Guardian of Honor Page 16

  She'd reached the map room and hesitated. It was rough walking in and seeing the changes, worse knowing that the gray and black that breached Lladrana's borders and inched inward showed lesser and greater evils. Really bad was when dots of red, or a large blotch, showed where people had fallen—usually Chevaliers, some local people, some mercenary foot soldiers.

  Dragging in a deep breath and straightening her shoulders, she entered the chamber. It was a medium-size room with good light from high windows and the ever-present crystals. Thealia was already there. Alexa frowned. The Swordmarshall was obsessed by the map, and her own estate and relatives weren't even near the failing borders.

  "Another fencepost failed and three Chevaliers were lost in a skirmish at dawn. They stopped the larger monsters—four renders, a slayer and a soul-sucker—but such a cost!"

  Alexa drew near and saw a red smudge in the northwest. Shescanned the map with the blue force-lines that showed the magical border between the magical fenceposts, the missing fenceposts and the boundary. In the few days she'd been in Lladrana, two fenceposts had gone dark and the defensive border that depended on the energy had failed between them.

  When Thealia turned, her face was haggard. She gestured at the map. "It's only a matter of time before the occasional greater beast becomes an onslaught we will have difficulty in stopping. Look here!" She pointed due north of Lladrana's center. "These were the first fenceposts to fall and it's the hardest boundary to defend. Every day the light of the fenceposts on either side of the hole dims. Soon they'll go out." She clenched her hands. "We don't have enough people. We became complacent, didn't realize the knowledge we'd lost. Then the fenceposts started dying and everyone in Llandrana knew we were weak and vulnerable. Morale fell and fear increased."

  Thealia spoke a little too quickly for Alexa to understand her every word, but most of the terms were unfortunately part of her daily vocabulary—"fenceposts," "boundary," "borders," "defense," "beast," and all the monster names too.

  "That's why you Summoned me, right? To heal the boundary?" Alexa asked.

  "Yes, you will show us how to make new fenceposts. That is your fate." Thealia went to the bookshelves, pulled out a large volume and thrust it at Alexa. "This is the history of the fenceposts. But it doesn't tell us how they are made! Not even the Sorcerers or Sorceresses of the islands know."

  Alexa took the heavy volume and opened it on a nearby table. She still couldn't read well, so she flipped to pictures. The fenceposts were shown, about twenty feet tall.

  "Take the book," Thealia said. "Perhaps when you read it, you will understand something we don't." There was a mixture of bitterness and hope in her tone.

  Alexa shivered, reminded herself she wasn't alone. Forming her words slowly, Alexa said, "A new class of Chevaliers will be fully trained soon." She knew because she'd trained with them. "More young men and women are contacting the Chevaliers to fight." For service to their country, for glory, for wealth. They'd find mud and horror and death. So would she.

  A little strain disappeared from around Thealia's eyes. "Yes. It is a good class. You were right to choose Pascal for your first Chevalier." Now she watched her words and spoke more slowly. "You are all good in that class. Some excellent volaran riders."

  "Let me know if there is someone very talented in other classes that would need a volaran," Alexa said.

  Thealia frowned. "We should not just give away volarans."

  "A person of extraordinary ability should always be given a chance. We need all the strong fighters we can get." Alexa gestured with her Jade Baton.

  A corner of Thealia's mouth turned down. "None of those who have Tested for Marshall have passed."

  Alexa frowned. "Fledele did."

  "Her husband failed. She did not want to bond emotionally with someone else, or by blood. She has no close relatives who wished to Test for Marshall. She declined the position." Incredulity tinted Thealia's voice.

  The door swung open with a loud creak, spilling bright light into the room.

  "Ah, Swordmarshall Thealia and the Marshall Alyeka, studying the map, as usual," said Reynardus with a false smile.

  "Salutations, Reynardus," Thealia said.

  "Shalutashhuns," said Alexa, and felt herself flush. She knew her accent sounded "drunk" again.

  Reynardus looked down his nose at her. Alexa gritted her teeth.

