Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (33 page)

Damerien and the sheriff approached, talking quietly. 

“What had he to say for himself, this prisoner?” the sheriff
was asking. 

The duke looked around him to be sure he would not be
overheard.  “Of Byrandia,” he said quietly, “he knows only what any child would
know––his home, the streets, the name of his sovereign.  Not surprising, and of
only marginal use except to verify that he is incapable of deceit.  Alas he is
too dull of wit for that.  Of his army, he knows only the barest goal, which
was, of all things, to destroy Galorin.”

Renda blinked at him in surprise.  She had expected almost
any goal but that.

“Galorin the mage?”  Gikka looked between the others. 
“Galorin, whose keep Dith set out to find?”

“The same Galorin that Kadak’s demons spent half a millennium
hunting and never found?”  Renda crossed her arms skeptically.  “These mages
thought they would find such a one and destroy him?”

“The same, aye.  Worse yet, as impossible as it seems,” he
breathed, “they succeeded.”  Trocu looked away, but in that moment, Renda could
see a terrible loss in his eyes.  “Needless to say,” the duke added with forced
determination, “We could use such a one as Galorin now.”

“This is right heady news,” murmured Gikka, “to hear at once
that Galorin did indeed exist, and to hear in the same breath that he was
destroyed.”

“But then why would they attack Brannagh?” she asked.  “They
had to know he was not there.”

Damerien squeezed Renda’s hand.  “Brannagh was only an
afterthought, cousin.  It was an opportunistic attack to try to weaken our
defenses and weaken me, from the sound of it.  Kill me, if possible.”  He
sighed heavily.

Laniel cocked his head.  “They’d just destroyed the most
powerful mage in all Syon.  Having done so, defeating a noble house or two,
even Damerien itself, especially in light of the destruction of all the
Brannagh knights, would seem almost trivial.  With all respect.”

“Trivial, perhaps, but perhaps necessary to their ultimate
purpose, whatever that might be.”  Damerien smiled grimly.  “Imagine, if you
will, what might lead someone, particularly as it seems someone from Byrandia,
to kill Galorin and then to destroy B’radik’s temple, Castle Brannagh and for
all we know Castle Damerien, as well.  Why those targets?”

Gikka’s gaze hardened.  “Because these, they’ve had a hand
in every war, every bit of defending Syon since the Liberation, is why.”  She
looked at Renda.  “An you kill all the guardsmen, you can rob the vault at your
pleasure and no one’s to stop you.”

“Do you mean to say,” Lord Daerwin swallowed hard. 
“Byrandia may be preparing for a full scale invasion?  Now, after all this
time?  But how?  How could they hope to invade?  Surely they could not have
anticipated that Dith would raise the landbridge.”

Damerien shrugged.  “Perhaps they had other means to raise
it if he did not.  My sense of it is that this was not so well organized.  We
must have a care not to paint intention where there is none, or at least, where
it is not nearly as organized as it seems.  Otherwise, we may miss what is,
while we look for what we assume.  Remember, the attack on Brannagh was an
afterthought, from what I could gather from our prisoner.  It was not part of
the original plan, which was solely to destroy Galorin.”

“So he says,” Renda gestured helplessly.  “Are we to put so
much on his word?  After all, you said yourself he was but a foot soldier.”

Damerien templed his fingers.  “From what I could gather, their
afterthought went something along these lines:  it seems they destroyed
B’radik’s temple first, bearing in mind that their actual goal was to attack me––why,
I do not know.  This drew the attention of Wirthing and, in turn, the rebels. 
The decision to join the battle against Brannagh came from their now deceased
captain––he decided on the moment, apparently, without consulting anyone.  He
had no idea what he set in motion by doing so.  But that our forces had been so
weakened, they should have been stopped there.”

“Bastards.”  Gikka scowled.  “Had the sheriff and Lady Renda
but known, sure the knights might have stood in better stead to defend
Brannagh.  At least they might have had some warning.”

I recall noise, the strangely disordered energy of an
entire army of beings, all of a single goal but of many minds.  But I also
remember a child.  At the end.

Renda’s hand flew to her mouth.  “Oh, by the gods, no.”  She
shook her head.  “We did know, or should have known.  Arnard tried to tell us.”

