The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain
Zachary indicated they should rise. “And what troubled time does Prince Jametari think this?”
“Little passes without our notice, especially that of our Ari-matiel. We are aware that your lady has been taken from you.”
Zachary’s eyes narrowed just a hint. “We have only just heard the news ourselves. How is it the Eletians know so much?”
“We have different ways of knowing,” the woman replied. “We hear the voice of the forest carried along the stream that flows through our camp. We felt a small surge of magic in the woods west of us, and the tale is told to us by limb, by leaf, by breath of wind.”
Old Sperren, leaning on his staff of office, quaked to life beneath his cloak. “How do we know you did not take Lady Estora yourselves?”
“He knows,” the woman said, gazing at Zachary. “Deep inside he knows the truth of it. We have nothing to gain by seizing this land’s future queen and everything to lose. There is another power at work in the lands. You may ask your Green Rider captain if we speak truth.”
Laren’s eyes widened. How did they know the nature of her special ability?
“Laren?” Zachary said.
She brushed her fingers over her brooch. It warmed to her touch, and she felt nothing but harmony, no sense of falsehood or deception. Only peace. The voice of her ability fairly hummed with truth. Astounded, she nodded to the king.
Zachary relaxed perceptibly. “What is this other power you speak of?”
“It is something we’ve been aware of since summer,” the Eletian said, “when so much was awakened and stirred up. However, when all else settled, this did not. We know not its shape or intent, only that it lies westward, and that it was behind the surge of magic we felt in the woods. We feel that your rescue party will track the abductors westward toward the source.”
Colin called one of his Weapons over and spoke quietly to him. The Weapon trotted out of the throne room.
“And this is what brings you forth from your encampment?” Zachary asked.
“We had no desire for blame to be mislaid upon us, and wish for you not to fear us as a threat. That was your line of thought, was it not?” She eyed them each in turn. “And our Ari-matiel sends words, for he is one gifted with foresight, and you may use his words as you will. Telagioth?”
One of the men stepped forward and put his hands before him, palms upward. Laren expected some enchantment to arise from them, at least some glow of light, but it did not. He simply spoke: “Ari-matiel Jametari says, ‘The golden lady shall find safety only in green. A time shall come when black shrouds green, and among the dead a voice shall speak of stone.’”
Silence followed until Sperren sputtered, “What in the five hells is that supposed to mean?”
“We do not know,” the woman said, “though we assume ‘golden lady’ refers to the one who was taken. Our Ari-matiel does not interpret his words. Often he does not remember their speaking. It is up to the recipients to find the meaning.”
“Worthless,” Sperren muttered.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” the woman said.
With that, and without seeking leave, the Eletians bowed and departed. Once they exited the throne room, everything was cast into its ordinary gloom and felt tired, as though the sun had moved behind the clouds.
Later that evening, Laren mulled over the day’s events as she wandered down to the Rider wing of the castle. The company of Weapons and her two Riders had set out in pursuit of Lady Estora hours ago, and there was much to think on. The parameters of the situation staggered her. Possible civil war with the eastern provinces, loss of confidence in Zachary by his people. If he could not protect their future queen, how could he protect them? If anything happened to Lady Estora, she could see only disaster, and who knew what was brewing in Blackveil. They could all be caught up in internal fighting when suddenly the threat of Blackveil descended on them.
She found the Rider wing quiet. Many of her Riders were out on errands, several paired with new Riders-in-training. The empty corridor and closed doors left her feeling desolate, but she walked on.
A blur of white fur streaked past her feet. She jumped aside, her heart clamoring in her chest. The creature—a cat?—darted through a doorway standing ajar and into the room beyond. Laren peered in, and realized the room was Karigan’s. Two globes of gold-blue gazed back at her. She opened the door all the way and the corridor’s lamplight revealed the cat nestled in a clump on Karigan’s bed. It watched her every move, tensed to leap away if she came too close.
