“Finally, there are organizational matters to be addressed,” she said. “It may have come to your attention that I’ve been promoted.” Laughter followed this statement. “That means I’ve had to reconsider the structure of our command staff.” She felt Mara stiffen beside her. Most of those whom her announcement was going to directly affect were absent, but all the Riders needed to know and grow accustomed to the changes.
“Beryl Spencer, who has served at the level of major in the Mirwellian militia, will assume that position for the Green Riders.” Unfortunately, Beryl was too often away on spy business to be an effective second. Laren had been informed recently that Beryl was currently somewhere on the east coast. Unlike the queen, Laren could not skip ranks and promote Connly to major. “Your new captain is Connly.” No one expressed any surprise at these changes. “This means that Mara Brennyn moves to lieutenant.” Again, no surprise, but poor Mara sighed mournfully. All she had ever wanted to be was Chief Rider, though she’d already been performing at a higher rank. The Riders cheered for Mara, even if Mara did not cheer for herself.
“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” Laren said.
“Thank you,” Mara mumbled.
“This brings us to the position of Chief Rider.” It had taken a good deal of consideration, and she’d discussed the issue extensively with Mara, but there had really been only one choice. “Karigan G’ladheon will assume the role of Chief Rider.” The job of chief was the direct supervision of the noncommissioned Riders, seeing to their everyday needs, scheduling, assigning message errands, and taking care of Rider accounts, all of which Karigan had done before. Zachary would be pleased because it would limit how often Karigan would be sent out on errands, thus into danger. The Chief Rider needed to be on castle grounds to accomplish her duties. It could be a grievous mistake, Laren reflected, to have Zachary and Karigan in such close proximity all the time, but she’d genuinely believed Karigan was the best person for the job.
The Riders seemed to think this was the extent of her announcements and chatted among themselves. She cleared her throat, but they did not hear her.
“Listen up!” Mara shouted. That silenced them.
“There may be more adjustments in time,” Laren said, “but there is one more thing that needs doing now before I dismiss you. Anna, would you please step forward?”
Anna had been warned ahead of time this was coming, but she still looked a little shocked.
“You’ve all met Anna. She’s kept your hearths, and has been joining some of you for your studies and lessons. She has been a member of the queen’s personal household staff, and she in fact helped save the queen when the aureas slee threatened to spirit her away. Anna was also helpful to me after I broke the paddock fence.” More laughter here. “She has expressed interest in becoming a Green Rider, but she has not heard the call. At least, not the call that the rest of us are familiar with. She’s answered a different sort of call, one that does not require magic. Being a Rider has always been a matter of spirit, anyway, not just of magic. Therefore, after much consultation with the queen, I present to you the newest member of our Green Rider family, Anna Ash.”
The reaction was startled, with some scattered applause. Laren had warned Anna it would take all of them a while to get used to the idea. As for Anna’s last name, it was what she had used to sign her papers. She’d said it suited her more than the one that came from her family, who’d given her away to the castle to do drudge work.
Laren’s Riders, she knew, liked Anna and would get used to the idea of a non-magical Rider among them. At least, she hoped so. She considered it something of an experiment. If Anna worked out well, Laren would be able, perhaps, to fill out their ranks with those lacking magical abilities so she could realize her dream of establishing messenger relay stations throughout the realm. First, she thought, they’d all have to survive whatever Second Empire threw at them, and the reawakening of Mornhavon the Black.
It was not easy being singled out in front of the others, but Anna had stepped into the middle of their circle on shaky legs, thinking she had better get used to scary things if she was to become a Rider. And a Rider she was to be. She had signed her papers the day before. The queen said she was sorry to lose her, but was also happy for her. Since Anna didn’t have a brooch to dictate how long she stayed a messenger, the capt—colonel—said they’d try it for a year, and if everything worked out, she could stay on longer.
When the announcement was made, there was some clapping, surprise, and bemusement among the other Riders. Gil clapped the loudest. Afterward, most came to congratulate and welcome her, and wish her good luck, even the ones whom she hadn’t met before. It was hard to tell exactly what they thought. They were a special group, the Riders, magically called to serve, and they had abilities that, though kept secret, separated them from ordinary folk like her. Most Sacoridians hated and feared magic, which made the Riders even more tightly bound to one another, and she, lacking any magic whatsoever, was an interloper, an outsider.
“You see,” Gil told her, “it all worked out!”
“I see,” she said.
What she saw at the moment were the captain’s medals, Mara’s burn scars, and the glass overhead depicting the First Rider at war. Even Gil had had his share of excitement just in the process of answering the call. Did she have courage enough to be one among them? Would she faint in the face of danger as she had with the aureas slee? She felt lightheaded just thinking about it.
“Why don’t you look happy?” Gil asked. “Second thoughts?”
She nodded. “What have I got myself into?”
He leaned close and whispered, “Know what you mean. I try not to think about it much.” He glanced toward Mara. “Some pretty nasty things can happen to a Rider, but same for anyone else, really. A fisherman, for instance, can face a lot of danger. Did I ever tell you about the time I got this huge hook stuck through my hand? It happened while we was long-lining for saberfish.”
