First Rider's Call (73 page)

Her essence flowed through Karigan’s body, through her limbs and to the tips of her fingers and toes. She expanded in Karigan’s mind, shielding it to restrict Mornhavon’s influence. For Lil, it was like drawing on a warm cloak, though Karigan’s body was cooler than it ought to be.

She smelled loam and felt it beneath her cheek. A fern tickled her neck, and there was the warmth of sunlight gently blanketing her. For one who had walked in the spirit world for so long, this sensory awakening was ecstasy.

Mornhavon attacked her shield, chipping away at it, and Lil knew she couldn’t hold it indefinitely. She made Karigan sit up, open her eyes, and draw her longknife.
That
gave Mornhavon pause.

She turned the knife so the bladetip was touching Karigan’s ribs, below her breast. She gripped the hilt with both hands.

You wouldn’t,
Mornhavon said.

“How do you know?”

“But I wasn’t always bluffing, was I?”

Mornhavon did not answer, he was thinking it over. She couldn’t give him the time.

Adjusting her grip on the knife hilt, she hoped Karigan would forgive her, and she jerked the knife into her flesh.

Pain!
Lil had forgotten about pain, of how it felt when cold sharp steel tore through flesh and muscle. She gasped in disbelief, and wished urgently to flee Karigan’s body, but she could not. Not yet.

The forest around her raged with a sudden maelstrom. Trees were shorn of their limbs, and one was uprooted and fell over behind her.

Lil’s ploy had been a success. Mornhavon had left Karigan’s body, fearing to lose his own hold on life should Karigan die. Lil withdrew the knife, blood spreading across Karigan’s shirt.

Mornhavon had been deposited in the future, and now it was time to return to the present.

As she traveled, Mornhavon called after her,
You cannot stop the wall from falling!

AVENUE OF LIGHT

The groundmites tore Tierny from her horse and she vanished beneath flailing clubs that fell with sickening thuds. Soldiers who were without horses stood their ground in formation, back to back, hacking at their wild attackers. Yates was helping Dale to stay in the saddle with him, using his legs to guide his horse, and slashing at groundmites beside him.

Garth couldn’t seem to get mounted, for the groundmites swarmed around him, as though attracted by his size. Instead, he faced the enemy and fought, his sword in one hand and his longknife in the other. Chickadee guarded his back, a hoof cracking a groundmite skull.

Laren whirled Bluebird around, blood streaming from her saber. Since the groundmites did not wear armor, they were, in a sense, not difficult to kill. It was just their sheer numbers that posed the problem.

So much for a retreat,
she thought. They just couldn’t break free.

The wraith watched from its place near the breach. It did not engage in battle, but stood there as an ominous presence, a silent general over barbaric soldiers.

Laren carved into the wrist of a groundmite, its howl echoing against the wall. Its club tumbled against Bluebird’s hocks, and he bucked, scattering others from around him.

More soldiers fell. Justin was hauled off his horse, and he fell victim to bloodied clubs. Yates screamed, torn between getting Dale out of harm’s way, and hacking his way to his friend’s side.

How long before the groundmites wore them all down?

Then, with a suddenness Laren could not comprehend, their ferocious assault began to fall apart. She was not one to believe in miracles, and couldn’t even remember the last time she had attended chapel. She did make oaths in the names of the gods on a regular basis, but she just wasn’t religious. But when the groundmites stopped their attack altogether, she decided she was overdue to light a candle at chapel.

The groundmites began to whine and howl. Some of her Riders pressed the advantage and started killing them where they stood. But when the wraith turned and ran through the breach into the forest, the groundmites fled after it, leaving Laren, her Riders, and the soldiers in stunned disbelief.

There would be time to wonder about it later, for she must first tend to her wounded. And the dead. She took one more glance toward the breach, and wondered if she should count Karigan among them.

Karigan’s body had grown colder than ever, a result Lil knew, of the traveling. Why it happened, she did not know. Perhaps because flesh and blood were not meant to endure the strain of passing through the ages.

She brought them back to Karigan’s present and now pressed her hand—Karigan’s hand—against the knife wound to help staunch the bleeding. Lil hadn’t stabbed mortally deep to accomplish what she needed, but it still bled profusely and hurt like the five hells.

She supposed she ought to return Karigan through the breach to her captain. With Mornhavon removed from this time, everything ought to be calming down.

That’s what she thought until she heard a stampede—a stampede of groundmites crashing heedlessly through the forest. She stood in the lee of a stout tree so she wouldn’t get trampled.