“Renda,” The duke squeezed her shoulder gently.  “Even if we
had known—”

She turned away from them in horror.  “He told us.  We did
not hear, but he told us!  We might have saved Brannagh if we’d listened!”

“No.”  Damerien turned her to face him and looked into her
eyes.  “Hear me now, cousin.  Even had we known exactly the nature of the
attack, by that point, we had no means to fight them.  The knights fell shortly
after to the plague, and the priests were already destroyed.  We might have
been defeated utterly, had we tried.  Yes!”

She looked into his eyes.  She wanted to believe him.  She
wanted to accept that they had done all they could.  They had been so occupied
with Chatka and the farmers and Pegrine that they had assumed it was all part
of the main, the attack against B’radik.  They could have fought though.  They
could have pressed their advantage while they still had men.  Had they been at
the temple, had they stopped the mage army there….  But her blood slowed its
angry race through her veins, and she knew Trocu was right.  Had they been at
the temple, even with full strength, they would likely have lost.  She curled
her lip bitterly.  At least her knights would have died in battle and not in
their beds of plague. 

“Renda, you know I speak the truth.  As it happened, we
live, and while we live, we can still fight and win.  Dead heroes do not win
battles.”

At last, she nodded grudgingly.

“We must go forward now.”

“Aye,” she agreed.  “There is no going back.”

“Which brings us back to this strange grass.”  The sheriff
glanced back toward the lean-to.  “Laniel, do you suppose that the prisoner
might have done this?”

“I think it unlikely, my Lord,” answered the priest.  “I
noticed the first shoots rising even while His Grace was in with him.  Besides,
with a stitched wound in his chest, something this large might well kill him,
even assuming he has the power to accomplish it at all.  His power would catch
in the stitches.”  He paused.  “Besides, why would he do it?  What would he
gain?”

“Gain, aye.  Sure there’s none for one trapped in a hole
behind furs, but for one at large…”  Gikka smiled where she crouched looking at
the tiny plants.  “Dith, it is, what raised this, most certainly, my Lords. 
These grasses, mark, they’re come straight from Syon, from the marshes up by
Tremondy.  They’re not some odd Byrandian weeds as we’ve never seen, aye?  Makes
me think it has to come from one of our own, one of Syon.  And these, they grow
fast and thick and high, and they leech salt out, besides.  He chose them of a
purpose.”  When the others only looked at her, she stood and clapped Renda on
the back.  “Don’t you see?  He’s grown cover, for to hide himself and us, if we
want it!  Sure no army of mages would set to grow grasses up as would slow
their travel.  As you say, there’s no gain to it, not for them.  It’s a single
spy maneuver and clever, at that.  It must be he!”

Renda considered for only a moment. After all, what Gikka
said rang true.  She only hoped the mage was able to accomplish this great feat
without bringing the entire army of mages down upon himself.

“Yes, well, we will assume for now that it is Dith’s doing
since we see no ill effect from it, and we will hope that it serves him as
intended,” the duke breathed at last.  He squinted up toward the sun, which was
now just past midday.  “By my reckoning, were we to continue onward, we should
reach the Lacework by nightfall.”  He considered a moment, looking over the
knights in the camp, and shook his head.  “Better we approach that particular
obstacle by daylight, grass or no.  If there’s to be an ambush, it’s there.  Renda,
we make camp here tonight.”

To Gikka, he added, “This will give you time to scout
ahead.  Go to, at your pleasure, you and Chul.  When you return, we will
discuss our approach.”

Below the overlook where Dith lay on his elbows watching,
screams and hysteria ran rampant through the army below, and he smiled.  Bodies
flew apart into shapeless clouds of red mist, flames flared up white hot and
vanished, sand congealed into glass and spiked through some of them as they ran…and
he had done none of it.  Not directly, at least.

“You could have engulfed them all in flames and been done
with it.”

Flames, with an easy jump to the sea beneath the Lacework? 
No, this was at once more subtle and more devastating.  Oh, it was more a
parlor trick than anything else, and it would not fool them for long, not once
they discovered what he’d done, but by then, their power and morale should be
quite drained.

