First Rider's Call (2 page)

THE RIDER CALL

The apparition’s soft, otherworldly glow fell across the sleeping form on the canopy bed. Sultry night air tinged with sea brine flowed through the wide-open window, stirring the sheet that covered the girl. Her long brown hair was splayed across her pillow, and her chest rose and fell in slow, even breaths. She slept unaware of her ghostly visitor, an expression of utter tranquility on her face.

And that was the problem.

Displeasure flickered across the apparition’s smoky features.
You can hear me, but you won’t listen, hey?

The apparition nudged at the girl’s shoulder as if to awaken her, but her hand simply slid through it.

The girl had become very disciplined at ignoring the call, and if there was one thing that annoyed Lil Ambriodhe most, it was being ignored.

Lil had, in her own opinion, exercised a great deal of patience, actually biding her time during the year the girl took to finish her schooling, thinking it couldn’t hurt, and that afterward she would finally heed the call and return to Sacor City to take her oath before the king as a Green Rider.

She did not. She defied the call and went home to Corsa instead, and for what? To count bolts of wool on one of her father’s wretched wagon trains? To balance ledgers? What was alluring about
that?
Why did she resist?

Lil paced until she realized her feet no longer touched the floor, but hovered above it.
By all the hells!
She tried to focus on the floor so she might at least achieve the illusion of standing on it, but the effort bled too much energy from her. She cursed in frustration at the limitations of her current form, and glowered at the sleeping girl who made all this necessary. If she could manage it, she would’ve hauled her right out of bed. Thankfully most Riders weren’t this difficult.

And even while she thought this, she observed that the floor beneath her feet was covered by a rare Durnesian carpet, and that the carved beams overhead brought to mind the mastery of shipwrights. The furnishings were deeply burnished and inlaid with ivory wrought with intricate ornamentation. They had a foreign look, as though brought from across the sea. Even the mattress the girl slept on was stuffed with eiderdown, and the sheets were of a delicate weave.

As the daughter of a wealthy merchant, the girl lived at a level of luxury incomprehensible to most Sacoridians, and Lil could understand how trading this privileged and comfortable life for that of the rugged, dangerous duty of a Green Rider might prove difficult.

In another sense, she could not. The Riders did important work. There were enough merchants in the world and far too few Green Riders.

She was needed, this girl. This girl who over a year ago defeated a rogue Eletian and played an essential role in saving the king’s throne. And there was more ahead for her.

A positive sign that all was not lost was the gold winged horse brooch resting on the table next to the bed. It was the most substantial thing about this realm in Lil’s vision, more solid and brilliant than anything else. It seemed the girl could not part with it; the bond still held. Had it abandoned her, there would be no possibility of her becoming a Rider.

Lil touched her own brooch, which was clasped to the green-and-blue plaid she wore draped across her shoulder, and drew comfort and strength from it. It had helped her come this far between the layers of the world. Its resonance sang through her and the girl’s brooch seemed to sparkle in response.

A Rider’s true heart the brooch shall seek . . .
Lil cocked a smile as she remembered the old tune.
Great heart, stout heart, strong and bold, the iron hearts of Riders glitter as gold . . .
How could she forget? Every self-proclaimed bard and halfwit of the lands had taken up the tune wherever she rode, whether she sat in a great clan lord’s banquet hall or in a dilapidated tavern with goats chewing on the rushes strewn across the floor. She couldn’t escape it! It was better, she supposed, than having stones thrown at her, though some of the singers had been painfully bad.

She glanced out the window at the moon and cast off the memories like an old cloak. There was work to do here and time was growing short. She leaned over the sleeping girl, and using every ounce of command she could summon, she said into her ear,
Karigan Galadheon, you must go to Sacor City. Hey? You are not a merchant—you are a Green Rider.

Lil watched on in satisfaction as the girl murmured and shifted. Her satisfaction turned to dismay, however, when the girl wrapped her pillow around her head.

Ach.
Lil shook her mane of unruly hair in disgust, and wondered if the girl’s lineage had anything to do with her contrary nature.

She had but one last recourse to fall back on, and if this failed, she had no idea of how to rouse the girl. Lil drew to her lips a twisted horn she kept slung at her side. It had been a gift from a p’ehdrose named Maultin for a favor rendered. It was fashioned from the tusk of a komara beast, a woolly herd animal that roamed the arctic wastes. Maultin had imbued the horn with a special spell of use only to the captain of the Green Riders.

