Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (23 page)

As if in answer to his question, he saw several horsemen
enter cautiously through a breach in the rubble of the city wall.  Their tack
and surcoats were of a familiar blue and silver, and on the bracer of the
silver haired knight at their head, fluttering his wings impatiently and
panting from his exertions, stood Colaris. 

“Lord Daerwin!” the boy shouted, and ran toward the knights.

From where they worked in the piles of rubbish and bodies,
several of the scavvies looked up, grateful for the distraction from their
grisly work.  In spite of the tragedy surrounding them, they could not help but
feel their spirits lift to see the heroes of the Five Hundred Years War, and
many of them cheered and waved.

“Easy, lads, spare your backs.”  Tagen called to them.  He
moved between his people, helping where he could.  “I’ll not have you going
lame while we’ve a whole city’s worth of mischief yet to right.  Work
together.  Sure we’ve no need of broken heroes!”Tagen glanced northward to
where Gikka and the boy Chul worked together.  A Dhanani with “the touch” was a
thing sure he’d never thought to see, a thing unique in all the world, he
mused.  Who but she could have found and tamed such a one?  The boy had a gift,
no mistake, and being Dhanani, who would ever suspect him? 

He raised a hand to his brow, watching them.  They were
working only a few feet from where the miserly old jeweler’s shop had stood, where
his Gikka, child of his heart, had designed and executed a confidence game so
simple yet so masterful that the old scavvy had finally had to admit to himself
that his starling no longer needed him.  That had been a strange thing for him
to swallow, the bittersweetness of his pride in her.  But it was not mistaken. 
For all that he chided her for taking up with the knights, she had made her way
straight to the side of the duke of Syon, something she could not have done had
she stayed in Brannford.  Nor, he knew, could he wish for her a better life
than what she had made for herself.

So, like a father, he could only stand by and feel again
that same mix of pride mingling with loss.

Last night, he’d smiled to see shadows of his own teachings
in the way the boy moved and the things he marked.  Today, he’d seen the ease
with which the Dhanani came to move among the scavvies like one of their own. 
She’d remembered what he’d taught her and passed it on as important.  He took
as the greatest honor of all that his Gikka should trust his wisdom enough to
pass it like an heirloom to her own ward, and the thought brought a lump to his
throat.

“Come on, lads,” he called, breaking his reverie before he
became too publicly emotional, “We’ve no time for loitering about. These bodies
aren’t getting any fresher.”  Tagen rubbed his hands together for warmth, eying
the knights who rode toward him.  He shook his head, wiped his hands on his
breeches and walked out to meet them. 

Blue capes.  He looked over the scattered band of scavvies
waving and cheering for the knights and he kicked angrily at the stones.  That
could only mean Gikka, his noisy little starling, the child of his heart if not
of his body, would be going away again.

*          *          *

“Pyran,” breathed the sheriff.  He stood warming his hands
at the fireplace, considering what Lord Damerien and Tagen had told him.  “Are
you certain?”

The sun had long since set, and the scavvies had reluctantly
given up their work, once the light failed, to make their camp outside the city
walls again.  Another day would make their job even more unpleasant and more
dangerous as the bodies swelled with putrescence where they lay in the water,
but there was no helping it.  They could only work so fast to clear it away.

Outside the farmhouse, the knights had made camp in a field
under Lady Renda’s supervision. By now, their fires were dying down, most of
the knights having gone to sleep. “Not full certain, no,” answered the duke. 
“I’m supposing it could have come from further north, though how or why…”  He
shook his head.  “In any case, Pyran is the only other port of any size.  The
fleet here is destroyed, so any hope we have of reaching Byrandia lies there.”

Lord Daerwin frowned.  “You’re assuming their fleet was not
also destroyed.”

“Hoping,” the duke murmured.  “Not assuming.  My thought is
that, if those who attacked Brannagh did indeed come here from Byrandia, they
would leave themselves a means of returning.  But then, perhaps that of itself
is an assumption.”

“What of the wave?” the Bilkarian abbot’s voice was calm and
quiet.  “Whatever caused it cannot be left to run rampant through Syon.”

“If the cause of the wave be not there but further north, it
is likely Pyran’s fleet was likewise destroyed, ending any hope we have of
achieving Byrandia.  In that case, we will be forced to continue to fight the
battle here, in Syon, until we can build a ship that can make that voyage.”

