Green Rider

  Immerez nodded in response to the gesture, and clucked his horse backward. Karigan grit her teeth as the whip tightened around her, strangled her, cut into her flesh. He dragged her several yards across rocks and tall grasses away from sharp horse hooves. He dismounted, and keeping the whip taut, stood above her. The sun glared behind him, and Karigan had to squint to see him.

  “I don’t know what kind of training you give your Greenie horses, but my men will have him down shortly. No doubt about it.” His green eye flicked over at the action, then planted on Karigan again. “What do you know about a spy in House Mirwell?”

  Karigan struggled to sit up, but he drove his boot heel into her shoulder and slammed her back into the ground. Her shoulder flashed with pain.

  “Mirwellians,” she gasped. “Nothing but cutthroats.”

  There was no reply for a moment. “I asked you a question.”

  Karigan craned her neck upward. “I don’t even know what the message is about. I don’t know anything about anything. You understand?” She was surprised by her own vehemence. Her voice did not sound high-pitched and frightened.

  Immerez squatted down out of the glare, which shifted the shadows on his face. Sweat gleamed on his bald head. “I don’t know how it is F’ryan Coblebay passed his mission to you, but he did. You do know the information.”

  “I do not.”

  Immerez peered over his shoulder, and to the Shadow Man he said, “I don’t wish to play this game anymore.” There was no response. Only Sarge’s curses could be heard down the track. When Immerez gazed back at Karigan, his features were tight. “You could tell me about the spy now and spare yourself some trouble.”

  “Does your statue friend make you do all his work?”

  Immerez grinned humorlessly. “He is no friend of mine.”

  “Then why? What’s so important?” Karigan wriggled her hand pinned beneath her body, reaching for the hilt of her sword. No one was here to help her. No eagle, no Abram, no Berry sisters, no Eletian, no ghost. Curious that F’ryan Coblebay wasn’t here to help, or at least to communicate. Perhaps his time walking the earth had expired.

  Immerez seemed perplexed by Karigan’s questions. “What do you mean why? I’ll wager you’re trying to throw us off the track.”

  Sand and grit abraded Karigan’s hand as she burrowed it beneath her body. She fixed her gaze on Immerez, so not to give away her intent. “I’m not really a Green Rider. I don’t care what’s important to you, or what’s important to King Zachary. I found the messenger dead and took his horse. I’m just trying to get home, nothing more. You can have the message if you want.”

  Immerez laughed and slapped his thigh. He looked over his shoulder at the Shadow Man. “Did you hear that? She says we can have the message if we want!” The laughter stopped cold and he gazed down at her. “If that is so, call off the horse.”

  Karigan shrugged as best she could in the confines of the whip. Her fingertips touched cold metal—the pommel! “He doesn’t listen to me.”

  “I thought so. If you’re no Green Rider, you certainly look like one.”

  Karigan had slipped on the green trousers that morning. “The clothes . . . they were in the messenger’s pack.” Her fingers worked down the hilt, slowly tugging the sword from the sheath. A drop of sweat glided down to the tip of her nose and hung there.

  Immerez seized her by the jaw, and lifted her from the ground to look her in the eye. “No more lies,” he hissed. “Admit that you know of the Mirwellian involvement. Tell us about the spy.”

  He released her jaw, and she fell to the ground with a solid thud, her grip on the saber lost. “I know nothing about F’ryan Coblebay or what he did. I’m not a Green Rider. Mirwell is a province of idiots anyway!” It sounded childish, and as the fury grew on Immerez’s face, she was sure he would kill her.

  “I don’t care how young you look, Greenie,” he said calmly. There was no explosion, but somehow this was worse. “You shall be bound to a tree and my whip will extract the information from you.”

  Alone. I’m alone.

  The Horse was tiring, and even now Sarge reached for his reins.

  Immerez towered over Karigan. “Stand up, Greenie.”

  Now. Now, or I won’t have another chance.

  She climbed to her feet, gripping the hilt of her sword as she did so. Immerez gasped in surprise, tightening the whip too late. The leather thong unraveled from her shoulders and she jumped to the attack.

