The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain
He went on to describe how he had worked his way west in exchange for food, and had even hitched up with a merchant’s caravan coming over the mountains. Sometimes he’d fished if there was a stream or lake along the route, or built traps with his own hands to snare small animals. Karigan found herself impressed with how he’d made his way, surviving by virtue of his own ingenuity.
“I was hungry and cold some of the time,” he said. “It wasn’t bad though. Folks were good to me—far better than my own da, but I couldn’t stay anywhere long. I had to keep going till I reached Sacor City. And now to be a Rider—that’s like heaven!”
Karigan could see that being a Rider was a definite improvement over the knacker’s shop. He didn’t have to go into detail about his life with his father for her to make guesses about how hellish it must have been. Despite his harsh life, he’d shown himself as resourceful and clever during his journey to Sacor City, which only made sense since Green Riders shared such traits.
“Thank you for telling me about your journey,” she told him, and she meant it.
He glanced sharply at her as if expecting to be mocked or lectured, but then nodded and relaxed when she remained silent.
A pair of raccoons hissed at one another over the fish guts, which Fergal had dumped by the shore. Better raccoons than bears, Karigan thought, though they were making enough of a ruckus to be mistaken for bears. Eventually they sorted out their dispute and toddled off with the offal, one casting the Riders a bandit-faced glance, the firelight catching in its eyes before it vanished into the night.
The raccoon reminded Karigan of the masked thief she had fought in the Sacor City War Museum. She had not thought much of him since their encounter—she hadn’t had time!—but now her thoughts strayed to him, and she wondered what he wanted with a bit of ancient parchment. It seemed beneath him somehow. She’d expect him to be more interested in jewels and gold. Maybe, as Mara suggested, the parchment gave directions to a hidden treasure.
She shrugged. Sacor City was miles away, and she would never know what value the thief placed on his plunder. That would be for the constabulary to figure out, but somehow she didn’t think they’d ever catch him.
With the raccoons gone and Fergal staring into the fire, the night grew quiet, except for the hiss of flames and gentle lap of waves upon the shore. If loons called this lake home, they were long gone, well on their way out to sea for the winter. It made the lake seem desolate, knowing she would not hear their haunting calls this night.
“I’ll take first watch,” Fergal offered.
“You’re welcome to watch if you like,” Karigan said, “but unless it’s a dangerous situation, there’s really no need. Remember, when you’re finished with training, you’ll be on the road by yourself, and you won’t be able to watch all the time. You’ll need to sleep.”
“Oh.”
Karigan smiled to herself as she unrolled her bedding, thinking how nice it was to be on an ordinary message errand, without outlaws pursuing her or supernatural forces influencing her. There was always the chance of encountering a bandit or the stray groundmite, but this far from the border she wasn’t too worried.
“I just thought…” Fergal began.
“Yes?”
“Well, I just thought it would be more…more exciting than this.”
Karigan wondered what stories he had heard. “Be happy when it is this ordinary and peaceful. Running for your life is not fun.” She sat on her bedding and pulled off her boots.
“Is it true…?”
“Is what true?”
“All they say about you.”
“It depends. What are they saying?”
“About how you defeated that Eletian and how you pushed Mornhavon into the future.”
Karigan sighed. “I was involved in those things. Look, Fergal, as messengers, our main job is to deliver the king’s word, and that can be dangerous enough on its own. Messengers face blizzards and have accidents and encounter cutthroats. Some have their lives cut short by angry message recipients. Others have died in battle.” When Fergal appeared skeptical, she added, “Mara lost fingers when some cutthroats tried to rob her and Tegan nearly got caught in a deadly snowstorm. Just this summer, the ship Connly was sailing on went aground on a deserted island. Don’t wish anything extra to come down on you—an ordinary errand can be hazardous enough, and remember, we’ve only just begun this journey.”
Karigan drifted off to sleep that night not sure he was convinced. It was the difference, she reminded herself, between a seasoned Rider and a green Greenie.
Maybe it was a cold breeze seeping beneath Karigan’s blanket, or maybe it was a quiet whicker from Condor that warned her, but her hand went immediately to the hilt of her saber, which she always kept beside her when she slept. Her eyes fluttered open to a dazzling array of stars piercing the heavens above, the constellations framed by the spires of jagged spruce and pine.
All was still, their campfire burned down to dull, orange embers. Fergal was a dark lump of bundled blankets on the ground across the fire ring. The horses were peaceful enough, though Condor gazed at her with shining eyes.
What woke me up?
Carefully she raised herself to her knees, her blanket falling away from her shoulders. A shiver spasmed through her body. She looked around, searching the darkest shadows of night, her senses honed to a knife’s edge as she tried to discern what had awakened her.
Then a flicker of light among the trees on the far shore caught the edge of her vision. It was gone as quickly as it came. Had she really seen it? Then there was another shimmer, this time closer, and as quick as the blink of an eye.
It was much too late in the season for fireflies.
