to where the bodies were coming from.  Above
them, hundreds upon hundreds of rotting demon corpses swung in the trees, with
one and another falling occasionally to the ground.

Ander watched their eyes go wide, and he watched their
discipline crumble. There it was, at last: the panic.

Then he hit them with a barrage of fire.

That, Glynnis decided, was a fine signal.  She’d been
watching them, looking for the thin spots in their hides, the weaknesses the
knights had spoken of.  The girl stood and slung a pellet, hard and fast,
straight into the temple of the foremost demon, shattering the side of his
skull.  He staggered for a moment, turning with the force of the blow, then
fell behind the others, burning in Ander’s fire where he fell.  The other
bodies around them were burning, too.  Between the falling dead, the fire and
the death of one of their own, the other two were now in a complete frenzy,
swinging their axes in every direction.  It was a wonder they did not hit each
other.

Glynnis stepped completely clear of the brush, took aim
and slammed another stone straight into the throat of the one nearest her, and
he fell to the ground gasping and gurgling, clutching and clawing at his own
throat where the wrinkled barky skin was not even broken.

The last of them by now was alternating between snarling
at the unseen killers of so many demons and keening in terror behind his axe.

She released another pellet just as the last demon paused
in his stride.  As a result, it missed completely and splintered into a tree
behind him.  He looked at the break in the tree’s bark, then snapped his head
around at her.  His strange eyes narrowed to slits as he scrutinized the small
girl in front of him.  Could she be the one who killed so many here, his look
seemed to ask.  He took a step toward her.

“Glynnis!” Ander stepped from cover, picked up a stone to
throw at the demon.

The demon turned to face him.  “Mage,” it croaked, an
evil grin crossing its features.  It turned back toward the boy, no longer
panicked, and the boy’s eyes went wide.

Glynnis lined up the shot carefully.  She had one, at
most two, chances to kill the demon before it was on top of Ander.  She swung
the sling with all her might and landed the stone squarely in the center of the
demon’s chest.  It faltered for a moment, knocked backward with the force of
the blow, but it did not fall.  Then it continued toward Ander, who was
frantically throwing lightning and fire into it.  The illusion of dead demon
bodies had faded now with Ander’s attention focused against the monster rushing
toward him, and now only the two burning bodies remained in the clearing amidst
several burning piles of leaves.

She loaded another pellet and swung the sling again. This
time it connected with the demon’s head, but only obliquely and not at the
temple.  Still he moved forward.  He was almost on top of Ander.  She loaded
another pellet and it fell to the ground. She cursed and picked it up, fumbling
it into the sling as the demon got closer to her brother.

Then Ander did something she had never seen him do
before.

He stared at the demon and extended his hand as the
creature came toward him.  He turned his hand, and the creature slowed,
gasping, eyes wide with sudden terror.  Then Ander closed his hand tightly, and
the demon collapsed before him, face first into the forest floor, and was
still.  A few feet away, the boy staggered and fell to his knees.

“Ander,” she whispered.  He only stared at his hand. 
“Ander!” she whispered again.  “We can’t stay here!  Come on!”

Later, after they’d moved their camp several miles off
their original route, the route they’d told the servants at the castle in case
the servants needed to find them, she’d finally gotten to ask him what
happened.  He told her that in his desperation, he had tried something he had
only ever tried before with rabbits and chickens at the castle.  He had focused
his energy into the demon, deep within the demon, to his heart.  He’d been
amazed at how very like a man the demon was from within, but how every
different the outside.  Of course, in the moment, he had had no time to muse on
such things, but in the safety now of their camp, he found it fascinating. 

He’d focused his attention on the heart, the surest way
to kill the creature, and he saw that it was actually damaged, having been
shocked by the trauma from her pellet hitting its chest.  Blood had been
leaking out of the demon’s heart, and whether the demon managed to kill him
first or not, the creature would have died soon, regardless.

