First Rider's Call (8 page)

She thrusted and ducked, sidestepped and blocked. She used trees as shields and practically danced around the groundmite seeking advantage or safety. The fight lacked rhythm, for whatever fine techniques she knew were next to useless against her opponent’s hack and slash methods.

Sweat streamed into Karigan’s eyes and the muscles from her wrist to her shoulder burned. Her focus was such that the sounds of battle, even the cries of the dying, fell into the background of her awareness. The
clang
and
ding
of her sword against the groundmite’s, and her own panting, were sharp counterpoint.

The groundmite grunted, heaving the blade down on her. Karigan darted to the side to evade the blow and stumbled over a root, nearly falling into the hooves of thrashing horses and mules maddened by the stench of blood.

It gave her an idea.

Before the groundmite could bring down its blade another time, she darted between a pair of mules.

If the groundmite didn’t get her, she reflected, the mules probably would. Stepping between two maddened animals with iron-shod hooves and a ton of weight between them was a foolhardy move. If they didn’t get her with their hooves, they could crush her between them. Yet, it was this very power she was relying on.

In the mere moments it took her to slip between the mules, she was jostled, her foot stomped, her shin grazed, but she came to their heads in one piece, relatively unhurt.

The groundmite, intent on its quarry, dove in heedlessly after her, and this she had anticipated. Though she hated to do it to the poor animals, she slapped them across their sensitive noses.

The mules plunged and squealed anew. One of them kicked the groundmite and its howl of pain only intensified their rage. The mules came together, smashing it between them. It writhed, eyes rolling, and lost its sword somewhere beneath the deadly hooves.

Karigan left the groundmite to the mules. She ran from the pickets and through the woods, once again on the fringe of the encampment. She thought she heard Condor’s whinny somewhere behind her, and she closed her eyes. There was no time to check on him. . . .

She trotted steadily onward and then paused, peering through the dark. From what she could discern of the main battle through the trees, the Sacoridians were outnumbered, but able to hold their own. They stood shoulder to shoulder and shield to shield in the clearing repelling the enemy, just as Lady Penburn said they would. Groundmite blows pounded on shields and defenders surged through to cut down the enemy. Among them she saw Bard, his saber rising and falling, his face lined in concentration.

As she stood pondering how she might go about aiding them, she became aware, belatedly, of some massive force crashing through the woods toward her. It burst from the undergrowth and hammered her into a tree.

Her sword arm and shoulder took the brunt of the impact and she scraped down the tree trunk, unable to breathe, her sword somewhere far away. Her vision crackled and blurred, and when finally she slid to her knees, she felt as though she had been shattered into pieces against an anvil.

A groundmite towered over her—the one she had left for the mules. Its trousers were shredded and bloodied. One of the mules had bitten a hunk of flesh out of its arm. It glared down at her with glinting yellow eyes, and she could only stare back up at it, too stunned to move.

“Greenie,” it said, and followed it with some coarse, garbled speech she did not understand. It found her saber, and raised it for a death blow.

It all registered dully in Karigan’s mind. She couldn’t move and in but a moment her own sword would come bearing down on her.

Insanely she laughed. She laughed because of her thought earlier in the evening about how her ride to Darden in a nightgown would be the most notable thing anyone would ever remember about her.

Even as she laughed, tears rolled down her cheeks. There were too many things left undone. She had to make peace with her father, tell him she loved him. Yet, when she closed her eyes against her fate, the image that came to her was that of King Zachary. There was a questioning look in his brown eyes, and for him Karigan felt some sorrow, some great depth of loss. Not for him, necessarily, but for . . . for herself?

Light footfalls passed by her, accompanied by a strangely familiar rank smell. It had been taking a rather long time, she realized, for the groundmite to kill her. She popped one eye open, and then the other. Brogan the bounder bent over the still hulk of the groundmite lying on its back with a forester’s knife lodged in its throat. Brogan yanked the knife out and wiped it on the groundmite’s tunic.

He then gazed down at her. His expression was feral, that of a predator on the hunt. Without a word he crept stealthily away, vanishing through the dark woods.

Brogan, Karigan realized, was doing as she had done herself—attacking from the shadows. He had looked at her just as she had others, to ascertain if she lived.

Karigan herself found it hard to grasp that she was still alive. She grew aware of a wave, building power and momentum, and that it would swamp her if she allowed it. At all costs, she knew she must hold it at bay.

She drew in a raspy breath, and sat very still, trying to settle her mind and take stock of her condition. Her entire side ached. When she flexed her arm, a tearing sensation ripped through the muscles. Her arm was not broken, but she would be unable to handle her sword again this night.

She rose unsteadily to her feet, cradling her arm against her. She peered again to the clearing, wondering what she could do to help.

Then something curious happened. It was impossible that she
hear
something so faint over the clamor of battle. No, it was more that she
felt
it, as though it traveled through the tree roots beneath her feet, or that it was whispered from branch to branch above her in the forest canopy.

And onward it hastened toward the clearing. Had she really heard . . . felt it? Somehow it reminded her of her dream. It had that tang of darkness. Even as she thought about it, she was overwhelmed by an awful feeling of impending disaster. It was as though the air had grown taut, as though there was a great pressure on it and it was about to explode.

In the clearing, there grew the steady rumble of thunder. The ground trembled beneath her feet. The battle seemed to pause as combatants perceived the change as well. The rumbling grew and intensified into an unbearable roar until finally there was release—a rupturing within the clearing.