  She was too close for Immerez to draw his own sword, but he ducked as she swung the saber at him, and double fisted his hands into her stomach. She crouched over, holding her stomach and retching.

  “Foolish. Very foolish.” Immerez lashed his whip as slowly and deliberately as a cat would its tail. “Drop the sword.”

  Karigan’s lungs ached for air. Blood thrummed through her ears. It was rhythmic, like the galloping of hooves.

  “You won’t drop the sword, then?” Immerez flung the whip at her. It coiled around her ankle, and he jerked her foot out from under her. She crashed back to the ground.

  Karigan cried out. It was the same ankle the creature of Kanmorhan Vane had clenched in its claw. The sense of complete helplessness rushed back to her, and the memory of how she had overcome it to defeat the creature and its offspring. She chopped at the leather thong, but it was too thick to be severed completely through. Immerez threw back his head and laughed at her futile attempts. He loosened the whip, drew it away, and gathered it for another lash.

  I killed the creature of Kanmorhan Vane, Karigan thought. But I had help. . . . Yet she would not allow Immerez to use the whip again. The crescendo of hoofbeats. . . . Heartbeats thundered in her ears. She sprang to her feet with a growl, and this time she didn’t hack at the whip, but at the hand that held the whip.

  She stopped, staring stupidly at the saber dripping blood, at Immerez groveling on the ground. His hand was several feet away just like in the vision she had through Professor Berry’s telescope. The hoofbeats in her head drowned out his screams.

  “Horse!” she cried, but he was already beside her, quivering with energy she did not understand. Sarge’s and Thursgad’s horses spooked at the air. Even the Shadow Man’s mount pawed the ground, his neck foamy with sweat. Immerez’s stallion had run away.

  Mount. The voice pierced through the hoofbeats drumming in her ears. She obeyed, and the world reeled out of balance.

  Thursgad and Sarge and their horses turned slowly, each movement prolonged and exaggerated, removed from real time. Everything blurred in Karigan’s vision except herself and The Horse . . . and the Shadow Man.

  The Shadow Man sat serenely on his stallion. A bow appeared in his hands where there had been none before. He removed two arrows from his quiver, each black-shafted with red fletching. He nocked one to the bow string.

  Ride! the voice commanded.

  Karigan dared not disobey. She squeezed The Horse’s sides just as the first arrow was loosed. The Horse leaped into a gallop. Blue of sky, green and brown of wood, rushed by in streaks. The buildings of a village were a smear they left behind. Two arrows, she knew, sang behind her and would not stop till they found their mark.

  Wind buffeted her, loosened the braid in her hair. The rhythm of The Horse’s hooves pounded through her body, but for all she knew, they flew.

  There were other pounding hooves, other riders abreast of her, filmy white and transparent. Trees and buildings did not hinder them, they traveled right through. They called to her with far off voices in what was like a battle cry: Ride, Greenie, Ride! It’s the Wild Ride!

  Cold arms slipped around her waist from behind. Ride, F’ryan Coblebay whispered. It’s the Wild Ride.

  The more the landscape grew indistinct, the more the riders clarified. Men and women in greatcoats or tunics striding alongside, some in light armor of war astride battle steeds, and some in uniforms of archaic vintage riding lean messenger horses. All traveled at the same unnatural speed as she and The Horse. All o
f them were Green Riders from times past, all of them dead. What stake did ghosts have in her survival?

  Ride, Greenie, Ride!

  Their chant spun the world faster, and still The Horse surged blindly ahead. Their pale faces were young, few were old. Some Riders thrust their sabers above their heads, others shook their fists, their shouts echoed to her from someplace far away. A cold sweat blanketed her body as she charged along with the ghostly cavalry.

  The arrows still followed behind with the same momentum, she knew. She could hear them whining through the air. How long could this Wild Ride last?

  Ride, Greenie, Ride! It’s the Wild Ride!

  The chant kept time with the rhythm of pounding hooves, of her heartbeat, of the blood pumping through her ears.

  They burn.

  At first Karigan didn’t know what F’ryan meant. Did the spirits burn?

  The arrows burn.

