Guardian's Guns

Prologue

         The glass gardens of the Sothani royal court were knee deep in snow. Cold, crisp and with a faint luminesence, it gave an unearthly feeling to the ornately spiralling glass sculptures that lounged, shimmering in the early dawn light. Through this maze of ghostly figures and strange architecture trudged two figures, huddled in heavy winter cloaks to stop the freezing chill of the wind.
             The smaller of the two, a few steps ahead, turned back for a brief second.
           "We must hurry sergeant. The gods wait for no man." His deep voice belied his small frame, easily carrying back to his larger companion.
             "Hush, Brother Lysarres, unless you do mean to wake the entire palace?" the bigger man hissed, "I agreed to acompany you on a sufferance, and the understanding that secrecy would be paramount. If you intend to speak to me, stay closer."
             Lysarres smiled, his wrinkled face a product of good humour and fine wine, rather than any advanced age. His companion, Belles, was a sergeant in the Sothani military, renowned for his foul temper and exellent blade work. He bore the facial scars of a vetran in the Hyldek campaign, and three long service rings glinted in his left ear, although he too seemed supple and in as fine health as any man ten years his junior.
         The two figures forged through the snow, Lysarres tapping the ground before them with a long walking staff, Belles brushing snow into their tracks, hiding them from view. Snow would fall soon, Gods willing, and obscure them completely. If their tracks were found here then all the secrecy, all the hope and prayer in the world would not safekeep the knowledge that Belles carried in his cloak.
             "Here." Lysarres called, his voice low. He knelt in the snow, muttered a few lines of prayer and then touched his hand to the frozen ground. "This will take a little time to prepare. Keep quiet, if the enemy comes use your blade. I will not have this last chance fail because a hasty shot atracts the wrong sort of attention."
             Belles raised a skeptical eyebrow. "The eaters are gone, priest, aye, and their masters. The only enemies we have now are politicians and scribes I would not waste my time even baring steel upon." Even so, the large man brought his left hand up in a sweep that flicked the heavy wool of his cloak open to reveal the jewelled hilt of a slim straight sword. He checked the draw, the action producing little more than a slight hiss, like the sound of silk moving over silk. Belles nodded, satisfaction flashing across his scarred features.
             "Even so, my sword is ready. Now, to your work Lysarres. I would not be standing here when dawn comes."
             Lysarres grunted, his hands fishing into his belt for a small leather pouch. "The ritual will take as long as the ritual takes, sergeant. Keep your eyes to the west." He brushed more snow from the ground, revealing a floor of ice, clear and perfect, marred only by tiny streams of air bubbles, as if the ice was a still pond, frozen at a moment in time. Lysarres dipped his hand into the pouch and scattered a handful of crystals over the surface of the frozen lake, his breath coming in short bursts, freezing in the winter air.  The priest's gloved hands deftly formed the crystals into a pattern - three adjoining lines - and then hovered above them, only an inch or so away from the surface.
             Belles watched the smaller man out of the corner of his eye, a slight smile on his lips. Lysarres worked fast, and his abilities were effective. This nights work should be done without too much in the way of disturbance.
             Lysarres reached again into his voliminous cloak and produced a small brass cube, covered in archaic script and lined with seams or cracks. When pulled, these cracks slid noiselessly apart, allowing the box to be re-formed into a strange shape, seemingly twisted around itself, its geomotry unsettling and bizarre. Lysarres' hands moved in a blur, the cube snapping into several different orientations in seconds, a faint glowing nimbus surrounding the movements. On the surface of the frozen lake, the three lines of crystaline stones shifted in time with the altering cube, running fluidly from one trigram to another with a faint keening sound.
             After only a few minutes of twisting, breaking and reforming, Lysarres paused, with the cube returned to its original shape, and breathed out slowly.