  She really hated that—he was too tall and had too straight a nose, and he had that insulting look down pat. She longed to see the nose broken, his white tabard smeared, but that wouldn't happen. He was an excellent fighter, and if his nose ever was broken, it would only lose the arrogant straightness temporarily.

  He smiled, sending a twinge of alarm up Alexa's spine. He was up to something. Striding between them, he went up to the edge of the map. His smile widened and he tapped an elegant finger to where the skirmish had taken place the night before, on the northwest coastline, near a fallen fencepost.

  "I think it is time we showed our new Marshall the reality of the Field," Reynardus said.

  He didn't do "benevolent" well. He still came off as pompous and patronizing. Alexa's stomach lurched. She had the sensation of being on a bicycle and having the training wheels yanked away. Inhaling unobtrusively, she said, "Of course." She gripped her baton a little too tightly, but it was better than letting her fingers tremble.

  There might be fighting. There would probably be magic to perform. And she'd have to ride there or be taken by someone else on volaran. Three things she didn't do well. Yet.

  "Good, good." Reynardus dropped a heavy hand to her shoulder in false bonhomie.

  He didn't even sway her. One thing she had mastered was achieving her balance—physically, mentally and magically. She could stand straight and steady in a gale.

  She smiled too. "I mush change into m' paddin', an' pick up m' new sh-chain mail 'n town." Tailored to her, she'd already spent a bunch of Power on making it magically light and tough. "I'll ride down." She trusted a gentle mare to take her there.

  Thealia cocked her head in the way that meant she was mentally communicating with someone. "Luthan has agreed to fly you. He'll meet you at the Nom de Nom."

  Dead monster heads again. Oh fun.

  "Ayes." That she could say well. She nodded to the Marshalls and left.

  12

  Sitting in the Nom de Nom, Luthan stared at the Exotique woman before him. Ever since he'd met her, he'd tried to mask his aversion to her—based mainly on her appearance, for which he was deeply ashamed.

  With reluctance, Luthan had agreed to fly the new Marshall to the Field of the last skirmish, where three Chevaliers had lost their lives.

  She looked at him with clear, green eyes and he sensed that she was well aware of his discomfort with her and hurt by it. He winced inwardly. Lladrana needed this woman, and if the Song was right, this Exotique would be only the first to come to Lladrana in the next two years, when the harmonics of the two worlds resonated in syncopation. So he should try to accept her as soon as possible.

  It was not only her alien looks that put him off—she was such an unknown quantity, capable of strange actions that disruptedlife. For the Marshalls, that might be good. For Luthan personally, he disliked illogical starts and turns in a person—he'd lived with enough disruption in his childhood, with a brother he loved but didn't understand.

  The worst was that he believed his godmother Thealia was trying to matchmake, Pair him to this strange Exotique woman. He imagined the Marshalls were desperate to keep her in Lladrana, and Pairing would do that. But such an emotional tie between him and this one would never happen.

  She drank her tea, her eyes as watchful and examining as his own, making no effort to break the silence engulfing them. He wondered what she thought of him. More, he wondered what sort of man would be attracted to this odd little creature.

  Ping! The sound inside his head froze him. He strove to keep his breathing even, his pulse steady, his mind at rest so the vision would come clear, an
d last.

  The woman's aura trembled, then was replaced, and Luthan saw true. Now she sat in front of him with skin a darker hue and a long scar running down her left cheek. Her hair was longer. Behind her, his hands on her shoulders, was Luthan's brother Bastien.

  He looked more contented and relaxed than ever in his life. His dark eyes gleamed with self-knowledge and purpose. As he caressed the woman's shoulders, love shone in a golden aura around them.

  Bastien! Bastien in love with a Marshall! The rebel and rogue and troublemaker. A black-and-white, Bastien had always gone off like a rocket in any direction his brilliant mind took him, followed his emotions as if they were oracles from the Song.

  Bastien! Oh, how he deserved this lady. She would shake him up, perhaps help make him into the man all sensed he could be—a great man. In the vision, she reached up and placed her hand on his in a touch that spoke of equal love. Luthan softened. Yes, Bastien deserved love. He'd had little enough of that from their parents.

