Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (48 page)

“Vonn swung the ax again, quite deliberately, but he missed.” 
Windale’s voice was strangely cold.  “He was clearly out of his mind, but he
was a danger.  He was trying to kill Qorlin.  We had no choice.”

Amara nodded gravely.  “So at that point, Kerrick––forgive
me, my Lord of Windale––lifted his sword and shouted, ‘For––” 

“We killed him.”  Kerrick interrupted, looked into Renda’s
eyes.  “We killed Vonn.  Don’t you see?  We had no choice.”  He glanced at
Amara.  “He put up quite a fight.  It was horrible.”

Amara looked down and nodded.

“Kerrick, Amara,” Renda’s heart was pounding as she looked
between the two knights, a deep fear taking shape in her mind.  “What happened
after you killed Vonn?”

“After…?”  She thought for a moment, clearly surprised by
the question.  She looked at Windale, as if unable to find the answer in her
own mind. 

“We retreated at full speed to bring Qorlin back to Laniel.”
He snorted.  “A lucky thing, too, since one of the demons we’d thought dead
chose that moment to attack us.”

“You did what was necessary to save Qorlin.  Vonn is with
Verilion among the stars.” Renda shivered beneath her mantle.  A sad smile
played over her face.  “Do not let it haunt you.”

“We did what was necessary.”  Amara closed her eyes against
the tears that threatened again.  “I…” lost for words, she only nodded.

“So we did,” agreed Lord Windale.  “So we did.”

*          *          *

“Say nothing to anyone of what you saw.  Not even your
dancing Bremondine lass.”

Dith stared at the coals at the base of the fire, one hand
absently touching the soft brown waves of Gikka’s hair where she slept beside
him.  The strange stone in its ugly orange rucksack lay between his knees where
he absently nudged it first to one side and then to the other.  He could not sleep.

They’d made camp far to the south of the main road now that
the landbridge was once again broad enough that they could not see water to
either side, and Gikka and Chul had taken pains to clean their trail.  They’d
kept the fires small and close, only large enough to cook the fish they’d had
for dinner, and around him, nearly everyone else slept, waking only to take
their turns on watch during the night.

Having no words for what he’d seen, he supposed speaking of
it would be more difficult than not speaking of it, yet his mind would not
leave it alone until he had words to wrap around it, to gain some understanding
of it.  He had to take care not to bend the memory into some familiar shape,
something taken from old stories and legends.  That would be simplest, but it
would be wrong. 

“Indeed it would.  Spare yourself the anxiety, lad.  I
worried at it for centuries and finally had to turn from it or go mad.”

An image came into his thoughts from Galorin, by way of
answer to the flurry of questions that filled his mind. 

Night, a clearing, only starlight and a fingernail moon…details
of a battle long since passed filled his mind and were quickly gone, unimportant. 
But just there, a tantalizing glimpse played at the periphery of his vision. 
Brilliant light much like what he’d glimpsed the night before only much more
controlled danced at the edge of his vision.  It was still far too bright to
look upon directly, sparkling across the spectrum, and it vanished as the
memory turned toward it, leaving a strange and tantalizing after-image that
billowed across his eye for a second and was gone before it could resolve fully…leaving
in its place just a man on horseback in gold and green.

“Ildar, the Great Liberator, the first Duke of Damerien,
he who refused the title of King.  My greatest friend and most constant ally.”

Dith shook his head. This was all very interesting, but
Ildar had lived four thousand years ago.  What did Ildar have to do with what
happened last night, with what he’d seen?

“Is it not the same thing you saw last night?”

“I don’t know,” Dith said aloud.

“What don’t you know?” a quiet voice answered.

Dith looked up to see Trocu, green and gold cloak wrapped
about him against the night chill, standing next to him.  The mage moved to
rise.

“Please, no need,” the duke said, settling himself beside
Dith.  “I would much rather sit to join you in the warmth than have you stand
to join me in the cold.”  He smiled to see Gikka curled up beneath the cloak he
had given her, dormant but protective over her like a faithful dog.  The duke
straightened it over her feet, and the cloth shimmered slightly beneath his
touch in recognition. 

“Forgive me, I was just muttering to myself,” he chuckled, “like
an old fool.”

