Firebrand

They left the inn and mounted up, riding down the road a fair piece before turning off into the woods where Enver awaited them. If it weren’t so early in the day with hours of daylight left in which to travel, Karigan and Estral might have chosen to spend the night at the inn, but it appeared they’d be sleeping beneath the stars again.

Bane, the pack pony, nickered in greeting as they approached. Enver stood beside him while Mist ranged nearby.

“We have brought cranberry nut muffins, courtesy of the innkeeper’s wife,” Estral announced.

Enver looked intrigued. When Estral produced one and handed it to him, he looked it over and sniffed it like a connoisseur. After a nibble, his eyebrows shot up. “Ah, it is good. Sweet and tart.” Then he gazed at Estral. “There was no sign of Lord Fiori?”

She shook her head, and Karigan said, “It sounds as if he came this way a couple years ago, but nothing more recently.”

“That is unfortunate.” Enver had neatly finished his muffin and mounted Mist. “Shall we continue, then?”

Enver led on, Bane right alongside him, followed by Estral. Karigan took the rear. The brightness of the sky, the weak warmth of the sun, dispelled concern about groundmites and she simply enjoyed the woods, the fragrance of spruce and fir, the damp of melting snow. Nuthatches crept up and down the trunks of pines, and chickadees called out. Being immersed in the Green Cloak settled her in a way that being stuck in Sacor City could not. She left behind a certain darkness in the castle, shadows that dissipated beneath the open sky. She did not forget Cade; she could not, especially with the reopening of that part of her still so raw, but in the woods she could feel some peace. She wished he could be there with her and see his world before it became the hard brick cities of the future, before the Green Cloak turned into a forgotten memory. Wishing for it brought sorrow, but it did not break her down or drown her in grief as it might have mere weeks ago.

Condor liked the journey, as well, walking on with eager steps as they went. It helped that Enver followed his Eletian path where the footing was even and easy.

As the day wore on and hot spiced cider and butter cream pie became distant memories, and the white, gray, and green of the winter woods took on a sameness, Karigan fell into a sort of trance watching the hind end of Coda with his tail swishing back and forth in hypnotic fashion. The flutter of crow wings among the branches became indistinct whispers, constant murmurings.

Or, was it the sound of the stream they followed? But when their path diverted from the stream, the susurrations only increased in volume and breaths of wind came at her from odd angles. At times she felt as if insects were crawling over her skin, which was unlikely this time of year, but she still tried to brush them off.

Enver suddenly halted and Karigan reined Condor around Coda to him. “What is it?”

“Cairns of the dead,” he said, pointing to some snow-covered mounds ahead. Leafless trees and brush grew out of them, and Karigan might not have even seen them if Enver had not called attention to them.

“Makes sense,” Estral said. “There were some large battles of the Clan Wars out this way.”

“They lie across our path,” Enver said. “We must go around.”

Now that the mounds had been pointed out, Karigan saw there were many. Too many. Who lay forgotten beneath the cairns?

I do, I do, I do . . . ghostly voices whispered to her.

She shuddered and hastened to follow Enver and Estral. Once they picked their way around and were again on the path, she felt compelled to pause and look back. All was still.

Until it was not. Her senses filled with the clash of arms, shouting, the blowing of horns, the beating of drums, the shrill screams of dying men and horses, the stench of viscera. Pennants streamed in the wind, blood soaked into the earth. A thousand voices filled her mind and she swayed in her saddle. A spectral wind gusted over her bringing the voices in a deafening surge into her mind, and she thought she’d lose herself in the cacophony. Lose herself and become one of them.

A mist clouded her sight. You have the command of them, came the memory of Lhean as he spoke to her back in the castle.

Taken over by a force she could not explain, she sat tall in her saddle, and commanded, “Sleep.”

The clamor quieted, but did not silence. The voice of command welled up inside her once again, as if from the depths of the heavens. “You have earned your rest. Sleep.”

Then she found herself just sitting there, staring back the way they had come, the cairns all around her in the woods quiet, at peace.

“Galadheon?”

She jumped a little in her saddle. It was as if she had napped and dreamed of ghosts, but she suspected it had not been a dream at all, not the way her life tended to go.

“Do you wish to linger?” Enver asked with more curiosity than the question warranted. “Or, would you rather go on?”

“Let’s go on.”

Estral awaited them some distance through the woods. Apparently Karigan had been caught in her reverie, or whatever it was, for quite some time before they realized she was not with them.

“Everything all right?” Estral asked her.

“It will be if you give me one of those muffins.”

Estral gazed askance at her, but dug into one of her saddlebags and produced a muffin for her. They rode on, Karigan nibbling at her muffin and thinking that yes, things were all right. As all right as they ever got for her.

• • •

That night, as they sat in camp, Karigan observed Estral writing in her journal, using the light of Enver’s muna’riel to see by. She wondered just what Estral found to write about. Enver, meanwhile, was wandering out in the woods as was his custom.