Green Rider

With all her power and might, she chopped down on Shawdell’s blade. There was an explosion of light that went beyond the brilliance of a silver moonbeam—it was a crystallized, pure whiteness that blinded the eye.

Then she thrust at him and cut deep. Shawdell floundered back. He held a shattered sword in one hand and held his stomach to keep his guts from spilling out with the other. He opened his mouth to speak, but only blood poured out.

Karigan panted. “You underestimate the will of mortals to survive. You’ve underestimated all along.”

But even as she watched, the folds of flesh around his gashed belly began to knit together beneath his hand. Though blood still spilled from his lips, he said, “And you underestimate the dark powers, girl. Your moonbeam is nothing.”

As if in angry response, the moonbeam sword coalesced upon itself into a bright shining sphere. The light grew and flared with multiple rays of light, seeking, searching. Shawdell dropped his useless sword hilt to shield his eyes and staggered backward. As on the silver moon night when she had seen him walking after the ball, he seemed protected by a black shield. But this time, the shield fluctuated, thinning here, and thickening there. The more his shield faltered, the more the moonbeams grew and probed for a weakness. And stabbed.

Shawdell screamed, and his gray tunic darkened with blood. He backed away, still holding his half-healed belly and flailing his other arm madly as if he were being attacked by a hive of bees. His gray horse appeared from the woods, and he staggered after it, fighting the moonbeam all the way.

He crawled onto the horse’s back like a wounded spider and urged it into a gallop. The blade of light streaked after him into the woods.

Shawdell’s slave spirits howled plaintively, and disappeared. The Green Rider ghosts merged and faded. Somewhere in the valley, a Green Rider captain watched incredulously as her assailant dropped her sword in mid-strike.

Karigan closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she looked at her palm. The moonstone was no more than a handful of crystalline fragments glittering in the sun. The moonbeam was gone forever. She slipped the fragments into her velvet pouch.

Karigan sagged to the ground next to Alton D’Yer. She brushed hair away from his wan face. He breathed shallowly, still alive despite the arrow in his side. She didn’t know how to help him, but held his hand and spoke quiet, encouraging words, not knowing if he even heard her.

In time, Captain Mapstone limped up the ridge toward her, leading her horse behind her. Her green uniform was splayed with blood—that of her enemies, Karigan concluded, though there was an ugly gash above her brow and blood stained her face like a mask. The captain gazed wearily at her, at the two messenger horses, and at Alton D’Yer sprawled on the ground. She dropped the reins of her horse and knelt beside Alton.

“He still lives,” she said in surprise. She yanked the arrow from his side and quickly wadded the wound with cloth. “The wound itself is nothing, but who knows what evil this arrow is tainted with. He is in fever now.”

“Give it to me.”

“What?” Captain Mapstone gazed at Karigan’s outstretched hand, not comprehending.

“The arrow,” Karigan said. “Give it to me.”

The captain looked at it doubtfully for a moment, but complied when she observed Karigan’s determined expression. Karigan touched the arrow reluctantly. She could feel the taint of death in it, the torture. Before that taint could seep through her skin, she broke the arrow on her knee.

“What?” Captain Mapstone raised a brow, but when Alton coughed and groaned, she returned her attention to him.

Karigan walked down into the valley among the carnage, across the blood slick grasses. The dead lay in mockery to the beautiful lupine that wavered in a breeze. The Sacoridian dead had been separated from the groundmites. She detached herself from the gore, and searched for those impaled by black arrows. When she found the arrows, she broke them.

When she dropped the remnants of the last arrow to the ground, she found herself by King Zachary. He knelt amidst the Sacoridian dead, his people, and sobbed into his hand. The other hung at an awkward angle at his side as if his arm had been broken. Nearby, six white corpses lay in a row, including the smiling terrier, Finder.

She looked away, not wishing to intrude on his grief, and walked to where Condor stood at the edge of the battlefield, his head hanging low. Karigan stumbled over a groundmite shield emblazoned with a dead, black tree. What it could portend, she did not know, and was too tired to think about it.

THE NEXT MOVE

Karigan jerked awake with a cry. The sun had moved its way over the west ridge, angling deep shadows across the waving grasses and lupine of the valley of the Lost Lake, which had once been the Mirror of the Moon, Indura Luin. Ravens circled in the sky, waiting to alight on the battlefield; waiting to see what scraps of gore they could feed on. The encroaching shadows chilled Karigan and she shivered.

“You all right?” Captain Mapstone sat next to her, huddled beneath her shortcoat which was draped over her shoulders.

Karigan sat up and nodded. She had been overcome by a great weariness not long after Horse Marshal Martel’s fifty light horse had trotted into the valley, all shining helms and breast plates, the horses held in perfect formation. Their display of decorum would have impressed any parade spectator.

However, when the soldiers saw the black smoke pluming from the pyre, flames licking the corpses of groundmites, and when they saw the wounded, their decorum faltered. Eyes popped open, oaths were sworn, some made the sign of the half moon, and others simply stopped in their tracks.