First Rider's Call (13 page)

“Glad to be out of that tangle of woods,” Everson said, his thumbs hooked in his belt. “Give me a good, clear field for a direct charge at full gallop any day.”

Laren fought the urge to wind the curlicues of his mustache around her fingers and yank. Her own Riders never, or at least hardly ever, complained about hard travel through Sacoridia’s thick forestlands. The light horse was just a bit too pampered to Laren’s mind, but it was, after all, the territory of the privileged. Few commoners filled its ranks; it consisted mostly of the offspring of nobles with no land to inherit. They sought to make their name in the military, and gravitated to the elite light horse. It took a special appointment by an important sponsor to get in, something far easier for a noble to obtain than a commoner.

Many years ago, during the reign of the Sealenders, the captain of the Green Riders answered to superiors in the light horse, but that had ended with King Smidhe’s reign, for which Laren was grateful. The king had reverted the Riders to an independent force, answerable only to him and his successors, just as the First Rider had originally intended when she founded the messenger service.

Rider tradition rejected the chain of command above and beyond the authority of captain—except for the king, of course, who was their ultimate authority—and they possessed more independence than members of the other branches of the military. Considering the covert nature of some of the work Zachary required of his messengers, it was a good thing.

“Please sit,” Zachary said. “I know how weary you must be from your travels.” He clapped and servants moved the table and chairs before the throne. Wine was poured and meat brought forth. Even Laren got to sit finally, but her appetite was considerably diminished by the appearance of Ansible and Karigan.

Karigan nibbled a little at her food, but the effort seemed too much for her. Everson speared a slab of roast for himself and ate with relish. Between mouthfuls, he spoke of how he and his troops intercepted the delegation several miles beyond the North Road.

“As sorry a group as you could expect,” he said. “Two hundred diminished to forty-three. Half or more injured, and half again so injured they could not walk or ride. Ten more perished with the traveling. I find it remarkable they got so far on their own.

“We set up camp so our menders could look to the wounded. Rider G’ladheon here showed me and some scouts to the clearing where the battle had been fought.” Everson shook his head. “Terrible. Our folk had been placed in a mass grave, but the area was alive with carrion birds feasting on groundmites and horses. Other beasts had been at them, too, and these snarled from the shadows of the forest at our intrusion.”

Karigan pushed her food away, eyes downcast as Everson described the scene. It was the most unanimated Laren had ever seen her, as if she weren’t even there at all. Little wonder after what she’d been through, and now Everson was bringing it all back to life as he described the scene of death.

“Eletians aided us with our dead,” Captain Ansible said, speaking up for the first time. “They helped us with the burying, among other things in the aftermath of the battle. If not for their medicines, I would have lost my leg at the very least, and probably my life from wound fever. We’d have lost even more people, too, if not for their aid.”

“I would like to hear more about the Eletians,” Zachary said, “but perhaps we should start with the beginning.”

“I may not be the one to tell you of the beginning,” Ansible said, with a brief aside to Karigan. “You see, when the ’mites attacked, I was well asleep on my cot. It had been an evening like so many that had come before . . . ”

He went on to describe being awakened by shouts and the clatter of battle, and how he had quickly thrown himself into the fray, fighting for order among the lines, trying to draw his soldiers shoulder to shoulder around the clearing’s perimeter to defend themselves, with the nobles and servants within.

“It was working,” he said. “Our lines held tight. Where one defender fell, another took his place. I never did see who took mine when the ’mite blade caught me in the leg.” His hand went absently to his bandaged thigh and he shook his head. “That ’mite saved my life.”

Laren leaned forward, anxious for him to explain the curious statement. The captain’s eyes took on a faraway look, and then he shuddered.

“Many pardons,” he murmured. “I was, at the time, in great pain and stunned. But even now, I have a difficult time believing it all.”

“Take your time,” Zachary said.

Ansible inclined his head in thanks, and took a long draught from a cup of wine before him. He licked his lips and began again.

“I had fallen from the line, practically beneath the feet of the ’mites. My whole body was pressed to the ground. I felt it tremble—the ground trembled with thunder, and when I looked up, it was . . . it was like all the lightning of the heavens was contained in that clearing. I can still feel the heat of it . . . the hairs raising on my arms, the sensation of that loosed power crawling across my skin.” He shook his head. “I saw it sluice right through my soldiers—through anyone in its way.
Everyone
in the clearing. Magic, the Eletians said it was. Magical wards erupting.” He made the sign of the crescent moon with his fingers. “And then . . . and then . . .”

“A wraith came through,” Karigan supplied. “Its emergence from the tomb set off the wards.”

Everyone looked at her, astonished to hear her voice as though she were a wraith herself.

“I saw nothing,” Ansible said. “Just felt as though I wanted to hide myself under the nearest rock.”

Ty had said something very like this, of a terrible
something
that had fought its way through the dying wards and emerged from the clearing. He had glimpsed only a shadow before it disappeared.

Captain Ansible would say nothing more of the wraith, but he went on to speak of the Eletians appearing in their “moon armor,” as he called it, and of their aid.

“They were led by a fellow named Telagioth. Tall he was, with eyes of blue that . . .” He shook his head as words failed him. “An odd folk in any case. I have never seen their like. This Telagioth, he was intent to speak to Rider G’ladheon here, but how he knew of her, I am not certain.”

Laren watched as the king’s gaze swung over to Karigan and rested there, a thoughtful expression on his face. Karigan stared into her cup of tea as though sunk deeply into her own world. She clenched the porcelain teacup so hard Laren feared she would crush it.

