First Rider's Call

by Kristen Britain

  Before long she found herself in the west wing, in the private apartments of the king, being escorted past all the portraits of Sacoridia’s monarchs; the very place she had wished to avoid.

  “I want to know what is happening,” King Zachary informed the third Weapon as he strode toward his apartments.

  “Yes, sire. We shall tell you when we know more.”

  As Estora followed the king into his inner sanctum, Weapons appeared from the very cracks and corners of the corridor, falling in behind to provide a rear guard. She peered over her shoulder and counted twelve, then thirteen, and fourteen. Thick pile carpet silenced their purposeful strides.

  “Come, my lady,” the Weapon who escorted her said in a firm but courteous tone. She cupped her elbow in her hand to hurry her along.

  Soon they spilled into the king’s parlor. Four Weapons remained inside with them, quickly taking places along opposite walls. The others withdrew, closing the thick doors as they did so. The king helped her into a comfortable armchair. Finally she allowed herself to take a couple of deep breaths.

  The king sat opposite her, crossing his long legs. He tapped his fingers on his armrest. The terrier laid down obediently at his feet.

  “I’ve felt uneasy all evening,” he murmured, “as though something were about to happen.”

  A sleepy-eyed servant brought them some steaming tea. Estora sipped hers gratefully, feeling weary. It had turned into a long night and the energy that had sent her strolling around the castle in the first place was thoroughly drained.

  It was quiet in the king’s parlor, except for the occasional panting of the terrier. The thick stone walls and heavy doors muted all else. Caught up in his own thoughts, the king stared into his teacup as if he could divine what was occurring outside.

  Estora’s mother would be appalled she didn’t initiate some form of polite conversation to distract the king from his worry. It is an art form, her mother had explained. Estora’s father in turn would be furious she didn’t use this opportunity to cultivate the king’s interest with her charm. King Zachary, however, did not strike her as the sort of man to put up with such inane chatter.

  And certainly not now.

  No, not the way he sat engrossed in his own thoughts. He would not take kindly to an intrusion just now.

  Instead, she kept her peace, taking in her surroundings. The last time she had been in the west wing with her cousin, they had visited the king in a different, more formal parlor.

  This one was remarkable for its lack of armament as decor. Over the hearth hung a maritime scene—not a battle, but a fully rigged ship with sails bent in a rigorous sea. Another painting depicted a scene of Hillander terriers at hunt. She always imagined men of power displaying warlike ornament throughout their private quarters as well.

  Battle tapestries sewn by the nimble and graceful hands of ladies. Her own needlework was very fine and precise.

  She liked the king’s private parlor, with its heavy leather chairs and the dark colors and hunting scenes, but it still seemed odd that it lacked weaponry or any hint of Zachary’s position as king.

  Then she recalled her own father’s manor house. All the public areas frequented by visitors did exhibit the usual display of power. Yet he allowed her mother to govern the family quarters. There was only a hint of battle in the decor when some ancestor figured in a prominent way.

  King Zachary smiled as he noticed her wandering gaze. “Has something caught your eye?”

  “No. Well, actually, yes. You’ve no shields or swords hanging about.”

  He patted his leg and the terrier leaped onto his lap. He scratched the dog’s belly, much to its evident delight. “You should have seen it during my grandmother’s reign.” He rolled his eyes. “The place looked like an armory.”

  Estora had been too young to remember much about Queen Isen, but she had heard stories about the strong-willed woman.

  “I prefer things that do not remind me of war.” He fell silent, rubbing the dog more thoughtfully. “I guess I surround myself with things that remind me of why I continue in my role as king.”

  She looked more closely at the room. Fine glass vases from Oldbury Province adorned the mantel. One was filled with seashells from the coast. A wall hanging depicted the hills that gave Hillander Province its name. As she looked more closely, she found examples of artistry from numerous provinces, or expressions of those provinces in one form or another. This was a man who truly took pride in his homeland.