Striding through the churning mist behind them came Varadgrim. Her hand went immediately to the hilt of her saber. An old foe he was, a foe that had taken the lives of many of her Riders. He might be little more than a walking corpse, and she beyond the grave herself, but still the old hatred kindled within her.

Sensing her, Varadgrim halted and turned to her, the shreds of his ancient cloak whirling at his knees. He possessed a sword of his own, bright and shining, but thankfully it was not a soul-stealer.

Her saber hissed from its sheath.

Not her saber, she remembered belatedly, and not her body to do with as she wished. Yet she itched to fight. The sword felt right in her hand. Her lust to take Varadgrim fought with her desire to be a good steward of the body with which she had been entrusted.

In the end, Varadgrim made the decision for her. “I will kill the Galadheon.”

“I think not,” Lil said. “Do you know who it is you truly face?”

“Liliedhe Ambriodhe is dead. The Galadheon must die.”

Lil was a little disappointed that her presence failed to impress him more.

He strode over to her and initiated the fight without preamble. It was unlike the Varadgrim of old who had been prone to elaborate flourishes and dramatic declarations, but she supposed a thousand years chained in a tomb might have created a lasting stoical effect.

She eased the saber into place to block his blows. Karigan was of slighter build than she had been, and not as tall, so it took some adjustment on her part, but she was pleased to find Karigan in fighting trim.

The ring of blades filled the forest like a hammer hailing on an anvil. Mist swirled about them as they fought. Varadgrim’s movements were unadorned, but not without purpose.

Likewise, Lil did not allow herself any superfluous movements. She had to preserve both her own energy and Karigan’s. Out of necessity, Lil had always fought to kill, not to show off fancy footwork or some complicated move. No, for her, killing was a utilitarian skill she had put to constant use during the Long War. There was no time for embellishment or showmanship back then, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Varadgrim moved rigidly, and it dulled his swiftness. In some ways, he turned out to be a disappointing opponent. Maybe Mornhavon’s absence sapped him of his energy. He was a fearful presence, but it held no power over her, and gave him no advantage.

It was possible he would outlast her. Karigan’s body was weakening from blood loss, and the swordfight had only increased the flow. And Lil had her own limitations as a spirit. The swordfight had to end, and it had to end soon.

She kept a tree to her back, and allowed Varadgrim to close in. She ducked under a blow that hacked into the trunk. In the moment it took him to free his blade, she came up and behind him, and severed his head from his body.

He crumpled stiffly to the ground. The flesh on his body puckered and decomposed as she watched, leaving behind a pile of rags and a leering skull. His crown melted into itself and oozed into the forest floor. Wild magic had bound him to Mornhavon, and now, in a sense, he was free. The pile of rags heaved a final sigh, collapsing as his bones turned to dust.

Long overdue,
Lil thought.

She sheathed the saber. There was no sense of triumph, just as there never had been in her own day when she took another’s life. Maybe in her early years making her first kills she had felt triumph. It was later on, with maturity, that she realized the ordinary legions of the empire were only doing the same as she: fighting for their ideals, fighting for survival, fighting out of desperation. It took the triumph out of killing.

 

Lil, at great expense to her own energy and Karigan’s, wandered the forest disoriented by the heavy mist and the sameness of trees. She wished to walk the spirit path again, for Karigan’s cold body was a weight now, a heaviness that she must drag around. But she couldn’t abandon Karigan. She would not recover on her own, and no one would find her in the forest. Lil tried calling into her mind, but there was no answer, and she worried that Mornhavon had damaged her irreparably.

Karigan’s body kept moving because Lil forced it to, one step after another. She had ripped off the sleeves of Karigan’s shirt and wadded the knife wound with them. Finally she was able to slow the bleeding.

Karigan!
she sent with her mind. She heard nothing in response, and perceived only the damnable snow.

Karigan plowed through the snow, hugging her arms around herself in an effort to keep warm. It piled up on her shoulders and head, and dripped an icy finger beneath her collar. She could not remember why she was here, or how she had gotten into this wintry wilderness in the first place. Blood oozed from a wound to her midsection, freezing in red crystals. She had lost feeling in her fingers and toes. All she knew was that she wanted to lay down and sleep.

No,
she thought.
Must not do it.
But she couldn’t figure out why.

She thought she heard her name shouted in the distance, but decided it was only the wind rushing through the forest.