She waited, tense, forcing herself to breathe. It wasn’t the light that came upon her again, but voices in song, achingly beautiful voices singing in a language she did not understand, though enchanting enough that she could guess who sang it: Eletians. Eletians were passing through the woods.
She drew her saber.
Light—many lights—came to life among the trees, flaring between tree trunks across the cove from where Karigan and Fergal camped, glancing on the still surface of the lake. Dewdrops clinging to the tips of pine needles glistened. Figures, some on horseback, some afoot, shone in the silvery glow of moonstones, moonstones held like lanterns on the ends of poles and shrouded by colorful shades. Some Eletians held moonstones on their palms before them, like acolytes bearing candles down the aisle of a chapel of the moon.
The moonstone lights were reflected in the black surface of the lake like stars. Karigan, unable to move from her knees, watched in wonder, a supplicant before these godly beings.
The Eletians’ passage was silent but for their song. If they knew of Karigan’s presence, none changed course to approach her.
She thought their procession solemn, but discerned laughter amid their singing. Then, with a surge that went through her heart and nearly made her lose hold of her saber, she recognized her name in the song. As she listened more closely, she gleaned some understanding of the words, an understanding in her heart, though the language was foreign.
Galadheon, Galadheon, far from home,
Galadheon, Galadheon, we’ve roused you from your dreams,
What far lands shall you roam
Beneath the stars that gleam?
Galadheon, Galadheon, put down your sword,
Galadheon, Galadheon, you must sleep,
You must carry your king’s word,
What secrets do you keep?
Karigan drew her eyebrows together. The singing grew more distant and here and there lights extinguished.
Galadheon, Galadheon, save your sword,
For the storm shall come another day,
Now we must be on our way, Galadheon,
East we must go, a-journeying we roam
Put your head down to rest, Galadheon,
Put your head down to rest…
Karigan awoke with a start
Fergal jumped up from a dead sleep, looking wildly around. “What is it? What is it?”
Karigan opened her mouth to speak, but the arrow turned to smoke and drifted away. The blood vanished, too. She pawed at her chest finding no evidence of arrow or wound.
“What is it?” Fergal repeated, blinking blearily.
“I–I…dreams,” she said, more than a little rattled. Had she merely imagined the arrow, or had one of the Eletians left her a message? Gods, if it had all been real, the Eletians, the faction that wanted her dead, already knew she yet lived.
“Dreams.” Fergal yawned. “I dreamed of people laughing at me, and singing ‘knacker’s boy, knacker’s boy…’” He shook his head. “I can’t remember it too well.”
When he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Karigan noticed it glittered like gold dust as it drifted to the ground. She shuddered.
WALKING THROUGH WALLS
Dale Littlepage’s stomach clenched as the wagon bumped along the “road” into the encampment. She closed her eyes not against the sunshine suddenly unfiltered by the forest canopy, but against memory, against black wings.
They had ridden to the wall this summer past, Captain Mapstone and all the Riders she could muster, to gather information for the king. A blast of wild magic from Blackveil Forest had turned life upside down in Sacor City and elsewhere—whole villages had vanished, people had turned to stone in the streets…When they arrived, they’d been astonished to discover a swath of forest toppled by the force of the wind and magic that had funneled through the breach. Branches had been hurled with such power they’d impaled tree trunks. Other trees had been uprooted and huge boulders rolled over. They also found a fresh row of graves dug for those who had not survived the maelstrom.
At the breach itself, there had been confusion when a wraith that had assumed Alton’s appearance tricked them all except Karigan, who attempted to attack him. And it was here that Dale’s memory faltered, became shadowed by the wings, and only afterward had she heard about the illusion of Alton melting away to reveal the wraith, and of Karigan racing through the breach into Blackveil. A battle ensued when groundmites poured out of the forest and attacked the Riders, but for Dale, there were only the wings.
Black wings that had shot through the breach and hovered over her like death’s shadow. She had been certain she was going to die; she’d heard the hunger in the avian’s screech. The wings had closed down on her, their fetid wind roaring in her ears. Talons had hooked into her flesh, and that was all she could remember. The Riders had to fill in the rest for her. Though she did not die that day, others among her comrades had, and she did not understand why. Why had she been spared when others died? A whimper escaped her lips.
“Are you well, Rider?”
Clyde’s voice drew her back to herself and she opened her eyes to the sunshine again, realizing with a start that the wagon had come to a halt. Voices of men at work and the sound of hammering echoed across the encampment. The soldiers had scavenged in the forest for the fallen trees and used them to build log structures to replace their tents for the oncoming winter. Now they framed out the roof of a cabin.
The rest of the wagon train rumbled by and into the encampment. There were many glad greetings from the guards on duty here, for the wagon train brought not only supplies, but letters from home and relief troops.
“Rider?” Clyde asked again.
Dale turned to the grizzled drover. A gruff fellow, he had taken her into his care during the journey from Woodhaven, ensuring their travel did not harm her mending wounds.