In that moment, as Gil showed her his scar and told her the details of his injury, she realized that danger came in many forms, and not just to Green Riders. As Gil continued to tell her more grisly tales of his time at sea, she thought maybe it was better to be a Green Rider than a fisherman.
She looked around at the assembled Riders, observed their ease with one another, their camaraderie. She could rely on these people, she thought, for anything. The colonel had described them as a “family,” and Anna realized that despite the possibility of danger, she had truly come home.
OATHBREAKERS
“This does not seem like an especially auspicious start,” Karigan said. Condor pawed the ground beneath her.
“You have an uncanny knack for understatement, Galadheon,” Enver replied.
The two of them were surrounded by shining bronze speartips wielded by rather angry-looking p’ehdrose. Some of the speartips were just inches from her heart and throat. She and Enver had used a hidden entrance to the valley of the p’ehdrose, hidden similarly to the Eletian ways, but it required her special ability to allow them to pass.
When they crossed the threshold, the lush valley opened up before them, bisected by a lake and a chain of ponds and wetlands that were segmented by beaver dams and dotted with the piles of sticks that were the beavers’ lodges. Onshore were clusters of longhouses and other signs of civilization. They had not gotten far when this group of p’ehdrose appeared. They were males and females, and large, forbidding, and silent. They towered over even mounted riders. They wore loose woolen garments over their upper, muscular, human halves. It appeared to Karigan that their human hips melded into moose shoulders. One could not say, however, that their upper halves were entirely human. Some had moose ears that swiveled to catch every sound, and brown hide that encroached as far as their necks and into their faces. Some of those faces were decidedly long with wide, flat noses. A dewlap hung beneath the jaw of one male, and nubs of antler
s grew from the skulls of others.
They gazed at the intruders with large brown eyes that were fierce in their regard. At first they had looked more curious and cautious than hostile, but then one had pointed at the Black Shield insignia on Karigan’s sleeve, and that was when their attitude had changed.
She decided to try again. She raised her empty hands and said, “My name is Sir Karigan G’ladheon. I am a Green Rider from the realm of Sacoridia. My companion is Enver of Eletia. We come in friendship with greetings from our leaders. We wish to speak with your chieftain, Ghallos.” Only because of her travel into the future did she know his name.
There was movement among the p’ehdrose, and suddenly they rushed in, crowding Condor and Mist. They removed Karigan’s saber from her saddle sheath and disarmed Enver. One of the p’ehdrose placed a curly horn to his lips, much like the horn of the Green Riders, and blew three sharp notes that rang out and echoed among the hills that cradled the valley. They bumped and pushed Condor and Mist into a headlong gallop down into the valley, packed in their midst. The pounding was excruciating to Karigan’s back, and her balance was not what it had once been, but she held on, gritting her teeth all the way.
When they reached the valley floor, they were pulled back to a walk and taken into the habitation she had seen from above, a primitive village of tall huts and longhouses. More p’ehdrose, young and old, emerged to watch. Off in the distance, woolly horned creatures she believed to be komara beasts grazed on marsh grass.
The group halted. Without warning, Karigan was shoved out of the saddle and she fell to the ground with a startled cry. Enver, who had dismounted before they could force him, stepped toward her, but speartips were thrust to his throat.
Karigan perceived that the p’ehdrose valued strength and would look down upon weakness, so she rose to her feet as quickly and steadily as she could, trying to conceal signs of stiffness and pain. She and Enver were then prodded into a circular hut.
“Galadheon,” Enver said, stepping over to her. “Did they hurt you?”
“I’ll be all right,” she said, brushing dirt off her sleeve. She’d worn her dress longcoat and sash since this was supposed to be a diplomatic occasion. “Do they even understand my words?”
“I do not know. Contact with the p’ehdrose was cut off so long ago that they may have lost the common tongue.”
Karigan pried the hanging away from the door just enough to peer outside. Mostly she saw the rear haunches of their guard, but beyond she could make out guttural voices in conversation. She let the hanging fall back into place.
“My Black Shield insignia seems to be what set them off.”
“Yes,” Enver agreed.
“Do you know why?”
“I have guesses.”
When he said no more, she placed her hands on her hips. “Do you care to enlighten me?”
“They do not care for the Black Shields.”
“Well, thank you very much. That’s very illuminating.”
She paced about the hut. The ceiling, like the doorway, was quite tall, and to call it a hut was to diminish it, for it was quite spacious, large enough to admit a few adult p’ehdrose at one time in comfort. Enver sat on a rush mat on the floor, his legs crossed and eyes closed. So, he was going to retreat. It was a good way to pass the time for an Eletian, she supposed, but also a good way to avoid talking to her. She paced, which helped stretch her back after the ride. No p’ehdrose came to them, and so were clearly in no rush to deal with their visitors.
No, not visitors, she thought, but prisoners.
She kept walking, following the contours of the walls, round and round. She would have liked to have begun the journey home the previous day with the king’s party, but her back was not ready for extended riding and . . . It would have been difficult. Difficult to be with him among all those watchers as he made his way back to his wife.