He hadn’t wanted to tell her the next part, but she’d
wrung it from him: he had held his hand out, envisioning it wrapping around
this demon heart as the creature came toward him, and he’d simply squeezed it
shut. It had been that simple.  Oh, of course his actual hand had had nothing
to do with it.  It had actually had something to do with strands or threads,
something about how he envisioned probabilities or some such.  She hadn’t listened
all that closely since mage things hadn’t really meant much to her.  But
somehow, her gentle brother had reached inside a demon and crushed its heart.

The next morning when they’d awakened, Ander had been gone. 
Their mother had alternated in her moods between believing he’d been snatched
by demons in the night, a story Glynnis had dismissed out of hand simply
because she and her mother yet lived, and assuming that he’d slipped away in
the night to try to protect them.  But Glynnis had imagined a different albeit
more romantic reason for him to leave.  He had indeed slipped away to protect
them, but not in so passive a way as her mother imagined.  His first stop had
probably been to go to the family castle, to deal with some treacherous
servants who had sold the family out for gold, or perhaps to find the servants
tortured and murdered.  How else could the demons have tracked them so
quickly? 

She fancied then as she did now that all these years later,
he had become the hunter instead of the hunted.  At the war’s end, she’d looked
for him in the dust of the roadways, but he had never made his way back to what
should have been his baronial seat after their father’s death, nor had he come
seeking her at Brannagh.

She smiled sadly to herself at the memory.  Somewhere along
the line, he had probably been captured and killed long ago, her dear brother
Ander, but she liked to think that perhaps he had weakened Kadak’s forces a bit
along the way.  Surely legends of such a demon hunting mage would have reached
her ears had he lived through the war.  Still, she would not call herself
Baroness Berendor until she was certain he no longer lived.

She sat alone in her tent with the quiet of the evening
settling over the camp, her chores and her social duties among the Dhanani
discharged.  The others would gather by the fires to hear Aidan’s stories and
plan their defenses in case the enemies of Brannagh would follow, but she had
no place there.  For now, her place was here, in this bare tent, among her
memories.  Among all she had lost.

*          *          *

“Wirthing’s men have returned to his castle,” Dane said,
using a stick to draw a circle on the ground.  His face was lit eerily by the
flames as he spoke.  “I got right in close, staying high in the trees above, so
I could hear the talk among them.”

“Gikka would be proud,” Aidan smiled.  “She taught you
well.”

“Aye, well, but here’s what I’d have you know: Wirthing’s
numbers are not what they were, not by a ways.  It seems there was a falling
out between him and the farmers that came to blows.  Wirthing thought to take
the unclaimed lands from them, and they saw it otherwise,” he snorted in
disgust.  “Seems like in light of Wirthing’s demands the farmers might begin to
miss the fairness of our lord sheriff, ere the coals of his razed castle are
cold.  So Wirthing beats retreat back to his own castle to nurse his pride.”

“Good.” Aidan translated the chief’s words to them, wishing
the words were stronger.  “Such a one deserves to be stripped, beaten and fed
to the graetnas.”

Tero nodded.  “They all do.”

Aidan sighed, not sure he wanted to hear the answer to his
next question. “Did Maddock prevail, then?”

“Aye, he did,” answered Dane with a bitter laugh.  “It seems
Maddock used Wirthing like a tavern whore and cast him aside.”

“What becomes of the magen?”  Lwyn scowled into the fire. 
“Comes-after the castle falls and where are they going?”

Dane frowned and looked down, displeased by the news he
carried.  “They went to Damerien.”

Aidan translated quickly for the chief, his voice shaking. 
If Damerien fell, all of Syon would fall.

“What?”  Tero looked up sharply.

The scout nodded.  “Aye, but take heart.  From what I could
gather from Wirthing’s men, the word they received from the mages was that the
duke was not there.”

Lwyn grinned.  “Not our duke, for magen to kill in his
garden.  For Brannagh, Damerien and all Syon!”

The other knights returned the cheer and drank.

“Better still,” Dane continued, “they had no idea where the
duke went.”

Aidan smiled.  “Some good news at last.”

“Aye,” Dane agreed.  “Wirthing is furious.  I think he has
designs, but until he can show the duke’s corpse and the sheriff’s besides––may
Verilion refuse them both for our sakes––Wirthing cannot lay claim to the
throne of Syon.”

