First Rider's Call (46 page)

The conversation turned cordial once again, the mayor apparently satisfied by her explanation.

The mayor’s wife invited her to stay the night, but Karigan had an itch to be riding again. The moon was due to be full and she couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck indoors. Also, she felt a twinge of guilt about having left Mara totally at the mercy of the “wolves.” As much as she liked being away from Sacor City, the farther she got down the road tonight, the sooner she could get back to helping Mara.

After convincing Lady Gilbradney she must be on her way, and thanking her effusively for her hospitality, Karigan nearly had to roll herself out of the mayor’s residence, she was so stuffed. Her head was a little light, too, from all the apple wine.

 

She was yawning mightily by the time they reached the stretch of road that skirted Watch Hill. It was a domed silhouette against a tapestry of twinkling stars. The bright full moon reflected a glimmering crown of light on the summit.

Pretty,
Karigan thought sleepily.
Magical.

It was an ironic thought for what happened next.

At first the stirring of her brooch was a gentle hum, but insistent enough to awaken her completely. Condor halted as if knowing more was to come. A force tugged at her brooch, then yanked her right off Condor and into the streaming space of the traveling.

She screamed, but the sound was ripped from her throat and left in some other time. She traveled suspended through thousands of nights, the moon changing its size and visage faster than her eyes could blink, travelers on the road but brief impressions flaring past, and then there was no road at all. She passed through winters and rainstorms, forest fires, summers and autumns, and radiant springs.

When the traveling ended abruptly, she fell from space and hit the ground with an unceremonious grunt. She sat up groaning—unhurt, but very unhappy. Who knew when she had landed this time.

Physically she was in the very same spot as when she’d been atop Condor, but he was nowhere to be seen. Her perspective of Watch Hill hadn’t changed an iota, and even the moon was full and a dazzling silver.

“Bloody hell,” she muttered. She stood and slapped dirt off her trousers.

The air was crisp, like the lands north where a nip in the summer air reminded one of which season was the mightier and dominated the longest.

“Now what?”

It seemed a pitiful question when a powerful force had just carried her across the ages.
Why?
And with mounting fear,
would she be stranded here?

She touched her brooch, but it felt no different than it ever had. Panic swelled in her breast and she hugged herself to contain it. She was alone here with no idea of how to get back.

To calm herself, she decided to build a campfire. By the time she remembered her tinder box was still packed in Condor’s saddlebag,
elsewhen,
she had already accumulated an armload of wood. With a sigh, she supposed starting a fire without it would occupy her while she mulled over her situation.

She dumped the wood and went looking for more. As she walked, she caught sight of a movement beyond a thicket of trees. Startled, she halted, her heart skipping a few beats. It was a horse and rider, of that much she was certain.

She had to restrain herself from running to the rider for help. Instead, she moved forward cautiously, attempting to make as little noise as possible. Just because the people of the past had been unaware of her the last time she had traveled, she didn’t want to take the chance the rules had changed.

She passed through the thicket, thinking the shadows of the spruce would help conceal her. She knelt behind a boulder and peered out beyond to a clearing.

The moon glinted on the rider’s steel half-armor and the pommel of the greatsword strapped to her back. It was none other than the First Rider, Lil Ambrioth.

Karigan stepped out from behind the boulder and out of the shadows. “Hello,” she said.

Lil didn’t seem to hear or see her. She remained very still, sitting erect in her saddle, staring straight ahead.

Lil’s horse was more draft horse than saddle horse. It was big and bony and underfed, and tired-looking. It was slightly sway-backed, and had the look of hard use. Its large head was ugly. Not exactly the image Karigan had of the warsteed that should be carrying a great hero.

Another rider entered the clearing from the opposite side, on a sleek black stallion that was a far finer beast than Lil Ambrioth’s. The man riding it was no less impressive, in a crimson and black uniform, the like of which Karigan had never seen before. The velvet sleeves were full and slashed to reveal the crimson silk beneath. He wore a breastplate of enameled crimson, and a bal dric of black that girded a longsword at his hip. He bore himself like an elite soldier.

