Guardians of the Lost

by Margaret Weis

  “Commander Lyall will see Damra of Gwyenoc,” announced the guard.

  Damra accompanied the guard upstairs.

  Commander Lyall rose from behind his desk to greet her. The two bowed and exchanged the proper pleasantries. Damra noted immediately that Lyall was preoccupied, worried.

  “I am traveling to New Vinnengael to meet with the magi of the Temple,” said Damra. “I have made the interesting discovery that the old legends are true: pecwae can indeed speak to animals. My companion and I are conveying these two pecwae to the magi in hopes that we might study them and find out if they use magic or if this is something inherent to them as pec—”

  “You are of House Gwyenoc,” Lyall said abruptly, casting a sharp glance at the tattoos around her eyes. “You are known to be loyal to the Divine.”

  “As are all elves,” Damra returned smoothly.

  He would refuse them admittance. She steeled herself. To her amazement, Commander Lyall took up five passes, affixed his seal to each, and handed them back to her.

  “Enter the Portal quickly and do not linger when you reach the other side,” he said.

  Damra started to express her thanks, but the commander turned his back on her, walked over to the window. She was being dismissed, rudely at that. She was not about to take offense, however.

  As she was leaving, he remarked, “All that I am, I owe to the Shield.” His voice sounded sad.

  Damra did not know what to say in response. Eventually she concluded that she wasn’t supposed to say anything. The man was talking to himself. She wasted no further time, but took the passes and ran downstairs, still puzzling over that enigmatic remark.

  “We have permission to enter the Portal,” Damra told her companions. “Gather up your gear. Keep together, follow me and let either Arim or myself do the talking.”

  Jessan and Bashae listened and both nodded. Neither had much gear to gather. Jessan wore the sword Arim had obtained for him, wore it proudly for it was the first sword he had ever owned. Bashae clutched the knapsack. He kept tight hold of it even when he slept. Damra’s reference to “gathering” had been an oblique reference to the Grandmother, who had dozed off in a sunny corner.

  “Damra,” said Arim, speaking to her in a soft undertone, “I have been eavesdropping on the soldiers. Last night, their commander received an order to strip his garrison. Nine hundred troops marched out this morning, heading for Glymrae.”

  “So that explains it,” Damra said softly, thinking of the commander’s remark. She cast a glance up above her, wondered if he still stood by the window, watching for his death. “He is the babe cast to the starving wolves and he knows it. He warned us to make haste.”

  Damra showed the guard their passes. He pointed out the route they were to take. Damra led the way through the Outer Ring that was composed of two high stone walls separated by a grass-filled ditch. Eight stone towers, three stories in height, stood in the ditch between the two stone rings. Murder holes encircled every story. Occasionally Jessan caught a glimpse of light flashing off steel-tipped arrows or saw the shadow of an elven warrior pass by. Guards stood in plain sight on the top of the towers. Some kept watch over the surrounding countryside. Others kept an eye on what was happening inside. Their numbers were few, however. Woefully few. Damra increased their pace.

  After passing through the Outer Ring, they entered a broad paved courtyard. Beyond was the Inner Ring of defense, the province of the Wyred. Damra wondered whether or not she should say something to the human and the pecwae warning them that the garden was magical. She decided against it. Most travelers—even elven travelers—had no idea the garden was more than it appeared to be. No need to rouse doubts, bring up questions. All was going smoothly. Only a few more minutes and then they would be safely inside the Portal.

  Looking across the paved courtyard, Damra was disconcerted to see the caravan of human merchants parked in the center. They appeared to be having problems with their wagon, for two were peering underneath the wagon bed, gesturing at something. A fourth sat on the driver’s seat, staring out at the horse’s ears. Another reloaded boxes that had been taken out to lighten the weight while repairs were made.

  The caravan should have been far ahead of them. The fact that they were still here made her uneasy. Probably her worries were groundless, but she was used to trusting her instincts. She led her companions across the courtyard at an angle that would take them well clear of the caravan. She kept close watch on the merchants. The one loading boxes ceased his work. He said something to the two inspecting the wagon. They straightened up and all of them turned to watch the small procession.

