Green Rider (53 page)

Karigan, like Alton, took the scope away from her eye in disbelief. On the opposite ridge, and farther along their own, metal glinted in the sun.

By Breyan's gold, they're under attack!

Alton saw the reflection, too, and took the telescope from her. "Aeryc and Aeryon, have mercy. Those are groundmites."

BLACK ARROWS

Mirwell yawned.

"Are you tiring, my lord?" D'rang asked.

Mirwell surveyed the valley. The hunters moved at an excruciatingly slow pace. They waded through the tall grass in search of hare or small rodents at the absolute worst time of the day, with the sun still high in the sky and the critters burrowed away to where even Zachary's fine terriers could not dig them out. Even if it was the right' time of the day, the noisy nobles would scare even the deafest of game to the far reaches of the country.

"I am not tired, D'rang," he said. "I'm bored. Though I believe things will get interesting very shortly." He glanced at Beryl. He had hoped for things to grow interesting between the two of them, but now she didn't even talk, except to say "yes, my lord." She was no better than the boy who had tended him during his bath the other night. Beryl's beautiful eyes were glassy and vacant. Whatever the Gray One had done to her, he had removed or hidden her spark of life and personality.

Mirwell squinted at the ridges on either side of the valley, which formed an excellent place for an ambush. The Gray One's forces could hide beyond the ridges and then, when the time came, trap Zachary and his nobles in the bottom. The valley was narrowing even now.

"Let us pause here," he said, "and see what unfolds. I have no wish to get caught in the thick of things."

"Yes, my lord," Beryl said in a deadpan voice. She reined her horse in reflex and sat there staring straight ahead.

Then, as if on cue, a Weapon fell from his horse, impaled by two arrows. The drunken nobles hauled on the reins of their panicked steeds. At least a few lord-governors would die today, eliminating possible contenders for the throne and leaving their provinces in disarray. Mirwell had hoped more would join the hunt, but they knew from past years what a bore it was.

A bore no longer
, he thought.

Twenty to thirty metal-clad figures swarmed over each ridge toward the valley floor. The brave little terriers charged the groundmites as if the instinct to attack the creatures had been bred into them. Nobles fell to the ground with arrows bristling from them like pins in a pin cushion.

"Who is that?" Alton asked. He pointed at the opposite ridge and passed Karigan the scope.

She trained it where he pointed. At first she saw no one among the trees and tall grasses, but then a solitary figure standing there became discernible. Just barely. He was dressed in gray. She nearly dropped the telescope.

"You know him?" Alton asked.

"I've encountered him," she replied, overcome by shakiness. "A gray rider. The Shadow Man." Condor shifted his weight and pawed the ground, his ears laid back. "We've got to do something."

"I agree, but what? We would most likely get ourselves killed down there."

Karigan grabbed only air where the hilt of her saber should have been. It was the one thing that had not been returned to her. "We must stop that gray rider. He uses terrible black arrows. They're magic… and evil. We must stop him."

Alton loosed his saber from his saddle sheath. "Well," he said with a rueful smile, "I was tired of being left out of the action. My family will kill me if they find out about this. And if I survive."

Karigan saw that he was about to charge down into the midst of the ambush. "Don't go yet. I'm going to ask for help."

She freed the little velvet pouch from her belt and drew out the bunchberry flower, now with only three petals left on it. Alton held himself taut, ready to ride into the valley to fight for the king, but watched Karigan with his head cocked at a quizzical angle to see how she hoped to find help.

She plucked a petal from the flower and threw it into the breeze. It floated into the sky and was whisked away by the air currents. "Please bring help," Karigan said.

Alton snorted in disbelief. "If that isn't the most outrageous—" Night Hawk reared, and he fought to keep his seat. "Now what?"

What Alton D'Yer considered to be outrageous was blown away by a gathering of wispy, shifting spirits who arrayed themselves before Karigan. F'ryan Coblebay, dead F'ryan, stood frontmost. The faces of his companions stirred and changed as if under water, their voices a breathy babble. Alton blanched, enabled by some whim of the shadow world to perceive the dead, too.

"F'ryan," he said. "How—?"

F'ryan did not acknowledge the young lord, as if he must keep each movement to the barest minimum. Instead, he stood before Karigan.
I have come to help one last time
, he said.
One last time for the Wild Ride
.

The Wild Ride
, the other ghosts echoed.

Alton glanced at Karigan, stricken, and she knew exactly how he felt.

In the valley, several nobles had been slain, though the rest attempted to repel the attackers, but mostly in vain. The remainder of the guards and Weapons left them unprotected and ringed the king, and though several groundmites lay dead, the odds were impossible.

