Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (30 page)

The mage had ridden a meandering serpentine course,
sometimes moving in close parallel to the road, sometimes riding miles to the
north or south, moving from one clump of dying kelp to another to make his way
east.  It made sense that he would go that way.  What remained of the road was
obviously the most direct route, but it was also the most open and vulnerable
if he’d thought himself in danger, which apparently he had.

So while Gikka and Chul rode each day along his winding
path, the main body of riders and the spare horses rode the more direct route,
straight up the roadway.  The few surviving plants had not taken heavy root in
the stone, which meant it was more or less clear, both for riding and for
fighting if the need arose.  The last thing they would want would be for them
all to be fighting their way through tangles of seaweed and kelp, if they were
suddenly beset.

Ahead to the east and about a hundred yards south of Chul,
Gikka had reappeared on the top of the hill.  She looked back to find the boy
and signaled to him that all was well, then dipped below the hilltop again. 
She was following Dith’s precise trail while Chul had what seemed to him the
more difficult task––finding the occasional places where seemingly out of
nothing, seamless boots had left tracks in the mud and then vanished again.

He’d seen the occasional beacons they’d left, especially
along the main road, and he’d taken pains not to come too near them.  Gikka
assured him that they were meant to be tripped only by magic, so he had nothing
to fear, but still, they worried him.  He did not much care to be seen by the
unseen.  Besides, for all that they might not concern themselves with anyone
but Dith, still, they might be inspired to mischief if the mood struck.  So, as
she’d instructed him, he had carefully marked the beacons off with red flags for
the riders following hard upon because some of them actually were mages.

In the last day or two, the ground had begun congealing into
a mud pudding beneath a fragile crust of salt deposits, ice and drying clay. 
The broken crust and the hoofprints drying into the mud beneath told her that
Dith had passed this way only a day or so ahead of them, and they were clearly
catching up to him.  This did not surprise her since in the tenday since they’d
left Pyran, she had led the knights along the straightest route while he had
gone many hundreds of miles of meandering north and south.

Gikka rode carefully, watching the tracks turn this way and
that, working their ways around the sinkholes and sharp coral outcroppings. 
The path chosen was surprisingly elegant, almost expert.  Occasionally, seeing
the mark of a particularly brilliant bit of horsemanship, she found herself
wondering again how the rider could possibly be Dith, but then again, as
unlikely as it was that he would come riding, it was no less likely that such a
horse as would suffer him to sit would have a care to his own footing. 
Otherwise, she should have come upon them already over a cracked hoof or a
thrown shoe, or worse.

All along the way, sea birds had flocked to gorge themselves
on the unlucky sea creatures who could not make their ways to water and the
dying sea plants that froze by night or withered in the weak Bilkarian
sunlight, and the loud muss and muddle they created had helped to hide him from
casual eyes as he moved, at least from those who had no eye to track anything
but magic.  But he could not have left a clearer path for her to follow.  She
only hoped they would all get across before the silt dried to dust and began
throwing up great plumes to mark their passing, or this could get very
dangerous indeed.

Most of the time, she skirted wide of them, only staying
near enough to keep Dith’s tracks in sight, but once in a while, she had had to
get near enough that the birds noticed her.  Then birds quieted for only a
moment as she neared them, then resumed their cries and gossip once they determined
that she was no threat, no matter how close she came.  Only this time…this
time, she might well have missed it had she not been paying attention. The
birds had just quieted again.  And now, startled, they flew off.

She drew the hood up on her cloak, feeling the slight
weakness and dizziness that went with its sudden draw on her strength.  Zinion
snorted with disgust at the feeling of the cloak’s strange magic around him, a
feeling he’d learned to tolerate for the sake of stealth. 

Then, concealed as she was against her surroundings, Gikka
drew her dagger and rode forward, listening carefully, watching for movement. 
Within only a moment, she found what had startled the birds.

