Published by Raconteur House
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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
Prologue
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.
“My Lord Damerien.” The shivering mage stood and bowed, grateful for the brief respite from the wind as he stood in the soldier’s lee.
The man’s appearance should not have surprised him, and in fact, it did not, not really. The Guardian had known Ildar Damerien for years. He had camped, dined and fought alongside him both in Byrandia and on Syon during the Battle of the Liberation. Damerien looked the same as he had for at least a decade.
Still, the Guardian could not help but stare. Once, in the smoke and haze of battle, he’d caught a glimpse of Ildar through the corner of his eye, and for a moment––only a moment––he thought he’d seen…something. He was not sure quite what, and of course as soon as he’d looked directly, the vision, perhaps just a fancy, was gone. It had lingered tantalizingly for only a moment, a blinding array of tendrils of power spreading in every direction, a vision so bright the dark stain left in his eye had taken a while to recede, but when he’d finally blinked it away, he’d seen only a warrior riding across the battlefield with no more than the strands of the Guardian’s own protections swirling around him.
It must have been battle fatigue or exhaustion because he’d never seen it again after that, no matter how many different ways he’d tried to look. And as a Guardian, he had so very many ways to look.
“An unexpected pleasure, my Lord,” he smiled. “Come to help me see the lambs safely into Pyran?”
Ildar looked out over the refugees. “These are the last, then.”
The mage hesitated. “The last we can bring this season, my Lord, yes. The ice, the cold… We’ve had no frostbite yet among them, and none slipped into the sea this trip, but…” he shrugged. He saw tension creep into Damerien’s stance. “I’d not like our chances if we should risk another group this season. Not without prayers to Limigar and Bilkar, both.”
“How many remained behind?”
“Oh,” he said, looking over the line of refugees. “About this many and half again, I reckon, assuming no more come forward.”
“So many,” breathed Damerien.
“Aye, quite a few, my Lord, but well bestowed and guarded by my best. They should be safe until––”
“They’re dead.”
His heart jumped. “My Lord…?”
“Killed, one and all,” the warrior growled.
“That’s not possible. How…?”
“One of your ‘best’ was well paid.” He kicked viciously at a stone in his path. “A child ransomed, a life of luxury ensured, what matters the price? So those left behind are delivered up to join the millions already dead––their knowledge, their power in the Art, gone like the rest… And the Guardians––“he gestured impatiently, “—I mean the rest of the Guardians––just stand by doing nothing, saying, ‘It’s not our place to interfere!’ Meanwhile, Cragen slaughters all but those of Wittister, those who grovel at his feet and pick the fleas from his furs for their blood!”
The mage looked back toward Byrandia in shock and disbelief, as if he might see what had happened and somehow undo it and make it not so. But of course he could not. He felt dizzy. They’d come to him from all over Byrandia, sometimes families, sometimes entire clans in which the gift bred true, following the arcane signs and vision marks he’d hidden for them, dodging Cragen’s forces to make their ways to the coast, to make their way to the promise of a new life in Syon, away from Cragen’s oppression. They’d overcome so much to put their lives in his hands, only to be betrayed to their deaths.
“Take comfort that your traitor was the first to die. Often I heard the king say, ‘an a man will lie for me, he will lie to me.’ He rarely suffers an informant to outlive his news by a breath, and never by two.”
“Is this news certain truth?” The Guardian’s mouth went dry. “Not to doubt your word, my Prince, but we are more than a month out from Byrandia. Perhaps this is a lie mea
nt to bait us back for a rescue. Or perhaps a tale exaggerated in the retelling…”
Damerien shook his head. “Cragen is not the only one who can buy spies. Your traitor led the soldiers to the hidden ones the day after you left. I will spare you the worst of what was done, but know––accept and know the truth of it––that no one was spared.”
The mage clenched and unclenched his fists, hot rage rising to his face. He’d left those he trusted to watch over them, men and women of the Art themselves, people who had personally lost so much to Cragen. How could any one of them have been corrupted? Selfishly, he wondered how he could have been fooled. So many lost… He turned and vomited violently, retching long after his stomach was empty. His eyes streamed with angry tears.
“There was nothing you could have done,” Ildar said gently. “Had you lingered, had you tried to bring them all together, you would have lost these as well and probably perished in the bargain.”
“By the gods, not so!” His face twisted horribly with his anger. “I’d have seen each and every one across, alive and hale, and with all our power together, you and I, we’d have reduced Cragen’s mage hunters to so much tallow! We would have found a way to save them…” Tears of commingled fury and grief poured down his face. “Oh, my Prince, if only I’d stayed! If only I’d known!”
“Old friend,” Ildar put his hand on the mage’s shoulder, “we have not the luxury of regret now. Cragen has already slain those you left behind, which means he knows you are here. He will seek to stop you on this bridge.” He looked eastward through the pre-dawn gloom. “His men cannot be far behind now, and they follow on horse. Forget the dead. They are beyond his reach. You must get the living to Syon, at any cost. The lives of these few and those already on Syon are so much more precious now, and they will need your guidance. My forces and I will hold him off as best we can. ”
Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) Page 1