You must end the pain
, F'ryan said to Karigan.
Soon I will fade and be enslaved by him
. He swept his pallid hand across the valley where the gray rider stood unseen without the aid of the telescope. So
many have already fallen to him. You must break the arrows. Break all the arrows
.

Break arrows
, the ghosts echoed.

It is the last time for the Wild Ride
, F'ryan said.

The Wild Ride! The Wild Ride! The Wild Ride!

"Hang on for your life," Karigan warned Alton. His wide eyes told her he was clearly frightened.

Condor and Night Hawk sprang down the hill after the ghosts, and it was as Karigan remembered. Everything wheeled past her as an indistinct blur in streamers of color. But this time the ghosts remained hushed and grave, intent upon their goal. Their passage was like a rustle of wind across the grasses, for this Wild Ride lasted only moments, and when it ended, they stood on the opposite ridge abreast of the Shadow Man. The ghosts seethed and wavered behind them. Alton was still white from the shock, his features taut, but he was in one piece.

The Shadow Man gazed into the valley. He leaned on his longbow and held in his hand in a casual, careless way, a black arrow. The spectral breeze of the ghosts fluttered his gray cloak. He turned to them, and although his features lay shrouded in the shadow of his hood, Karigan felt his gaze upon her.

She licked her lips, seized by fear and dread, wondering what it was the ghosts expected her to do against this one who possessed dark magic. She hadn't even her saber to use.

Alton overcame his fears first. He sat tall in his saddle, and with the most aristocratic bearing he could summon, he commanded, "Call off your attack."

Soft laughter trickled from beneath the Shadow Man's hood. "What a pretty hero you make, Lord D'Yer." The Shadow Man tossed his hood back, revealing deep golden hair that seemed to shine with a halo beneath the sun.

"The Eletian!" Karigan said.

Eletian, Eletian, Eletian
, the ghosts babbled.

"I see the shades have come to your aid again, Karigan G'ladheon, but to what end? Here they have placed you within my grasp. Of you I shall make another slave."

The ghosts shrieked like the winter wind in the fury of a tempest; their otherworldly voices rose in a crescendo to an unbearable, piercing whine, and they began to spin around Karigan, Alton, and the Shadow Man, in a dizzying blur of white like a cyclone. The faster they revolved, the more high-pitched their voices rang, until it was almost beyond the hearing of living beings. Alton and Karigan covered their ears, the horses dancing beneath them and rolling their eyes.

The Shadow Man stood still, undismayed by the spirits' display, and uttered quietly words that had not been heard for hundreds of years, words of evil summoning that had never been spoken since the end of the Long War. And yet he spoke these words with ease.

The wail of the ghosts died abruptly, and they split apart, fell away, and reassembled in a mass behind Karigan and Alton, waiting. Waiting for what?

A new moaning grew as if from the very earth, and resonated in the air all around them. The trees trembled, and a gloom materialized behind the Shadow Man. Shawdell spoke the harsh words again, and the Green Rider ghosts seemed to cringe.

"What—" Alton began. His hair twisted and turned in a spirit wind. "What could ghosts be afraid of?"

"Other ghosts," Karigan said.

A host of the dead formed behind Shawdell, merging and separating among themselves. Their moaning was worse than a dirge, low and leaden and despairing. Slowly they passed around and over Shadwell intent on facing the Green Rider ghosts. They were young and old, some in uniforms, others dressed in the plain clothes of commoners.

Karigan and Alton put their hands in front of their faces as if to ward off the spirits as they surged toward them. But the ghosts passed by and between them. Karigan uncovered her eyes, but too soon. A spirit with the visage of a matronly, older woman, walked straight through her. Karigan felt the spirit as a blast of cold, like stepping into a winter cold room.

Each of Shawdell's spirits was impaled by two black arrows.

The faint trumpet of a battle horn could be heard, muffled as if an echo of time, and then there was the distant ring of blades being drawn, and still the low dreadful moan. The spirits streamed all around them like a fog on a hilltop shaped and reshaped by the wind.

Shawdell stood unflinching as the ghostly battle was waged around him.

The horses trembled, their necks lathered in a foamy sweat, barely tolerating the spirits that swarmed and moaned about them. Karigan watched as Alton slid off his unsettled horse and grimly dodged the ghosts to put himself in front of her and Condor. He stood erect and proud before the Eletian and drew his blade. Karigan wished he wouldn't put himself in the line of fire, further endangering himself. She jumped off Condor to stand beside him and lend support. They were in this together. He glanced briefly at her and she saw the apprehension in his eyes.