  Karigan glanced over her shoulder, disconcerted at looking through F’ryan’s gauzy form. Indeed the arrows were aflame and falling behind. A shout of victory, like a rush of wind, arose from the spirit riders. They pulled their horses to a halt, The Horse slackening his gait without direction. Though all were stopped, the world still hastened by, as if they were being swept away on some spectral current.

  “Why?” Karigan asked.

  F’ryan Coblebay slipped off The Horse and backed away, melting into the others. I cannot rest till you complete the mission. His voice faded. It was a good Ride.

  “Why?” Karigan demanded, the reins bunched in her fist. “Why did you intervene?”

  A lone Rider broke away from the group, her long hair drifting in an unearthly breeze. Two arrows protruded from her chest. The Rider Karigan had seen dead in North. Joy.

  If this did not go beyond earthly matters, we would not have intervened. There is much you might accomplish to thwart the plans of an old evil. May we Ride together again some day, Green Rider.

  Joy turned her horse back among the other ghosts. The mass merged into itself, then lifted and dissipated like a fog carried off on a breeze to the heavens. Still, the rhythm of the Wild Ride pulsed in Karigan’s ears.

  RIDE’S END

  The world slowed down, though colors still smeared like water on paint. A massive stone structure of towers and parapets and crenelated walls loomed ahead with colorful pennants streaming from its loftiest heights.

  An arched entryway flanked by rounded turrets gaped before her.

  Behind her stood the guardhouses, the portcullis suspended between them, ready to cut off an invasion should an army attempt to swarm across the narrow drawbridge spanning the moat and assault the castle. A wall encircled the castle and its grounds. Somehow, the ghosts had carried her miles in just moments to the courtyard where she now stood before the castle of King Zachary.

  The Horse’s hooves crunched on gravel. She dismounted and, hands shaking, unbuckled the message satchel from the saddle. She left The Horse standing there, no worse from his strange run.

  Time lagged again, and Karigan swayed as if the ground moved beneath her feet. The pennants, each representing the provinces, snapped into definition. Though their lines were no longer blurred, their motion was jerky and slow.

  When her footing grew solid again, she proceeded to walk the distance across the courtyard to the castle entrance. Guards in black and silver stepped forward with halting movements to intercept her. They had not managed two steps by the time she was far beyond their reach.

  As she walked beneath the arched entryway, more soldiers attempted unsuccessfully to stop her in jerk-and-stagger movements. They were too slow, she was too fast. Their voices were muffled, the words drawn out in a moronic drone.

  She strode through a great corridor past guards and courtiers stalled in time. Most did not note her passage. Lamps lit along the walls flickered absurdly slow, casting a wash of strange tones of bronze and gold along the corridor. The corridor, she hoped, led to King Zachary’s throne.

  Coats of arms and weavings adorned the walls, and these remained static and clearly defined. She focused on these things rather than the unnatural, disorienting motions of the people around her.

  Two doors appeared ahead of her, open. Some huge oak tree had been felled to create them. The firebrand was carved into one, and the crescent moon in the other. Two guards clad entirely in black were posted beside the doors. They were Weapons, but even they weren’t immune to the time anomaly.

  She swept past them and through the doors into a vast chamber. Sunlight lanced through tall and narrow windows at cross slants. Voices echoed off the vaulted ceiling in a weird and long drawn out babble. Black-clad guards stood like pillars in shadowy recesses.

  A tapestry of Zachary’s family crest, a white Hillander terrier against a field of heather, occupied the space behind the throne. It was said that the brave little dogs had rooted groundmites out of their earthen burrows during the Long War.

  Below the tapestry stood two men and a woman attending a man who sat in an ornate chair. A white terrier sat up from where it had been lying at the seated man’s feet. Before it was on its feet, Karigan had crossed the cavernous room. The three people and the king were just beginning to look up at her.

  Slam!

  Like walking into a wall, like the ground being pulled out from beneath her feet, the force rocked through her body and she fell away piece by piece, like feathers from a burst pillow cascading in a soft flurry.

