Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (52 page)

He had understood the order.  Wirthing had said that the decision
had come down from the duke––an order that must have been as hard for the duke
to give as it had been for them to receive, he supposed: Brannagh would have to
be destroyed to contain the plague.  They had been charged to destroy the
castle, destroy the farms, kill every soul bound to the House of Brannagh, down
to the last child.

In giving his men that terrible order, the earl had spoken
so eloquently about this “final sacrifice” the heroic Brannagh knights would be
forced to make, and he’d spoken of Duke Trocu’s heart-wrenching decision to
destroy Brannagh and the knights who had saved his kingdom from Kadak in order
to protect the land one last time from the plague.  Lord Daerwin was the duke’s
own uncle.  For him to give such an order meant the situation was most dire.

Lord Tridian of Namor, Knight Commander of Wirthing, had
never found an order more difficult to obey in his life.  Oh, the younger
knights had made no secret of their resentment that their colors and their
honors ever cheapened beside those of the Brannagh knights, and they had found
the order easy to follow.  The young ones seemed to be straining at the leash
for it.  But for him and for the older knights, those who had shared fires and
shed blood with the Brannagh’s knights for decades…the order was unspeakably
hard.

He licked his lips uncertainly.  The sense of urgency at the
time had driven out any questions touching on the order, but now, as it had
several times in the depths of night when he relived the siege, he had his
doubts.  Dangerous doubts that could not and would not be allowed to bloom in
his thoughts much less be spoken aloud.

Even apart from the prowess of her fighting forces, Castle
Brannagh was legendary in her ancient defenses––defenses set down by Galorin
himself just after the Liberation and so powerful that they had stood unbroken
for thousands of years.  He could nearly admit to himself now, months later and
miles away, that even while he followed his orders, some part of him had hoped
they would find the castle impenetrable.

They’d lost countless men even before they could come near
enough to breach the gate.  The farmers were warriors, of course, having fought
in the war against Kadak, but the discipline they’d shown when they’d fought
under Brannagh’s banner was lost in the years of peace and in rebellion against
their noble house, so that they could not be counted an asset in the battle at
all, for all their numbers.  They were more of an unruly mob, running after
shadows and scattering at a whisper of ghosts.  Perhaps it was the protections
around the castle that made them so prone to panic.  They ran in when prudence
dictated an ordered advance, then ran away in panic through the ranks of
Wirthing’s knights, fouling the horses’ movement when the knights advanced. 
Worse yet, their man Maddock would hear no order from his betters.

The situation had become untenable to the point that Sir
Tridian had ridden to Wirthing to suggest a withdrawal that they might
reconsider strategy, a suggestion which the earl had refused.

Then the mages had come.  So many of them, all speaking a
strange language he had never heard.  He’d never seen so many in one place, and
they terrified him nearly as much as they panicked the horses.  He and his men
had been forced to withdraw some distance away because the horses would not be
calmed.

The mages had brought their power to bear against those old
defenses, and finally, the castle had admitted defeat.  The walls were
breached, the great doors were broken open.  The men behind him cheered, but
Tridian fought the sting from his eyes, knowing that the hard part was yet to
come.

But it seemed the defenses had one last gasp left.  The
castle exploded in a terrifying blast of energy more powerful than he had ever
seen and killed nearly half of the strange mages who had stupidly gone right
into the castle instead of waiting for the rest of the army.  He’d found he was
not sorry that Brannagh, even just the Castle herself, was able to exact this
much vengeance with her dying gasp, but the words would never leave his lips.

After the remaining mages had regrouped and gone, the
farmers had suddenly turned against Wirthing and his knights.  By now
outnumbered and weakened by the battle, Wirthing had withdrawn, all talk of
“obeying the duke’s direct order” forgotten.  They did not mount a new
campaign, and they did not send messengers to Damerien to give report. 

None of it made any sense at all.  No more than the present
mission.  Beneath the armor, deep in his soul, he could not help but believe
that this was a fool’s errand, and once again, he was the fool.

“My Lord Tridian,” one of his knights spoke quietly at his
elbow.  “What are your orders?”