Tero growled.  “He will not see the stone on which it sits.”

Dane nodded.  “But since you ask, the mages, having lost
Damerien, were making their way to Pyran at last word.”

Bakti started to speak to Aidan, then paused and waved him
off.  “Reason why Pyran?” he said brokenly.  “Pyran danger.  Pyran Hadrian.” 
He spat into the fire.  “Not know why m—mages go.”

Aidan shuddered at the word Hadrian.  “Were they Hadrian
mages?”  He could think of nothing more terrifying.

Sedrik crossed his arms.  “They did not look Hadrian to me.”

Lwyn shook his head.  “They are not.  They look to be
Verdura witches.”  He likewise spat into the fire.  “The Verdura are child to
them I think from comes-before.”

Sedrik stroked his chin.  “That is an interesting thought. 
Verdura.  But the Verdura settlements are to the north and west, along the
Anatayan borderlands, and at last word, they were abandoned, no more than ruins. 
Besides, that’s the opposite way from Pyran, so the question is, again, why
Pyran?”

Tero looked up.  “Why not Pyran?  It is enough to know that
they go there.  Best we focus on how to defeat them, not on understanding their
feelings.”

After a tense silence, Aidan shifted and stirred the fire. 
“So Wirthing retired to his castle.”

Dane shook his head.  “I mean, yes, he did, but not to
stay.  To reprovision.  Wirthing is not through yet.”  He licked his lips,
reluctant to give the news.  “I do not know how, but they believe that Brannagh
had survivors, and they intend to track us down.  I think it will not be long
before they deduce our path away from Brannagh.  We truly had but one way to
go, after all.”  He scratched his head.  “Also, Wirthing knows that Brannagh
was allied with the Dhanani.  It’s not a great leap, even for him.”

Aidan murmured the translation to the chief.  But something
was not right.  Wirthing had to know his men could not stand alone against all
the tribes of the Kharkara, even without the Brannagh knights.

Tero nodded.  “We are prepared.  All the tribes of the
Kharkara are warned and armed.  I should rather engage them in the forest from
cover, but that is as it pleases Chief Bakti.”

Bakti nodded.  “Yes,” he said, and spoke quickly to Aidan.

“He says he understands your desire for cover,” the shaman translated. 
“Provided we have sufficient warning, that would be ideal but they may bypass
the forest utterly and we must be prepared for that.  The forest has been a
trap for the Dhanani before.”  He looked away, a bit self consciously.  “Against
the Invaders.”

Tero scowled into the fire.

“There is something else,” Dane continued.  “I saw an envoy
and a regiment of men arrive at Wirthing’s castle as I was leaving.  It seemed
somewhat urgent, which made no sense to me, considering––”

“Considering what?”  Lwyn looked up at him urgently, his
eyes shining an unsettling green in the firelight.

“Considering that it was the Marquess of Moncliff’s
colors.”  Dane chuckled nervously.  “I mean, that is quite a ride, from
Moncliff.  What could the marquess want that could be so urgent that he should
send a regiment?  This is a man who can’t choose a side to mount his own bed.”

Aidan and Tero looked at each other.  “Damerien,” Tero
breathed.  “Or Lord Daerwin and Renda, assuming they yet live.”

“They do.”  Lwyn nodded resolutely.  “They must.”

“Very well,” Aidan said gently.  “They may have ridden through
his territory.  He may even have captured them, may be offering them up for
ransom.”

“Capture!”  Lwyn laughed heartily.  “Mouseheart Moncliff
captures the sheriff and my Lady Renda?”

Aidan shrugged.  “House Moncliff may be inveterately
neutral, but that will not stop the marquess from selling both sides to each
other for a profit both ways.  I could see where, by subterfuge and trickery––”

“You give him too much credit.  Or them, not enough.”  Tero
stirred the fire.  “If he had captured them, he would have brought them along
in chains, as offering perhaps or to keep a close watch on them.  No, he does
not have them.”