The Guardian (3 page)

Even so, it was a perilous crossing, and Kerid must set men to hauling buckets from the river to douse the fires that started. I could only curse and pray that we reach the farther bank unscathed. I saw the second boat hit by that weirdling fire, and it was as if vast fingers of white flame reached down from the heavens to condemn the vessel, light coursing over masts and deck, running swift and oily over the rigging, so that for horribly long moments the craft was lit stark, outlined against the river and the night. Then it burned, as does a ball of dust tossed into a fire: in the instant of a heartbeat. The vessel was there and lit, and then gone—and across the Durrakym drifted a cloud of ash that stank of burning. I heard men scream then, and saw lesser fires dot the river. None lasted long, but sank, which was likely a merciful release. I wondered why such powerful magic had not been used before; perhaps Talan had forbidden it, that he might claim a military victory, or there were limitations on the Vachyn’s power that I did not understand.

I knew fear then, for I am no riverman and feel no great love for water, save to slake my thirst or cleanse my body. I am, at best, a poor swimmer, and hurt as I was, and dressed in full battle armor, I should surely sink and drown. I
thought then to strip off my armor, then thought better of that, too. How should it look, did I land on Chaldor’s shore armorless? I’d not have men name me a coward. So I gritted my teeth and clutched a rope that I not fall down with the ship’s rolling, and watched the sky light up. I heard men shouting in terror and limped to the inner rail, from whence I shouted down that they remain calm and that our captain should see us safe ashore. I put into my voice a conviction I did not feel, and when I returned to Kerid’s side he grinned at me, though his expression held scant humor.

“Brave words,” he said. “The gods grant I live up to them.”

“Can you?” I asked, as another thunderclap divided the troubled night and fire roiled above our stern.

He spat to what I think is called leeward and shrugged. “I’ve no more wish to pay Ardan my coin than you, my friend; I’ll do my best.”

I nodded and asked, “Shall they pursue us across the river?”

“No doubt in time,” he answered, “but not soon.” Then he chuckled with genuine amusement. “We think alike. Before you ordered the town burned, I took it upon myself to see their boats torched. So Talan must find himself some more vessels before he can raise a fleet to chase us or bring his army over.”

“How long?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Six or seven days, I’d guess. Is Talan’s army large as you say, then he shall need a great many boats. I’d reckon a seven day at worst, two at most.”

“What chance of halting them on the water?”

“Little chance,” Kerid said dourly. “Talan built a pirate fleet, and we’ve too few such craft to compete with those.”

I frowned, not understanding this nautical talk.

“River war is not so different from land war,” Kerid explained. “There’s light and heavy—like cavalry and infantry. Talan shall need big, heavy boats to transport his troops, and they must be protected—just as you’d use
cavalry to protect your infantry. The pirate craft will protect the transports, and we’ve too few to oppose them.” He sighed and added, “Andur never saw fit to commission such a fleet.”

I asked why he could not use this craft we sailed on, and he told me, “This is a merchantman, my friend. She’s fit to haul cargo or men, but as a warboat she’s too cumbersome.”

My frown grew darker. “We cannot halt them?”

Kerid barked a sour laugh. “Not now; nor ever easily. But we can try, and I shall! Listen—do you only organize the landward army, I’ll do what I can on the river. And the gods be with us both.”

He caught my eyes and I saw that he was fervent in his conviction. I felt no doubt but that he would fight Talan as best he could, even to his death. And then a terrible guilt that I might not be able to satisfy the promise he sought, for Andur had set that geas on me and I must journey on. I did not know what Ryadne might ask of me, only that I could not renege on that. I wondered if I lost my honor as I took Kerid’s hand and said, “I shall do all I can.”

“And I.” He smiled. “Between us, Gailard, we’ll defeat Talan.”

“The gods willing,” I agreed, feeling like a traitor.

W
e found harbor as the sun topped the horizon. The sky was very bright, as if the gods scoured away the clouds that they might better observe our maneuvers. Gulls mewed at our arrival, and all along the wharves I saw the glitter of light on armor, shields, and spearheads. There seemed not a single empty space, but all filled up with waiting men.

Kerid said, “I’ll see you safe ashore, then take my boat away. What I can do to halt Talan, I shall. You’ll hold Antium?”

“He’ll not enter easily,” I dissembled.