  Estora had known this about the king, of course. She had seen him ready to sacrifice his own life to preserve Sacoridia. She simply had not expected to see it manifest in such an artful way.

  A knock preceded the entrance of a Weapon, who knelt before the king.

  “Report,” Zachary said.

  “Excellency, an intruder—some say two—slipped onto the castle grounds, slaying three soldiers to get in. The guard is mobilized here and in the city, searching. We’re also searching the castle.”

  “This is terrible,” the king murmured. “You will give me word when the intruders are captured?”

  “Yes, Excellency.” The Weapon hesitated before adding, “There’s more.”

  King Zachary raised an eyebrow. “More?”

  “Yes. Rider barracks is burning.”

  The terrier jumped to the floor as Zachary stood, his expression incredulous. Estora stayed her seat as though turned to stone.

  “It cannot be saved,” the Weapon said, “and at least one Rider burns within.”

  SPURLOCK

  Weldon Spurlock had worked very late this night, though not as long as some of his clerks to whom he gave extra files as he left. They were not permitted to retire for the night until they completed the tasks he had set for them.

  When he stepped onto the castle grounds, instead of finding the usual sleepy, quiet atmosphere he was accustomed to, he found soldiers running this way and that shouting into the night, bearing torches or lanterns and weaponry. It was like watching hundreds of crazed, oversized fireflies darting about. Had invaders marched on the castle?

  He heard words of a fire, and smelled smoke upon the air. Dodging soldiers, he drifted in the direction of the most frenzied shouting, and the smoke thickened noticeably. Before he was even upon Rider barracks, he could see the flames shooting out the windows and quickly consuming the aged wood.

  He was surprised the thing hadn’t burned down years ago. After all, it would have taken only a careless moment with a candle, and there you were. He snorted in contempt.

  Let the Green Riders burn.

  Before he was coerced into joining the bucket brigade, he scuttled out of the way of all the activity, cursing that his clothing would be replete with the stench of smoke. He’d have to air it out best he could in his cramped room down in the city. More soldiers loaded down with buckets ran past as he grumbled about the inconvenience of smoky garments.

  Then death stepped from shadow. It dropped the stabbed corpse of a guard. Its dead eyes seized on Spurlock, and advanced on him.

  “I seek the Galadheon.”

  Spurlock’s insides liquefied. His tongue became too big for his mouth. He thought he was probably going to faint, hopefully before the thing killed him.

  “I seek the Galadheon.”

  Spurlock’s scrambled mind processed the statement, but barely. It was looking for that Rider?

  “M-m-message errand,” he said. “G-gone. Pl-please don’t kill me.”

  The creature’s expression did not alter. It simply raised its knife for the death blow.

  “No!” Spurlock cried. He raised his hands and averted his face from the blade. Where were all those soldiers when he needed them?

  When the blow didn’t come, Spurlock peered back at the creature. It was gazing at the palm of his hand.

  My tattoo?

  “Lord Mornhavon’s sigil,” the creature said in its flat voice.

  Spurlock looked at his tattoo as if seeing it for the first time. The wr
aith was looking for the Galadheon, not the G’ladheon. It occurred to him that this creature might have actually come from Blackveil.

  Gathering his courage, he licked his lips and said in the imperial tongue, “Urn oren veritate?” Where do you come from?

  “The north,” it replied.

  Spurlock shook at its icy tone, but it had understood him. On impulse, he withdrew his ancestral medallion from beneath his collar.

  “I—I support the empire. My ancestor—he was a general and—”

  To his astonishment, the creature had gone to its knee with head bowed.

  “Command me,” it grated.

  Just like that? He thought of a few junior clerks he’d like to introduce to this creature, and—Then he recognized the crown on its head. He had seen sketches of it in the records he protected for Second Empire.

  “You are, er, were, Varadgrim,” he said, “Lord of the North.”

  “Command me.”