  “Look, Jessan. Humans!” Bashae said, excited. “I wonder where they’re from. Dunkarga, maybe. Perhaps they know your uncle—”

  “Keep moving. Do nothing to draw attention,” Damra said sharply.

  The Grandmother came to a stop and lifted her agate-eyed stick in the air.

  Every single eye in the stick stared at the humans of the wagon.

  “Evil!” the Grandmother shrieked in a shrill tone that reverberated throughout the courtyard.

  Hearing her scream, the elven soldiers on guard in the towers turned to see what was going on inside their walls. From outside the walls, horns blared and drums boomed. Ten thousand taan voices lifted in a fierce yell, savage and thunderous. The shadows of the forest took on shape and form and began moving at a rapid pace toward the Outer Ring.

  “They’ve launched the attack!” Damra shouted, trying to hurry along the Grandmother. “Quickly—”

  “Damra!” Arim’s voice cracked. His eyes stared over her head at something behind her.

  Damra pivoted, one hand touching the medallion, the other grasping her sword. The silver armor of the Dominion Lord flowed over her body. She drew her blade in a smooth arc. Yet, at the sight of what they faced, she took an involuntary step backward.

  A Vrykyl descended from the wagon, walked purposefully toward them. The Vrykyl’s armor eclipsed the sunlight. A chill shadow fell on them. Though the sun shone everywhere else, they stood in darkness, the darkness of the Void. Void magic drained them of courage and of hope, emptied their souls.

  The human merchants threw off their disguises, revealed themselves to be soldiers. Swords drawn, they ran ahead of the Vrykyl. The soldiers’ attention was fixed on Arim and Jessan. They ignored Damra. The soldiers would leave a Dominion Lord and her magic to the Vrykyl.

  An ambush, Damra thought ruefully. And I walked right into it. She looked back at her companions.

  As the rabbit freezes at the sight of the coyote, the two pecwae froze at the sight of the Vrykyl. They stood staring, their faces drained of color, their small bodies quaking. Damra cried out Bashae’s name thrice, but he didn’t hear her. He made a whimpering sound. Damra reached back, gave him a vicious shake.

  “Bashae!” she shouted.

  His eyes were white-rimmed with terror. He stared at her in helpless fear.

  “Run for the garden! The garden!”

  She pointed emphatically. Bashae gulped. His horror-stricken gaze wavered, strayed to the garden, but flicked back in panic to the Vrykyl. Damra hoped he understood, for she had no more time to tell him anything else. Grasping her sword in her hand, she ran forward to intercept the Vrykyl, hoping to draw his attention from Bashae.

  Pecwae are cowards. Born cowards, they are not ashamed of their cowardice, for it is only by being able to outrun the lion who seeks to devour them that they have survived as a race. The pecwae’s instinct is to flee from danger and, after the first paralyzing effects of terror wear off, instinct takes hold.

  All thoughts of loyalty to his comrades and affection for his friends departed from Bashae. He may have heard Damra or he may not. All he knew was that some distance away was a landscape that was familiar to him, a landscape that reminded him of home—trees to hide behind, rocks to crawl under, bushes that promised sheltering cover. Grabbing hold of each other by the hands, the two pecwae fled toward this safe ha
ven with no clear, conscious thought except the urgent need to escape death.

  Jessan was equally horrified at the sight of the Vrykyl, the creature of his nightmares come to life. He stood staring at it, unable to move or to think clearly. He might have turned and run in terror like his small friend, but then one of the humans raised a battle cry.

  The cry roused the Trevenici warrior spirit in Jessan. An enemy of flesh and blood stood before him, a chance at last to prove himself in battle. The knowledge drove the horror of the Vrykyl from his mind. Raising his sword in the air, Jessan gave a hair-raising cry and launched himself at the enemy.

  “Will the elves come to our rescue?” Arim shouted.

  “They have their own problems!” Damra shouted back.

  She could hear behind her the clamor of the garrison preparing to defend itself against the sudden onslaught. Officers shouted orders, elven troops came running from their quarters, dashing up the stairs to take their places inside the tower. The gates that led through the Outer Ring boomed shut.

