Guardian of Honor (52 page)

As Reynardus spoke of Power, Bastien caught images from his mind,
as if seeing a well-traced history: Reynardus young and in love with a
lower-class girl. That shocked Bastien, and his father snorted. Then
Reynardus's first Song Quest—where he was shown several futures.

I
could wed the girl and live contentedly on our ancestral
holding. Or I could wed another
—
a woman of great wealth, but of pitiful
character
—
and build my own status. Then I would be a man to reckon with
—
the
Lord Knight of the Marshalls! My name would echo through history. I wanted
that, and more.

Bastien said nothing, kept his disapproval to himself. Having been
the issue of that cold, passionless marriage, he wanted more. His heart wanted
more—intimacy and delight. He'd found that with Alexa—passion and endless
fascination.

The price of my Power was a bloodless mating with one who could
never be a Marshall, never my Pairling, never my equal.
His
mouth curled, he slanted a stare at Bastien.
And the price was a flawed son.

Bastien's heart lurched. He gripped his reins tight, but kept the
pressure from affecting the stallion.

And to fulfill my dream of fame and fortune, the Song required a
third payment
—
death on the battlefield at a relatively young age.
This
time Reynardus turned his head and his eyes glittered.
But the Song is not
always right
—
not always inescapable. Even though it took my volaran and
sent me this sad beast ready for death, the Song can be changed by the will of
a man.

Keeping his mouth shut and completely averse to talking philosophy
with Reynardus, Bastien nodded. Then his father did something so touching that
Bastien was stunned.

Reynardus stroked the neck of the volaran, and sang. He sang of
life, of fighting for life, of determination. In doing so, he relieved his
mount of the brooding sorrow and despair it had carried since its flier
perished. The volaran's ears perked up, the tension of its muscles loosed. It
held its head high and proudly, with eyes unclouded by grief.

Bastien could barely believe his father had done such a thing.
Compassion. The man had a little compassion after all. Or was it simply
self-interest? Bastien didn't know. He did know that in the coming battle, as
Shield for a man marked for death, Bastien would have to be very, very careful.
Though Reynardus would not allow Bastien any other than surface thoughts, he
began layering defensive spells to protect them both.

Bastien and Reynardus arrived at Prevoy's Pointe to see death and
destruction. Glowing Marshall batons signified the loss of a Pair—the oldest
Pair, Albertus and his wife.

Blood and ichor surrounded the bodies of Chevaliers, volarans, and
the horrors. Dozens of skirmishes dotted the battlefield. The aura of magic
glowed in sparkling rainbows around the breaks between the fenceposts.

The thickest fighting centered on a small woman glowing green and
blue and on horseback. Bastien's heart jumped to his throat.

I Shield for you, but we go there!
Bastien
pointed.
Where my Pair mate is.

Reynardus grinned, screamed a war cry and dove. Caught up in his
own fury, Bastien followed, accepting the rush of emotions from his father to
himself, handling them, adding wild magic from himself and his mount. Linking
to Ivrog, and from Ivrog to Alexa, and through Reynardus and Alexa to the
Marshalls. He saw a golden net among them all. With luck, the net could close
around the horrors and crush them.

Alexa knew when Bastien arrived. That he Shielded Reynardus. A
bubble of wonder passed through her brain, but her hands concentrated on
killing a slayer. Ducking spines. Shooting green baton magic straight to the
heart.

Then Reynardus was next to her, swiping his baton around in a wide
swath, killing several monsters with one blow.

"Dreeeeths!" someone screamed.

27

A
dreeth materialized amidst them, its long, curved, pointed beak
plunging toward Reynardus's heart.

Alexa was
there,
in front of him. How, she didn't know.
Shrieking her own fear.

Bastien and Ivrog took the blow for her. The Shields held.

Her baton was in her hand, flaming green.

Reynardus's flamed white. He grabbed hers from her hand, yelled at
the pain. He and his volaran shoved her aside.

She reeled.

They flung themselves in, in. Close to the thing's bulbous
underbelly. Reynardus shoved both batons into its most vulnerable point. He
shouted a chant and the thing exploded.

The force of it knocked Alexa to the ground. Dreeth chunks flew.

Reynardus laughed and tossed her baton to her. She caught it and
gasped at his energy. Flung his magic back at him to absorb.

He laughed again and with a huge gesture and wave of his baton,
Reynardus vaporized the rest of the dreeth.

He was still laughing when another dreeth appeared behind him and
pierced his magical Shield, spearing his body with its beak, plunging through
him and down into his volaran.

Reynardus and the flying horse gave one shudder and died.

Agony ripped through them all. All Marshalls. Bastien and Ivrog
and Luthan screamed, their minds shocked at their loss, her connection to them
gone.

Bastien was nearly unconscious, his Shield around his father
having been brutally rent.

The new dreeth flicked its beak and Reynardus's body flew, arcing
droplets of deep red blood from the back and between its legs. The volaran
collapsed as it lay, blood pooling under it.

The horror made Alexa's breath catch. The Marshalls' and Luthan's
and Ivrog's and Bastien's grief and anger wrenched open her own for Sophie.
Suddenly the dreeth was every senseless death, every stupid mistake that
claimed a life, every evil that took life and laughed. All evil.

Screaming, she ran toward the dreeth, jumped over the body of the
volaran, ducked under the wicked clawed wings, and thrust her baton into the
dreeth. The jade dug deep. She threw herself forward and stuck her arms up to
the elbows into the dreeth.

It died.

She was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks as her heart and
mind and soul wept for Sophie. And Reynardus.

The dreeth's body toppled forward.

Not again!

