“I have chosen you, --.”
He held a thin steel chain. It slid between his fingers with a softly undulant rasp. He caught it as it escaped his palm, and the ring of links traced a pendulous arc.
A stone shone. Gripped in a plain steel setting opposite the clasp. His eyes watched it move.
“From every species, race, and kind; you alone were my choice.”
His horse, an old grey draft, huffed a weary breath past its bridle. He glanced up at the beast, and put his hand to his knee. A breeze caught the fading vapor of the campfire, and cast the few remaining embers at his feet. The smell of smoke lasted only a moment.
She held his face in her hands, “I did not make this choice lightly.”
The moment passed and the scent of blood, sweat, and offal pressed thick into the air as suddenly as it had left. His eyes went to the stone.
“What you have given of yourself has inspired me. Inspired those you have led.
You are a legend to your people. And now your name will never be forgotten.”
Bodies were scattered and broken around the campsite. Bandits. They had no sentry, had set no guard. Their massacre had been quick. Better than they deserved.
She was beautiful. Beautiful as only Crane could be.
He found tears in his eyes. Not from her words.
From the sight of her. She slid her hands to his shoulders,
“You will be my heritage.”
He stood.
“And I will be your sacrifice.”
He sheathed his sword.
“You will grip this world. You will never let it go.”
The grey draft accepted his weight, plodding back to the road with little encouragement. The bodies were soon lost among the trees. The scent suffocated by the fragrance of pine, oak, and maple. He hung the chain around his neck and tucked the stone beneath his shirt.
“I have chosen you, --. You will be my Guardian.”
*
The road was dry. Cobbled stones covered in a gloss of fallen dust. The tread of his old grey sent up plumes that gave a sour metallic taste to the air. He glanced at the road ahead. Another hour and they’d pull even with the rearmost wagons of the caravan.
“You cannot be serious.”
Guardian shook his head, “This is one island, Raven. One. And there are five guardians here. Not counting myself. This is a small war, and I intend to find what caused it.”
“To what purpose?!”
Guardian ground his teeth as he looked down at Raven,
“We used to work well together.”
A shadow passed across the other man’s face, “Those are not my fondest memories.”
“Nor mine.”
He began to walk away, but Raven caught his arm, “Maybe I am not the man I once was, --. But the Kemp started this war. You must fight them with us.”
Guardian looked coldly at Raven’s hand, and the younger man let his arm go, “I know that there is an enemy.” He stepped closer to Raven, “And that enemy is not the Kemp.”
He walked away.
“Who will you fight for? Baylock? The Chiid?!
You abandon your own people, --!”
“Are you listening to me?”
The man called Guardian blinked, and looked up. He had caught up to the caravan.
“Wonderful.” His employer ran a hand across his face, “This is unacceptable. What if bandits had stopped us while you were away? Do you realize what that would mean?”
“Yes, Soyer.”
The stout man pointed along the caravan, “I have, among others, ten women and three children in this caravan. Understand?”
Guardian said nothing.
Soyer took a deep breath, “That constitutes a significant financial liability. The bandits stop me, and I don’t have enough guards, and the toll goes up.” He sighed, “I am not all that wealthy a man.” He set his aggrieved eyes on Guardian, “And I dearly love my money.”
Guardian met the eyes of his employer and the man pointed at his face, “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve seen things. The bandits can tell the gorillas from trained soldiers. And that’s why I hire you. When it comes down to hard bargaining, you save me as much as the rest of my guards combined.”
He looked away. Soyer flushed. “Well then. Let me make it a little more clear. If you disappear again, you don’t get paid.”
Guardian watched him jerk the head of his mare around, and canter back up the line of wagons.
He watched Raven gallop back to the army. He tasted the sour, metallic
flavor in the dust tens of thousands had pounded into the air.
*
The west gate of Tray Minor was a ramshackle pretension. The frame crooked, the wood warped, the lock rusted through. The town matched the gate. The grey draft blew out an especially loud breath, and Guardian glanced up to see what had caught his mount’s attention.
Smoke hung over the town. A grainy
It leered over his company. Blue and white flame flashed over his body
and sword as he met the onslaught. A roaring laughter preceded its howl of pain
as the flame pierced its void. It flung itself further into the mountains.
