The Guardian (56 page)

“Highlanders, and citizens and Hel’s Town pirates!” Talan laced his linen and began to struggle into his armor. “Help me, damn you! How can I get this fixed alone?”

Nestor helped him latch up his gear. “You’ve still men enough to hold the palace,” he said.

“With them over the walls?” Talan stabbed a thumb at the window. “With them already inside?”

“Only a handful.” Nestor flung the windows open and pointed a finger. A man stood on the battlements, nursing a wound. He wore the accoutrements of a pirate. The Vachyn spoke softly and the man screamed, hurled back by an unseen blast that pitched him over the ramparts as flame burst from his chest. “I can slay them one by one.”

“Then do it,” Talan snapped.

“But not in numbers, and best you be seen.” Nestor latched Talan’s breastplate. “You are, after all, the Lord of Chaldor. You should be visible, else you lose your people’s trust.”

“And I
can
defeat them?”

“With my aid? Of course.”

Talan belted on his sword and set his golden helmet in place. “I trust you speak the truth, Nestor.”

The Vachyn smiled readily. “What else, my lord?”

K
erid took his pirates along the ramparts, sweeping the battlements clean of Danant men. He’d not seen Highlanders fight before, and he thought they were madmen. They seemed careless of wounds, intent only on victory. Indeed, they vied with his pirates to be first in conflict, as if all that mattered was to reach the gate and open it for their comrades. He swung his own blade well enough, but it was often that he must draw back as some screaming clansmen came past him to thrust one of those long swords into a belly, or charge against a shield and hack into the armor of one of Talan’s men. He saw them take arrows in their chests and die charging; or pluck spears from a pierced belly and still run
on, some planting the spear in their killer before they submitted to death. He believed them crazed and was glad they fought with him, for else he’d not have reached the gate.

But he did, and Hel’s Town pirates and roaring Highlanders fell down on the Danant men behind the portal even as the crossbar and the bolts splintered and the gate fell inward.

I
led the way down the narrow stairs to the yard below. Ellyn and Shara were both armored, and I hoped that and our stolen livery would disguise them well enough from the Danant soldiers running in confusion toward the gate that we might enter the main palace building unnoticed. I hoped Talan had despatched all his men to fend off the attack, thus leaving the palace unguarded. I hoped to find him there; he did not seem the kind of man to lead the attack. No less did I hope Shara had regained sufficient strength to face Nestor. I hoped a great deal—so much depended on hope; and was I wrong, then all was lost.

We crossed the yard and Ellyn plucked at my sleeve. “Likely the main doors are guarded; come this way.”

I followed her, with Shara grim-faced and weak at my side, to a walled enclosure. Ellyn unlatched a wicket gate that opened on what once had been a pretty garden. Roses still grew there, and fountains played softly, but the roses were crushed now with the bodies of men fallen from the wall, and blood and petals mingled on the colored tiles. I followed Ellyn, my arm supportive about Shara, to an inner door that she opened before I could prevent her, stepping through with drawn sword into a dark, cool gallery. I did not know this part of the palace, and must rely on Ellyn for directions.

She pointed toward three doors at the farther end. “That leads to the servants’ quarters; that to the inner palace; that to …” She hesitated, her voice faltering. “To my parents’ chambers.”

Those would, no doubt, be occupied by Talan. But would he be there, or in the main hall? Surely not even such
a coward-king would hide in private chambers as his men died. But no less surely would he surround himself with bodyguards. I pointed to the third door. Ellyn nodded and swung it open as I stepped past her with my blade poised.

The chamber beyond was wide and empty, stairs rising to a balcony. I could hear feet pounding, and men shouting. I motioned the two women forward and began to climb the stairs.

Two men in shining armor embossed with the images of snarling lions appeared at the stairs’ head. Both carried bared swords, and both glowered at us through the eye slits of their helmets.

“What do you here? Where are you going?”

I had almost forgotten that we wore Danant’s livery. “We’re hurt,” I mumbled, still climbing.

