ARRIVAL
The journey to the wall, Karigan thought, would not
have been bearable without her fellow Riders along. The two
soldiers who were part of the expedition, Lieutenant Grant and
Private Porter, kept to themselves despite friendly overtures from
the Riders to sit by their fire in the evenings.
The members of the
light cavalry also kept separate, sipping their brandy at the end
of the day while the lowest ranked man among them tended to the
camp work and saw to their comforts more as a servant than a fellow
man-at-arms. Karigan, accustomed to the Rider way of things where
everyone carried their own weight, thought it a strange way to
instill camaraderie, but the light cavalry was composed mainly of
those of noble lineage who expected not to serve, but to be
served.
The forester, Ard
Ardmont, did join them at the fire, laughing at their jokes,
telling his own stories of hunting mishaps and of life in the woods
of Coutre Province. He seemed an easygoing, genial fellow, and was
a fine addition to their lively group.
At night when all
had quieted and Karigan lay wrapped up in her bedroll by the fire,
she gazed at the stars, too preoccupied to sleep. Naturally she
worried about Blackveil and what awaited them there, and about the
Eletians and how they would regard her participation in the
expedition.
Yet overriding those
serious concerns was her memory of King Zachary on the steps of the
castle as she departed; a memory of words she wasn’t quite sure she
heard. Come back. To me. A mix of
yearning and anger broiled within her. It was not the first time,
she was startled to realize, he’d spoken those words to her. She
reached back through memory, well back, to the night of the coup
attempt when King Zachary’s brother had taken over the castle.
Karigan had volunteered to spy out what was happening inside. Her
fading ability made her a perfect choice for such a reconnaissance
mission.
The king had
protested her further involvement, wanted to protect her, but he
eventually relented, knowing she was right, that she must be the
one to go. Before she departed, he’d told her to come back. To him.
She’d seen many things in his eyes at that moment, much that went
unspoken—the words had been unnecessary—and she ran from him. Kept
running from him and their dangerous feelings for one
another.
It was, she
discovered, hopeless to run because she’d already succumbed to the
feelings. To him. A breeze cooled the tears on her cheeks; the
stars blurred overhead.
Her father once said
that merchandise forbidden to a potential buyer because of price
often made it all the more desirable. He used this insight to his
advantage in marketing goods, occasionally inflating the price of
some of his wares to make them seem more attractive. More often
than not, a once overlooked bolt of cloth initiated bidding wars by
those who had come to covet it.
In some sense, this
might apply to Karigan’s situation with King Zachary, but if it had
just been about desire of the forbidden, she would have tired of it
long ago, forgetting about him as anything other than her
sovereign. There was more to it all, something more enduring. Try
as she might, she could not forget him. He came to her in her
dreams. When awake, she often imagined his intimate touch on her
skin. It did not help that he kept telling her to come back to him
when they both knew he was committed to Lady Estora.
She rolled over on
the hard ground and gazed into the embers of the fire. If she could
not forget him, she could at least attempt to move on by focusing
her attention elsewhere. She needed to put the king behind her once
and for all, and she found herself thinking about Alton. He seemed
to want to resume a relationship beyond friendship. What would
happen if she opened herself up to that? She had not seen him in
almost a year and maybe seeing him now would awaken dormant
feelings within her.
Or, she thought as
she drifted into sleep, she could just give up. What did her inner
turmoil matter when so much was at stake in the world? It was hard,
though, sometimes not to feel so very alone.
During the next
day’s leg of the journey, Garth rode beside her. She was happy to
have him among the Riders. He was one of her closer friends, a big
bear of a fellow whose hugs she could count on to dispel any
sorrow. When the company slowed to a walk to rest the horses,
Karigan gazed off into the woods only to have her attention drawn
back by an ahem from
Garth.
“Yes?”
“I was wondering,”
he said, “what you’re thinking. I’ve heard maybe two words from you
this entire journey.”
Karigan shrugged.
“I’ve been thinking about Blackveil is all.” She would have liked
nothing more than to confess all that was in her heart, but she
could never say anything about the king, for her Rider friends were
bound to his service, too close. She had no wish to become the
source of gossip either, which was inevitable in such a tight-knit
group. She had revealed herself to only one other person, her best
friend, Estral. In fact, Estral had been sensitive enough to
Karigan’s emotions that she guessed on her own.
It had been an
immense relief for Karigan to speak of it to someone, but now
Estral was far away in Selium and Karigan had to carry her burden
alone.
“Well, I should
think you’ll be happy to see Alton, finally,” Garth
said.
“I will be. I am.”
In contrast to all she held secret about the king, her relationship
with Alton and its troubles were well known to her
friends.
“Hmm,” Garth
rumbled. “Then why do you look more ready for a funeral than a
reunion?”
“Because my true
love is already spoken for.”
“Oh?” Garth’s eyes
popped wide open. “Your true love? And who might that
be?”
“Why you, you big
lunk.” She reached over and poked his meaty arm.
Garth’s mouth
fluttered into an uncertain smile, and when the joke set in, he let
out a great guffaw that echoed into the woods. “Best not let Tegan
know,” he told her between laughs.