I fumbled my way down the narrow ladder to the deck and limped to the outflung gangplank. A sailor helped me
down that swaying platform, and when I thanked him said, “The gods be with you. Guard our land, eh?”

I turned to answer him, but he was already gone.

I had hoped to slip away, to pass unnoticed back to Chorym, but as I stepped onto the flags of Antium’s dock-side, I found all that was left of Chaldor’s army facing me. Shields and spears rose in salute, and I looked back at Kerid’s boat, thinking that some greater commander had been aboard. But only damaged men came after me, and I realized that this salute was for me alone. I felt my heart sink as it dawned on me that all these men looked to me for orders, whilst I must obey my dead king and leave them.

Then Haldur, whom I knew and had drunk with, stepped forward to innocently augment my guilt.

“The king passed word, my friend; you lead us now. What shall we do?”

I limped to where a wagon stood and rested my weight against its side. River mist coiled thick about the wharf, and the risen sun glittered on it like fire on water. At least the magefire had ceased now, but that likely meant only that Talan gathered his army for invasion. I looked Haldur in the eyes and gathered up my courage.

“Andur commanded me to Chorym, to Ryadne’s side.”

Haldur hesitated a moment in his reply, then gave me back, “Then go to Chorym, but first order our defense here. The gods know,” he gestured at my leg, “but you’re sore hurt, and Chorym shall need a strong commander.”

I felt a great weight settle on me then, and had some inkling of what Andur must have suffered as he ordered men to their deaths—the terrible weight of trust and loyalty. Almost, I told Haldur to flee, to take his men and all the others and run, but that should have branded me coward. And so I grunted and heaved my paining body atop the wagon. I looked about and saw that our army was not so much now. I thought that only a thousand or so manned Antium’s shoreline.

“The hurt are gone,” Haldur advised me. “We who remain are all hale” He grinned. “And mostly Highlanders. We can hold them!”

I set a hand upon his shoulder lest I fall down—my knee hurt abominably—and slumped onto the wagon’s seat. “Talan’s a Vachyn sorcerer in his employ,” I said. “You know what the mage did to us. You saw that boat burn?”

Haldur shook his head. “I saw lightning, no more.” His grin faded. “What do you say, Gailard?”

My belly rumbled, and my mouth was dry as a soldier’s purse. I felt a weariness settle on me, and wished for nothing more than a mug of ale and a soft bed, to sleep and forget all this. I cursed myself and scrubbed hands through my hair, feeling them all ashy from the relicts of the burned boat.

“Andur told me to go to Chorym,” I said slowly. “I …”

“I know that,” Haldur interrupted. “But what of Antium? What of our defense?”

“He told me to leave Antium.” I spat; my mouth seemed filled with ashes. “I must go to Ryadne—on Andur’s command.”

He made a sound that might have been a protest, and I saw confusion in his bloodshot eyes then, and perhaps disapproval. I was very weary, and in more than a little pain, so perhaps I spoke sharper than I should. “I tell you what Andur said to me, Haldur; no more, nor any less. Talan comes against us with many times our number—and a Vachyn sorcerer! And I must go to Ryadne.”

“So you’ll not command us?”

I shook my head.

Haldur climbed off the wagon and stared up at me. “So you go to Chorym? I’d thought you made of stronger stuff, Gailard. Did those Vachyn magicks invade your soul?”

In other circumstances I’d have challenged him for that. He was, like me, of Devyn blood, and knew what he said. But I had no more stomach for this argument. I wanted only to be gone from his accusing gaze, from the waiting men.
Some amongst them were of my own five hundred. “I have my orders. Now find me a sound horse and put me on it.”

He nodded and turned swiftly about, marched briskly away. I sat atop the wagon as he bellowed orders, and saw all those expectant faces turn toward me, and the disbelief there as word spread. I wished then that the sorcerer’s magicks had taken me, and came close to cursing Andur for this geas.

Then Haldur brought a horse and I clambered awkwardly from the wagon, aware that none moved to help me mount. I stripped off my battle armor and let it clatter to the cobbles of the wharf. I kept only my sword and shield. I took the reins and could not lift my damaged leg to the stirrup, so that the horse skittered and began to prance nervously.

“Shall you help me?”

It hurt to ask that, but less than the look in Haldur’s eyes as he motioned men forward to heave me astride.