Two figures, wreathed in flames, flashed after it. Two more leapt from mountain top to mountain top to the east. A hand gripped his arm and pulled him to his feet.
He hadn’t realized he’d fallen.
“We’ve almost got him.” Raven clapped him on the shoulder, “Hurry.”
Guardian steadied himself, and glanced back at his company.
The old grey was gaining speed. Its heavy steps thundering along the caravan, past a gaping Soyer, and the dozen or so guards surrounding him. The sounds of their shouts were lost in the power of the galloping draft.
Most were dead. The few that had survived were drooling blood and sputtering nonsense. They were lost. He’d seen it before. He took a step back from the broken bodies of his men, turned away from them, and left them behind.
*
A force of men and Vade swarmed a small party of defenders. Guardian drew his sword and urged more speed from his mount. The beast hit the press of bodies without slowing, and in that one moment the crack of bone was louder than the strike of steel on steel.
The dwarf seized the Juit’s head in his thick hands and beat it against the stone wall.
Blue and white flame sputtered and flowed across the ground as the guardian tried to free himself. His skull cracked, and even with the madness, chaos, and
violence surrounding it – it was the only thing Guardian heard.
An arrow struck deep into the neck of the old draft. It tossed its head, lost its footing, and crashed to the ground with the sound of a thunderclap.
He had leapt from the saddle. He was killing the men and Vade. Defending the gate. Driving them back up the pass.
He drove his sword through the dwarf. Watched the heavy body fall upon the sturdy elegance of the Juit corpse. Raven pulled him back as two Chiid soldiers and a Kemp guardian lunged for him. The Eloora guardian throttled the Kemp from behind,
dragging her back into the deep pool in the corner of the room. One of the Chiid screamed as his bones imploded at the wizard’s word, and Raven cut down the other.
Guardian slipped on the blood, and fell into the dead arms of the Crane.
*
A few of the defenders had followed him. A soft man stayed close behind them, feeding them orders with a calm practicality. Guardian moved too fast to kill all of the men and Vade in the pass. A blue and white flame grew on his body, and moved across the steel surface of his sword.
The town dwindled behind them as he pressed on, higher up and further in. The defenders panted behind him, their numbers steadily dwindling. Blood soaked through the sleeves of his tunic, a stain he felt more than saw. He cut them down, the bodies of both men and Vade littering the pass beneath and behind him, and he wondered if there had ever been a difference. A hulking Vade loomed before him, and brought him to a sudden halt with the brutish power of his blows. The creature’s sickly grey skin bulged with muscle, and its polished white hair was braided in the style of chieftain.
He knocked his enemy’s arm wide, and drew a deep cut along his bicep. The Vade grunted and tried to close the small distance between them. Guardian struck the creature on the temple with his pommel, kicked his feet out from under him, and held his blade to the Vade’s throat.
It spat out a laugh, “If there was two of me you’d be dead by now.”
Guardian met the creature’s eyes and shifted his weight.
“Wait!” A man emerged on a ridge overlooking the pass. “Don’t kill him.”
Nervous footsteps shifted the loose stone of the pass as the soft man crept to him. Alone.
*
It was darker. Colder. The Sighe had left with the Crane. The other races,
thousands of souls, stood together in the fortress and watched upward as the third sun burst apart. The fragments pirouetted across the sky, some growing smaller, others growing larger. His hand sought out Raven’s, and she gripped it tightly.
A wild, convulsing fire consumed the fragments that grew near, their size colossal. Hypnotic. And following close behind them, a Rook blotted out the remaining sun.
Its void convulsed then bloated outward, and the air it touched, the light and sense of it, became a twisted image of what it had once been. The Rook expanded, laughing, howling its pain and delirium until it burst – like the sun had burst –
and a vapor filled the sky where the Rook had once been.
He felt it then. His soul changed. He would never be the same.
*
He turned and thrust his sword through the chest of the soft man. The Vade at his feet blinked. The man on the ridge gaped.
The man called Guardian rested the tip of his sword on the ground, “Let me tell you what has changed.”
*
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