“Hmph.  Was that directed at me?”

“A bit young for that, aren’t you?” laughed the duke.  “So
now, what don’t you know?  Perhaps I can help.”

Dith smiled sheepishly.  “I didn’t realize anyone was near. 
It’s a wonder I didn’t say something embarrassing.”

“It’s all right,” Trocu smiled.  “I do not mean to intrude
on your private thoughts.  If you would rather…”

Dith looked up at him.  “It’s not that, Your Grace.  It’s
that I have so many things I don’t know that I have no idea where to begin.” 
He scratched his head.  “For example, I have no idea what it was that I saw
last night.  Everyone else was knocked unconscious, but it seems I was not,” he
said, watching the duke’s reaction.  “No one else saw anything, but I saw, or
thought I saw…”

“What?”

Dith shrugged.  “That is exactly the question to which I
said, ‘I don’t know.’”

“Ah, I see.”  Trocu picked up a spare stick of wood and
stirred the last of the coals with it.  “Over the centuries,” he offered a bit
hesitantly, “in the heraldry and across all the murals and tapestries and so
forth, the symbol of the House of Damerien has always been a…dragon.”  He
smiled.  Dith looked at him curiously, and, as if hearing how that must sound
to the mage, the duke shrugged a bit sheepishly.  ”Perhaps that is as good a
name for what you saw as any, if it lets you set it aside in your thoughts and
rest.”

“A dragon.  Bah.  That is exactly what Ildar said to me
all those years ago.”

Dith laughed loudly enough that Gikka stirred in her sleep. 
“I do not know what I saw, Your Grace, but it was no dragon.”  He shook his
head, and his laughter faded.  “It was so bright.  I could not look directly at
it, and I could not see what lay at the core, but I am certain it was no
fire-breathing lizard with wings.”

Damerien smiled.  “No, of course not.”

“What I could see was light, blazing across every part of
the spectrum.  Only light. It billowed like great wings thousands of feet wide
over the strands and seemed to buffet them…”

“Ah,” Trocu breathed, “of course.”

Dith looked up at him.  “Did you see it, too, then?  What
was it?”

“Prophecy,” the duke murmured.  “Such a delicate thing.  In
hindsight, it seems so obvious and explains so much.”  He peered closely at
Dith, his gold eyes flashing with a light almost too bright to look upon
directly.  “Yes.  It is true.”  He smiled and extended his hand.  “It has been
a very long time since I have counted a Guardian among my companions.”

“What?  A very long time since…?”

How could the duke have known that he was a Guardian?  And
what did he mean, a very long time?  No Guardian had set foot on Syon since.… 
Dith felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.

“Hah, now I understand.  Ildar, my old friend, you
cunning bastard.  I should have known.  Yes, yes, indeed it has been a very
long time.”

The mage blinked, his mind spinning between Damerien’s
cryptic words and Galorin’s in his mind.  “Pardon me?  A Guardian?  I am
hopelessly confused.”

“No doubt you are.”  Damerien laughed quietly and took
Dith’s hand.  “Come, I will explain, but out of earshot of the others, yes?  A
Guardian among us!  Of course!  By the gods, we may stand a chance at this
yet.”

Kharkara Plains
Two and Fiftieth Day of the Feast of Bilkar,
Nineteenth Day of the Night Elk’s Moon

“If you wish to kill yourself, madam, there are better ways,”
Aidan seethed.  Before him, flat leaves lay on the ground outside his tent
where he patiently spooned unguent from the pot simmering over his fire onto
them, and bound them with softened leaf veins. “This is folly.”

“Nonsense, Aidan!  My plan makes perfect sense!” Glynnis
glared at him and laid more of the leaves down on the ground before him, one
after another. “Do not think to shelter me like a child!”

“While I admit your plan has merit—”

“Merit?”  The word was all of acid as she said it.  She
whirled on him, eyes flashing.  “Aidan, I am the only person left, especially
here, whom Wirthing will respect as a peer, and the only person who legitimately
can call parlay with him.  At best, I give him the opportunity to call the
whole business a misunderstanding and save face.”

“At worst, my Lady,” the shaman interrupted, “he captures
you and executes you.  Eventually.”

