The Horse tensed beside her, his ears pricked forward. Voices could be heard from the road, faint at first, then clearer as they drew closer.
“No sign of any horse here.”
“I don’t like it. The Greenie’s dead and you can’t tell me the horse has the smarts to deliver the message by himself.”
There was a long silence before the first voice replied. “Sarge, in my estimation, a ghost rides that horse. How do we stop a spirit rider?”
Sarge snorted. “You know I forbid that kind of talk. Don’t let the captain hear it either. That’s the problem with you rustic fools, you’re all superstitious.”
“Things was getting uncanny,” the “rustic fool” answered. “These woods, the dead Greenie, and the Gray One. Ice cold, he is. It’s not reg’lar.”
“I don’t care if it’s regular or not. We follow the captain’s orders and right now our orders are to find that horse and destroy the message. Understand?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Sarge grunted. “Spirit riders. You rustics have lively imaginations. I’ve never heard such nonsense. Now look for tracks. Captain doesn’t carry that whip as an ornament, you know. You don’t want his leather licking your hide, I assure you.”
So at least four searched for the message. Where were the other two if they weren’t with the sergeant and his companion? Whose soldiers were they? Their accents were Sacoridian to the core, but surely the king’s own militia would not be involved in trying to block a vital message from reaching him. Some of the wealthier provinces armed their own small contingents, as did major landowners. Would any of them have something to lose if the message reached King Zachary?
“Sarge! I got something. Looks like a hoofprint in the mud.”
“Sharp eyes, Thursgad.”
Karigan unconsciously grasped the winged horse brooch pinned to the greatcoat. It warmed at her touch. Trees shifted around her in the gently wafting mist like the shapes of armed soldiers. Branches jabbed at her like swords. Should she make a run for it? Could speed and surprise allow her and The Horse to escape? She remembered all too vividly the black-shafted arrows protruding from F’ryan Coblebay’s back.
Trying to outrun the soldiers would be fatal. She would hide behind the granite ledge and flee only if she had to. If the soldiers believed the messenger horse was acting on his own, all the better. She unsheathed the saber and stood by the horse’s side, ready to mount, just in case.
“I can’t figure out which way the horse went,” Thursgad said.
“Think like a horse. Shouldn’t be too hard—they’ve got small brains like yours. They’d take the easiest route.”
“You mean . . . straight down the road?”
“Whadya think I mean? Is your brain even smaller than a horse’s? Yes, the road. Straight ahead. This hoofprint confirms it came this way.”
“But if a spirit rider guides him—”
“Thursgad, you fool. Didn’t I say none of that rustic nonsense?”
Their voices faded down the road. Karigan heaved an enormous sigh of relief and sheathed her saber. She swung herself up into the wet saddle, grimacing as cold rainwater soaked through her trousers.
Then she sat in indecision. Using the road might mean running into those who searched for her. She could cut through the woods and head east, but the woods would slow her down. She frowned. If she hadn’t skipped so many geography classes, she might be able to think of some other route than the road.
The Horse whinnied sharply and danced beneath her, his hooves sucking in the mud.
“What now?”
The driving rain had changed to a penetrating drizzle. It fell away in layers like veils to reveal the approach of a mounted figure. The rider was much like one of Thursgad’s spirit riders, gauzy and indistinct in the shifting fog, molded of mist, insubstantial as air. His tall white stallion faded in and out of the opaque fog.
The Horse pawed the mud and snorted, every muscle in his body taut, willing Karigan to give him his head to flee as instinct told him he must. Her arms ached with the effort of holding him in. She sat rooted, fascinated by the stranger. Then she remembered F’ryan Coblebay’s final words: Beware the shadow man. . . .
As the rider neared, his form solidified and sharpened. No ghost was he, and his demeanor did not suggest he was a man of the shadows. He sat erect in the saddle. He stared at her with one intense green eye, the other covered by a black patch. Rain beaded on his bald head, but he seemed unconcerned. Beneath a plain charcoal cloak he wore a gold embroidered scarlet tunic. It was the uniform of one of the provincial militia.
The man halted the stallion’s fluid movements with an imperceptible twitch of the reins. Karigan watched him through her tunnellike hood. Water plunked rhythmically from the rim onto her arm.
The leather of the man’s saddle creaked as he leaned forward. His eye searched her. “My men seem to believe you’re some sort of spirit rider,” he said in a gravelly voice roughened by a lifetime of shouting commands. “Who is beneath the hood?”
Karigan was too paralyzed by fear to speak. Why hadn’t she let The Horse run when she had had the chance? She grasped the brooch again.
The man’s green eye flickered. “I see from your hands that you are of the flesh. Though one Greenie is dead, another carries on the mission. If you don’t wish to shed your earthly flesh like Coblebay, I suggest you hand over the message satchel you carry. And you will tell me who gave Coblebay the information.”