All these thoughts and memories had passed in the space of a
breath.  Suddenly his attention was back on the Kharkara plains, the few dozen
knights behind him, yet another dry riverbed before him, and yet another enemy
to destroy who had once been an ally, on behalf of someone who was no one’s
ally.

No, he could not let his thoughts go that way.  These were
unworthy thoughts to have in the field.  He would raise his questions with
Wirthing later, in private, as was his duty as a commander, but for now, he
would lead his men as he had been charged to do, decisively and in good faith.

The gorge was not so much deep as it was broad across.  By
the Gathering, it would flow as a mighty river and feed the grasses of the
plains, but for now, it ran with only a pathetic rivulet of mud down its
center.  He saw no tracks in that mud to indicate scout activity, and he saw no
movement in either direction other than the cold wind moving through the branches
of trees.  He glanced toward the mountains far to the east.  No clouds.  They
would not be in danger of flooding, at least not yet.

“Best we see ourselves across smartly,” Sir Tridian sighed. 
“That hill on the other side should give us a vantage point, and I will decide
from there how best to proceed.  Caution, as always.  If I know the Dhanani, we
were seen as soon as we touched the Kharkara, but they should not be expecting
hostilities from us.  Let us not give them reason to change their minds.  I’faith,
I’m more concerned with locating Moncliff.”

Dane slowed his horse and scowled.  The Kharkara was a
treacherous piece of land for hasty riders or those who did not know her
tricks, and apparently, he allowed, even for those who did.  An enterprising
commander could hide an entire army on these seemingly naked plains, and so it
seemed he had, for Dane could see neither Moncliff’s forces nor Wirthing’s.  He
found that disturbing because they had to be there.  Somewhere.  Should he not
find them, he would have very little of value to report to the Dhanani warrior
camp.

“The ground is too damp,” he said as Lady Glynnis drew up
beside him.  “They kick up no dust, and the grasses are too sparse to show much
trampling from any distance.”  He looked out over the plains again.  “In truth,
with what little I have seen, I could not tell the chief whence comes the
threat except in the vaguest terms.  I see nothing except tracks in the mud as
we come upon them, and even from that, I cannot see any strategy or direction
to their movement.  At first, Wirthing’s men rode straight out, but now, they
seem to be feeling their way along the terrain.” 

“Likely they are.”  Lady Glynnis hugged her cloak about her
in the cold wind.  “I doubt they have ever needed to come this far north.”

He cocked his head.  “It’s good news of a sort.  Had they
ridden straight in, they’d be at the tribes by now, I reckon.  Something else:
I see Wirthing’s men’s tracks, but I’ve seen no trace of Moncliff’s army.  You
would think an army a thousand strong would leave tracks as it passed.”

“Assuming they passed this way,” she breathed.

“Assuming they passed at all,” added Nara looking over the
ground.

Lady Glynnis chuckled grimly.  “If you cannot track them, I
wonder how the marquess will ever find them.  He rode out with the idea that
they’d likely already engaged the Dhanani, and he hoped to reach them ere they
declared victory, so I should think he rode straight northward.”

Dane looked at her.  “He rode out to them?  When,
yesterday?”

“Why no!”  She shook her head in surprise.  “He left no more
than an hour ahead of us.  You must have seen him go.  A boy of fifteen?”

The knight shook his head.  “No.  I saw only Wirthing’s men
leave the castle until you yourself emerged.”  He considered.  “Assuming the
marquess sent his men to the woods…”  Dane nodded toward the east, toward the
forests that were too far away to be visible.  “Of course, that was Tero’s
worry since that would be the only way to move a force of that size with any
hope of not being seen.  And being as it was Tero’s worry, if they went that
way, Bakti’s scouts already know.”

She shook her head.  “I doubt Moncliff would have sent them
that way.  The boy has no more strategy than a dung beetle.  He had no grasp of
anything past the sating of his next whim.  Why, so dissipated and impatient
was he during our discussions that Wirthing finally grew quite vexed and
dismissed him.”