Of his features, she could discern little. They blurred in her vision.

“Hadriax el Fex,” Lil said.

The man nodded, his leathers creaking. “Liliedhe Ambriodhe.” His accent was different from Lil’s.

This was the meeting King Jonaeus had tried to talk Lil out of attending. This was her meeting with Mornhavon the Black’s closest friend.

Lil did not answer the man, but nudged her horse a few steps forward. Then halted.

“I believe you requested safe haven.”

“Yes, I did. Lord Mornhavon’s atrocities have become more than I can bear, and I want to help bring them to an end.”

“After all this time?” Lil asked. “You’ve only just discovered the various hells Mornhavon has created in these lands? You had your hand in enough of it, I daresay. Why shouldn’t I just run my sword through you right now?”

“You won’t do that.”

“You sound rather sure of yourself. I wouldn’t be if I were you.”

“You won’t kill me,” the man said, “because you know I have valuable knowledge.”

Lil laughed quietly. “So I imagine. Why should I trust anything you have to say?”

“I have given up much to come here. Risked everything I am, betrayed the man who was a brother to me.”

To Karigan’s ears, the words sounded flat. Too flat. He was lying.

The man sidled his stallion closer to Lil. She didn’t move.

“You won’t kill me,” the man continued, “because without the information I possess, your people will have no hope of winning this war, and you know it. Mornhavon will defeat you.”

Lil raised an eyebrow, a touch of amusement on her lips. “Will he now?”

A throttled scream, a man’s voice, erupted nearby in the woods: “Trap!”

Hadriax el Fex grabbed Lil and tried to drag her off her horse. The fog no longer clouded his features, which were sharp and hard. His hair was black and tied back into a ponytail. Upon his brow rested a crown of lead fashioned into intertwining branches. Karigan had seen the crown before, on the wraith in the clearing, the night of the attack on Lady Penburn’s delegation.

Even as Lil struggled against the man, a hundred horsemen materialized out of nothing as though a curtain had been lifted. They all bore the black and crimson colors, the device of a black dead tree on their shields. They trotted their horses to encircle Lil and the man in their struggle.

Lil swung at him and landed a fist in his eye. He rocked back in his saddle. Like lightning the greatsword flashed into Lil’s hands, but she’d be unable to fend off the archers who now bent their bows, arrows aimed directly at her.

The man laughed. “No, no. Lord Mornhavon wants her alive.” Power crackled on his upraised palm. It crawled up and down his forearm. Lil paused as if to consider her predicament. Karigan yearned to help, but was unaware of what she could do. A distraction of some kind?

Last time, she could handle objects even if she couldn’t make contact with people. Without hesitation, she hefted a large rock, and heaved it at the nearest horse. The horse whinnied and reared, dumping its rider. As she hoped, the soldiers’ attention averted to their fallen companion. Even the man wearing the crown was distracted enough to look.

Lil didn’t use the moment to escape. Instead, she raised her horn to her lips and blared out the notes of the Rider charge. No sooner did the last note ring out and she had dropped the horn to her side, was she slashing her sword at her would-be captor. Taken off-guard, his magic fizzled out. He concentrated on trying to reignite it and avoid Lil’s blade, but Lil’s big, ugly horse casually bit a chunk out of his leg, and swiftly whirled on its haunches to plant a well-placed kick on his high-tempered stallion’s chest.

The man’s scream, and the thrashing of his stallion, were lost to thunderous hoofbeats shaking the ground. Green Riders boiled out of the woods and charged the enemy.

A counter trap,
Karigan thought, practically jumping up and down with glee.

The Riders loosed their own arrows and many of the enemy fell. The Riders did not pause after their opening volley, but drove into the enemy, whooping and swinging their sabers above their heads. Green and white paint masked their faces, giving them a wild, frightening countenance. Green handprints decorated the necks and haunches of their mounts.

Karigan stumbled back into a thicket to avoid getting trampled.