Jath stared into the fire and shivered.  “The water’s cold,”
he murmured.  “So very, very cold, that far north.”

Tagen leaned closer to Gikka.  “Boy sets my skin to crawl,
he does,” he whispered.

“That leaves what to do about Brannford,” the duke sighed. 
“We must leave for Pyran just after dawn.”  He nodded over the rest of the
city.  “In so doing, Tagen, I fear we shall leave to you and your people the
odious task of rebuilding Brannford yourselves.  This cannot be helped.”

Tagen nodded.  Of course.  This was no less than what he’d
expected from them.  They would abandon him and the scavvies here, take Gikka
away again just as they did every time, and put this all behind as if none of
it were real.  Give it a tenday, and come a wave of refugees and merchantmen
from up the coast, and there he and his would be again, the poor scavvies, with
nothing, begging and starving, after they’d rebuilt all.

“…no trade from up the coast, of course,” the duke had
continued on, “which also means gold will be no use to you, at least not right
away.  Obviously, such straits make of this a task most noblemen could not do
well.  Rebuilding Brannford under these circumstances calls for cleverness,
subtlety and perseverance, not to mention hands with generous calluses.  Given
that, I can think of no one better suited to the task.”

Lord Daerwin nodded.

Tagen’s brow furrowed in confusion.  Was Damerien still
talking to him, or was he now talking to Lord Daerwin?  But no, both men were
looking at him expectantly.

“Aye,” he said cautiously, still not sure what was
happening.  This was as bewildering as a meeting of the board of ministers,
except these noblemen looked to him for a voice in it.

The duke paced across the room.  “Come the Feast of Didian,
any farms as stand still abandoned are yours to distribute, but I charge you: 
above all, see to it that they do not stand fallow.  Syon has lost enough farms
already.  An the entire land would not starve the year, every acre of every
field must be planted, with home gardens in the city besides.  To the same end,
see to it that the fishing fleet is rebuilt at once, even if your people must
live in tents the while.  Salt away a full two thirds of the haul.”

“Two thirds!”

“Aye,” sighed Lord Damerien, “an you can, without starving
yourselves.  The bay is no doubt irritable just now and the fish will be far to
sea, but see to it that your cellars stay filled.  Rebuild the walls and train
your militia.  I know not what comes behind us.”  He drew his sword.  “Would
that I could offer you more ceremony than this, but…kneel, Tagen.”

Tagen’s eyes grew wide, but he dropped to his knees, more
the pose of a man pleading for mercy than that of a man being elevated in
station.  He felt the tap of the sword at his shoulders and felt faint.

“And rise, Lord Tagen, Baron of Brannford.”

“Baron?”  He looked at Gikka with terrified eyes, but she
only smiled.  “I’m but Tagen! How is it, I’m become a baron just now?  A mistake
this is, Your Grace, begging your pardon!  I’m but a scavvy, a low-life!”

“So it was with me when Renda met me,” Gikka smiled
reassuringly.  “Sure I was no better, Tagen.”

“Aye, you are,” he said with unaccustomed intensity.  “Aye,
lass, better by leagues than old Tagen.”  He turned pleading to the duke. 
“Sure you cannot knit of my makings a posh baron, you can’t!”

“Posh?  No.”  Damerien smiled sadly.  “Riches you must need
accomplish on your own, for my purse is committed to the coming war.  But between
the farmland and the fishing fleet, you, and by extension your people, shall
not want, I think.  I charge you, my Lord Baron, with the wellbeing of this, my
city, and its environs westward to the edge of Moncliff and northward to the
Hadrian lands, and outward over the sea.  In all matters pertaining thereto,
you are third only to myself and Lord Daerwin in authority.  Be as you’ve
demonstrated yourself to be: just, wise, and vigilant.  You will have to
rebuild a city and feed a nation by yourself, all in the space of a year.”

“Oh, now, that I can do.  Fed the scavvies on naught but
stoled fish, me.  Getting it fair, I could feed the world and have some to sell
besides.” he smiled unsteadily.  “No, it’s that baron part, might be a
challenge.”

Laniel smiled.  “Then it will be a good year for you.”

Lord Damerien took a ring from his finger and put it in
Tagen’s hand.