             "The box, Belles," he muttered, "Place it here, under the triform. Hurry man, I can not hold this forever." Belles produced a oilcloth wrapped package, around the size of a ladies jewelry box, and placed it on the ground before the priest, who nodded in thanks. As Lysarres squared his shoulders and began to hum, low in his throat, the package started to sink in the solid ice, fading into the clear frozen water.
         Belles' head snapped up, his jaw set. "Priest, the air..." He whispered, loathing coating his voice. Lysarres nodded absently. "I did say there may be trouble before the night is done." Belles shook his head, the small man amazed him with his calm acceptance of a potentially deadly situation. He sniffed the air again, detecting once more a charnel stink that filled his nostrils with the scent of rotting meat and stale excrement. "Eaters." He spat in the snow and drew the long double edged sword from its scabbard. "They come, brother. Work your magic fast." A howl split the winter sky, horrific in pitch and tone. Belles set his stance, feet apart, legs bent slightly, his sword arm ahead of him. He watched to the west, his eyes narrowed, and waited.
         The four creatures that sped out of the undergrowth were  vaguely humanoid in shape, their faces a mess of scars and weeping sores. Hugely muscular arms and legs propelled them across the ground in loping bounds, long claw-like fingers ripping into the surface of the ice lake, scattering a wake of snow behind them. Now that the things were closer, Belles could barely keep from wretching at the smell of them. Moonlight reflected off pillars of pure crystal and glass, casting shadows onto distorted faces and skeletal ribs, smeared with feaces and dried blood. The eaters had their mouths open, panting with exertion and bloodlust, baying their grusome intent to the sky.
         "Quiet beast!" snapped Belles, and took two paces forward to meet his onrushing foes. The first, a slim female with a split lower jaw, leapt towards him, spinning in the air to evade his first thrust. Her claws closed on the air a hairs breadth from his throat, before Belles slipped his left hand back to the base of the hilt and snapped the doubled edged blade around in a lightning fast reversal to slice the creatures neck open. The next snarling mass threw itself forward, only to recieve a strike from the pommel of Belles' blade to its yellowed fangs. It fell back, whimpering and clutching at its mouth with filthy hands as Belles kicked the first creature to the floor, freeing his blade for the next attack.
         "Come creatures of fear," he roared, "A man of science and faith awaits you". Belles' foot lashed out and kicked the downed eater directly in the throat, his booted foot connecting with an abatoir sound, leaving it choking in the bloodied snow. He stepped forward again, caring nothing for secrecy or alarm as he closed with the final two monstrosities that reached for him with scything talons. He swayed to the left, his sword flashing out in a defensive stroke that severed one of the claws that reached for him. His left hand swept the damp hem of his cloak up into the other Eaters face, sending it rearing backwards, clawing at the sodden cloth. Belles smiled a tight, satisfied smile and burried his sword in the creatures throat. Suddenly his smile changed to a grimace of pain as the clawless Eater clamped its jaws around the meat of his shoulder, wrenching and worrying at the muscle with hideous ferocity.  The sergeant drove a fist into the monsters nose, feeling bone cruch beneath his knuckles. He struck again, again, his rage dulling the pain, until the Eater fell to the floor, its shattered face a mask of blood and agony.
         Lysarres twisted the brass cube a final time, releasing a jet of steam into the frozen air, then stood, rivulets of sweat coursing down his face. The package was gone, seemingly melted into the ice of the lake.
         "It is done Sergeant. I see you have entertained our unwelcome guests - although I would suggest not allowing them to lunch upon your arm in future."
         Belles barked a short, painful laugh. "Aye, priest. But I would rather be the main course at a banquet than suffer the sweetness of your humour. If you are done with your magic, I should say it is time we left."
         "True. And we must see to that wound before it rots. Come."
         The two companions walked slowly from the gardens as the first flakes of snow fluttered gently from the sky, settling onto frozen corpses and icy lake with equal disregard, until once more, the Glass Gardens of Soth were coated with a pure white covering.