Blackveil

At least nothing had come to make a meal of them. Yet. And there’d been no sign of the illusory insects feeding on her leg. She swatted her neck and corrected herself: real insects were indeed making a meal of them one nibble at a time. She was astonished that the biters of Blackveil seemed no worse than those on the other side of the wall. Perhaps biters were already plague enough that the tainted magic of the place did not affect them.

“They’re not coming back for us, are they,” Yates said for perhaps the hundredth time. He stood facing away from her, as if he could force his eyes to see again.

“Don’t know,” Karigan replied. “They certainly won’t find us if we’re stumbling around the forest.”

“Waiting around isn’t like you,” he said.

She supposed it wasn’t, but a lethargy had settled over her, and waiting in this instance seemed the sensible course. She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking that I’d made a sensible decision to wait, and then I wondered since when had I started making sensible decisions?”

As the bleak day passed, Karigan fell into a restless sleep filled with dark shapes and a sense of loathing. A rustling awoke her. Yates was sitting beside her and appeared to be half asleep himself. He hadn’t made the noise—it was farther off. She glanced around and caught movement, maybe a shadow, leaping between trees, and almost as soon as she saw it, it was gone.

“What was that?” she murmured, feeling muzzy-headed.

“What was what?” Yates asked.

“Thought I saw something.”

“Forest playing tricks on you again?”

“Maybe,” Karigan replied.

Some moments passed, then Yates jerked his head up. “Now I think I’m hearing things.”

“What?”

“Horses.”

Karigan was about to tell him he was hearing things until she heard them herself, the sound of snorting and several hooves muted on the forest floor. Then she saw them a way off through the woods, six or eight dark gray horse forms ambling between the trees, pulling at sparse vegetation from branches as they went, moving with the mist, never straying from it, almost wearing it as a cloak.

“You’re not hearing things,” Karigan whispered to Yates.

The horses paused, lifting noses to the air, no doubt scenting Karigan and Yates. Karigan narrowed her eyes, wondering how prey animals like horses had survived Blackveil. Then she discerned that perhaps they were not simple horses. Their eyes gleamed amber-red through the mist, and their underbellies and the bottoms of their necks were armored with scales that rippled in the weak light. In fact their movements differed from ordinary horses; they seemed more flexible, their necks more sinuous. One shook its head and she realized even the manes were not ordinary, but bristle-stiff. She shuddered, both fascinated and appalled.

The band continued along, fading away with the mist, vanishing utterly. She described them to Yates.

“Just like everything else in this place,” he grumbled. “Not normal. Definitely not normal.”

“They must be descended from the horses the Arcosians left behind,” Karigan surmised. “Somehow they adapted to the forest.” Or else Mornhavon had altered them as he had other creatures, she thought, but did not add.

The mist horses did not reappear and the interminable day began to fail.

“Maybe my moonstone will help the others find us,” Karigan said, and she was sorry she hadn’t thought of it the previous night.

By the time it was full dark, it had started to pour again. The light of Karigan’s moonstone flared out from beneath their simple shelter, turning the rain into threads of silver fire.

Karigan awoke again to a sense of movement. They’d made it through another night even though, once more, both of them had failed to keep watch. Yates snored softly beside her. It was gray again and Karigan began to wonder if it was really the vapor of the forest, or if like Yates, she was losing her eyesight.

And her mind.

Movement. A black figure floated among the trees. She thought of the mist horses, but the form was human in shape. Had they been finally found by the rest of their companions? “Lynx?” Her voice emerged as a raspy whisper. Despite the wet of the forest, her throat was dry. “Lieutenant Grant?”

No one answered.

Using the bonewood, Karigan struggled to her feet, ignoring the pain striating her leg. When finally she stood, the figure ran off in graceful bounds, fleet of foot and soundless, and then vanished. Karigan tried to run after it, but her leg betrayed her and she fell with a cry.

Yates was up instantly, crawling toward her, his hands feeling the way. When he reached her, he patted her arm, touched her face.

“What happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m passable,” she lied. “Thought I saw something—or someone—again, but it’s gone. I think I’m going mad.”

“Please don’t,” Yates said with a feeble smile. “We’ve enough problems.”

He had, Karigan thought, no idea.

They returned to their shelter and the day passed much the same as the previous one, though Karigan felt less well and gave Yates her half of the morning ration. She did not feel up to eating, and with a sickly languor weighing her down was more inclined toward sleeping.

“You are very quiet,” Yates said.

“Sorry. Not much to say.”

“I wish you’d tell a story or something to help pass the time.”