Lil inhaled and blew into the horn. The notes of the Rider call rang out sure and strong. She sensed it pulsing through the layers of the world, ringing with need and urgency. Would it reach far enough? Would the girl hear it? Most importantly, would it reach her heart?

Lil lowered the horn, listening still as its crisp notes faded away. And she watched. At first there was nothing and Lil’s hopes plummeted, but then the pillow was flung aside and the girl—young woman, really—sprang upright into a sitting position, eyes wide open and bright. She hurled herself out of bed and in a flurry of sheets and nightgown sprawled across the floor in a tangled heap.

Unaware of all else save the call, she disentangled herself and scrambled to her feet. She swiped her brooch from the bedside table and threw open her wardrobe, withdrawing a saber sheathed in a battered black scabbard, and ran from the room as if all the demons of the five hells pursued her.

Lil listened in satisfaction as bare feet raced along the corridor then thunked down a series of stairs.

She convulsed with laughter, her feet rising a few inches more above the floor. She wondered just how far the girl would get before she realized she was riding to Sacor City in her nightgown.

DEEP IN THE NORTHERN GREEN CLOAK FOREST

Condor side-stepped nervously beneath Karigan.

“Easy,” she murmured. She steadied him with the reins and caressed his neck to settle him. Condor’s disquiet echoed her own, but as she peered intently through the sunshafts and shade of the forest, she detected nothing unusual. Birds fluttered from limb to limb twittering at one another, and a red squirrel sat on a nearby tree stump scaling a spruce cone.

All was as it should be—quite ordinary really, but for some reason she could not shake off her sense of disquiet.

Karigan glanced over at Ty who sat atop Flicker several paces away. His own expression was wary. Did he feel it, too, whatever
it
was? He gave no indication, but hand-signaled that they should proceed toward a clearing awash with sunlight a short distance ahead.

At first Condor balked and back-stepped at Karigan’s command, but with an extra jab of her heels he walked on, swishing his tail defiantly.

Karigan tried to convince herself that while Green Rider horses might display an uncanny intelligence at times, they were still prey animals driven by instinct, prone to spooking at the silliest things like the odd glint of light. Sometimes they spooked at nothing at all.

She half-smiled and whispered, “You’re just an oversized meal for some hungry catamount, aren’t you?”

Condor swished his tail again and stomped.

Karigan chuckled, but it was half-hearted at best. For all her rationalization, she had learned to trust Condor’s instincts.

As they neared the clearing, her sense of unease heightened. She wanted to rein Condor away, but she held firm, for it was her duty to scout ahead and seek out the safest path for Lady-Governor Penburn’s delegation. Duty often required Green Riders and their mounts to ride directly into situations they would much rather flee, or at least avoid—as in this situation—but she had no choice other than to forge ahead.

The hoof falls of the horses were oddly silent on the needle-packed ground. Abreast of her Ty and Flicker wove in and around the gray trunks of spruce trees, fading in and out of shadows, ghostlike.

Maybe, Karigan thought, her apprehension stemmed from the strange reputation of the far northern border-lands through which they now rode. Few inhabited the region, though long ago this had not been true. During their journey, the delegation had come across the ruins of old settlements, stone foundations, and well shafts nearly swallowed by field and forest. They had followed the remnants of an ancient roadbed for a time, passing stone waymarkers buried beneath mounds of moss. Ty had cleaned off one marker, finding it deeply inscribed with runes and pictographs no one could decipher.

Those who did live in the remote far north told tales rife with superstition and ghosts, of banshees that broke into homes on wild winter nights and stole children. They spoke of black wolves large enough to drag off a full-grown man, and of witches that danced on graves. At one time, they claimed, a great, terrible clan chief ruled the north, and his unrest spawned other evil things.

It did not help the reputation of the north that it bordered Eletia, a country cloaked in mystery. Until two short years ago, the reclusive folk of the Elt Wood had fallen into legend as mere fairy tale characters. No one had known if they truly existed anymore, or if they had died out.

Now it was the mission of the delegation to penetrate the cloak of mystery, to enter Eletia itself and contact whatever power held sway over that land, for its people had been spotted in Sacoridia in increasing numbers. King Zachary desired to know Eletia’s intentions. Lady-Governor Penburn, who represented the king, had reason to hope for the best, and reason to fear for the worst.

A raven squawked from a branch above, jolting Karigan in her saddle. Condor bobbed his head as if to laugh at her and say, “Look who’s nervous now.”

Karigan licked her lips and focused on the clearing ahead. What might await them there? Groundmites? Eletians? Which would be worse? She thought she knew. Through the trees she glimpsed a shape in the clearing’s center that did not look natural.