Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

Syon,
only one.  He only hoped his power would be equal to the task.  “All of you!”
he called to the mages assembled on the wall.  “Ignore the attackers.  Protect
the city.  All your power, everything you have, into a shield!  Do it now!”
    The Guardian closed his eyes and raised his hands high over
the battlement walls.  “Forgive me, my Prince,” he murmured as he felt his
power, the full strength of a Guardian, stream through his body, outward, riding
out along the same strands of power that carried the Wittister taint, colliding
with it, clashing with it, feeding upon it, hearing within those strands the
screams of all the mages they had destroyed to get that power.
    Peace, he prayed them.  I shall not fail you.
    He barely kept his footing from the violent collision of
power that shook the walls of the city with its force.  In the slowed,
seemingly infinite milliseconds of the impact, he felt the Wittister mages
surge their strength against the power he hurled against them, crackling
angrily through the strands, not bending them, not plucking them like a bard
plucks out a tune, but burning them away like so many strands of hair.
    The hill rumbled menacingly beneath their feet, the
beginnings of an obvious if impotent attack.  The soil rippled and liquefied in
patches, and he could imagine the Wittister mages nodded almost smugly to each
other.  Such a simple attack would be almost disappointing to them, surely not
worthy of a Guardian.  A pathetic jab like that must surely mean he was
weakened, and why not?  He had just used a good part of his power to port the refugees
away.  He was perhaps still stronger than any one of them––this, they would
know from the collision of power––but together they would believe they could
overwhelm him easily.  They would focus even more of their power…he smiled. 
There it was.
    He withdrew his strength and felt their control over the
strands coming closer still to Damerien and his men. Damerien, whose death
would surely feed the greedy Wittister mages for generations to come.  By now,
he imagined he would almost be an afterthought to them.
    Suddenly his shout ripped outward over the marshland, over
the hill, over the valley beyond, over the Lacework and to the very edge of Byrandia
itself, releasing with it every bit of energy he’d taken and every bit of his
own that he had stored, and the land answered, shuddering, bucking. 
    He felt their power falter on the shifting ground, felt his
control of the strands become stronger as theirs weakened, but he also knew
they were regrouping for a different attack.  Now the rest of the army was
surging over the boiling ground, their horses stumbling but racing down the
hill into the marshes and toward the city walls.  Catapults aligned themselves
to attack the city walls.  No, they were targeting a specific point on the city
walls.  They were targeting him.  Worse yet, the Wittister mages had redirected
their power into the catapults.  Whatever would come his way would be
devastating.
    He grasped the vast body of threads that bound the
landbridge.  He had to hurry.  The catapults let loose their burdens, and at
once, giant white-hot boulders flew through the air toward him.
    Steady, he told himself.  Around him, the other mages
understood, at least on some level, and took what control they could to
redirect the incoming shots away from him, but at great cost.  Some of the
stones slammed into the already weakened walls of the city, breaching them wide
and dropping militiamen and some of the mages themselves to their deaths below.
 Others fell amidst the houses and shop stalls within.  Explosions and shrieks
of agony pierced the night around him but still he kept his focus.
    Slowly, so as to retain control, he lowered his hands and
closed his fists around the strands of power he had gathered, concentrating his
will tightly upon the land that had surrendered itself to him, the whole of the
landbridge,