“I’m all right,” she told him. The truth was the journey had taken its toll and she was exhausted, but she had only herself to blame, insisting to Garth that she be the one to return to the wall to help Alton. She had tired of “quiet” recuperation and wanted to feel useful again, fully healed or not.
“Let’s find Alton.” Then, for Clyde’s benefit, she amended, “Lord Alton.” Clyde was a devout clansman and frowned on her casual use of Alton’s name, no matter that the nobleman in question was also a Green Rider and her friend.
Clyde nodded and slapped the reins against the rumps of his mules, and the wagon lurched forward. Dale’s horse, Plover, trailed behind on a lead rope. She twisted round to watch the mare, who had become frisky at the prospect of a journey, despite the kindness and good care that had been lavished upon her at Woodhaven.
Just as happy to leave as me, Dale thought. But when she glanced at the breach in the wall, she wasn’t so sure of her decision. The breach had been repaired again with ordinary stonework, but above the new stonework where the wall was pure magic, there was a cleft that looked as though an angry god had torn out an entire section of the wall.
Clyde asked after Lord Alton and was directed to a secondary encampment a bit of a distance along a path heading east. Here they found no log cabins being built, but crisp rows of tents set up between the woods and the wall, and a tower. Dale’s gaze followed it up to the clouds. Tower of the Heavens. This was the tower Alton needed her to enter, if her Rider magic was working properly.
“This is the place,” Clyde said, hauling back on the reins and setting the brake.
As he had so many times before, he jumped from the wagon and hurried round to lift her down despite her protestations she could manage on her own. She had to admit she felt about a hundred years old when she rose from the bench, all aches and exhaustion, all her joints creaking in protest. Her arm bound to her body did nothing to enhance her balance. Clyde was at least twice her age, but he was strong and possessed boundless energy. Before she knew it, her feet were firmly planted on the ground.
That’s better. She stretched and rubbed her back end, glaring at the wagon’s bare wooden bench, polished smooth over the years by the buttocks of so many other tortured passengers.
“You wait here,” Clyde said. “I’ll see to getting you situated.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”
He grunted and nodded in his usual taciturn way, then went in search of someone in authority.
Dale stamped out her legs and stretched again, grimacing as her healing flesh was pulled taut. She walked in circles to further loosen up, and soon found herself wandering away from the wagon toward the tower.
Soldiers on guard duty warily watched her approach, but her own attention fell upon a figure in green, his back to her, and his hands on his hips. He stared at the tower, unaware of her approach.
“Alton?” she said.
He turned, and at first she thought she was mistaken, that this scarecrow of a man couldn’t be Alton after all, but beneath the shaggy brown hair and stubble on his chin, she recognized him. Garth’s description of him had hardly prepared her. He was so thin, and while she felt as though she had aged, he looked it.
It took a few moments for him to register who she was. After her own injuries and sickness, and the past several days of travel, she shouldn’t be surprised if she looked changed as well.
“Dale!” he said finally, and in three strides he was over to her and hugging her gently so as not to cause her healing injuries pain. Then he put her at arm’s length, his eyes searching. “How are you? We didn’t think you…not at first.”
They hadn’t thought she would live, she knew he meant to say. “I guess we’ve both been better. Seems like few of us survived the summer unscathed.” Not wishing to sink into dark thoughts again, she continued, “Lord and Lady D’Yer send you their love as well as some packages.”
Alton nodded. “And your care, was it satisfactory?”
“With Woodhaven’s best menders attending me? And
“Marc? I hope he didn’t pester you too much.”
Dale laughed. “He tired me out at times, bringing me kittens and games, but he was a welcome sight between all those grim-faced menders.”
Alton smiled. “I’m glad.” Then he faced the wall. “Welcome to Tower of the Heavens, or Haethen Toundrel, as our ancestors called it. It’s been the object of my frustration these last two and a half months.”
Dale trailed him as he approached the stone wall of the tower. Empty of embellishment, even of windows or arrow loops, it evoked an inhuman countenance.
“No, uh, progress,” she said, “with your trying to enter it?”
He shook his head. “No one’s been inside since Garth was here.” He then glanced eagerly at her, almost hungrily. “Would you like to give it a try, to go inside?”
Dale gazed at the wall of ashlars before her with trepidation. Unlike Garth or Alton, or several of the other Riders, she had never had the chance to enter the tower. Garth had tried to describe what it was like to pass through the wall and emerge within it, like walking through a veil of water, he’d said, but looking upon this bulwark of stone, she was filled with doubt. She raised a trembling hand toward it.
“Don’t you dare!”
Dale snatched her hand back and stepped away, wondering what she had done wrong. A woman in D’Yerian blue and gold strode toward them, Clyde at her side. She clutched a letter in her hand, and while Dale thought the sharp words had been directed at her, the woman’s gaze settled on Alton, who looked sheepish in return.