“Huh.” Laren left the door cracked open, and headed on to the common room where she found Connly, his heels upon the hearth and a mug of tea cupped in his hands.
“Captain!” He stood in surprise and she gestured he should sit. She pulled up a rocking chair to sit next to him.
“Since when did Karigan take in a cat?” she asked him.
Connly snorted. “I don’t think she knows she has. It sleeps there on her bed most every day. Sometimes we find it here at the hearth. We leave it scraps and water. We think it lives in the abandoned corridors. It’s not bothering anyone.”
“I suppose.” Laren’s thoughts were already plunging back into the realm’s troubles. She rocked absently, only half listening as Connly updated her on the doings of the Riders.
She had approved of Lady Estora confronting Zachary yesterday. She had approved of her spirit, and had thought Zachary was being overprotective. It surprised her, really, for he had done little else to recognize her status. Giving over his study to her had been a compassionate move, which Laren had applauded, and there had been the obligatory appearances at state and social events, but otherwise he had reached out very little to her.
Should this crisis pass and Lady Estora return unharmed, she planned to have a long talk with him no matter how unhappy it made him. If Lady Estora was to share power with him, he must bring her in on meetings, have her sit beside him during public audiences. She needed to hear the voices of the common folk and their troubles, to see the mechanics of her country at work.
Then there was the conversation Laren intended to have with Lady Estora herself, the one about revealing the secret. She had not yet approached the young noblewoman, thinking there was plenty of time, and she’d had so many other immediate concerns—duties to attend to, meetings to sit through, problems to be solved. Now she was sorry she’d never gotten a chance to speak with her.
Until Lady Estora returned to them healthy and unharmed, it was all moot anyway.
“—and I don’t see us making any progress with Ben and the horses,” Connly said.
She shifted in her chair becoming aware of where she was again. “Ben,” she said.
Connly glanced sideways at her. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”
“You were talking about Ben and horses.”
Connly laughed. “Yes, at the very end. Don’t worry, there wasn’t anything terribly important. Not like the other news of the day.”
“Could you tell me again? Tell me what my Riders have been up to?”
Connly started over and this time she listened, and listened closely and engaged herself in the routine and the mundane. It was a relief from the day’s greater, more threatening events.
AUBRY CROSSING
The Green Cloak’s sheltering growth was a distant memory for Karigan and Fergal as they forged ahead into stiff winds that swept out of the arctic lands in the far north and cut through the Wanda Plains and into western Sacoridia like a scythe of ice. Only patches of trees, stripped of their leaves, lent some protection, but the farther north and west they traveled, the more the land opened up, and the more fierce the wind became.
The horses didn’t seem to mind the cold in the least. Their coats had fluffed up almost overnight. Both Riders, had donned their fur-lined greatcoats against the chill and wrapped scarves around their faces. There were, fortunately, adequate inns along the way to provide them shelter from the cutting wind and a chance to warm up.
Karigan halted Condor beside a signpost, its arms pointing east and west along the road, a third arrow pointing northwest toward a narrower dirt track. The sign boards creaked in the wind.
“Ten miles to Aubry Crossing,” Karigan told Fergal.
“What?” he shouted.
Karigan fought to not roll her eyes. She pointed to her ear.
“Oops, sorry,” Fergal said, and he pulled tiny wads of linen he used to block the wind from his ears, which he said made his ears ache.
“I said,” and Karigan pointed at the signpost, “ten miles to Aubry Crossing.”
“Oh.” He appeared unaffected by the news and stuffed his ears again.
Now Karigan did roll her eyes. She for one was relieved to be closing in on their next destination. She’d be glad to get out of this wind for a while. She reined Condor onto the spur leading northwest and nudged him into a leisurely jog, Fergal and Sunny following close behind.
Aubry Crossing was a minor border town between Sacoridia and Rhovanny. To the south was Lecia, the primary border crossing between the two countries.