  She lay in a field immersed in sunlight. Sunlight leaked through her closed eyes. Asters and goldenrod droned with bees lighting from one blossom to another. A swallow chirped somewhere above her. She felt warm and drowsy. The light, the light . . . Something cool and wet ran along her cheek . . .

  Time and motion snicked into place, like the latching of a door. Karigan shook her head, willing the stinging drone of bees and shock of light to leave her. She sighed, closed her eyes, and settled down to continue her nap, but the cool, wet something now licked her hand. She cracked open an eye. A pair of brown eyes gazed back at her from beneath a clump of white fur. The terrier panted and looked at her with a grin.

  Karigan widened her eyes. Dog! Castle! Zachary! She sat up too fast, and spiraled back down to the woolen runner in front of the king’s dais. The buzz filled her head again, but it might have been the voices of people around her. This time when she looked up, four blades wielded by black-clad Weapons were pointed at her chest.

  “This is no Green Rider I’ve ever seen before.” A man’s voice with a hard edge to it.

  “Could it be another assassin?” the woman asked.

  “Her coming here smells of magic,” said a second man with a sniff.

  Karigan had fallen on the message satchel. She rolled to her side to unwedge it, and the Weapons pressed the tips of their blades against her chest.

  “Message.” Karigan’s mouth felt too full of tongue. “Message for the king.”

  “Let us see it,” said the first man.

  Karigan took the paper from the satchel and handed it to a Weapon who in turn passed it to someone she could not see. Indistinct murmurings echoed off the walls of the cavernous room, which seemed, rather, like whispers issuing from the fresco-painted figures on the ceiling. The age-cracked figures of kings, queens, knights, and the god, Aeryc, riding the sickle moon, and the goddess, Aeryon, haloed by the sun and peering from behind a cloud, all looked down on her. Among them, and at the center, was a great black horse whose arched neck and flanks rippled with motion.

  “—spy,” a queen seemed to say from above.

  “This message is from F’ryan Coblebay, but this is—” said the king.

  “—unimportant and irrelevant. It’s the magic I’m—”

  “Too young to be—”

  “Should be confined and interrogated—”

  “—unimportant.”

  Karigan drifted away again in search of the sunlit field, but she was not able to find it. The Weapons seized her roughly under her arms and hauled her
to her feet. Someone took away the saber. She protested weakly, but no one heard.

  “Lock her up until we decide.”

  “Not in a prison cell,” said a gentler voice Karigan hadn’t heard before. The Weapons blocked her view with their broad shoulders and she could not see who spoke. “Choose a guest room and guard it.”

  “But, Majesty,” said the harsh voice, “you may be endangering yourself. This one uses magic like we’ve never seen before.”

  “And all the prison cells in the world would not hold her if she did anyway. A guest room. Does she look threatening to you in her present condition, Crowe?”

  “Majesty, begging your pardon, but she may just want it to look that way.”

  “Of all the idiotic ideas I’ve ever heard, that is the worst,” said a new voice from the direction of the entryway. It belonged to a woman accustomed to authority.The Weapons still blocked Karigan’s view, but she heard the purposeful click of boots on the flagstone floor as the woman approached. She passed by, and the clicking ceased. “Your Majesty.”

  “Captain, your intrusion speaks of—”

  “Disrespect, Castellan Crowe? Is that what you wish to say?”

  “I will not have this bickering,” said the king. “Captain Mapstone, do you have anything you wish to say? Do you know this girl? She dresses as a Green Rider.”

  “I’ve never laid eyes on her before, but I think I can tell you who she is.”

  The woman stood on tiptoes and peered over the shoulders of the Weapons. Karigan received a fleeting impression of hazel eyes and reddish hair.

  “I can also tell you that she is a Green Rider.”

  “No,” Karigan whispered, but no one was listening.

  “I can’t say I understand, Captain,” Crowe said.

  “Your Majesty, have her taken to Rider barracks. She will do you no harm, and if I’m not mistaken, the message you hold in your hands is of great import.”

  “We have our doubts about that,” the king said.

  “Then what of this?”

  The captain held aloft two black arrows. Karigan groaned and lurched to her side, and would have fallen if not for the support of the Weapons.