First Rider's Call

The captain snuffled, and cradled it to herself like a new baby. “How do you know?”

Karigan didn’t have to answer for the captain to figure it out.

“Oh.” Then after a few moments, she asked, “Should I?”

“It hasn’t been heard in a long time,” Karigan said with a smile. “Someone has to end the silence.”

The captain gave her a slanted smile, wiped her tears away with her sleeve, and blew on the horn of the First Rider. The notes rang sharp and shrill. They blasted out of the captain’s quarters onto castle grounds, resounding against the highest battlements and turrets.

Even after the captain finished, the notes echoed on, and Karigan imagined them coursing through the countryside and beyond. She felt them stir within her, felt her Rider spirit wanting to respond.

The captain raised her eyebrows and looked at the horn anew. “It works.”

Karigan couldn’t help but laugh at the understatement. The captain grinned in return.

Within moments, Riders rushed to the captain’s quarters.

“We heard,” they said, “and we had to come.”

Garth peered through the arrow slit window. “We were called,” he added.

The captain stepped outside to share with them the finding of the horn. They all wanted to touch it, to hear it ring out again. The captain laughed and said, “I’m sure you’ll hear it soon enough.”

She encouraged them to return to their duties, and told them she’d have more to show them at a later time.

“This didn’t seem like the right moment,” she said, stepping back inside, “to show them everything in the chest.”

“I think I have an idea about what to do,” Karigan replied, and she explained it to the captain who agreed fully.

“Yes, it is time we remembered our fallen.”

A knock came upon the captain’s door. This time it wasn’t a Rider, but the mender, Ben. Karigan’s spirits plummeted, thinking he had come to deliver bad news about Mara. Karigan could tell from the captain’s demeanor that she had had the very same thought.

Ben just stood there on the step, looking bewildered. “Hoof—hoofbeats,” he said. He stuck a finger in his ear as if to unplug it. “I hear hoofbeats.”

The captain’s face miraculously brightened with delight. “Come in, Ben.”

The mender stepped in, oblivious to his surroundings. The captain went to her shelves and pulled down a coffer that looked much like the one containing the First Rider’s horn. She set it on her work table and opened it.

Within were what had to be well over a hundred gold brooches, fashioned into winged horses. Karigan, who had acquired hers from a dying Rider far from Sacor City, had never seen it before.

Ben stood over the open coffer, fingering through various brooches. He nearly dug to the very bottom until he chose one of which he seemed to approve.

It rested in his palm and he just gazed at it.

The captain took the brooch and pinned it to Ben’s smock.

“Welcome, Rider,” she said.

The words stirred some memory in Karigan, like a feather brushing against her mind.

Ben blinked as if just awakening. “What am I—?” He glanced at the brooch now affixed to his smock. “What?” Then he looked at Karigan and Captain Mapstone. “What?”

“You’ve answered the call, Rider,” the captain said gently.

“What?” His voice cracked in disbelief. “I can’t—I can’t—” He swallowed hard. “I’m—” He put his palm to his temple as if checking for a fever. “I can’t!” he sputtered. “I—I’m afraid of—”

Karigan and the captain leaned forward, waiting in suspense for him to finish his sentence.

“I’m—I’m afraid of horses!”

They exchanged incredulous glances.

“I’ve got to go,” Ben said. “Mara!” And he darted out of officers quarters and across castle grounds.

“Is that,” Karigan asked, “a normal reaction for a new Rider acquiring his brooch?”

“No,” the captain said. “Usually the Rider sits with me and has a cup of tea while we discuss his or her new vocation.” She shook herself then, as if to break out of some reverie. “I guess I had better go explain things to Destarion. He’ll be none too happy about this.” She paused on the threshold and smiled suddenly. “But I am!”

Journal of Hadriax el Fex

Alessandros has been vanquished, they say, and Blackveil will be forever closed off until it heals. It was my words, Captain Ambriodhe tells me, my offering of intelligence, that helped turn the tide of war. My betrayal.

For that service, I am offered sanctuary and the freedom to go and do as I wish. There is little in these war-torn lands that entice me, and no matter the offerings of the king, I am still to be reviled as Hadriax el Fex of Arcosia, the Hand of Mornhavon the Black.

I believe I shall seek a quiet, peaceable life on one of the outer islands where few know me and the ravages of war are not so evident. Maybe I will turn my hand to fishing, an honest livelihood. Ironically, the island I am considering is called Black Island. It somehow seems fitting.

I pray the inhabitants will accept me as I am, a hardworking man with good hands. And perhaps with time, I shall vanish away from my enemies and history, to live an ordinary life, and to die quietly in obscurity. I shall rename myself “Galadheon.” Have not the forces of the Empire already named me as such? He who betrays. Betrayer. And so shall I be known. 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">