“
Cwara!
”  Behind a clump of coral not far away, she
saw a terrified man in seamless robes, bathed in a glow of his protections, his
hand upraised against her.  He was looking right where she sat, directing this
strange word at her.  That and another:  “
Wyt’stra!
”  He tightened his
hand, and she readied herself for his attack.  But none came.  He was too
frightened.  She edged Zinion nearer to him, and still the man’s gaze followed
her, his hands raised now more in fear than in threat.  Zinion tensed beneath
the cloak, disliking the power emanating from the mage.  A low growl rose in
his throat that Gikka felt more than heard.

Damned mages.  Whatever his protections were, they were
going to hurt when she set them off, but she could not let him get away, not
now that he’d seen her.  Sooner or later, his desire to escape would overwhelm
his fear, and he would port himself away to safety.  Or to gather the other
mages.  Well, that settled it.  She could not leave him lie.

He was not any bigger than she, and he was certainly not as well
trained in combat.  She sprang from her horse, drawing her dagger, and sank it
in just below his collarbone, cursing at the surge of crackling pain and
numbness that flowed through her arm.  Zinion, now clear of the cloak, bucked
and backed away from the crackle of power.

“
Cwara wyt’strachya!
”  The mage tried to get out from
under her, tried to back away.  He stared at the knife sticking out of his
chest and reached up to pull it out, but she stopped him.

“Oh, but listen to you whine!” she barked at him, and fell
atop him.  “You’re not even bleeding…much. But you’ll not be raising that hand
to me again today, I reckon.” 

“
Cwara!  Cwara!
”

When she touched the blade, he shrieked in pain and
fainted.  Well enough, she thought.  This way, my good Cwara Wyt’stra or
whatever your name is, I’ll not have to bloody my knuckles to knock you
senseless.  The blade was set right where she’d wanted it, not too near
anything important, not likely to nick a big blood vessel.  As long as it
stayed where it was and she rode carefully, with any luck at all, he’d still be
alive when she brought him to the duke.  It was a risk.  Oh, not that she would
shed a tear over a dead mage, no.  The risk was of him getting away to warn the
rest.  Once he knew where they were, they would all know.  Then again, since
he’d seen her, it was possible they knew already, and this was a thing the duke
should get out of him, so it were better to deliver him alive.

She bound the blade in place so it would not saw back and
forth through the flesh, then hefted him up over Zinion’s back, calming
Zinion’s objections as best she could, and rode for Chul and the knights.

“
Cwara
, he said.”  Gikka shook the mud off her cloak
and nodded back toward the makeshift lean-to where Laniel was tending the captured
mage’s wounds.  “
Cwara wyt’stra,
and
cwara wyt’strachya
.”  She
folded the cloak and bound it to Zinion’s saddle again.  “Do you understand a
word of it?  I’m not knowing if he was telling me his name or…”

Nestor thought a moment, absently stroking Zinion’s head. 
“Brymandyan, it is, from the sound of it:  a common dialect in part of
Byrandia, and a very distant precursor to Bremondine, as makes sense.”

She nodded.  But with millennia to separate the two
languages, she could not hear even the slightest similarity of sound or even
inflection between them.  Even High Hadric bore more resemblance to Bremondine
than this strange mix of sounds.

“
Cwara
simply commands a stop.”  He grinned at her. 
“But you no doubt gathered as much.  I’ve in mind that he wanted you to stop
stabbing him.”

She shook her head.  “Even before I stabbed him, he comes
saying this.”

“Ah, then his meaning was more to the line of halt, like as
if to take you prisoner.”

“Could be, I suppose.  But not knowing vexes me.”  She
shrugged impatiently.  “
Proagh,
a thing occurs to me, and it’s this:  we’re
all of us set out for Byrandia, but of us, there’s you and the duke as speak
the tongue and no one else.”

“The boy, Jath,” Nestor said uncomfortably, “so that’s three
as speak it.”  Not far from him, Chul and Jath were washing the mage’s blood
off Zinion’s flank with salt water, much to the horse’s relief in spite of the
cold. 

“Aye, that’s all well, but we’ll not be sending a one of you
out to spy and scout, now, will we?  So not speaking the tongue, the closer we
get to Byrandia, the more I’m of only half use.  I’ll not stand by to see lives
lost because of my ignorance.  So…I’d have you teach me.  Me and the young
master, there.  I’ll not hear no.  We’ve both good ears and quick minds.”