“That is certainly a risk,” she said, trying not to let his
meaning ripen in her mind, “but even so, a delay, even one caused by my
capture, would disrupt his plans.  Such a delay might allow Dane to get a
better sense of Wirthing’s strength.  At the very least, it might allow you and
Chief Bakti more time to prepare for battle.”

“It comes at too dear a price.  You are quite the prize to Wirthing,
Lady.”  He turned back to filling the leaves with medication.  “You are Lord
Daerwin’s wife, the mother of Lady Renda, Baroness––”

“Sister to the baron,” she corrected automatically.  Wife,
mother, sister…how bleak that the value of her life was measured only by her
relationships to heroes and noblemen and not by her own thoughts and actions.

“Very well, sister to the Baron of Berendor.  How can
Wirthing resist trying to possess you one way and another?  I would prefer he
not know you are alive at all, much less have you near him.  If he knew you
were here, he would have attacked already.  To send you straight into his
castle…”

“But that is why I must go!”  She fingered the gold coin she’d
found among her things, the one which had inspired her plan and the one she
would give at Wirthing’s gate in ritual pledge.  “Aidan, no matter how loyal
the tribes are to Bakti, they are not loyal to Brannagh.  No, it’s all right. 
I understand perfectly.  We are Invaders.  Sooner or later, Wirthing spies will
offer enough coin to meet someone’s price, and we will find ourselves
compromised.  In that moment, Wirthing will strike, and he will have the
advantage unless we take that advantage from him now.”  She crossed her arms
decisively.  “This is the only way, short of attacking his castle.”

“At least take Lwyn with you,” Aidan said at last.  “A show
of strength would help to protect you and back your word.  Bakti could send
warriors with you, as well.”

She smiled faintly.  They had shifted from arguing
whether
she would go to
how
.  She had won.  “No, that would be a mistake.  Any
show of strength would signal insecurity in our position, and the presence of
Dhanani would let him know where we have been hiding.  Nor can I take any of
the knights, especially Lwyn.  Likely they would kill him on sight.”

Aidan snorted.  “They would try.”

She smiled again.  “No, I must show that we bargain from the
position of strength by showing confidence, not force.  I will take only one
person with me.”

*          *          *

Two figures on horseback approached the southern gate,
separate enough that the guards could see them fully, but still near enough to
each other for protection.  The horses were unmarked and unremarkable, as were
the riders, undoubtedly by design, but the guards were not concerned.  They had
been told to expect them.

Above them in the trees near the castle wall where he’d
positioned himself the night before, Dane watched.  He minded the approach of
the guards to the two riders and watched for further preparations in the areas
both inside and outside the castle.  Satisfied that the riders were safe from
ambush from outside the castle, he eased himself up slowly to the top of the
curtain wall, gritting his teeth against the cascade of dew and frostmelt that
fell from the branches below as he moved.  He could all but feel Gikka’s cuff
on his ear, as well as her whispered words from almost half a decade before.

Quiet and mind the hazards of your space!  Bloody
clamorous knights….  Come the drunks from yon tavern to complain of your
clatter, and I’ll kill you myself, I will!  Now be still!

But Wirthing’s guards had not noticed, so focused were they
upon the riders.  Relieved, he hefted himself high onto the castle wall to be
sure nothing had changed since he had first brought the message to Wirthing
three days before.  No knights, no soldiers, no preparations for battle.  Only
guards and servants wandered the grounds as far as he could see.  For now, at
least, it seemed the riders were safe, or as safe as they could be, given that
they were entering the enemy’s stronghold. 

Something about it felt wrong.  It seemed entirely too
perfect, like a masque.  He started to give a starling’s call––a peculiar but
natural sound that everyone at Brannagh recognized as Gikka’s call for caution––but
stopped short.  Wirthing’s men had been allied to Brannagh in the war.  They,
too, would recognize that cry.  He scowled to himself, helpless to warn the
riders and not even certain that he had seen anything that warranted warning in
the first place, and moved off along the wall to find a safer vantage point.

One of the riders lowered the hood of her threadbare but
otherwise undistinguished cloak, and a spill of unkempt silvered copper hair
tumbled down about her shoulders.

“Lady Glynnis of Brannagh,” she said simply.