Aubry Crossing was, as Captain Mapstone described, a small town with a few inns and outfitters. There were some rough houses on either side of the road, and that was about it, except for the barracks at the boundary gate.
Karigan stopped at an outfitter’s and asked for directions to Damian Frost’s place. When she rejoined Fergal outside, she patted Condor’s neck and said, “Well, that was a bit convoluted.”
Fergal cupped his hand to his ear. “What?”
“Oh, never mind.” She waved him off and mounted, hoping she could keep the directions straight.
After the yellow house down the main street she was to head due north on a path. She somehow missed the yellow house. Up and down the street they went, Karigan muttering to herself and Fergal following with an oblivious expression on his face. No yellow house was to be found. The proprietor of the outfitter shop must have observed them going back and forth for he emerged on the street and pointed to a ramshackle cottage that was weather-beaten to a dull gray.
“That’s the yellow house,” he said.
Karigan rounded her lips into an O and thanked the man. On closer inspection she discerned a few faded flecks of yellow paint the wind hadn’t peeled away.
“Yellow house. Right. Hope the rest of his directions are more clear.”
“What?” Fergal demanded.
Karigan urged Condor past the “yellow” house and onto a trail. It passed the back side of a tiny chapel of the moon and the town’s burying ground with its cairns and carved stone markers. Other paths branched off from the main trail to homesteads and farms. She was not to turn off until she came to the “big rock.” The proprietor of the outfitter shop assured her she could not miss it. She hoped not, for large rocks were plentiful along the trail.
When she came to it, she had to admit the rock was rather obvious. It was a behemoth of a boulder that looked as though the gods had planted it in place. It dwarfed everything around them, including the horses, and was a finer grain of rock than others in the landscape. Deer moss grew like a furry cap atop it and splotches of blue-green lichens spread across weathered carvings. Karigan had seen the ancient picture-writing elsewhere on other travels, and it did not surprise her to see it on this boulder that was such a major landmark.
There were more recent markings as well—initials scratched over the pictographs, some with dates. People were always wanting to announce their existence to the world in a way that would surpass the ages, creating some sort of immortality. For all Karigan knew, the more ancient carvings were just another incarnation of such an urge.
She almost missed the horse carving, it was so faded and matted with lichens. Elsewhere she had taken the image to represent Salvistar, steed of the god Westrion, who carried souls to the heavens. Legend had it that Salvistar was the harbinger of battle and strife. But in this location the carving of a horse could be far more simple in its symbolism.
The path forked at the boulder, and Karigan reined Condor left. The trail narrowed and rambled through thicket and field and under the crooked boughs of apple trees. Trying to remember the shop proprietor’s directions was not easy. She reined left again at the “broken oak,” straight at the “old wagon wheel,” right on the path at the stream.
Very soon their daylight dwindled. Karigan paused to recall what their next landmark was, the stream rushing and swirling beside her, and aglow with the last gleam of day. Fergal rode Sunny on ahead, quickly disappearing into the dusk.
At the stream, there was something important she was supposed to remember. As soon as she heard the sounds of thrashing in underbrush and a shouted, “Stupid horse!” from Fergal, she did.
She moved Condor out at a swift trot, and in moments they reached Fergal, who was digging his heels into Sunny’s sides in an effort to convince her to cross a bridge over the stream. He’d broken a branch off a tree and was using it like a whip. Sunny, the whites of her eyes flashing in the dark, placed a tentative hoof on the bridge, pushed as she was by Fergal, then whirled away on her haunches in terror.
Fergal hauled on the reins and swatted her with the branch. “Idiot!” he hollered.
Before he could raise the branch again, Karigan and Condor were there. Karigan ripped the branch from his hand and Condor pivoted, placing himself between Sunny and the bridge.
Karigan and Fergal stared hard at one another, each breathing hard. Fergal pulled out the wads of linen from his ears and looked ready to shout something angry at her. Karigan beat him to it.