“Then find the main hall. These are our king’s chambers.”

I grunted and shook my head as if I were befuddled.

“The gods curse you, go back!”

One took a downward step, brandishing his sword as if he’d drive off obstinate swine. I raised my blade and stuck it into his belly, between the jointure of his breastplate and tasset. Behind his helm, his eyes widened in surprise, and he gasped. I turned the blade and saw his fall from nerveless fingers, clattering down the stairs. As I pushed him away, Ellyn ran past me, her blade swinging at the second guardsman. He took her blow on his vambrace and brought his sword around in a sweeping arc that would have severed her head had she not ducked and I continued upward to drive my buckler against his casque and send him staggering back. I swung my sword against his head, and Ellyn moved again, stabbing at his midriff. He deflected her thrust, turning it down between his legs. Ellyn spun, using her blade as a pivot to bring him off-balance, his legs going out from under him so that as he fell I was able to stab him through the back of the neck and kill him before he could cry out.

Ellyn smiled at me. “You taught me well, Guardian.”

I nodded and held out a hand to Shara.

She shook her head and found the upper stairs unaided. “There’s enough killing,” she said softly. “Do we find ray brother and Talan, and end this slaughter?”

I felt a little guilty. I cannot deny that I felt the battle madness on me, and should have cheerfully faced all Talan might send at me, laughing as my sword was blooded. But she was right; too many died in this venture, and we must still find and slay our real enemies. I bowed my head and wiped my blade clean and we went on our way.

I began to recognize it now. A door granted us egress into a gallery that looked down onto the rose garden. Beyond lay those chambers where Ryadne had spoken to me—so long ago, it seemed—and past them, the inner sanctums that had once belonged to Andur and his queen.

We crossed the gallery at a run and halted at a door inlaid with ivory and metalwork in bas-relief.

“Is he here,” Ellyn said, “hell be past this door. And I’ll not face him in his filthy colors.”

She tugged off the Danant livery. After a moment, I did the same, baring my Devyn plaid.

Shara said, “Why not?” And tossed the bloodied cloth away.

Then Ellyn took the the door latch and flung the portal open as I charged through.

Talan and Nestor stared in surprise as I entered.

T
he walls were cleansed of Danant soldiers now, and the gate open. Highlanders and citizens and Haldur’s men came flooding through as the Hel’s Town pirates and the clansmen swept down to catch the defenders between two terrible forces.

The Danant men fell back and were caught like metal betwixt hammer and anvil. They were beaten back across the yards of the citadel, and those who did not die under the suicidal assault threw down their swords and begged for mercy.

There was little to be found. The Highlanders were
battle-crazed, and did a man hold a sword, he was fair game. Haldur’s men had old scores to settle, and were they robbed of their right hands, still they could wield a blade in the other. And the men and women of Chorym, who fought with kitchen knives and pots and pans, had the years of Talan’s oppression to avenge, and the deaths of their king and queen. The only ones who held back were the Hel’s Town pirates. They were accustomed to taking boats and accepting surrender, and Kerid—who had learned much since Andur died—stood back in horror as the slaughter went on.

“I was lucky,” he said to Mother Hel.

“How so?” She placed a lace handkerchief scented with flowers against her nose. Her own guard stood watchful around them: a wall of spears and fish-mail armor. “Do you not approve?”

“Of this?” Kerid gestured at the killing and shook his head. “No.”

“But you’d see Ellyn given her throne.”

“Yes,” he said, tensing as the fighting came closer and the guard leveled their spears. Wincing as a Danant man was skewered and tossed aside; as a clansman staggered past with both hands pressed to where his face had been before a sword carved it away. A woman ran by holding her left ear and shouting for a healer. “But this is … slaughter. It’s different on the river—that’s honest fighting.”

“They’ve debts to pay,” the Mother said. “Talan imposed his rule on Chaldor unfairly. He employed the Vachyn sorcerer. He used might that Andur—Chaldor—would not, and now he reaps the harvest of his seeding.”