  How extraordinary. This creature had been one of Emperor Mornhavon’s own lieutenants, one among the four Sacor Clan lords he had recruited to his side. And now it was bowing to him?

  Spurlock’s head raised a little higher, and he smiled. It was as it should be. Yes, he was meant to be a leader, he was meant to usher in a new era where the empire reigned again.

  “You must tell me,” he said, “how my people and I can bring about the arising of the glory of the empire.”

  The answer was not what he expected. “Bring the Galadheon. To Blackveil. To our master.”

  Journal of Hadriax el Fex

  Just when we think we have the upper hand in this endless war, we lose a battle. The clans have learned how to use their own mages in battle, and even bring their women to fight because we have decimated so many of their men. At first we laughed, but these women are fierce, fierce with a sharpness that frequently exceeds even that of the men. I am reminded of how wild creatures will defend their young, holding back nothing, all fangs and claws. We have taken so much from them, everything but their will, and they fight as though they’ve naught to lose.

  Alessandros cannot abide one of these women in particular. She goes by the name of Lil Ambriodhe, and she leads a band of riders who have been essential messengers to the clans. She even leads them into battle. They have minor art, but it has been enough to foul Alessandros’ plans more than once.

  Now there is also word that the clans have found a king among them. They fashion him a high king, to lead the clans in unity. It was the efforts of Santanara, the lord of the Elt in the lands north, who coaxed the clans to begin working together, so they may fight in concert.

  COBWEBS

  Karigan lay face down on the scrubby ground, gasping and shivering. Remembering the last time she had been caught in the traveling and left in a faded-out state, she touched her brooch to ensure she was solid and real. She was.

  But so cold. And there was the killer headache.

  She pushed herself onto her knees, grimacing as each movement made her headache pound with new ferocity. Warmth. She needed to get warm.

  She guessed the traveling had left her off in her own time, in the same location where she had separated from Lil. At least, she hoped it was her own time. Even so, it meant her tinder box was with Condor, many miles away at Watch Hill.

  She needed a fire, even if it meant rubbing sticks together for the remainder of the night. She forced herself to her feet and staggered about, searching in the light of the moon for dead wood.

  Was it her imagination, or did her breath fog the air? Her left arm was so numb as to be useless. By the time she had accumulated a pile, she was nearly senseless. She slumped next to the pile of wood, and closed her eyes.

  No, came a tiny cry from within. To sleep would be her death.

  But she was already submerging into darkness.

  Her body rocked back and forth with violence, and unwillingly she was thrust from the embrace of blissful sleep into the world. She cried out and flung her hand as if to catch herself from falling.

  Warm breath blew in her face.

  Her eyes fluttered open to horse nostrils just inches from her own nose, making her cross-eyed.

  “Condor,” she murmured, and she closed her eyes to go back to sleep.

  He clamped his teeth on the collar of her shortcoat and started shaking her.

  Karigan finally came to enough to realize what was happening. “Stop, boy! Stop!”

  He released her collar, and turned his head so he could watch her with one big brown eye. She reached with a quavering hand to stroke his nose.

  Somehow he had found her. Somehow he had, of his own volition, left Watch Hill to come after her. And somehow he had the sense to arouse her out of a sleep from which she otherwise would not have awakened.

  Later, she would take time to marvel over all that, and the traveling, too, but in the meantime, she was still freezing. She grasped the stirrup hanging down from Condor’s saddle and hauled herself to her feet, then searched through the saddlebags and found her tinder box.

  Once she had a roaring fire going, she wrapped herself in her bedroll, and sat before the fire, shivering uncontrollably as though she were caught in a raging blizzard, rather than sitting beneath the moon on a pleasant summer evening.

  She kept feeding the fire until inevitably her eyes drooped and she dozed off. This time it was not a sleep of death.

  Condor’s soft whicker woke Karigan. Sibilant whispers hissed from the darkness beyond the dying embers of her campfire. She sat up with a start and the whispers hushed like a sharp intake of breath. Blinking blearily, trying to shake off sleep, she felt the ground around her for her sword, groping vainly at grass and twigs.