“Never, ever use a stick on this horse or any other,” she said, barely restraining the full force of her anger. She threw the branch clattering into some trees. “If I ever see you mistreat Sunny again, you will be walking back to Sacor City and I’ll see to it you wished you never even heard of the Green Riders.”
It was hard to read Fergal’s expression, for his face was shadowed. Karigan trembled with fury.
“There is only one idiot here,” she continued, “and it’s not Sunny. She may have just saved you from a bad accident. She may have even spared you your life.”
At Fergal’s snort of disbelief, Karigan dismounted and walked onto the bridge. It looked fine and sturdy in the dark, crossing the deep, strong stream flowing between steep embankments. It would be difficult, if not foolish, to attempt fording the stream without a bridge.
But, according to the shop proprietor in town, this was not the bridge to cross, and Karigan felt it the moment she stepped upon it. It swayed with her weight and the planking creaked beneath her feet. It would never support a horse.
“That shopkeeper warned me it might be in bad shape,” she said, “especially after that storm we had.” Some of the planking was soft beneath her foot, and she stomped on it, breaking through rot. Pieces of wood splashed into the stream below.
“Sunny sensed this bridge was not safe,” Karigan explained. “Instead of beating her, you should have listened to her warning. Call horses stupid if you must, but they’re more intelligent than some people.”
Fergal made no reply, but his head was bowed.
Karigan left the bridge and mounted Condor, reining him upstream where there was supposed to be a better bridge. Fergal and Sunny followed.
Karigan could have sworn she heard Fergal say he was sorry, but if he did, the words were not meant for her. Some of her tension eased, but it seemed maybe her hopes for Fergal moving beyond mere duty in his care of horses were never to be realized. Maybe with his background, he’d never be able to genuinely care for horses, never allow himself to care. And with his cruel knacker father as his model? Karigan shook her head.
And yet Fergal had been called. He had been called to be a Green Rider, which necessitated riding horses. Perhaps whatever higher powers existed in the world knew something she did not.
Was it just coincidence Fergal was chosen for an errand that included visiting the man who supplied the Green Riders with thei
She’d experienced too much in her own life to believe in pure coincidence. Maybe, just maybe, this visit to Damian Frost would be just the thing to help Fergal see beyond duty. Maybe he’d learn to care. Or it could be too much, too overwhelming, and there was a chance it might drive him to reject horses altogether.
It was out of her hands, she decided. Only Fergal could determine how it would all turn out.
“Wait,” Fergal called to her.
Karigan halted Condor, and Fergal nudged Sunny up beside them. He kept the mare on a long rein, was gentle with the bit.
“Yes?” Karigan asked. Was that the shine of tears on his cheeks? It was too dark to tell.
“It won’t happen again,” he replied. “I–I don’t want to disappoint Captain Mapstone or the king.”
Or you, he might have added.
“I know Sunny’s not stupid,” he continued. “It’s just…I don’t know how to be.”
“Listen to your heart,” Karigan said.
“I just hear my da.”
“He’s far, far away, Fergal. He can’t tell you how to think or feel now. You are a Green Rider, and we are your family. You don’t have to be the knacker’s son if you don’t want to be.”
Fergal fell into thoughtful silence and again they set off, at last coming to a sturdy bridge Sunny did not balk at. Karigan noted Fergal patting the mare’s neck as they crossed, and the last of her tension eased, allowing her to settle into a kind of peace.
In the dark, Karigan feared she would miss the last sign, a cairn at a junction of three trails. She need not have worried, however, as the pile of stones was enormous and it was topped by a flat-faced rock with a horse painted in white and an arrow pointing the way.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
“Good. I’m starving.” If Fergal continued to feel remorse for his earlier behavior, she could not hear it in his voice, unless he sounded just a little too chipper.
As they continued on, Condor’s step picked up and he bobbed his head. Was it possible he retained memories of his first home? With messenger horses, anything was possible.