  The Exotique met Luthan's gaze with an amused one of her own and said something. Bastien shifted behind her and winced, obviously the butt of teasing.

  "Arr you alll righ'?" The Exotique's accented words in the here and now, the hesitant touch of her fingers on the back of Luthan's hand, broke the vision.

  A small line of concern showed between her brows. Luthan laughed. She sat back quickly.

  Now when he looked at her and saw a lady who would sort out his brother, all his uncomfortable feelings about her vanished like mist. His sight, as always, left him a little giddy.

  Luthan reached out and patted one of her hands. "I am very well, Lady."

  She eyed him with suspicion, then shrugged. "I am called Alexa."

  "Alyeka," he said, and frowned when he knew he hadn't pronounced it correctly.

  He leaned back in his chair and drank deeply of his beer. It grounded him, but he couldn't keep from smiling around the rim of his glass. The complications between Bastien and Alyeka would be entertaining to observe.

  "I'm called Luthan."

  "I know. I have heard of you. You are a Chevalier, the Representative of the Song and the son of Reynardus." Her words were very slow but distinct.

  Luthan thought it a good sign that she put his title first. She saw him as an individual, then, not merely as the son of a man her voice told him she disliked. Many people disliked his father. Including his sons.

  Reynardus would loathe this one. Small and female and too strange to be understood and manipulated.

  But Bastien—her Power and her uniqueness would snag Bastien's lively curiosity, just as her status as a Marshall would repel him.

  Now that he knew she'd be Bastien's, Luthan studied her. Her short, fine hair was pure silver. Her face was attractive enough, coming to a pointed chin and holding those big eyes.

  "Yes," he said. "Reynardus is my father." He shrugged. "You can't choose your forebears."

  A fleeting grief shadowed her eyes. She sat up straighter "No."

  "I have a brother, Bastien." He watched closely, but saw no flicker of recognition. Had the two met yet? Bastien was in the Field, due north.

  "Ah've heard of Bastien." She pronounced their names correctly, even if she misspoke words.

  Luthan smiled, trying to calculate what gossip she might have heard, who might have spoken to her of his brother. "Don't believe everything you hear of Bastien. He's a good man." Even if he is misguided. But Luthan cheered to think that this woman would put Bastien on the right path.

  Luthan stood and bowed to her, offered her his arm. As her eyebrows rose, he noticed they were a light brown. Odd. But no instinctive twinge of revulsion occurred, and he grinned. He was over that affliction.

  A few minutes later Luthan introduced her to his volaran. The volaran was huge, as large as some of the great horses in Earth's past. It was a beautiful black, and when it had studied her in the Landing Field with big brown eyes, she saw intelligence in its gaze. Perhaps not intelligence that the Lladranans recognized, or intelligence that was humanlike, but a cleverness all the same. She got the idea that the Lladranans underestimated these creatures, but it wasn't something she felt qualified to comment on.

  Luthan set her on a long saddle and mounted behind her.

  Alexa figured that Thealia was trying to matchmake, but knew it was futile. Alexa would always be an Exotique first to Luthan. A pity, because he was a strikingly attractive man, better looking than both his father Reynardus and his brother Bastien, whom she'd rescued from the pool. She'd hesitated to mention Bastien because she didn't want to get into family dynamics. Still, she sensed Luthan was the most honorable man she'd met in Lladrana. Yep, really too bad.

  They took off in a steep ascent that clutched at Alexa's lungs and gut.

  When they steadied, Luthan yelled in her ear, "Sing with me."

  He sang a spellsong through, then Alexa joined in and they repeated it twice. At the end, they were encased in a magical bubble she'd formed. She admired the sheen of the outward curve of the spell. She'd helped in the magic! Formed the bubble that kept them warm and the air quiet around them.

  "Are you going to Test to become a Marshall?" she asked.

  Luthan hesitated. "Not now. I have responsibilities to the Singer and her Friends. They convinced me that the best use of my talents would be to represent them. I probably will Test for Marshall sometime in the future."