“Rider G’ladheon,” the king said, his voice soft, “per haps you could tell us your version of events.”

Karigan looked up, blinking. For an odd moment, Laren swore she saw a figure standing just beyond her, a shimmer like a wave of heat. She blinked her eyes to clear them, but it was still there—a tall figure, but without definition. It hovered there as if waiting or listening. Listening?

This time Laren rubbed at her eyes, and when she looked again, the figure was gone.

I haven’t had enough to eat,
she thought.
I’m seeing things.

True,
her ability told her, without her requesting feedback. She wondered which was true—that she hadn’t had enough to eat, or that she was seeing things.

Both,
she decided.

KARIGAN SPEAKS

I could not sleep,” Karigan began, “so I went to the pickets to check on Condor.” As Karigan spoke, Laren found herself drawn into the inky black of the forest night and the hush of the slumbering encampment, the embers of distant campfires glowing orange. Even as Karigan described it, she felt the jolt of discovering the soldier impaled in the chest by a groundmite arrow. Details about the actual battle were few. It was as if Karigan did not wish to relive the fighting, and so spoke very little of it.

“I found myself on the outskirts of the battle and witnessed the eruption of the wards just as Captain Ansible described.” Karigan spoke carefully, sitting rigidly. She set her teacup aside. “I saw the wraith pass through the wardings. Moments later, it approached me through the woods.”

This Ty had not told Laren. Perhaps in the aftermath of battle, and due to Ty’s quick departure, there had been no opportunity for him to learn of it.

“The wraith—it knew my name,” Karigan said.

The room grew ominously quiet. Everyone was intent on Karigan. Even the fresco painted figures on the ceiling, the likenesses of Zachary’s ancestors, seemed to listen.

“Rather,” Karigan corrected herself in reflection, “it called me
Galadheon,
as did the Eletians.”

Disturbed, Zachary stood. Everyone rose with him as protocol demanded, Ansible struggling. “No,” the king said, “please remain seated.” He rounded the table and placed one hand on Ansible’s shoulder and the other on Karigan’s, pressing them back into their chairs. Laren sank into her own. “Please continue,” he told Karigan.

Karigan seemed to struggle with something before she spoke. Finally she said, “The wraith also called me ‘Betrayer.’ ”

Everyone remained silent, Zachary standing behind Karigan and slightly to her left. It brought back to mind the—the
whatever
Laren had seen before. Maybe it had been a film in her eye.

Colin Dovekey broke the silence. “How in the name of five hells would this creature know you, Rider? And are you certain it spoke this word to you? Battle can disorient one’s mind.”

“Yes, sir, I am certain the wraith called me ‘Betrayer.’ I have no idea as to why, or how it might know me. I realize how strange this must sound . . . It has been strange for me. It was a terrible time, a nightmare. I—” and she struggled for words again. “I have thought about this long and hard, but still I have no answers.”

Zachary started pacing, head bowed in thought. “The name . . . G’ladheon is no doubt a contraction from an older name. Perhaps an error in census records caused the change, and it was adopted as the true name of the line. Or maybe it changed as things do in the course of generations passing. No doubt this wraith has abilities—magical knowledges beyond our ken. We are dealing with a very different kind of threat. An unknown threat.”

The feeble glow of the lamps seemed unable to fend off the weight of night. The windows were coated with black, and darkness had settled into the throne room’s corners and rafters.

“How did you escape this wraith?” Colin asked Karigan.

“I did not escape it. The Eletians came. This seemed to frighten it off, though I’m not sure ‘frighten’ is the appropriate term.” She paused, caught in some memory, her fingers touching the fading wound on her cheek. Then she went on to describe her meeting with Telagioth and how he led her beneath the cairn and into the tomb.

Zachary halted his pacing, a spasm of anger fluttering across his features. “To what purpose? Why would he take you into that creature’s tomb? That was an unnecessary risk. Who knows what else could have been down there?”

Still caught up in her memories, Karigan didn’t appear to note Zachary’s anger on her behalf. “He wished to show me that this tomb was, in fact, more a prison. The wraith, he told me, was once a living man, a favorite of Mornhavon’s, granted an unending existence in return for his servitude. Telagioth wanted to impress upon me that many things from the past are reawakening.”

Karigan turned in her chair to more directly face Zachary. “Excellency, he asked me to tell you the following.” And in what Laren liked to call “messenger voice,” Karigan recited the message as close to the original as possible, just as she had been trained. “He said that the passage of Eletians through your lands is peaceful, that they merely watch. Sacoridia lies in the immediate path of anything that should pass through the D’Yer Wall. He said you must turn your attention there, and not to seek out Eletia. Eletia shall parley with you when the time is deemed appropriate.”

“The D’Yers now watch the wall,” Zachary said. Anger still lingered in his eyes. “The immediate threat has been to the north. I do not trust these Eletians.”

“For good reason,” Laren murmured, thinking of Shawdell who had sought to tear down the D’Yer Wall.

“They did help us, sire,” Ansible reminded them. “If they had not come, who knows what that wraith might have wrought upon the survivors? The fact the evil thing fled the Eletians ought to say something to the good of them, and I’ve already spoken of their aid to us in the aftermath of the battle.”

“There are varying degrees of good,” Colin said, “and their contempt in crossing our borders without seeking the king’s leave says another thing about them. To say they will parley with the king when
they
deem appropriate is cavalier in the extreme.”

“All of this could have been avoided,” Major Everson said, slicing a wedge of cheese off a wheel, “if Lady Penburn had had the sense to listen to that bounder.”

“This is not the time for judgments,” Zachary said, “but mourning. She followed her best instincts.”