“It’ll be our
secret,” Karigan replied. Alas, he did not know she’d only told the
truth about her true love being spoken for, if not who. In any
case, the joke served to deflect further questioning, and the
company moved back into a trot, making any kind of deeper
conversation difficult.
They made good
enough progress so that by the next afternoon, Garth was sent ahead
to inform the wall encampment of the company’s impending arrival.
The closer they came to the wall, the more apprehension gripped
Karigan, as she remembered the last time she was here and imagined
what was to come. The feeling only deepened as she glimpsed the
wall through the leafless branches of the woods. A hush descended
over the company. Most of them had not been to the wall before.
They would not forget it very soon.
When finally they
broke out of the woods into the main encampment, she observed her
companions’ faces turned upward to take in the wall’s infinite
ascent into the heavens and heard their murmurs of dismay at the
violent appearance of the breach above the repairwork, like some
chunk of flesh ripped out by a giant claw.
The encampment
itself had changed since Karigan was last here, with the
construction of a neat row of snug cabins, long low barracks, and
fenced corrals for horses and livestock.
Soldiers, both
D’Yerian and Sacoridian, lined up at attention to greet them. Next
to one of the officers was a flash of green—Dale! Karigan grinned.
She wanted to jump right off Condor’s back and run to the friend
she had not seen since last summer, but military decorum being what
it was, she had to wait while Lieutenant Grant, Lynx, and Captain
Garfield of the light cavalry presented themselves to the commander
of the encampment. Karigan looked for Alton, but he was nowhere to
be seen.
Finally, with the
formalities concluded, the company dismounted and all the Green
Riders converged on Dale for greetings and hugs.
“Hello, hello. Ouch!
Watch my shoulder!”
When it was
Karigan’s turn to hug her friend, she did so gingerly.
“Your shoulder,”
Karigan said. “Still ...”
When last they’d
stood together before the breach, a terrible, huge avian creature
had attacked the Riders and grasped Dale in one of its talons,
nearly carrying her off. It had succeeded in giving her a ghastly
wound, preventing her from making the journey back to Sacor
City.
“No,” Dale replied.
“That’s pretty much healed. “This is, er, something else. Long
story.”
Trace Burns then
introduced Fergal, Sandy, Oliver, and Fern, who, being relatively
recent additions to the messenger service had never met
Dale.
“Green Greenies,
eh?” Dale said.
“Not nearly,” Fergal
replied with a sniff. “I helped rescue Lady Estora.”
“Ah, so you’re the
one,” Dale replied with a grin and a wink to Karigan.
“Those of us not
going over into Blackveil are here to assist Alton with the wall,”
Trace said.
“That’s what the
orders Garth carried from the captain told us,” Dale replied.
“Lynx, Karigan, and Yates are going into the forest and the rest of
you belong to us.”
“Where is Alton?” Karigan asked. Another glance around the
encampment did not reveal his presence.
“Down by Tower of
the Heavens. He’s expecting you. All of
you.” Dale spoke directly to Karigan, and Karigan wondered if there
was something pointed in Dale’s statement, a warning of some kind?
And if so, why?
Dale retrieved her
horse to lead them to Alton, but Plover was so excited to see her
fellow messenger horses that she wheeled and pranced and tossed her
head, and made it very difficult for her Rider to mount. “Be still,
you silly mare!” Dale cried in exasperation. Plover paused long
enough for Dale to get her toe in the stirrup, but she was barely
in the saddle when the mare continued to carry on with her high
spirits, hopping and bucking and snorting. Her antics vexed Dale,
but amused everyone else.
As they rode
alongside the wall toward the secondary encampment, Karigan found
herself nervous, pushing back a loose strand of hair and wishing
she could at least scrub off some of the travel dirt before seeing
Alton. She laughed at herself. He’d seen her in far worse straits
before, hadn’t he? She wondered how he
was looking these days.
Ard suddenly
cantered up from behind and hauled his horse to a walk alongside
her. “You left without me,” he said a little breathlessly. “And I’d
rather not be left back there with those others. Green Riders make
better company.”
Karigan did not
disagree.
“This is some
edifice, isn’t it?” he said in a low, awed voice, sweeping his arm
toward the wall. “Like the gods made it.”
Karigan often
thought of it the same way. “But it wasn’t. It was made by people
like us.”
“And magic,” Ard
muttered.
“Yes, and
magic.”
The secondary
encampment resembled a small tent village. It appeared no cabins
had yet been constructed here, which must have made for a miserable
winter, more so than what Alton had described in his last letter.
The encampment’s inhabitants came forward to greet the Riders,
mainly soldiers and some laborers. Karigan’s gaze pinpointed Alton
immediately as he strode forward with Garth beside him
He looked leaner,
more broad shouldered than she remembered, his hair longer and
wilder. It seemed to Karigan that his experiences in Blackveil and
at the wall were chiseled into his face so that there was little of
the softness of youth left there, making his features all the more
intriguing. She couldn’t help but grin at him. He smiled
tentatively in return.
Then she noticed
someone else with him. “Estral?”