They’d established something of a camp here, with tents and
supplies a bit of distance from the actual entrance to the Lacework where most
of them had been involved in the mundane necessaries of establishing a winter
camp.  Some had been on watch, and no doubt some others had been patrolling the
perimeter.

“Only two detachments.  Disappointing, I suppose, but understandable,
after Pyran.  If they could surprise you, five score should be enough to stop
you, but if not, they would not commit their entire force.  One wonders where
the rest might be.”

One wonders such things after one has dealt with the threat
at hand.  Dith ignored Galorin’s musings and concentrated on what he saw in the
mage camp below.

Their world saturated by the constant haze of magic he’d
created by blanketing the entire landbridge, the mages were essentially blind. 
More importantly, they knew they were blind, and it scared them, and they were
jumping at shadows.  Now all he’d needed was a noise, a startle in the
darkness, to send them into abject panic.  And such a noise he had given them.

The Thrum he’d created was no more than a low hum of a
noise, too quiet to hear directly, all but undetectable.  Within an hour, what
had started for the mages as no more than the malaise of a child’s fear in a
thunderstorm had become something far more.  For some, the hysteria took no
conscious form but only caused paranoia, but for most, it caused hallucinations
and mumbling voices in their minds.  They saw ghosts of the dead or demons,
sometimes living men and women they knew who were not actually there, as real
and solid as any living man.  For some few of them, more than he might have
expected, it manifested as frank and probably permanent insanity.  Naturally
they’d turned on each other.

He was surprised he’d thought of it.  The Thrum had been
completely useless against Kadak’s demons who’d seemed to lack imagination or
because their minds did not work like the minds of people, and it was of only
limited use with Hadrians, so he’d never found occasion to use it during the
war.  Against these mages, however, it had worked spectacularly well.  Better
than he could have hoped, just like all his magic of late….

“This is reckless.  We could be in Byrandia by now, well
clear of them.  Instead, you court disaster by teasing them with noises.”

Dith pointedly crept a bit further forward.  If he had gone
on to Byrandia and left this detachment intact behind him, he would have left
himself no retreat.  Given that he still had no idea what awaited him there, he
would rather leave a real, physical and most importantly non-magical escape
route open, which meant clearing these mages from the landbridge decisively,
such that they would not be inclined to return.  That meant terror far more
than destruction.

Suddenly below him, the chaos stopped short.  Something was
not right.  He sat up and watched them, a frown crossing his brow.  They’d
stopped chasing each other, stopped attacking each other.  They stood perfectly
still, as if the Thrum had stopped.  Had someone discovered it and stopped it
already?  Except…no, he could still feel it surrounding them.  What had
changed?

Even from here, he could feel their terror rising silently,
blistering their minds, driving them far beyond anything he had done to them. 
This worried him because this new terror was real, with a real cause, and the
Thrum only compounded their very real fear.  This he could not control,
especially not without knowing what caused it, and he did not like what he
could not control.

“Let it go.  You got what you wanted––they are
sufficiently terrorized.  Take this opportunity to leave, and do not look back.”

He squinted, trying to see what it was that had them keening
with horror and turning their magic inward, to creating protections for
themselves rather than to outward in attack, but it was no use.  He would have
to get closer.

“What are you doing?”

He slipped down from the overlook and moved in, bending the
light around him.  He touched Glasada’s forehead reassuringly as he passed, and
the horse did his best to take on silence, trusting that Dith would return for
him from the darkness and the strange noises.  Then they would leave this
slippery salty place at last and go somewhere safe.

Such was his implicit promise in his touch.  But he had to
know what was so frightening to them suddenly that it had overpowered the
Thrum.  After all, it might mean he should be afraid, too.  In the distance, he
thought he heard a slow rumble of thunder, and he absently wondered if it might
storm.  Odd that there were no clouds.

Dith had taken only minutes to slip down the hillside, but
getting nearer the mage army’s camp took hours.  Residual protections lingered
here and there about the land, but these seemed mostly forgotten pieces of
magic.  Still, he was not inclined to trip them and bring the whole lot of
terrified mages down upon him with their protections and attacks readied.