Green Rider

The king and captain glanced at one another, then beckoned Horse Marshal Martel, Beryl Spencer, and Connly over. They sat in a semicircle about Karigan as she told them, as briefly as possible, of her adventures. When she described her encounter with Mel, Captain Mapstone’s face fell and she looked away. She seemed little relieved when Karigan told her Mel was safe when she last saw her.

“The castle . . . Rider barracks is no place for a child to grow up,” Captain Mapstone said.

Beryl placed her hand on the captain’s shoulder. “She loves you, and that’s what matters.”

Karigan told of Prince Amilton and how he used magic to torture, kill, and coerce the nobles. “Magic surrounded his hands and . . . and it was like what the Eletian used.” On me, she did not add. “My father was in the throne room with the others. He seemed fine, but I didn’t dare talk to him.”

She recounted her narrow escape from Jendara and how she received the wound. She told of Fastion’s help.

“The Heroes Portal,” Zachary murmured. “I remember. Yes, it’s perfect. Good old Fastion! His years as a tomb guard have served him, and served us, well.”

The others did not understand what he was talking about, and he didn’t enlighten them other than to say, “It is another way in.”

When she told of the attack on the Anti-Monarchy Society, Zachary said, “My brother has turned into a despot of the worst sort. I fear that he will not confine his brutality to those within and around the castle. The city may be in peace right now, but how long before he extends his reach among ordinary citizens and into the provinces?”

While the king, the captain, and the others talked among themselves, Karigan dozed off. Their distant voices became the babble of ghosts, hanging on the fringes of the living world. Her dreams followed dark routes, dim passages of stone and earth. The ghost babbles shivered up and down the walls in whispery echoes. She entered a vaultlike room where pale blue light hovered over a stone slab. Glyphs and carvings of funerary rites on tablets covered the walls. Similar figures ornamented the base of the slab.

Karigan walked over to the slab, sat on it, swung her legs up onto it, and lay down. Disembodied hands pulled a gauzy shroud over her.

“No!” Karigan sat up, wincing at the soreness of her side.

“You’re all right,” said a soothing voice.

Karigan blinked. She felt the fresh air of night blowing through her hair and made out the outlines of branches against the starry night. The king was sitting beside her, pulling a blanket over her.

“I thought you might get cold,” he said.

Karigan pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Th-thanks. I had a dream. . . .”

He nodded. “You have been through a great many things today. I shouldn’t be surprised if you do have dreams.”

“Where are the others?”

“Major Spencer, Captain Mapstone, Connly, and Mirwell are preparing to enter the city.”

“What?”

The king absently ran his hands through his hair. His silver fillet was missing. Without it, he seemed an ordinary man with a shock of amber hair falling into his eyes, but he was a haggard man, tired and careworn. He seemed to have aged years over the course of a day.

“They are taking my head and crown to my brother.” He smiled impishly.

“What?”

“It is part of Beryl’s plan to infiltrate the throne room. My brother knows little of her true affiliations . . . as of yet. Captain Mapstone will be cloaked as the Eletian, and Connly volunteered to take the part of the Mirwellian guard. You see, with our outnumbered forces, our only hope is to win the castle from within.”

“But the lord-governor,” Karigan said, “how will he cooperate?”

“Beryl said she would see to it.”

“Is that it? I mean the whole plan?”

“Oh, no.” Zachary seemed to enjoy telling her the plan. Despite his haggard appearance, there was a light in his brown eyes. “Horse Marshal Martel, a good number of his soldiers, and I will enter the Heroes Portal and infiltrate the castle that way. Alas, unlike Connly and Captain Mapstone, we have no disguise. Upon reaching the throne room, I shall reclaim the crown, and Mirwell will order his troops to regroup and return home.”

“What about me?” Karigan asked.

“Hmm?”

“What part do I play?”

“You have already done more than your share,” he said. “You will rest here with the day’s other wounded and the remainder of Marshal Martel’s troops. Should we fail . . . well, I can depend on you to move these people out of harm’s way.”

“No,” Karigan said.

The king raised a brow. “No?”

Karigan shoved the blanket off and raised herself to her feet. “I’m going with you. King or not, you can’t stop me. My father is being held in the throne room.”

“You are wounded and exhausted,” Zachary said. “I don’t want you to slow us down.”

“You have a broken arm,” Karigan retorted. “Who will be slowing who?”

The king’s eyebrows shot up, and his mouth was quirked in a half smile he couldn’t quite hide. It was as if he wanted to laugh, but he knew better than to do so.

“I see,” he said.

Horse Marshal Martel appeared at the king’s side, his face impassive. “I told you, my lord, we should have left her while she was asleep.”

“I should have listened more closely,” he said.