Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (41 page)

They rode on in silence for a time. 

It made no sense to take a vial of ano for a sedative unless
the thief, or someone who charged a thief to take it, intended to remedy the
sedative and moreover knew exactly which sedative Laniel was apt to use.  She
did not like the implications.  On the other hand, it could have been a random
theft.  She cautioned herself against reading intention into dumb luck.

“Are your vials marked as to what they contained?” she
asked.

Laniel looked down and nodded.  “In Bremondine script.”  He
laughed.  “I doubt there’s a soul among us who cannot make it out.”

“Well, an we were not certain before, sure we can be now,
that the prisoner himself had no hand in it.”  She looked at Kerrick who did
not understand.  “Of all of us, he is the only one unable to read Bremondine,”
she explained.

“Ah, indeed.”  Kerrick frowned.  “You say nothing else was
missing?”

At this, Laniel smiled darkly.  “This, more than the missing
vial itself, worries me most: no.  Nothing else was touched.” 

The knights exchanged a worried look.  It was bad enough
that someone had taken a vial from Laniel’s bag, but that person must have
known exactly what he sought, and then that person had given it to the prisoner
to wake him, ostensibly so he could escape, or worse….

“Kerrick, was anyone in with the prisoner when you
approached, after the duke sent you to mind him?”

He shook his head.  “But then, there was a period of time
before the duke set me to guard, while we spoke with him, that I confess, I was
not yet watching.  Gikka was with us, and she had a better vantage from which
to see.”

Renda shook her head.  “Gikka would have challenged anyone
she’d seen.  This is indeed worrisome.”

She was certain Damerien had been in there with him alone. 
What if the prisoner had already been given the ano, before Damerien even went
in to question him?  He might have been lying there with his shard of glass in
hand waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Who would have put the duke at risk that way?

She looked around at the riders.

Damerien, Nestor and Jath were out of the question.  Of the
sheriff and the rest of the knights, only Amara would have enough understanding
of sedatives and their anos, but she was likewise too clever to have done
something that pointed so directly to herself.  Besides, questioning Amara’s
loyalty or that of any of the knights, for that matter, would be like
questioning the rising of the sun.

If Laniel had used it himself, she supposed he could have
set up this elaborate scheme to hide his involvement, but why?  No one
suspected him of anything.  Such a deception would waste effort, something a
Bilkarian would not do. That left Gikka and Chul….

Chul.

Renda’s heart sank.  Aidan had warned them that the boy had
a penchant for thievery, having been caught stealing….  Renda sighed.  Stealing
healing salves from Aidan’s tent.  Gikka had taken him in and trained that
tendency to its proper use, but perhaps…

No. 

He’d stolen those salves from Aidan to treat the wounds he
had received at his father’s hand, to keep anyone from knowing that he’d been
beaten.  He had no reason to steal the ano to a sedative and even less reason
to free the prisoner.  Of all of them, the Dhanani boy had the least likelihood
of making contact, much less alliance, with anyone from Byrandia, the land of
the Invaders, especially not after the stories he’d told of what he’d seen in
the glade. 

That he could have been corrupted by mages from Byrandia was
unthinkable.  Her mind raced in unreasonable circles trying to imagine any
possible way this army of mages might have turned his loyalties, but nothing
made sense. 

Perhaps at Brannagh, when he first spied Maddock’s army? 
But he had come to warn them about the cardinal, and then he had ridden with
them to the glade.  There was no time to strike up a bargain like that, and at
that point, they had no idea of any landbridge…. No, that was not when it could
have happened.

Here on the landbridge, then, while he was out scouting? 
Perhaps if they had captured him and held this order of “see to it that our spy
can escape” out as his term of release, but the scenario seemed unlikely since
Gikka said she had him in sight almost constantly.  With the boy having been
raised by that monster, for better or worse, she did not see Chul giving in to
pain quickly enough that Gikka would not have missed him and gone looking for
him.  Regardless, such a plan of action still required a lot of knowledge of
the situation on his part, knowledge she was fairly sure he did not have. 
Besides, once he was safely back to the camp, they would be able to protect him
from retaliation, and she doubted his sense of honor was so coarse as to
believe an oath made in order to escape the enemy was binding.

