Blackveil (16 page)
As she stared into the fire, she also wondered what was happening on the other side of the wall. How was Colonel Birch faring? How went the muster and training of Second Empire’s forces? She had a way of seeing what he was up to, but the forest made the use of the art unreliable. Well, she had to try sometime, and their circumstances might not be as good later on.
Long ago she’d collected fingernail clippings from the colonel just for the purpose of seeing through his eyes. She pried one out of a tiny pouch she kept in her yarn basket. It was a fine crescent specimen, perhaps from the thumb. Birch kept his fingernails remarkably immaculate, but she supposed that was the difference between an officer expected to serve in court and a common soldier.
She knotted a length of sky blue yarn around the fingernail—knots of seeing. Sky blue was good, she found, for seeing over a distance, like looking through the clear sky itself.
“Show me,” she commanded as she tied the last knot. She flung it into the fire. The fire flared. The yarn writhed as the flames consumed it.
At first she thought the spell would resist her, but then a window opened in the fire and she held her breath. Snow. Snow framed by the flames of their campfire. Squalls battered rows of tents and were so dense she could not see far.
Three figures struggled into view and halted before her/ Birch. One of them had his hands bound behind his back and his face was bruised and bloody. He wore green. One of the king’s accursed Green Riders.
“What do you want done with the spy?” one of the men holding him asked.
“He is a messenger,” Birch said, his voice disembodied. Of course it would be, since Grandmother watched through his eyes. “Therefore we shall send the king a message.”
“I understand.” A knife flashed out and the man sank it into the Rider’s back.
The Rider’s eyes went wide. Snowflakes caught in his hair as it was tousled by the wind. Beneath the blood caked on his face, Grandmother saw he was young.
But never innocent. No, she knew better. From the beginning the Green Riders opposed the empire, acting as scouts, messengers, and warriors for their king. And yes, as spies, using their miniscule but insidious abilities with the art to commit evil upon the forces of the empire, and now Second Empire.
She felt no surge of compassion, not even when Birch’s man twisted the knife in the Rider’s back. The young man’s mouth opened in a silent cry as he fell to his knees, sinking into the snow. Some mother just lost a son. So had the mothers of the empire lost sons, many sons, to the heathen Sacoridians.
No, she felt no compassion when he collapsed into the snow, crimson flowing from his mouth. An enemy of Second Empire was dead and she could only rejoice.
“Prepare the message,” Birch said. “Those Greenie horses are clever—this one’ll go right to the king.”
There was laughter, then all Grandmother could see was snow, snowflakes swirling this way and that. The vision extinguished and she was left in darkness. Dark except for the one candle Cole lit on the other side of the cave. He brought it over to Grandmother and they all stared at the dead campfire. The cave smelled of damp soot.
Sarat reached for the ladle in the stewpot, but could not pull it out. “What have you done, Grandmother?” she chided. “The stew is frozen solid.”
“Oh, dear,” Grandmother replied. Once again the instability of the forest’s etherea had twisted her spell. “I’m sorry, child. We’ll have to start the fire again and thaw it out.”
As Cole used his candle to light fresh kindling, Grandmother reflected that next time she’d wait until after supper to work a spell. But what she’d just witnessed was more satisfying than any meal.
BIRCH’S MESSAGE
K
arigan sighed in relief as Condor plodded up the last rise of the Winding Way and the castle gates at last came into view. The fickle weather, changing from snow to sleet to rain, only to freeze again, had challenged them almost every day of their return journey.
arigan sighed in relief as Condor plodded up the last rise of the Winding Way and the castle gates at last came into view. The fickle weather, changing from snow to sleet to rain, only to freeze again, had challenged them almost every day of their return journey.
Ironically, on this, their last day of travel, the weather turned bright and warm, slush melting into puddles on the cobbled streets, and many of Sacor City’s denizens were out and about to absorb the sunshine so long denied them.
At the gates proper, she found the way blocked by a donkey cart. Chickens in cages piled on the cart cackled and squawked, and a milk cow, tied to the back end, serenely chewed her cud. The cart’s master sat astride an old mare and was deep into an argument with the guards.
Karigan could not hear exactly what the argument was about, except that the guards did not wish to grant the man passage. Here she was, so close to her destination, only to be delayed yet again. At least she carried no urgent message, and so she resigned herself to waiting. The sunshine pouring down on her shoulders was not unpleasant, and her eyelids drooped.
Snatches of conversation at the gates came to her: “I will
not
leave my girls behind!” and “You just go tell the captain I’m here.”
not
leave my girls behind!” and “You just go tell the captain I’m here.”
The flicker of a cooling shadow glided over Karigan. Idly she gazed up and saw a vulture circling slow and low. Another fluttering of black wings caught her eye as ravens alighted on the arch that spanned the gates. She wondered what attracted them. She glanced skyward again, and a second vulture looped on drafts high above the first.
That can’t be good.
The man ahead was still bickering with the guards, but Condor, who’d been drowsing, raised his head with nose pointed to the air.
“What is it?” Karigan asked him.
From behind came shouts and a scream. Karigan swiveled in her saddle to see what was the matter. Pedestrians pointed at a horse and rider cantering up the street. The horse’s strides were exhausted, and the rider’s position stiff and lopsided, jerking against the motion of the gait instead of flowing with it. Ravens swooped at and fluttered around him.
Karigan squinted against the glare of sunshine on the wet street. The horse was bound for the gates, and as it neared, her horror grew by the second.