But the massed magic of the Marshalls plucked her away. Was too
much. The Power spun her across the Field, onto the ground and under another
dreeth's beak and claws. Her help gone, she stared at her own death in
fascination.

Sinafin screamed and dived.

Bastien's atomball bulleted straight through the dreeth, leaving a
hole. The shooting-star shattered.

That dreeth rocked forward, toppling.

Alexa rolled until she stopped against a rocky outcropping
littered with debris. The dreeth thunked behind her, causing the earth to
vibrate. Grabbing the edge of a boulder, she used it to stagger to her feet.

A render shrieked and swiped. His claws skimmed her back and fiery
pain sizzled. She whipped around and only one claw connected, sliced her cheek.
The pain cleared her brain. She would not die. She would fight and
win!

She lunged forward, her flaming baton-point took the render in the
heart. She jerked her stick back and it came with a horrid sucking noise,
echoed by a soul-sucker lashing a tentacle around her. Suckers fastened on her
back, along the render wounds, and blood drained from her to it, along with her
energy. Another limb pulled her close, trapping her arm so she couldn't use her
baton.

Desperately, she reached for a weapon, any weapon. A long branch
of brithenwood stuck out from the rocks. In that instant she knew.

Brithenwood was the key to making the fenceposts. It
was
a
fencepost.

Using sheer willpower, she pulled it out.

The brithenwood sang to her, music bubbling through her blood and
nerves, combining with her surging magic. Yes, this brithenwood staff could
become a fencepost; she only need wield it.

Staggering with the overwhelming Song, she thwacked the branch
across the soul-sucker's back. The soul-sucker's ululating scream deafened her.
It released her and crumpled. She stabbed the branch down, through the
soul-sucker and into the ground.

The branch transformed before her eyes, glowing yellow and growing
to—a fencepost! Magic ran from it to the next post down the line, a hot blue
streak of Power.

Thealia skewered a slayer and it fell on the boundary, shrieked as
fire engulfed it, vanished. In the monster's place was a wall of flame.

For an instant Alexa couldn't find her voice. Then she shouted,
yelled with magic and triumph so all on the battlefield would hear her.
"The boundaries—they are fueled by the horrors' life force!" She saw
a volaran and Chevalier die under a tangle of render claws. The bodies landed
on the border too. Again the boundary flared, the bodies disappeared, and the
border was strong and alive at that point.

With shouts, the Marshalls and Chevaliers pressed forward,
maneuvering the monsters to the line.

Soon the entire front was lit with a visible wall of magic that
the monsters behind it could not punch through. The beasts on the Lladranan
side of the border were trapped.

Yelling battle cries, the defenders of Lladrana encircled and
killed renders, slayers, soul-suckers and another dreeth.

Alexa stumbled back into the skirmish. Her bond with Bastien
returned first, then Ivrog. Their tunes were uneven, flattening and nearly
disappearing at points, but she was glad of any help she could muster.

She found her wandering horse and heaved herself into the saddle.
She felt better, stronger, more in control on horseback. For the first time she
thought she might eventually become a volaran fighter. Alexa kicked the horse
into a run and helped finish off the remaining horrors, swinging her sword,
using her baton automatically until she looked around and found only
Chevaliers, Marshalls, Sorcerers, horses, and volarans alive. No sign of the
monsters except a very tall, very bright boundary of magical flame.

Her arms dropped and she just stared at the new border. She didn't
think she'd seen anything so beautiful in her life. Safety, security, triumph.
The glowing fencepost and boundary line meant all that to her.

With a press of her heels, she rode closer to the fencepost and
the huddle of Chevaliers who examined it. Where the post rose from the ground
was a circle of jade. Alexa shivered. She—
she
had made the fencepost and
it showed that. It also seemed to tally her kill, then go on to record the
other beasts that had died on the line. Almost all of the Marshalls—including
the Shields—had a jeweled ring around the pole. The Chevalier kills were shown
in wood.

Thealia joined her, smiling faintly and cleaning her sword.
"Well done, Swordmarshall. Now we know how the posts are formed—brithenwood
staffs."

"Branches," Partis said as he and his volaran landed,
"and freely given. Not cut, but culled from dead fall."

Loremarshall Faith drew near too. "Did you say any spell when
you thrust the brithenwood into the ground, Alyeka?"

Alexa's mind went blank. Had she? She had the vague idea that all
day long she'd been praying "Oh God," or swearing, "Oh
shit." She smiled weakly. "I don't think so."

Bastien's stallion trotted up. The volaran looked magnificent and
pleased, as if he knew he'd participated in a fateful event. Bastien's
expression was strained, but he managed to dip his head and smile at her.

All her feelings about him roiled through her. Love, despair,
caution. Suddenly she wanted her feet on the ground. That might steady her.

She slid from her horse and wobbled to the fencepost as if to
study it. From the corner of her eye, she saw Bastien tense. Up close the
fencepost was awesome. Yellow-white, it would be a beacon at night, a warning
to those evil creatures who tried to slither into Lladrana. The gemstone rings
of the Marshalls sparkled in the light, bright and new, the edges of the
carvings crisply incised.

Reaching out, she meant to trace the dreeth, but her fingers just
brushed the column.

Mist seemed to swirl around her and it was fast and thick and
white and she couldn't tell if it was behind her eyes or in front of them.

The earth under her feet vibrated.

And she heard the Song.

She'd thought the melody between herself and Bastien had been a
Song, but this was more—richer, incredible.

This was the Song of a world.

And not the planet Amee or the land Lladrana.

This was the Song of her mother planet, Earth. A Song that whirled
all the memories of her home planet into vivid life—the scent of snow, of
spring grass, of the Colorado soil itself. Images of the law school campus, her
office and battered desk, and her apartment. Of lost Sophie.