The lines of defenders broke apart and chaos took hold. Groundmites threw down their weapons and bolted. Shields fell and figures ran and darted, flickering in the glimmer of lanterns and campfires.

Searing white energy coalesced about the obelisks, crackling up and down as though the magic of the wards was building up power.

A dark figure appeared between a pair of obelisks. Groundmites and Sacoridians both fled before it, terror-stricken and screaming. Intricate spider webs of energy arced throughout the clearing, explosive and bright, lighting the sky above, scoring through anything and anyone in their path.

Tendrils of energy pounced on the figure like live things in attack, fusing onto it, causing it to stagger backward. Though buffeted by the force, the figure shrugged off the magic and forged ahead, passing between the obelisks.

The ward stones shattered.

The white bolts of energy sputtered out and evaporated, and the figure vanished like a shadow in the night.

And then there was nothing.

Nothing but a haze of smoke. Darkness descended over the forest quenching the afterlight of the magic. Small campfires and lanterns still glowed here and there, insignificant and incongruous with the events of the last several moments.

Nothing moved. Was everyone dead, or, like Karigan, too terrified to move?

After a period of silence, there were finally some cries of pain and fear, invocations to the gods, and coughing. Karigan’s own throat was raw. Had she been screaming all along, or was it the result of simply holding back the screams she had been unable to loose?

The dread that once inhabited the clearing now advanced on her. It moved toward her like a great inescapable wall and surrounded her. Her screams came out as whimpers.

A figure emerged from shadow and paused before her. It was made of the night, and only the black dusty rags it had been buried in gave it a man’s shape. The moon shone on the pale face of a corpse. An iron crown of twisted branches gleamed upon its brow.

It lifted its arm and pointed at Karigan with a bone-thin finger. The gesture was like a lance thrust into her chest and she stumbled backward.

“Galadheon.”
The figure’s voice rasped out of nothing, clung to her, wrapped her throat in cold fingers.
“Betrayer.”

BENEATH THE CAIRN

The wraith of rags and shadow dropped its arm to its side. It tilted its face up and, curiously, it snuffled the air. Then it averted its dead gaze to something behind Karigan.

She whirled. Before her eyes registered the Eletian with his bowstring released, before her hair had the chance to settle on her shoulders, or before she could even draw a single breath, an arrow grazed her cheek and ear before hurtling onward.

She spun, following the arrow’s flight, but the wraith was gone, the arrow impaled in a tree. The dread that had cloaked the wraith was absent; the oppressive weight of its presence all but gone from the woods.

A current of night-cool air stung her face. With a trembling hand, she touched along her cheekbone and ear. When she withdrew her fingers, she found them smeared with blood.

“You should not have moved.” The Eletian’s voice was light and accented. It possessed the timbre of a cool, fast-flowing stream. “A hair’s-breadth more, and I would have killed you.”

Karigan glanced over her shoulder, trying to comprehend just the Eletian’s presence, much less her close call with arrow and wraith.

The Eletian strode past her. Pearlescent armor glowed in the moonlight, and rippled with subtle tints of green, pink, and blue, changing continually as he moved. From his shoulder pauldrons bristled odd, deadly looking spines, and barbs jutted in rows along his forearms. She watched him thoroughly bespelled.

He stopped before the tree and tugged his white shafted arrow out of the trunk. “My aim was true,” he said, “but one cannot kill that which is the substance of death.” On the arrow’s shining tip was a snatch of black cloth. He rolled his eyes to gaze at her without turning, and she perceived a tight-lipped smile.

He spoke in his own language and she thought of water smoothing over rocks in a stream. Despite its beauty, she found no comfort in it, though she could not explain why. Finally, using the common tongue again, he said, “Remember well the precision of my aim, Galadheon.” And before she could make sense of his words, he added, “Telagioth who leads us will speak to you in the clearing.”

Karigan stumbled away, wondering what new dream she had entered.

 

She picked her way among the slain, groundmite and Sacoridian alike. It appeared that very few of the delegation had survived. The night hid details—faces—but the tang of gore clung in her throat. When she reached the clearing, it was alight with the crystalline shine of
muna’riel,
the moonstones of the Eletians. The dead came into sharp focus.

Between two shattered obelisks lay Bard. His eyes were closed and his expression peaceful. Silver light gleamed against the golden threads of the winged horse emblem on the sleeve so recently and meticulously mended by Ty. If not for the pool of blood beneath Bard’s mouth and nose, and the gaping hole in his back, she’d have thought him merely asleep.

“Galadheon.” The silver light intensified to a blinding white as an Eletian joined her. “Follow.”

Karigan stepped over Bard with quavering legs and trailed behind the Eletian. The great wave threatened to overwhelm her, but for now she held it back, if one young woman can hold back the ocean.

The clearing was filled with others like Bard—defenders, servants, nobles, all dead, all with similar wounds as though some immense force had simply punched holes through their bodies. Some soldiers looked among the dead for survivors, but Karigan sensed they’d find none.

The Eletian led her to the clearing’s center, to the cairn. Two soldiers supported Captain Ansible whose leg was deeply gashed and hastily bandaged. He seemed to be surveying the carnage, and Karigan thought her own expression must reflect his unfocused look of shock. Another Eletian stood next to him speaking quietly.

“It was the force of the magic which warded this place that killed them. It was loosed when the unspeakable one left its tomb.”

Captain Ansible murmured inaudibly.

“We shall assist you as we can,” the Eletian replied.