“This ring gives you my voice here in Brannford.  Should you
fail in this task or abuse your power over these people, you will answer to us,”
he said, looking eastward across the ocean toward Byrandia, “in this life or
among the stars.”

Pyran, three days earlier

“Halt,” called the guard from the doorway of the gatehouse. 
The guard was Syonese by appearance, which was something of an oddity in Pyran,
but his manner and inflection, even in that single word, suggested a fair bit
of time spent among Hadrians.  Not surprising, given that Pyran had belonged to
the Hadrians almost since the Liberation.  Unlike other more provincial cities
deeper in the Hodrache mountain range, the Hadrians of Pyran were generally hospitable
to the Syonese and even tolerated the occasional Bremondine.

At his age, this guard had probably served at Pyran’s gate
for thirty years or more, and while he might have had a much harder look about
him during the war, the softness around his belly belied the nature of his post
during peacetime.  He stretched one stiff leg and then the other as he moved
himself out onto the path, apparently not too concerned at the sight of a
single rider, though of habit, he scanned the roadway behind and the trees beyond
the clearing for movement.

“And halt, I say!”

The rider slowed.

“What’s all this, then?” the guard growled, the barest taste
of disapproval creeping into his voice as he looked over the rider and horse
for weapons.  Seeing none, he crossed his arms and took on the manner of a
schoolmaster with an unruly child.  “Coming into Pyran for a masquerade, are we,
with the robes and the boots?”

“We?”  Dith looked down at him, watching the smugness darken
into a glower, “
I
have business in Pyran.  Open the gate.”

“Dressed like that, and you have business in Pyran?”  The
guard squinted up into Dith’s unsettlingly blue eyes.  “Someone put you up to
this, boy?  Or would you just pour salt in our wounds?”

“Unbelievable.  Four thousand years later, and they’re
still peevish.  I knew those of Pyran bore a grudge, but I had no idea…”

“I come to Pyran on my own business.  That is all you need
to know.”

“No, son.  I keep the gate, so I decide what I need to know,
and what I need to know is, what do you hope to gain, riding into Pyran dressed
like that?”

“Dressed like this,” the mage leaned down from his mount and
beckoned the guard closer.  “I gain full use of my power,” he said softly. 

“You don’t scare me,” scoffed the guard.  “Horses can’t
abide real mages. Every schoolboy knows that.”

“Well, then I suppose you’ve nothing to worry about.”  Dith
smiled darkly.  “But tell me, can your clever schoolboys also open the gates? 
You seem less than able.”

“The gates open in two hours,” snapped the guard turning to
walk away.  “Come back then, and if you’ve learned manners, mayhap I will let
you through.  Mayhap not.”

“Think!”  The barked word was enough to make the guard turn
in alarm.  Dith glowered at him.  “If I must wait until the gates open, do you
really suppose I could enter Pyran unnoticed, without causing strife?  I’ve
heard stories of how we of the Art are treated here.”

“Yes, and for good reason!  After what you people did?”

“Easy.  There’s more to this than we see.  I cannot
believe so many years would leave their hurt this raw.  Have a care.”

The guard shook his head.  “You come into Pyran playing the
sorcerer, after what went on, and you take your chances.  Comes a reckoning to
you, not a soul of this city will raise so much as a brow to help you.”

“Yes, yes, as it was in Montor.”  Dith rolled his eyes in
exasperation.  “As it is everywhere I pass this far north.  I’ve had quite
enough of this Hodrachian provincialism.  I have done you no harm.”

The guard waved him off dismissively.  “Tell it to the sea. 
I’ll not be opening the gate early for any false mages today, thank you.  We’ve
had more than our share of real mages lately, and we don’t need any more magic
tomfoolery or sleight of hand to darken our days.”

“Ah, indeed!”

“How do you mean?  Other mages, here?  What other mages?”

“All right, I’ll play.”  The guard crossed his arms with a
sneer.  “Those others, they were real mages––a bloody army of them, all afoot. 
By my count, a thousand strong.”

“A thousand!”

“Yea, maybe more.  More mages than anyone here had ever
seen, together or otherwise, more than we even thought existed, all suddenly
upon us.  Not a word spoken, not a haypenny spent, just them taking whatever
suited them, whoever suited them, like we were so many cattle to them.”