Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) Read online

  Published by Raconteur House

  Manchester, TN

  Printed in the USA through Ingram Distributing.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  SWORD OF HEMLOCK

  Lords of Syon Book One

  A Raconteur House book/ published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Raconteur House ebook edition/February 2013

  Raconteur House mass-market edition/April 2013

  Copyright © 2013 by Jordan MacLean

  Cover by Katie Griffin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

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  Manchester, TN, 37355

  ISBN: 978-0-9853957-8-0

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

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  For Mike and Jericho

  Prologue

  Castle Damerien

  in the year of Syon, 3845

  The knight took the gold ladle from the vestibule fountain and gulped down the cool water with abandon, letting it splash down his chest to the stone floor. He was scandalously underdressed in only breeches and a loose shirt, but he’d ridden light, opting for speed and comfort over propriety. Besides, better that no one in passing could mark him as a Knight of Brannagh—much less as the sheriff himself—especially if they guessed that he was headed to Castle Damerien. He would not feed their rumors and fear mongering.

  He scooped up another ladle’s worth, and, resisting the battlefield habit of pouring it over his head, he drank it off again, meanwhile taking in all the familiar sights and sounds of his boyhood home. Behind him, his father’s retainer heaved closed Damerien’s great keep doors against the mid-season heat, and all at once rich smells of roasting meats and baking bread filled the air from the kitchens below.

  A celebration, then. But he dared not to hope.

  “Nestor.” He smiled, clapping the old servant affectionately on the shoulder. “I trust you are well.”

  The old man bowed. “Well as can be expected, Lord Daerwin,” he burred softly. Nestor’s long hair was pure white now, instead of the waves of smoke and fire the young lord remembered so fondly from boyhood, and he walked with a marked hobble in his step. Beneath these outward shows of age, however, the old Bremondine looked just as the knight remembered him, still strong and lithe with all the clarity of his wits behind his piercing black eyes.

  Growing old was a bittersweet blessing in time of war, and the years had certainly passed, but he had never expected that something as mundane as time could affect those of his father’s household.

  Nestor chuckled at the wistfulness and perhaps even despair in Daerwin’s eyes. “Come, come, lad. Things are not as bleak as they seem. Not yet, at any rate. To that end,” he said with a vague gesture upward, toward the high stone ceiling, toward the smaller audience chamber on the second floor, “best we not keep your father waiting.”

  Daerwin nodded and let Nestor lead him like a stranger through the very halls where he had learned to walk.

  Castle Damerien stood not a half-day’s ride from Brannagh, but somehow, he usually found ways to avoid making the journey. Until his father’s illness, neither he nor the duke had spent much time this far from the front lines. While his father’s armies had slowed Kadak’s advances across the south, Lord Daerwin and his forces had been far to the north destroying supply lines and keeping the enemy contained. The duke had fallen ill at the first snows of the Feast of Bilkar, and the duty to lead the lords of Syon and their knights and vassals against the Usurper had fallen entirely to Daerwin, leaving him with even less time or reason to come this far behind the lines.

  So he had told himself, at any rate.

  The truth was that since he had succeeded his uncle as Sheriff of Brannagh, he had been back to Castle Damerien only once, nearly ten years ago. He had come for his mother’s funeral. Apart from public matters, the war and other affairs of state, the funeral had been the last time he and his father had had time or privacy to speak of anything other than the war. And such a strange conversation it had been…

  Daerwin, I must see you at once. The time has come.

  “Thick evening coming, aye?” Nestor offered, taking up a fresh candelabrum to light their way once they passed the grand archway leading toward the great hall. “The whole air’s a clot of steam, so it seems to me.”

  “Aye,” answered the sheriff, grateful for the distraction. “Damp and hot. Didian owes us a rain, and I expect a full storm by midday tomorrow, an He fails to temper it. Could harm the crops. They’re young yet, and they’re all that stand between us and another famine, come the Gathering. But better rain than this heat.”

  Nestor chuckled to himself.

  “What, you think not?”

  “Oh, far be it from me, my lord. What I know of farming’d fit on the point of a pin,” murmured the servant. He stepped aside of habit to let the nobleman enter the great hall ahead of him. “No, my thought it was that tending your farmers suits you.” He glanced up at the young man’s back as he passed. “A shame you’ve the war instead.”

  “Indeed,” came Daerwin’s soft answer, but the conversation was already forgotten. The young lord had stopped just inside the doorway, his eyes wide.

  Of all the myriad chambers and galleries at Castle Damerien, this great hall had always been his favorite, a huge open space bound only by intricate tapestries, murals and frescoes depicting scenes from Syon’s glorious past. Ancient lances and swords had been mounted most respectfully under banners of knights and noble houses. Some of the ancient houses were long dead or forgotten. Others, like Windale and Tremondy, were still strong and well respected. Daerwin had loved this room above all others as a boy, and his young imagination had soared surrounded by the legends and relics of Syon’s history. It was one thing to hear tired old lists of Borowain the Peacekeeper’s achievements; it was quite another to touch the bloodstains on his shield.