She also had to prove to herself that she could complete her mission. Her loss of confidence had cut more deeply than the thongs of Nyssa’s whip. She must not hesitate, must not be fearful, but even as she thought it, she felt Nyssa scratching at her mind again, trying to find her way in.
Karigan could not say how much time passed, but the sunlight that bled beneath the door hanging retreated and she grew weary. Enver remained in his meditative state, his expression suffused with peace.
She shrugged, knelt on one of the rush mats, and lay on her stomach. She thought back to Zachary abed with fever. After all he’d endured, he’d lost much weight. The wound on his shoulder had been red and angry with black striations radiating from it. It had made her feel totally helpless as he writhed and muttered in dreams that she could do so little for him. Destarion intimated that had he not turned when he did, they would have lost him, and she would not have been able to do anything about it. Her last thought before she drifted off was to wonder why it was that she could help the dead, but not the living.
• • •
The entrance of a pair of p’ehdrose startled her out of a dream, some nonsense of being a gryphon merchant trying to sell winged kittens. A speartip was shoved in her face, while the other p’ehdrose held Enver at bay.
“Stand,” she was ordered. So, at least one of the p’ehdrose had something of the common tongue.
She obeyed, again trying to show that it was no difficulty to do so. The two p’ehdrose grabbed her under her arms and lifted her off her feet. They carried her outside between them, while a third blocked the doorway so Enver couldn’t dart out after her.
She was dropped before a bonfire, and she gave a throttled cry at the pain that ripped through her back. Many p’ehdrose crowded in around her. They smelled of the earth, and a strange mixture of animal musk and human odor. The westering sun had cast the valley in shadow, and firelight limned the grim faces that surrounded her. Once again, she climbed to her feet, trying to retain some semblance of dignity.
She turned to the one who had ordered her to stand in the hut. “I demand to see your chief. This is no way to treat a king’s envoy.”
At first there was no reaction, then an old, grizzled p’ehdrose stepped forward. “The only reason you are not dead yet,” he said, “is that you wear the green of Lil Ambriodhe’s Riders.” He took another step forward. “I am Yannuf, chief of the Fforstald Clan, and your trespass into this valley carries the death penalty. You broke an oath by coming here.”
“I do not know of any such oath.”
“It was made by Lil Ambriodhe, King Santanara, and our great chief, Braaga, long ago. It allowed the p’ehdrose to vanish into obscurity for their services rendered during the Long War.”
A long time ago, indeed, Karigan thought. Clearly no one in Sacoridia had remembered it, just one more detail lost from that ancient time. She fumed, thinking that the Eletians would have remembered it. What of Enver? Had he known?
“We let you live because we owe a debt to Lil Ambriodhe,” Yannuf continued. “She aided us in a time of persecution.”
“The Scourge,” Karigan murmured.
“It was called that by some, yes. The Black Shield on your sleeve represents a great darkness that occurred after the Long War, when there were those who would stop at nothing to eliminate magic from the lands and exterminate those who were different. Like my people.”
Karigan had gathered hints that the Weapons had been an instrument of those who sought to destroy magic following the Long War, but this was the most concrete statement she’d had of it. She thought about the Chamber of Proving, which had dampened her ability. Brienne had said it was used after the Long War during the Scourge. Had the Weapons of ancient times used it to suppress those with magical abilities as a form of punishment, or for some other purpose?
“It was not my intention to break any oath,” Karigan said. “Many, many years have passed since the Long War, and much has been forgotten. Likewise, many generations of Black
Shields have come and gone, and whatever their roots in the old days, they no longer suppress magic.” If they did, she certainly knew nothing about it. They had done nothing to persecute the modern Green Riders.
“We thought it curious,” Yannuf said, “that a Green Rider would bear the symbol of the Black Shields, unless the Black Shields had successfully eliminated magic from the Green Riders.”
So, Yannuf put the blame for the persecution of magic users directly on the Weapons. That was interesting. “The Black Shields have made me an honorary member of their order,” she said. She did not dare address the question of Rider magic directly. “They have caused the Riders no harm. They accept me, and they have my respect.”
“It is long since any of my folk have ventured into the outside world. I agree the Long War was many generations ago. Perhaps you can give us news of the lands.”
“Yes, but my king—”
“News first, Green Rider; then we will discuss what has brought you here.” He clapped his hands. “We need food and wine for our guest.” Several of the p’ehdrose peeled off to obey.
This, Karigan thought, appeared to be a positive change of attitude on their behalf. “My companion should be present as well, so you may have the Eletian side of things.”
Yannuf studied her with his dark brown eyes, and smiled. “Your Eletian friend should have known of the oath. But no matter, we will hear him, too.”
A mat was produced for her and Enver to sit on since the p’ehdrosians had no use for chairs or stools, and earthenware pitchers of wine, and platters of food that contained tubers, watercress, cheese, cold-smoked salmon, and flatbread were brought out to them. The wine was good. It had a wild flavor to it she could not place, and between sips she tried to answer Yannuf’s questions about the past to present. Enver helped fill in some gaps. She espied young, leggy p’ehdrosians peeking beneath the bellies of their mothers to get a look at her and Enver. She could only guess that having two-legged people in their midst was a very strange sight to them.