  Damra met one of the humans with a crash of steel. She fought him absentmindedly, her attention on the Vrykyl. The Vrykyl continued to advance, his fire-eyed gaze fixed on Damra. Even from this distance, she felt the heat of his hatred.

  Good, she thought. Keep him focused on me.

  Her opponent grew annoying. She had wounded him twice, but the blasted human would not die. Damra turned her full attention to the battle, watched for her opening. Finding it, she drove her sword through the man’s leather armor and into his protruding gut. Wrenching her weapon free, she jumped over the body as it was still falling and hurled herself at the Vrykyl.

  Jessan, to his chagrin, did not find his first battle as easy as he had expected it would be. The Trevenici are renowned for their courage and ferocity, not their skill. They have a simple strategy. They terrorize their opponent with a display of savage fury, then overpower him with their strength. Shrewd commanders put Trevenici forces in the front lines, use them to soften up the enemy, punch a hole in his ranks. The opponent able to withstand the initial Trevenici assault discovers that the Trevenici warrior is easily frustrated at this. Losing patience, they begin to make mistakes.

  Jessan’s opponent was a veteran of many campaigns. Having witnessed taan attacks, the soldier was not intimidated by this howling barbarian. The veteran knew the young man’s fury would soon expend itself. All he had to do was survive until it did. He parried what blows he could, ducked the ones he couldn’t, and kept on the defensive.

  Jessan grew angered and, beneath the anger, he began to doubt himself. He should have slain this soldier easily, for Jessan was obviously the superior warrior. His opponent did nothing but duck and dodge and dance. Jessan brought down his sword again and again, aiming savage blows at the man’s head, blows that would split his skull, once they connected. The man’s sword was always in the way, however. Strong and big, the soldier was able by sheer brute force to hold off Jessan’s attacks.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jessan saw the elf woman dispatch her opponent with an ease that was dazzling. Arim fought with a skill that amazed Jessan, who had discounted the lithe, slim Nimorean as weak. Arim’s curved-bladed sword seemed to be everywhere at once. His opponent was covered in blood.

  Enraged, Jessan slashed and pounded. The next thing he knew, the sword flew out of his hands. He stared in astonishment to find his enemy’s blade at his throat.

  Arim saw the young man’s predicament. Dispatching his foe, Arim lunged at Jessan’s soldier, shouting at the man to draw his attention. Facing a new enemy coming at him from the rear, the soldier was forced to turn away from Jessan. Another soldier ran up, took the place of the one Arim had killed. Arim fought both, but he was losing ground.

  Jessan looked for his sword, saw that it was too far away for him to retrieve. He resorted instinctively to the only weapon he had left—the blood knife.

  As Damra came within striking distance of the Vrykyl, she looked into his eyes as she looked into the eyes of any enemy, to gauge what he would do. That was a mistake. In the eyes, she saw power that was ancient, stemmed back to the time before time, when nothing existed, not light, not life.

  The gods tore apart the Void to set the stars in the sky. The gods placed the sun and moon in the Void, brought life into the universe. But they could not banish the Void. The Void came before the beginning and it would be there at the end. In the empty eyes of the Vrykyl, Damra saw the Void and it was terrible to look upon.

  Damra had known panic only once before, and that was during the Transfiguration, when she felt her flesh being consumed in the god-given magic of the Sovereign Stone. Then her panic had given way to ecstasy. Now she felt the opposite, panic giving way to despair.

  Fighting to quell her fear, Damra’s first instinct was to use her illusion magic to fight the Vrykyl as she had fought so many others. She recalled Silwyth’s warning that the Vrykyl could see through illusion, but she was desperate.

  The magic crumpled to dust like a dried rose, its petals falling brown and dead around her.

  The Vrykyl struck at her with his sword. Damra met the blow, parried it with her own. He drew back, struck again. Again she parried, but now she realized that each time her blade touched his accursed weapon, the debilitating magic of the Void strengthened its hold on her. Desperately she fought, attacking again and again, praying for the Vrykyl to make one mistake, create one opening.