The knight scratched his head.  “Assuming Moncliff’s men
went to the trees, and assuming my Lord of Moncliff knew and somehow slipped by
me to meet them, why would Wirthing’s men have gone this other way?”  He looked
out over the plain and considered.  “Perhaps they plan to flank the Dhanani,
except that separating the forces so early means they cannot plan their movements
together.  It is a mistake an inexperienced commander might make.”

“No,” she said decisively.  “That would be disastrous. 
Wirthing is too strong a strategist to do something so foolish, even if
Moncliff is not.”

“Unless…”  Nara frowned and looked up at them.  “Perhaps our
little dung beetle is far cleverer than we thought.”

The Wirthing knights eased their horses down the bank and
then moved quickly across the open ground toward the far side.  Lord Tridian
scowled across the riverbed.  He had sent scouts across first, as he had at
every one of these crossings so far, but doing so had only cost him time.  As
expected the scouts had signaled back that all was clear.  No sign of the
Dhanani, and, to his exasperation, no sign of Moncliff either. 

Even if any Dhanani scouts had spied them, they did not have
reason to expect hostilities and would likely merely wave to them in passing.  And
he and his men would smile and wave and ride right in amongst the heart of the
tribes’ lands.  Then Moncliff’s men would sneak up on them like thieves in the
night, cutting the men’s throats and abusing the women while Wirthing’s knights
reinforced them and saw them safely out once the carnage was done.  He felt
bile rising in his throat at the thought.  Courage and honor, he mused
quietly.  They have so little commerce in a land at peace.

Suddenly one of the horses at the front of the formation
reared in terror and backed away from the far edge of the ravine, and the rest
drew back to form up ranks.

Rising along the lip of the ravine, a seeming forest of
thorns and spines daubed in red-brown mud or perhaps blood resolved from the
weedy grasses and scrub.  Hundreds of Dhanani warriors dressed in fearsome
spiked surcoats and helmets over their battle leathers and armed with the
terrifying
xindraga
horse-flails edged forward.  Even their horses’
faces were streaked deliberately with mud in many shades of ochre and blood
red, made all the more terrifying because not one of them made a sound.  Not
the men, not their mounts.  Their discipline was absolute.  And Tridian felt
fear for the first time since he’d ridden against Kadak’s stronghold.

He swallowed hard.  They knew.

At once, swords clattered clear of their sheaths amongst
Wirthing’s men, but they were drawn up short.  Above them on the ledge, two
Dhanani led the Wirthing scouts forward with knives at their throats and stood,
letting the men below them see them and know there was no hope of rescuing
them. 

“I am Bakti Ka-Durga Ba-Vinda, Chief of Dhanani,” spoke a
commanding voice in imperfect Syonese.  “Who is your commander?”

Tridian raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun that
he might better see who spoke. 

Caught in the late afternoon light, Chief Bakti was an
imposing sight.  His battle leathers and surcoat were indistinguishable from
those of his men save by their extreme age, but with his silver hair spilling
out beneath his helmet and his commanding presence, no one would mistake him for
anyone but the leader of the tribes of the Kharkara.  “Speak now,” he
continued, “or we kill.”  He nodded, first toward the scouts, then, more
ominously toward the array of knights in the ravine.

“Chief Bakti,” Tridian spoke, “I implore you in the name of
Anado to spare those two men.  They were merely scouting ahead to find our path
and meant no harm.”

Bakti raised his chin and gestured toward Tridian with the
Verge of Anado.  “You lead these men.”  He did not ask.

The commander nudged his horse forward keeping his eyes
firmly meeting the chief’s as he had been taught when dealing with the
Dhanani.  “I do, Eminence.  I am Sir Tridian of Namor, Knight Commander of
Wirthing, ally and friend to the tribes of the Kharkara.”  The words tasted of
blood in his mouth and he nearly choked on them.

“As you are ally and…friend…to Brannagh?”  Bakti lowered his
staff menacingly toward the knight, and Tridian stopped. 

The truth of the chief’s words bit into his soul.  The
knight’s eyes flickered away from the chief’s, only for a moment, but it was
long enough. 

“I think, yes.”  Bakti’s expression darkened.  “You ride to
kill the tribes just as you rode to kill Brannagh.”