Green Rider

Just as she thought to turn the telescope elsewhere, the stars swam in her eyes. Try as she might, she couldn’t focus or blink her eyes clear. A scene began to unfold, and though she tried, she could not pull away from the eyepiece.

Evergreens wheeled, merged, and spun like a kaleidoscope in the eyepiece. Fragments of an image fell into place and created a picture of the all too familiar woods of the Green Cloak and the desolate stretches of the North Road. A red squirrel paused in the road, then scurried across and into the undergrowth and shadows of the woods. A raven alighted at the top of a spruce, the bough bending under its weight. It squawked once and flapped its wings, watchful. All else was still.

Although Karigan couldn’t place the section of road, it looked familiar. But then, there wasn’t much to distinguish one part of the endless stretch of the Green Cloak and the monotonous miles of curving road from another.

Movement caught the corner of her eye, and the telescope obligingly zoomed in at a dizzying rate only to reveal herself. She watched herself lead The Horse away from F’ryan Coblebay’s body. The Horse plodded dispiritedly behind her, his head bowed, while she walked on seemingly deep in thought.

I remember this.

As they rounded a curve in the road, something behind them caught The Horse’s attention. The Karigan within the vision looked behind, too, just as she had done that day, but saw nothing. The Karigan who observed through the telescope, however, saw a shadowy figure following behind, bent and in green, with two arrows protruding from his back.

Before she had time to consider it, the vision dissolved as if flushed with water, only to reveal another. Bright sunlight washed the new scene, but she couldn’t determine anything else about the setting. The soldiers Sarge and Thursgad had their backs to her and obscured her view. The telescope moved in slowly, allowing her to peer over their shoulders.

Captain Immerez sat on the ground soaked in blood which gushed from his wrist. His severed hand lay on the bloodied ground, stark white, and with the fingers still curled around the handle of his whip.

Revolted, Karigan tried to jerk away from the eyepiece, but she was held fast.

I will kill that Greenie. Immerez’s whisper came breathy and close into her ear.

Like the turning of a page, the scene changed. Darkness flooded Karigan’s eyes like puddles of black ink. Then Immerez’s face appeared, a glowing orb, his features chiseled by shadows and flickering light, as from a candle or fire. He moved his face close to hers, rotating his head sideways to gaze at her with his one eye. The shadows shifted across his features and darkened half his face. He smiled.

A sticky wetness dripped into her eyes and Immerez turned into a luminescent blur. She blinked rapidly and the contours of his face sharpened. He pulled back and was surrounded again by the blackness. He thrust his handless stump in front of her face, the wrist now equipped with a metal hook. He turned it carefully and slowly so she might see it from all angles. It gleamed in the unknown light source.

Immerez then pressed the hook into the flesh just below her eye. She gasped at the sharp, cold pain.

Well met, Greenie, he said.

Pain ripped just below her eye. She made a strangled noise of terror, wanting to scream, but her voice was muffled and it was difficult to breathe. She wanted to paw at her cheek, but as if her hands were bound, she was unable to move them. Her breath rasped raggedly and quickly in her ears. The pain . . .

Then Immerez’s face folded in on itself, and the pain ceased.

The next scene blossomed sky blue, with slow moving clouds trailing along in a chill spring breeze. Karigan stood amidst the green of the practice field at Selium. It was pocked with worn, dirt practice rings. A crowd thronged around her. She held the point of her wooden practice sword at the back of Timas Mirwell’s neck as he lay prone on the ground before her.

You are dead, she said.

Timas spat dirt. The roar of the onlookers subsided to painful silence. G’ladheon, he said, that was dirty swordplay—against the rules! He climbed to his feet wiping dirt and spittle from his mouth. He was a small young man and had to look up at her.

I dunno, Timas, an onlooker said. Whether it was against the rules or not, she got kill point. There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd.

Karigan, the watcher, struggled to release herself from the eyepiece, but still she could not move. Must I relive this? As if in answer, the scene continued uninterrupted.

It wasn’t fair! Timas cried.

You just haven’t learned that kind of swordplay yet, said someone else, and many in the crowd laughed. At the top of your class indeed.

Timas sputtered in anger. Karigan flashed a grin at her audience and dipped into a low, self-mocking bow. Timas sprang upon her unguarded back and swatted the wooden sword across her shoulders. Stunned, she fell to her hands and knees. Sharp pain flared across her back. The crowd watched in silence, unable to react.

What’s happening here?

The crowd gave way to a stocky man with steel gray hair. Arms Master Rendle grabbed Timas around the chest and pressed on his wrist to force him to drop the practice sword. He let go only after Timas stopped struggling and kicking.

Then he clasped Karigan’s hand and hauled her to her feet. You all right? he asked gruffly.

Karigan watched the rest, how Master Rendle humiliated Timas for his unwarranted attack by assigning him a month of drudge chores; how the arms master remarked on her abilities with a sword and offered to take her on as a private student. Yes, it was all familiar to her, but what she hadn’t seen before, what she hadn’t noticed, was Timas Mirwell watching from a distance as she and the arms master conversed, his expression one of unadulterated hatred.