  The Vrykyl made no mistakes. He matched her blow for blow, almost as if he could read her mind. The power of the Void caused the day to grow dark around her. Her strength flagged. Her courage started to seep from her like blood from a mortal wound. Her sword grew heavy in her hands, heavy as the knowledge of her own mortality.

  She was compelled to look again and again into the empty eyes and each time she saw therein her own emptiness. So vast, so dark, she began to lose knowledge of herself. Memories, all memories, memories of who she was and what she was, memories of joy, love, sorrow and fear dwindled to nothingness and when all the memories were gone, she was left with only the memory of the single moment of her birth, a flame on a guttering candle that would vanish in a breath, her last breath.

  A prey to Shakur’s Void magic, Damra lost her will to survive. She lowered her sword and in the next instant, she would have dropped it. But then Jessan struck his enemy with the blood knife.

  The knife tasted blood. The warmth flooded Shakur with a memory of his own. Turning, he saw Jessan, saw the blood knife in the young human’s hand.

  Whoever possesses the blood knife possesses the Sovereign Stone. Shakur was convinced of that. Still holding the Dominion Lord in his fell magical grip, Shakur turned his attention on the human who wielded the knife.

  The elven warriors saw the Vrykyl materialize in the paved courtyard inside the Outer Ring. They knew it to be a creature of the Void, but they could not come to the aid of Damra and her companions. Those who saw had time for only one startled look, then the deadly buzz of arrows and the clamor of the enemy forced them to ignore what was happening inside the courtyard and concentrate on fighting for their lives.

  An advance troop of humans led the attack on the Outer Ring. Lyall’s men were prepared for that. They were not prepared for the second wave of troops—an immense army of monstrous creatures, who came shrieking and howling out of the shadows of the forest. The creatures walked like men but they had the faces of animals, with long snouts and gaping mouths filled with razor teeth. They carried bizarre looking weapons and attacked with ferocity and a complete lack of fear. They hurled themselves at the gate and the wall with wide grins on their hideous faces.

  Thousands of them. Attacking a force of one hundred.

  What is the Shield’s plan? Lyall asked and answered himself. The Shield wants the Portal to fall, that much is clear. But he wants to make it look as if it fell by mischance. He can always claim in his defense that he had no way of knowing an enemy was anywhere within a thousand miles. My reports to the contr
ary will be conveniently misplaced. And there will be none left alive here to contradict him.

  “Send a messenger through the Portal to the eastern end,” he ordered his aide. “Tell them that we are under attack by a sizeable force. We will hold as long as we can, but they should make ready their own defenses.”

  The aide departed. Lyall went back to the window.

  If I just knew why, he said to himself. If I only knew why. Perhaps that would make dying easier.

  The taan raised siege ladders against the walls. Elves fought them, fought and lost. The taan surged over the walls, dropped down to land in the ditch. True to their word, the Wyred created the illusion of elven soldiers. They did their job well. Looking down, Lyall could not tell which troops were real and which were not.

  A victim struck by an illusory arrow believes he has been struck by a real one. He sees blood, he feels pain. He may faint or fall down, but, eventually, he will come to realize that the wound is not real. The illusions might halt the enemy for a moment, but that was all. A moment.

  A hundred taan wielding an enormous battering ram rushed at the gate. Elves fired a storm of arrows into their ranks. Some struck their marks. The taan fell, but that didn’t stop the ram. The dead lay where they had fallen, their bodies trampled by those coming behind. The ram struck the iron gate a thunderous blow that caused the very ground to shake. The gate held, but the hinges loosened, jarred from their moorings. Howling in derision, the taan pulled back to have another go at it.

  The gate must fall. Lyall had no way of stopping it. The enemy had as many troops carrying the battering ram as he had in the entire garrison. He gave the order for the elves at the gate to pull back, to man the towers. At least there, they could hold for awhile.

  Although, what we’re holding for is open to question, Lyall thought. Reinforcements won’t come. The elves began to pull back, firing their arrows as they went. Lyall looked out into the forest. The shadows were alive with movement—more of these fiends running toward the Portal. The main gate gave way with a crash. Shrieking in triumph, the taan surged into the gatehouse.