Still, who else could it be?  Everyone else was accounted
for during the time between when the duke was with him and when Kerrick began
his watch.  Had one of the other mages somehow tracked him to their camp and…
She rubbed her forehead in frustration, wishing she knew how such things
worked. 

She would have to assume Chul was involved, somehow, and
watch him closely, without Gikka’s knowledge.  Gikka was loyal to Renda, but
she would not believe her ward capable of treachery like this.  It were better
not to involve her until no other option remained.

Something about the assumption that Chul took the vial
bothered her, something more than simply not wanting to believe it, but she
could not grasp quite what it was.  It hovered just out of reach.

“I did not mean to worry you, my Lady,” said Laniel,
breaking her train of thought.

She smiled reassuringly.  “Laniel, it is right that I should
know.  If there is a viper in our midst, we should be warned against it, yes?”

Just ahead, Gikka and Chul came charging back into the
knights’ midst at full gallop, riding so hard that the knights had to give way
to let them approach the sheriff and the duke.

“My Lords,” she said as she reined Zinion in, “we approach
the end of the Lacework, but at its end, some six and ninety mages have lined
up with their defenses.  They’re all to a spot, divided by squad, but they’ve
laid down heavy protections to mind the rest.  Zinion fair scorched a hoof,
setting one off, and we drew their notice, begging your pardon, so I’ve in mind
that there’s a fight ahead to get us off this crumbly bit of rock.”

“Six and ninety.”  The duke sighed.  “I suppose we knew we
would face this at one end or the other.”

Daerwin nodded.  “I praise B’radik we did not face this at
both ends.”

“Indeed, though if we had, we might have gained a better
sense of how to defeat them.  My thought is that these are now the combined
forces from the entire Lacework.  They funneled us through.”  Trocu looked over
the men and women who were coming nearer to try to overhear the report and
raised his voice so they could hear.  “At least we have the advantage of cover
while we hold the Lacework, but with a scant five score of them and mages all,
and not quite a score of us, it is likely to be a near thing.  Now to the
planning.”  

During the night, Dith had moved himself and Glasada to the
back of the hill overlooking the mage encampment, uncertain how exactly he
would be able to ride with Colaris as fragile as he was.  He’d made camp and
spent the night with the bird held close to him for warmth, sleeping only an
inch deep lest he roll over and crush him.  Periodically, he woke to give the
bird sips of water and offer him dried fish, but the harrier only drank.  Even
so, he was half certain he would wake beside a dead bird come morning.

To his happy surprise, he woke to see Colaris standing
unsteadily beside his head looking at him with his wings hanging low at his
sides.  The miserable bird looked a fright, with his charred wing feathers and
the stripe of bare glistening smooth back where Dith was afraid the feathers
would never grow back, but his eyes were clear and bright.  The Bremondine silk
had indeed done its work, and the damaged skin was healing already.  Dith hoped
that meant the pain was easing, as well.  Apart from the silk and keeping the
bird warm and fed and watered, for all his power, all he could do was watch and
hope the sheriff’s harrier would survive. 

He despised feeling helpless.  He did not have this much
power in the world to go about helpless.

Beside him, the little curl of a message lay on the ground. 
Gikka’s message, after all these months apart, had been necessarily short: 
Stay. 
We follow. Love.  Reply.  G

The message filled him with worry because it meant that she––

Wait, she had said “we”––we, meaning she, Renda, the sheriff…? 
Who else might be with them?  Surely not all the Brannagh knights, though such
an army arrayed against them would certainly give the mages below pause and
might mean a clear victory.