  He found no comfort here now, though everything was just where he remembered it. Thick dust choked the famous Damerien tapestries, and the duke’s prized murals chipped and peeled with neglect. Between them, the priceless weapons and armor lay rusting against the walls, too weary to stand quite straight beneath their tilted banners. But it was more than just this chamber. He had felt it at the fountain, even at the gates. The stones, the mortar, the very walls of the castle seemed ready to fall in on him. Damerien was crumbling. He looked once more at the white of Nestor’s hair and felt his scalp crawl.

  Please, he prayed, please let it not be so.

  “Something, my lord?” Nestor’s gaze touched quickly on the walls, the murals, the tapestries, but he continued on toward the stairway.

  “No, no.” The duke’s son quickened his step to follow, trying to stifle the horror that grew in his heart. When Nestor paused to look back at him, Daerwin smiled weakly. “Lead on.”

  “As you sa
y, my lord.”

  Some of the tapestries swelled and soughed in his wake, shedding their dust like lazy soldiers snapping to attention. By the gods, even as wilted as they were, they were glorious. He’d spent hours in this room looking at the tiny details, wondering what the tiny stitched soldiers’ postures meant and what the legends scrawled in the bold strokes of ancient Byrandian dialects said.

  One tapestry depicted the end of the Battle of Berendor in lavish scarlets and golds, where the forgotten gods and Their followers had surrendered at the end of the Gods’ Rebellion. He’d understood even as a boy why the forgotten gods had been portrayed without faces, but if he stared long enough, he would see the shadows of noses and hints of eyes.

  A fresco nearby, done in glinting blues and silvers, of all his favorite, showed Galorin, the legendary sorcerer, and his bold coup at Pyran that at a stroke had severed Syon’s ties to the continent and freed her land and her people from the rule of Byrandia’s king. The Liberation was perhaps the greatest moment in Syonese history, but he’d always wondered at the hint of sadness in the sorcerer’s face.

  Others showed the Bremo-Hadrian Wars and the earliest battles of the present war, that which they’d taken to calling the Five Hundred Years War in the hopes that it would end before it became the Six Hundred Years War.

  Reds, blues, silver and gold, they were, rich, living colors of battle, of victory, and always at the center of these heroic battles was the golden-eyed dragon, sigil of the Great Liberator and his descendents, the House of Damerien. So much heroism, so much honor, all gathered in this hall.

  The sheriff’s step faltered.

  In a few days the sheriff would lead his knights and farmers against Kadak’s legions again. Baron Tremondy’s forces in the north had managed a small victory; not enough to force a retreat, but enough to frustrate Kadak’s newest supply lines into the south. Unfortunately, the baron’s losses had been terrible. Without immediate reinforcements from Brannagh, Tremondy and his followers would fall, leaving an open sluice for Kadak right through the Bremondine forests, past Brannagh’s flank to Castle Damerien herself.

  No one—not Brannagh, not even Damerien himself—could say what had unleashed Kadak and his demon armies upon Syon so long ago. Scraps of prophecy held by the various temples had spoken of a war against a monstrous beast, the harbinger of a new age, which everyone but the dimmest souls took to mean Kadak. While they did not speak of the creature’s origins, they hinted tantalizingly of his end, obscure, maddening hints which had driven Kadak to unspeakable acts of genocide in an effort to forestall his death. Daerwin wondered if a single man or woman of the Art remained alive on Syon after Kadak’s vicious pogrom. Now, stripped of their mightiest allies against him, the lords of Syon were forced to battle Kadak’s demonic legions themselves, sword to ax, blood to blood.

  This would be no tapestry battle. Even if Brannagh and Tremondy together could manage to drive Kadak back into the Hodrache Range, a feat in itself, they could not hope to weaken his hold on the coastal cities. His presence, his terrible presence, was too firmly established there, giving him a ready supply line into the south even if they could manage to cut off his supply lines in the north. They simply would not have enough men left to challenge him outright. The best they could expect would be to slow his armies’ advance toward the duke’s castle and gain the Resistance some time. Then they could plan a few new ways to gain a little more time, and, if they were lucky, a little more after that.

  Just as they had for five centuries.

  No. They could not keep up as they had for much longer, and even if no one else could see the signs of it, Daerwin could. This war was a slow, unrelenting saraband of gain and loss, advance and retreat, and not without its price. The combined armies of the Resistance now numbered but a quarter what they had a century ago. A good part of the land stood untilled for lack of hands to farm it, which would lead to starvation and more death. Meanwhile, Kadak’s inexhaustible armies continued to chip away at them, battle by battle. Before long, there would be no Resistance.

  Then the duke would resort to more drastic measures. Terrifying measures. But not yet, Daerwin told himself firmly, not just yet. Please, not yet.

  The time has come.

  At last they reached the huge spiral stairway that led up to the duke’s audience chamber, and gratefully, Daerwin turned his eyes away from the banners, away from the shields and armor and weapons that slumped against the walls, away from the tapestries, away from those terrible golden eyes.