“What you ask…”  Nestor frowned.  “The duke should have a
say.”

“In what tongues I speak?”  Gikka snorted.  “Not a jot.  If
any has a say but me, it’ll be my Lady Renda and no other, and sure I’d bet my
life she’d say aye and dance with bells on to hear of it.”  She crossed her
arms.  “I ask it for a favor,
va’ar Proagh
.  A quiet favor, aye.”

Nestor looked at Jath who only shrugged.  “I can’t see the
harm in it,” he allowed.

“Very well, then.  You say
cwara
means a command to
stop.”  She nodded to Chul.  “
Cwara.”

“
Cwara
,” Chul repeated where he scrubbed at the
horse. 

“But then what of the other? 
Wyt’stra, wyt’strachya…
” 
She grinned mischievously.
 
“Was he insulting my parentage, calling me
foul names as I should put to good use whilst we trek about Byrandia?”

But Nestor did not laugh.  “Words not to be repeated, not to
anyone.  Far more than an insult.  A curse, indeed, and one he clearly takes
quite seriously.”  He shook his head.  “Far be it from me to say why he would
call you so, or think you so.”

“The cloak,” said Jath quietly.  He looked up from where he
was picking the muck out of Zinion’s hooves.  “Sure that’s why.  She was
wearing it, aye?”

Nestor cocked his head.  “Indeed.”

“My cloak?  But what of it?  A special gift, it was, from
His Grace to me.”  She looked between them.  “Sure I’m not understanding why it
struck this mage into fits.  And sure I’m not knowing how he saw the thing at
all.”

“He could not see the cloak or you.  What he saw was a
shadow of its power.” Jath touched the cloak where it lay still bound across
Zinion’s back, and the cloth danced beneath his hands.  “He took the magic in
it for Witcher.” 

“Witcher, like the Witcher mages, as in the campfire
stories?  Them as suck up the blood of babes for their power?”  She laughed. 
“Sure not.  He’s no child, him, to go believing such things in earnest.”

Nestor lowered his voice.  “Sure that’s what the word
means.  Witcher derives from Wittister, which in turn derives from
wyt’stra
.” 
He wrapped his cloak tightly around himself and ran his hand over Zinion’s
flank to dry him.  “Sure you surprised him, and with seeing the cloak’s power,
his fancy ran wild and he panicked.”

“If he thought you a Witcher, it’s no doubt he feared for
his very life,” Jath murmured, looking worriedly back at the lean-to.  “Or
foresaw his end.”

“Witcher mages.  Sure that beats all,” she laughed.  “So,
come.  What other words should we know, then?”

Dith’s first sensation upon taking form was a surge of
panic.  They had been waiting for him, watching for him, and they could be only
seconds behind.  Around him where he’d brought himself out onto the Lacework,
the strands vibrated, the air shimmered, and bodies began to take shape close
upon him, ahead on the roadway and behind.

In only a moment Dith was riding away over the ribbon of
stone, dodging between great towers of coral reef.  Those who had arrived and
were readying their magic abandoned it and dove to either side as the frenzied
horse pounded between them.  A latecomer shimmered and started to take shape in
the path.  The woman turned, her eyes wide to see the huge animal bearing down
upon her, and she tried to port herself again even before she had fully formed,
but it was too late.  She flew apart in a half coherent pulp as Glasada
barreled through her.  The horse never even slowed.

Of course.  The elaborate line of illusions and traps and
protections they’d set down had not been meant to catch him or even to weaken
him.  They’d been set there quite visibly as a bluff, to force him into using
his power to get past them, to this very spot, where they had hoped to ambush
him.  And he’d fallen for it. 

No, not fallen for it, he told himself.  He hadn’t fallen
for anything.  No, he’d known they would have an attack ready for him no matter
what he had chosen to do, and he’d chosen his ground as the area not blanketed
in magic.  He’d counted on being able to port in and ride away before they
could get there, and while it had been a near thing––much nearer than he might
have liked––so far, it seemed that he might just succeed.  The few token
attacks that came after him as he rode seemed almost perfunctory, as if they
had no reason to think they would hit him.