It more likely meant that she and whoever rode with her were
in grave danger, both from the army of mages below and from the Wittisters who
came the same way they did, either ahead of them or behind.  And now, with
Colaris injured, he had no way to reply, no way to warn them.

“I see two possibilities.  Either the Wittisters are
ahead of them and will be caught between your lady and her companions and the
mage army below or they are behind, in which case with any luck in the timing,
she will be caught in a crossfire between the mage army and the Wittisters.  Either
scenario is good for them.”

Good?

“Aye, good, since the Wittisters will likely focus their
attention on the mage army, and the mage army will certainly focus their
attention on the Wittisters.  Your allies, if they have any sense, should be
able to slip through almost unscathed in that case.”

Unless the Wittisters catch up to them before they engage
the mages.

“Exactly.  Knights are powerful.  Let us hope they are no
more than knights, and they might escape the Wittisters’ notice.”

Dith cradled the bird carefully and poured a bit of water
into the palm of his hand to let him drink, then offered him a bit of fish.  To
his delight, the bird ate with gusto, reaching for more faster than Dith could
get it out of the ugly orange rucksack where he’d stored it next to the strange
ugly rock.

“Easy, little one,” he soothed.  “You can have more later,
but you don’t want to be ill.  I don’t think your body has the strength for
it.”

Colaris lifted his wings slightly to show that he was ever
so much better, enough so that he might enjoy one more bite, but he lowered
them again quickly, no doubt from the pain.  Good, thought Dith, watching the
muscle bunch beneath the dangerously thin and damaged skin.  At least he had
not lost the control or the motion of his wings.  The damage to the wing
feathers and skin would take time to heal, and his back might be scarred but
Dith was fairly certain Colaris’s muscles were fine.  He would not be
crippled.  He stroked the bird’s head, again taken with the sounds of thunder
rising from the valley beyond the hill. 

He squinted up at the early morning sky where he could still
count a few stars and frowned.  No clouds in sight in the crisp morning air,
but he was quite certain he had heard thunder.

He rose, settled the bird on the bedroll tied to Glasada’s
saddle where he could sink his talons in for a solid footing, and crept up the
hillock through the grass to where he could crouch and see the army below. 
Then he understood what he was hearing.  In the distance on the Lacework, he saw
one of the great coral reefs on the southern horizon teeter and crumble slowly
but inexorably under its own weight, slipping backward off the edge of the
landbridge to the sea.  A few seconds later, the rumble reached his ears.

He looked with horror at the Lacework, seeing as he did so,
that indeed the same was happening there.  And somehow, he knew, Gikka would
have to cross through that.  How much of his power would it take to shore up
every reef along the entire length of the landbridge?

“Too much, even for you, given the enemies you face.”

He saw a flash through the corner of his eye and turned just
in time to see a dark shape disappear into the reefs on the Lacework. 
Suddenly, the mage army came alive, with about one third stepping forward of
the line they’d set, breaking into smaller groups, and moving with immunity
across the defenses they’d set down, a glow of power about them radiating
across the strands toward him.  They’d intensified their protections, and they
were moving closer in, taking cover behind the nearer rises and bits of reef
near the edge.  The others arranged themselves in clusters, somewhat apart so a
single attack would not destroy them all but near enough to increase the entire
group’s power. 

They did not get near the place where the flash had
happened, instead massing near another opening in the coral.  Of course. 
Whoever had set off that defense would not go that way again.  They would
likely seek another way.  His assumption, given their movements and confidence
in the way they massed there, indicated that this was the most likely way they
would come.

This was what would be so devastating about them, should he
ever face them head on.  While the near ones came in close and used smaller
magic faster, possibly killing some of their enemy outright with their
protections when the enemy attacked and immobilizing the enemy with these tiny
stabs of attacks, the further ones would blast entire groups with fire or
lightning, or pull at the strands beneath several of those unsteady towers of
coral to bring them crashing down.  After all, the mages had no need to cross
this way again.

“They have forgotten about you.  Or they believe you have
ridden on to Byrandia.”