  She peered into the darkness. Nothing. Nothing, but the grayish hulk that was Condor, the orange liquidy reflection of the fire shining in his eyes. His ears twitched attentively.

  Crickets chorused, their song rising and falling like a quickened pulse, then silencing, only to begin again in a rush.

  She gazed into the woods, discerning nothing, but before her groggy mind thought to stoke up the fire, she found herself ringed by tall figures of shadow, the spade-shaped tips of their arrows glancing in the moonlight.

  Karigan’s heart thundered. Each arrow was aimed at her.

  A voice threaded from the dark, soft and musical, in a language she did not understand, but one she thought she knew.

  She licked dry lips. Trying to hold her voice steady, she asked, “Are you tiendan?”

  The other stopped speaking. Silence.

  Moments passed. Did the archers tauten their bow strings? They seemed not to move.

  Then one silver arrowtip streaked downward like a falling star, and one of the figures advanced.

  A tall, slender woman stood over her. Karigan couldn’t quite make out her features, but the moon gleamed on ghostly, flaxen hair pulled back into numerous tightly woven braids. Snowy feathers bound into the braids rustled with the subtle movement of air. She wore the unusual milky armor Karigan had seen on Telagioth.

  She climbed to her feet, all too conscious of the surrounding arrowtips following her movement. The woman was stillness itself, but finally she spoke.

  Her voice was songlike, though it did not speak in friendly greeting. It spoke in quiet command, but Karigan did not understand the words.

  “I’m Karigan G’ladheon,” she said, interrupting the Eletian. “King’s messenger, Green Rider.”

  Silence.

  She wondered if they understood her.

  The woman spoke to those who ringed them. Arrowtips lowered to a less threatening position.

  Glittering eyes surveyed Karigan, and she was aware of her blanket fluttering against her leg, of the cold that still numbed her limbs.

  “Your name is known in the Alluvium,” the woman said. Her voice was not quite cold, but neither was it welcoming.

  Karigan and the woman regarded each other at length.

  Another of the Eletians spoke and the woman respond
ed quietly to him, her eyes never straying from Karigan. She released the tension of her bowstring, and to Karigan she said, “You will come with us.”

  “I—”

  The Eletian raised her palm to her lips. Moonlight pooled there, and she blew. A cloud of silvery sparkling motes of dust billowed into Karigan’s face, and after that, she was unsure of what happened next.

  When Karigan came back to herself, she was sitting cross-legged in a clearing of emerald grasses, the dawn raising a golden mist from stark white birches that ringed the clearing, their branches knit together like a net. Glimmerings of crystalline light winked among the birches, some close, some far off, deep in the woods. They were like a galaxy of stars, silvery amid gleaming leaves.

  Moonstones.

  Karigan shook her head for her mind was layered with a complex interweaving of cobwebs she could not seem to break through.

  Moonstones and Eletians . . .

  The Eletians had brought her to the clearing. It was an assumption, not a memory.

  Why?

  Were they just going to leave her here? Was she a captive, and if so, why? The one who had spoken to her—last night?—had said her name was known. What did that mean?

  Eletians emerged from the woods as though the slender birches had come to life, arrows once again nocked. They did not step into the clearing, but rather stood in the fringes of the woods. She tried to discern them, but the color of their attire shifted with their stance, blending them in with their surroundings.

  One did step into the clearing—the woman. Her armor, too, changed color subtly in the light with the iridescence of a hummingbird. Her flaxen braids gleamed brightly in the daylight, the snowy feathers drifting behind her as she walked. Her eyes were as emerald as grass newly grown in the spring. She was beautiful, but exotically so. And she possessed an edge, cold and dangerous.

  She carried her longbow with a full quiver of arrows strapped over her shoulder. Girded at her side was a long, narrow blade.