“Even so.” Kerid shrugged as a Danant soldier staggered past pursued by three women and an old man who beat his armor with brooms and a sickle. “This is … unpleasant. It’s not …” He stopped speaking as the soldier fell down and screamed as the sickle was drawn across his throat. The sickle was blunt and the soldier took a long time dying.

“It’s warfare,” the Mother said. “It’s win or lose. What other way is there?”

T
alan wore wondrous armor. I had not seen such fanciful work, all gold and shining—not plated like that of the guardsmen I’d slain, but solid gold, worked with jewels, and etched with snarling lions’ heads on the breastplate and the greaves and the pauldrons. He was helmed, and that casque was a roaring lion, its jaws embracing his face, paws cupping his gaping jaw. It shone in the dawn sun, which now rose and spread its light over Chorym, shining in through the windows so that the gold glittered and the embossed jewels sparkled like rainbows. I thought it armor better fitted for the parade ground than real battle.

He stared at us, a hand on the bejeweled hilt of his long sword.

Beside him stood a man with long, oily hair and nails to match. His face was aquiline and sallow, as if he spent too long a time in communication with darkness. He wore a black robe, and even before I heard Shara say his name, I knew him for the Vachyn sorcerer—Nestor.

I felt no choice. I knew that Nestor’s magic could slay me on a heartbeat, so I charged.

I felt that strange difference in the air as I attacked. I knew that magic was summoned up, and that I might well be slain before I took another step. But I had no choice. I was, in my blood and bones, in the last breaths of my dying, a Highlander. Our way in battle was the Highland charge, and I was sworn to deliver Ellyn her throne and pledged by my own desire to save Shara.

I swung my blade at Nestor.

Had he been any ordinary man, I’d have taken his head off with that sweep. But he was not, and so I felt my sword bounce as if from a buckler of impermeable steel.

I saw him smile and begin to mouth words and shape figures in the lightening air.

Then Shara spoke, and his hands faltered, and he said, “So, sister, you’d think to defeat me?”

Shara said, “I’d rid the world of you. Who is the stronger, brother? You with your Vachyn magicks, or I?”

Nestor said,
“Me!”

Ellyn screamed, “You slew my father! You slew my mother!”

And Nestor laughed and pointed a finger that sent her stumbling back. I watched her tumble away and heard Nestor laugh again.

“An apprentice, sister? A little, weak apprentice to follow your sad betrayal? What talent does she own? Enough to defeat me?”

I was stretched on the floor. My bones felt as if horses had ridden over them. Every wound I’d ever taken hurt. My knee ached. I felt as if blood burst afresh from every cut, and I was weak.

I turned my head and saw Ellyn slumped against the far wall. I saw Shara, unsteady on her feet but still defiant, facing Nestor.

“You’re beaten,
brother.
Your puppet king is beaten! Chorym and all Chaldor is ours now, and you’ve lost.”

Nestor said,
“No!”
And pointed a dirty-nailed hand at Shara.

I felt that magical power stir again, and forced myself up on hands and knees.

Talan stood staring at Nestor and Shara as I drove my blade into his groin, beneath the tasset. He wore mail under the gold, but I found the strength to thrust through the metal, and he was too fascinated with the magical duet to deflect my blow. He shrieked as my point went in, and again as I turned the steel to carve out his manhood and deliver his entrails to the floor. I withdrew my blade as he fell down. He was all bloody, and screaming, and I stabbed again, into his throat so that his wailing ended and he could not decide which wound to hold. He rolled in agony as his blood spilled out over his golden armor, and he died.

And Nestor cursed and flung his magic against Shara,
who flung her own magic back, so that the air crackled as if two storms confronted one another, lightning against lightning. The chamber filled with thunder and I was deafened. I felt apart, as if the battle I witnessed was a dream. Save it was the woman I loved who fought, and so I struggled to wake, but could not, for all my last energies had been consumed.