The two groups merged into smaller melees, and the battle almost became quiet, with but the clattering of weaponry and thud of hooves, and the isolated shout or cry. It was almost businesslike, and perhaps for enemies who had been at war for so long, it was business.

At its center, Lil Ambrioth and the man who had mas queraded as Hadriax el Fex still strove against each other, but much of their combat was lost to sight behind others. It was hard to say which side was winning, but Karigan thought the Green Riders were outnumbered despite their initial volley.

She moved through the thicket, detecting the occasional flare of magic—a ball of flame thrown or objects flying through the air without hands to guide them. She sought a different vantage point, trying to determine how the Riders fared, silently rooting for them, apprehensive when one succumbed and fell. This battle may have occurred sometime in the far distant history of the lands, but anxiety hounded her that the Riders would be devastated.

She came upon three of the enemy in the woods. One was without a breastplate, and he leaned over his horse’s neck as though wounded. His hands were bound behind him with black, writhing magic. Karigan remembered the pain of such magic all too well.

Sandy hair fell over the man’s face. This could only be the one Lil had come to meet, Hadriax el Fex. He hadn’t meant to ambush her, but was a prisoner himself, and undoubtedly the one who had warned her of the trap.

His two guards spoke to one another in a guttural, rolling language incomprehensible to Karigan.

Must be the imperial tongue,
she thought.

One of the guards raised his sword and pricked el Fex in the arm, and burst out laughing. El Fex did nothing, his head hanging wretchedly. The guards exchanged several words, followed by more laughter.

Karigan approached closer, drawn as much by curiosity as anything. She wasn’t intimate with the politics of the day as a scholar might be, nor had she heard of Hadriax el Fex until her previous travels. And she had no stake in the outcome of this battle. The past was the past, wasn’t it?

Still, she knew Hadriax el Fex wouldn’t have been held a prisoner if he hadn’t intended to betray Mornhavon and provide the League with valuable information.

Should she intervene? Would doing so alter the course of history, for better or worse? Maybe there was a reason el Fex was not remembered. Maybe it was because he died this night before he could pass on intelligence to the League.

One of the guards stabbed el Fex’s thigh. He jerked and gasped, and his guards taunted him.

Suddenly he whipped his boot from his stirrup and kicked out sideways at the guard on his left. The guard’s horse swerved away. The other guard swung his sword at him, but he threw his leg over his horse’s neck and slid to the ground. The wounded leg buckled, and he fell to his knee.

The first guard, having gained control of his horse, came up behind el Fex and shouted orders at him. El Fex clambered to his feet with difficulty.

“Nast dritch ech, Galadheon!”
the guard shouted.

Startled to hear her name, Karigan stood stock still, with eyes wide. Could they suddenly see her?

El Fex ran, but did not get far before he was run down by the mounted guards. One guard dismounted and raised his sword for a killing blow.

Without a second thought, Karigan drew her saber and stabbed it through the midsection of the guard. No blood spurted, the guard did not crumple, he didn’t even flinch. Even her sword had no effect in this time. In desperation, she picked up a rock—it worked, although she couldn’t analyze why until later—and pelted it into the face of the guard. He cried out and staggered back, dropping his sword to clutch at his bleeding face.

The second guard looked furtively about, seeking the source of the rock.

“Whuist das?”
he asked. Then in a heavy accent, commanded, “Show yourself, mage.”

Maybe, Karigan thought, her own sword didn’t work because it hadn’t yet been made. She scrunched her face at the logic, but wondered if, just maybe . . .

She grabbed the first guard’s sword and swept it up in a defensive position. How must this look to the guards and el Fex? A quick glance revealed they were surprised, but not astonished. Maybe it was more common during this era to find invisible sword wielders.

Swiftly she stabbed the first guard. This time he bled. This time he crumpled.

The other guard watched the drifting blade, backing his horse away. She lunged, and he wheeled his horse around just in time to meet an arrow. He tumbled from his horse and did not move.