She recognized the star on the horse’s nose—it was Petrel, belonging to Osric M’Grew, a fellow Green Rider. Indeed, the figure mounted on Petrel wore Rider green, though it was hard to tell, for the uniform was so saturated with dried blood. The sun flashed on his winged horse brooch.
“Osric ...” she whispered.
He was clearly dead, his head tilted at a bad angle and his jaw flapping to the rhythm of Petrel’s strides. His eyes were missing, pecked out by the black flock that plunged and fluttered around him. He was secured to a wooden frame and propped in the saddle to sit erect, much like a mounted scarecrow.
Petrel herself was almost gone, stumbling as she approached the gates, her ribs protruding, and her nostrils dripping blood. Her once gleaming coat was now ragged and dull, and crossed with striations from the attack of some predator probably attracted by the scent of the corpse upon her back. The only sounds in the silence were Petrel’s harsh huffing and the sharp cries of the ravens.
Karigan could not move, could not look away, as Petrel passed by her. Osric’s lips were black and peeled back from his teeth. His ears and nose were nearly pecked away. Beneath the encrusted blood, she saw a thatch of blond hair she recognized.
Yes, Osric
.
.
The man at the gates and the guards parted to let Petrel through. Karigan retched on the sickly sweet stench of rot that followed Osric, and Condor half-reared, the whites of his eyes showing.
“Gods,”
Karigan said. She mastered Condor and kicked him past the donkey cart, through the gates and over the bridge to the castle grounds. Condor ran hard after Petrel, and tears glided across Karigan’s cheeks. She knew exactly where Petrel was headed.
Karigan said. She mastered Condor and kicked him past the donkey cart, through the gates and over the bridge to the castle grounds. Condor ran hard after Petrel, and tears glided across Karigan’s cheeks. She knew exactly where Petrel was headed.
In this, the final stretch of Petrel’s terrible journey with her beloved Rider dead upon her back, she put on an unearthly burst of speed, giving the last of her being to end it. Condor pounded after her; followed until they reached the small stone building that was officers quarters.
Petrel came to a trembling halt, and Karigan reined Condor to a walk. The door to officers quarters flung open, and Captain Mapstone stepped out.
Having completed her mission, Petrel’s legs buckled beneath her and she collapsed hard upon the earth, the corpse of Osric M’Grew going down stiff and lifeless with her.
A couple hours later, Karigan sat in the common room of the Rider wing, still not sure who Elgin Foxsmith was, except that it was the name of the fellow with the donkey cart at the castle gates. He’d followed after her on his own horse to officers quarters, arriving only moments after Petrel fell dead.
The captain, pale as bone, had ordered Karigan to inform the king, and as she reined Condor away from the awful scene to obey, the fellow dismounted and went to the captain, speaking softly to her, placing his hand on her shoulder.
As it turned out, word of Osric’s return reached the king and others ahead of Karigan and they were already rushing from the castle when she arrived. After that, she did the only thing she could do: she saw to Condor’s needs, then came to the common room to sit and wait. Wait for what, she did not know.
At some point, Elgin Foxsmith had come by in search of Mara, offering to take charge of the newer, younger Riders. He promised to keep them busy. Out of the way and away from senior Riders in mourning.
“I’ll explain it to the young ones,” he assured Mara.
Relieved of that concern, Mara went to the captain, and Elgin Foxsmith marched the young Riders out to the weapons practice field for calisthenics.
Karigan felt drained. She’d seen a lot of death during her time as a Rider, everything from the freshly killed to the ancient corpses down in the tombs, but never had she seen such a thing as Osric propped like that.
And the gaping sockets where his eyes should be ...
Beside her, Yates was passed out with his head on the table, a goblet tipped over by his half-curled hand, and the sour stench of wine heavy in the air. Garth sat in an armchair in front of the hearth quietly drunk, his eyes glassy.
Karigan did not drink. She could not even hold a cup for all the shaking. She had not changed out of her uniform—hadn’t even removed her boots or greatcoat.
The risks were known to each of them. Every time one of them set out on an errand for the king, there was the real possibility they might not return.
This was different, though. None expected to come back the way Osric had.
What color had his eyes been? Karigan found she could not remember.
Presently Mara returned. She stood in the doorway and glanced about as if dazed, then strode to the table and sat on a chair next to Karigan.
“I didn’t have a chance to say it before,” she said, “but I’m glad you’re back. Your visit with your family went well?”
Karigan nodded. Maybe later, when some time had passed, she’d give Mara the details. At the moment, all of that seemed far away and unimportant.
“Mara, what happened to Osric? Where was he?”
Mara rubbed her eyes as if to wash away some image. “He was keeping watch on Birch’s movements. Evidently he was caught.”
Birch. Second Empire. They’d already lost Constance and Harry in the darkest months of winter. They’d been watching Birch, too.
“King Zachary thinks Birch is mocking us,” Mara continued. “That’s why he sent Osric back the way he did. Our Riders are good, but Birch is saying he’s better, and he knows the king is spying on him.” She clenched her hands into fists. “Osric is being prepared for the trip home to his mother in D’Ivary. I already sent Tegan to take her the news.”
“And Petrel?”
“She’ll be buried in the pasture.”
Karigan nodded. No Rider horse went to the knacker. Still, she thought it sad horse and Rider would not be laid to rest together, but she knew how impractical that would be. She did not doubt the pair were together in the afterlife anyway, galloping among the stars.
“Who is Elgin Foxsmith?” she asked.
Mara actually smiled, though it was a tired smile. “My predecessor, or one of them. He was chief when our captain was a mere Rider. She asked him to come help with the new Riders a couple weeks ago, but we’d given up on him. Then there he was today. His timing, frankly, couldn’t have been better.”
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