  When his father retired from the Marshalls? Did they retire? Alexa wondered if he worked well with his father. He certainly was more diplomatic than Bastien. She'd heard how he'd baited Reynardus, pushing him into following the rest of the Marshalls into Town after her.

  Luthan said, "Has anyone told you of the distance-magic of the strongest volarans?"

  She didn't think so, but could extrapolate. "Um, they can shorten it?"

  "Ayes. Instead of flying one volaran-length with their wings,they can fly a furlong, a mile—" he patted his mount"—more. It depends on their physical strength, the strength and wildness of their Power. Or my Power. My brother Bastien, raised my volaran. All of our relatives have volarans he trained. All of the Marshalls and the best Chevaliers have horses with great distance-magic. We'll be using a little distance-magic this flight."

  "Intereshtin'," Alexa said.

  Since the little attempt at conversation had included several explanations and definitions of words from Luthan, and neither of them seemed to care whether they spoke or not, Alexa leaned back to enjoy the flight.

  They flew northwest to the coast. Under them, slightly distorted by the bubble, were fields, rolling hills, forests—all a patchwork of different greens that tugged at her heart. A beautiful land, a verdant land, a land too lovely to be desecrated with nasty monsters, blood, war and rotting bodies.

  Was that why they invaded? Because Lladrana was so pretty? Alexa didn't know. Nobody had told her why the horrors invaded. Maybe no one knew.

  She caught her breath as she saw the ocean. From the map she'd known of the ocean, but hadn't emotionally understood the landscape of Lladrana. The sea was a changeable panorama of blue and green and gray, stretching to an endless horizon, dotted with islands. To someone used to the jagged peaks of the Rockies defining the western horizon and man-made buildings blocking the east, the ocean was mysterious and too vast for comfort. But it too, was awesomely beautiful, and she had wanted to see it.

  The coastline was rugged, like pictures she'd seen of Oregon. Alexa looked inland, trying to see the magical fenceposts.

  This was the northwest border of Lladrana, and though the fence was failing here, the monsters didn't often creep over. They seemed to prefer invading where no water existed.

  Straining her eyes, Alexa discerned a faint blue-white line a few miles inland. She followed it to a glowing yellow beacon, tall and straight. A fencepost!

  The line between the good beacon on a rough outcropping, the end post, and the next fencepost inland, one lying on the ground, was a dull white. She narrowed her eyes. The downed
fencepost barely glowed, as if its energy leached into the ground. Squinting, she peered into the distance. The third post inland was down and black on the landscape, looking like a huge fallen tree trunk. She wondered what it was made of. Everyone wondered. No one knew.

  Luthan murmured a command and the volaran angled to a gentle descent. Details of the land jumped out at Alexa as she tried to wrap her mind around another aspect of her new reality.

  Two fenceposts were down, cut off from the energy of their neighbors and the whole line. At least it wasn't like a string of cheap Christmas lights in which, when one went out, all of them failed. With a hint of nausea rising in her throat, Alexa realized that if all the posts went out, there would be no Lladrana.

  A group of Marshalls and Chevaliers were already surveying the site. The ground where the volaran settled showed trampled, short spring grass and mud. Dark patches of blood stained the ground, and the dark outlines of the fallen Chevaliers. According to Lladranan custom, a spell was cast on the dead and they sank into the ground to fertilize it. Memorial tablets were erected in their home chapel. Everyone accepted that the death would lead to new life on the land.

  Since the battle had happened just after dawn that morning, three shields of independent Chevaliers stood point-down where they'd fallen. The banner of a lesser noble waved over her grave.

  Alexa felt Reynardus's gaze on her. Everyone would be watching her, seeing if she could fix the boundaries, if she was a true,powerful Exotique. She hadn't ever thought of herself that way. Hadn't ever wanted to be a warrior except in the courtroom. But she would fight and defend, and, if necessary, die to make this land safe again. She thought of the gurgling baby Nyja she had played with the night before.

  Yes, this was a bad time for Lladrana, and if she could save it for the future, what a triumph that would be! What a difference that would make in so many lives. To save a whole culture. She'd have made her mark.