First Rider's Call

She shuddered and broke into a clammy sweat as a shadow rustled by her. This didn’t feel right, and she was about to head back to the main castle to get help, when she heard a very human groan.

Casting all caution aside, she ran to the one chamber with a lamp lit within. It was the room they had chosen for Mara, since it was the largest. They had cleaned out two hundred years of filth, making it cleaner than it probably had ever been in its entire existence. Garth was saving the best pieces of furniture for it, and had even used his own currency to purchase a fine carpet. All of this in hopes their positive thoughts and actions would help Mara heal. They dared not consider the alternative.

Karigan entered the chamber and gasped. Garth lay sprawled on the floor, a nasty bump rising on his temple.

“Garth!” She rushed to his side, placing her hand on his arm. “Garth?”

His eyes fluttered open and he groaned again. “Behind . . .” he whispered.

“What?” Karigan shook his arm, but he had fallen unconscious.

There were footsteps behind her, and before she could turn, a coarse sack smelling of potatoes was thrown over her head. All of Arms Master Drent’s training came into play—she screamed and tussled like a wild thing, kicking, clawing, and elbowing her assailants. They elicited grunts and curses, and she managed to prevent the sack from being drawn over her shoulders.

In the one moment when all their hands were off her, she whipped the sack from her head.

There were three of them: a soldier, a woman whose nose was bleeding, and a big man who must be a blacksmith, for the soot engraved into the lines of his face. The blacksmith and woman looked vaguely familiar, but just now she didn’t have the time to think about it. She stood in a defensive crouch and balled her fists.

“Look,” said the soldier, who wore sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve, “we don’t wish to harm you. If you’d just come along quietly—”

Just like they didn’t wish to harm Garth? “Come along where?”

“Lord Varadgrim came looking for you.” The sergeant had an easy grin despite the incredible words. “Seems you are wanted in Blackveil.”

Karigan was so stunned, she nearly failed to duck in time when the woman swung a club at her head. She grabbed a broom leaning against the wall and used it to deflect other blows. The woman had no training as a fighter, and Karigan had little trouble dancing around her. A good jab with the broom handle into the woman’s gut made her drop the club and retch.

The blacksmith and sergeant were another matter. They were both armed with swords and eyed her confidently.

They waited for her to make the next move, so she did. She broke the broom handle over the blacksmith’s head. His eyes lost focus, and he wobbled unsteadily.

“I heard you were training with Drent,” the sergeant murmured.

Karigan was pretty sure they didn’t intend to kill her, so it perhaps made her more bold. She jabbed at the sergeant with her piece of splintered broom handle, but he easily pushed it aside, and knocked her arm backward with the flat of his blade.

The blow reawakened Karigan’s old elbow injury and sent pain ringing all the way to the roots of her teeth. Her broom handle clattered to the floor.

“I also heard,” the sergeant said, “about your arm injury.”

Karigan rubbed her elbow. “Who are you, and why are you doing this?”

“My name is Westly Uxton, and despite this uniform I wear, I am loyal to the Second Empire. Did you not know the empire will arise again? No? Well this time it shall persevere over the people of these lands.”

It took a moment for the words to register. Wasn’t Uxton one of the “people” of these lands? It didn’t make sense to her. She would have liked to question him further, but the blacksmith’s eyes were regaining focus, and a determined glare was forming on the woman’s face. She began to reach for her club.

Karigan sighed and sagged her shoulders as if beaten. Uxton relaxed subtly in response, thinking the day won. It was not.

Karigan kicked the woman out of her way and pelted into the corridor—where she went sliding across the floor and crashed into the opposite wall with an oomf. She scrambled to maintain her footing on the . . . icy floor? The corridor was freezing. What were these cold wet drops alighting on her cheeks?

“What in the world?”

Snow was falling in the corridor and had already left a thin layer on the floor that glistened gold and silver in the lamplight.

Uxton and his cohorts slipped and slid into the corridor after her and paused, just as astounded as she.

“You see?” Uxton said. “This is the empire’s power! Lord Mornhavon is awakening!”

Varadgrim, Blackveil, empire, Mornhavon. Karigan didn’t like the sound of this, not at all.

They blocked her passage into the main castle, so she had no alternative but to run in the opposite direction. Snowflakes filled in her footsteps as she went, and her breaths emerged in frosty puffs. Her assailants charged after her, trying just as hard as she not to lose their footing on the slippery floor.

She careened around a corner into an unlit corridor. She kept going until she ran out of light and stood in complete darkness. Now, she thought, was a perfect opportunity to find out if her ability was functioning yet.

She touched her brooch, but her ability did not respond. She supposed Uxton and the others only would have had to follow her footprints to find her anyway even if it worked.

Her assailants, bearing a lamp, rounded the corner. She ran blindly into the dark ahead, thinking her only weapon at hand was a snowball—not a very useful weapon. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">