I set my buttocks in the saddle and took up the reins. Then said, “I’d not have it this way, Haldur.”

“Nor I,” he answered. “I’d not thought to see you run away.”

“Andur commanded me,” I said, and before he could reply, or I voice some lamer excuse, urged the horse forward and rode away from Antium.

C
horym stood atop a hill that rose like a great dais above the fertile plain. Good farmland, fed by streams and patch-worked like a vast quilt with olive groves and vineyards, fields of wheat and barley, orchards, and green meadows where sheep and goats and cattle grazed. The four Great Roads ran from the city, die-straight to the compass points until they reached the distant horizon where hills soared like misty shadows toward the wide sky. And in all that lovely landscape, Chorym was the jewel: a city of white walls and colored tiles, of ocher roofs, and doors and shutters stained blue and green. A city of gardens and wide avenues lined with trees, a city of stone and wood and fountains, of plazas and taverns and eating houses: a pleasant place to live. But still defensive; about the foot of the hill ran a high, thick wall surmounted by watchtowers, inset with the four huge gates that opened onto the four Great Roads. The commercial districts there—the warehouses and trading posts, stables and barracks—and then higher, another, lesser wall, and more rising up the hill, so that all was concentric circles spinning upward to the citadel.

That was a great limestone edifice, entered by a single gate, and built by Chaldor’s first rulers. Its walls were sheer
curtains rising to wide ramparts that contained an inner city, the monarch’s palace within.

Ellyn walked those ramparts with her mother.

This high, a breeze disturbed the summer’s heat, ruffling her long red hair and cooling eyes and cheeks grown hot with weeping. She had anticipated her father’s death—Ryadne had scryed it in a recent dream—but to anticipate was not the same as
knowing
, and Ellyn had clung to the forlorn hope that somehow her mother was wrong, that her father would ride back victorious from his war.

Then the messenger had come—the first sad remnant of a broken army, followed by others in no better shape—and all with stories of the war and how badly it had gone. Now there could no longer be any doubt or hope, only miserable knowledge and its denial. Ellyn had wept then, and cursed the gods for their infidelity, and her father for deserting her. And Ryadne had taken her aside, away from solicitous courtiers and servants, and—brutally, in Ellyn’s view—advised her daughter that fate’s wheel turned as it would, and ground men down, and that Ellyn must be brave and put aside her grief in face of the worse things that would surely come against Chaldor. Ellyn had damned her mother for an uncaring bitch (feeling guilty even as she screamed the imprecations) and demanded to know what could be worse than Andur’s death, the defeat of Chaldor’s army.

Ryadne had told her: that Talan would come across the Durrakym with his Vachyn sorcerer and all his army and besiege Chorym. That he would likely waste the land, and demand Ryadne’s hand in marriage. That he might lay legitimate claim to all the Bright Kingdom.

“A
nd shall you accept?” Ellyn had snarled, angry in her grief, not sure with whom and therefore snapping like a hurt dog. “Shall you take him to your bed and be queen of Chaldor and Danant, both?”

“No,” Ryadne had answered. “I shall not. So he will
surround us and have his sorcerer send magicks against us, and eventually Chorym’s walls shall fall and we shall be overcome.”

Her mother’s voice had been so grim, her face so dour, that Ellyn had caught her breath and asked, “What shall you do?”

“Die before I accept Talan.”

Ellyn’s anger had gone then, like a fog scoured away by a fierce wind, and she had stared aghast at her mother. “What?”

“Better the land survives than I,” Ryadne said. “Better that Chorym stands and the Bright Kingdom have hope still.”

“What hope?” Ellyn asked. “My father is dead and you speak of dying. What hope then?”

“You,” Ryadne answered, and had taken Ellyn’s hands, and looked long and hard into her eyes. “You are Chaldor’s hope.”

“I?”
Ellyn could scarce believe the intensity of her mother’s gaze, or what Ryadne said. She had felt more afraid then, as if all the gods joined to blight her life. She wanted to run away, to find her bed and huddle beneath the sheets until the world was changed back to what she knew and trusted. Yet she knew she could not do that—only listen to her mother, whose words she did not want to hear.

“Am I dead,” Ryadne had told her, “then Talan will seek you for his bride. He’ll lay much ceremony on it—speak of healing wounds, of unity. Tell Chaldor that he seeks only peace and your welfare …”