  Nestor climbed the stairs ahead of him, his crumpled back silhouetted against the candelabrum he carried, but Daerwin could still somehow feel the servant’s attention on him, as if the old man were waiting for him to do something, say something.

  “How is he?” the sheriff asked at last, struggling to keep his voice calm.

  “Well as can be expected,” answered the retainer. But he paused at the top of the stairs and drew breath, choosing his words. “Best I warn your Honor,” he began carefully, “His Grace is not in the best humor this evening.” He glanced sideways at the duke’s son. “His gout is at him again.”

  “Gout.” Daerwin frowned. Nestor, bless his heart, was trying to prepare him for something, and against the duke’s express orders, no doubt. But what it was, Daerwin could not see. Or would not.

  “Aye, my lord, and all the rest, too. It’s his age, you see...” The retainer shrugged, and his voice trailed away as he continued up the stairway. “The years pass, yes, they do. A man can’t be bound to bully on forever.”

  His age. The sheriff’s hands trembled, and his heart raced. He only wished he understood, or that he did not. He could not be certain which. He stopped in the stairway and breathed deeply, trying to regain his composure. In battle, he could keep an icy calm, but here, in his father’s house…

  The time has come.

  A sick feeling rose in his gut, but he fought it down, taking himself breath by breath up the staircase. Soon enough, he told himself, taking hope from the cheerful smells of the feast being prepared in the kitchens below. Soon enough, he would know his father’s mind. Until then, he could do nothing.

  When Daerwin caught up, Nestor fell into step beside him. “Been expecting you since midday, he has.” His voice dropped to a whisper as they turned the corner toward the audience chamber. “A bit impatiently, I might add.”

  “Impatient, bah,” came a crackling voice from the slightly open door ahead. “I am far, far too old to grow impatient at a few hours’ wait for my son. You needn’t warn him against me, Nestor.”

  The retainer was pushing the heavy door open as the duke spoke. “Very good, your Grace,” he said with a resigned bow. Then, avoiding Daerwin’s gaze, he stood aside to let the sheriff enter the chamber, announcing the young man as he passed. “Presenting Lord Daerwin, the Honorable Sheriff of Brannagh.”

  “Shire-Reeve,” the bundle of thick Bremondine blankets on the throne snarled. “My son is the Shire-Reeve of Brannagh! Even the language has no integrity anymore.”

  Without waiting to be dismissed, Nestor withdrew, pulling the doors closed behind him.

  Just as Daerwin had feared, the audience chamber felt as dead to him as the great hall below. Bare stone floor gleamed for miles, so it seemed, in every direction, an illusion broken only by the modest throne at the far corner, with a plain wooden chair beside it.

  The old man drew up his blanket in spite of the stifling heat, with only his face and his signet hand showing. His hawk nose seemed larger against his thin face than Daerwin remembered, and his pale brown eyes were mired in a web of wrinkles and hollows. His lips looked cracked and dry, and when Daerwin came near, they curled into a grimace of pain.

  The sheriff approached and knelt before him. “Your Grace,” he said stiffly.

  “Oh ho, my Grace, is it?” The duke huffed impatiently, clearly disappointed in the direction the conversation was already taking. “Come, enough of this. Rise, Daerwin, sit beside me as you once did, and
tell me, how fares my…younger son?”

  Younger son. Daerwin looked up sharply from where he knelt and met his father’s gaze, but he did not stand.

  His father’s hand reached from beneath the blankets and patted the chair beside him, all the while studying his reaction. “Your lovely bride, Glynnis, is well? My grandchildren, Roquandor and dear little Renda,” he coughed thickly, “both are well?”

  Ah, Father, that you could make your body old and infirm at your will, that you could let Castle Damerien and those within fall to ash, and still not take the fire from your eye…

  “When?” Daerwin asked quietly.

  The duke sighed, letting his smile fall away. “Soon enough. In battle, I should think. A battle we will win, of course,” he added, “lest the bards forget Vilmar Damerien too soon. Otherwise, I should die abed and be done with it.” His gnarled, ringed hand gestured insistently to Daerwin to take his seat. “Of course it will fall to you to send for your brother.” He glanced up evenly. “I’ve decided his name will be Brada.”

  “Brada,” the young nobleman repeated carefully. “I see.”

  “Yes, yes,” the duke continued, patting the arm of the chair. “Write something appropriately sentimental to your dear brother—it is widely known that you were close as children—and be seen to send it off with Nestor at the funeral. He will know what to do. Nestor has been through the Succession many, many times. Should you have any worries or questions, you have but to ask him.”

  “Brada, did you say?” His cocked brow bordered on derision.

  Vilmar shifted in his seat and dropped his hand to his lap in exasperation. “I realize it sounds almost womanish, Brada, but Brado or Bradon, Bradicon...” He shook his head. “In any case, I wanted the association with B’radik for obvious reasons. We need every advantage just now.” When he saw Daerwin’s frown, he shook his finger at him. “Peace, boy, I nearly charged your mother to name you thus!”