In short order, Karigan and the captain were surrounded.
“What do you suppose they’re up to?” the captain asked under her breath, glancing wide-eyed at the horse faces around them.
“I—I have no idea.”
Condor lipped Karigan’s sleeve, then clamped his teeth on it. He started to drag her away.
“Condor!”
Even if she ripped her sleeve from his teeth, the other horses were butting her from behind with their noses. Captain Mapstone was being similarly prodded.
Condor led Karigan across the pasture to the wall that skirted the castle grounds. Guards watched curiously from above. The captain joined her a moment later with an emphatic shove from Bluebird.
“I do believe we’ve been herded,” she said, tugging her shortcoat back into place. “But to what purpose?”
They gazed at the horses without a clue to their strange behavior, and the horses gazed guilelessly back.
“Well?” Captain Mapstone demanded of them.
Some ears flickered, a few tails switched. Robin yawned, and Sparrow rubbed the side of his head on Condor’s rump.
“Enough,” the captain said, rolling her eyes. She started to stride away, but Bluebird swiftly blocked her. She grunted as she walked into his shoulder.
Karigan decided to try and walk away, too, but Condor nudged her right back to the wall until she was flat against it.
“Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?” she asked him.
Condor, of course, didn’t say a thing.
“So,” the captain said, “what is it you think he’s trying to tell you?”
Karigan’s fingers brushed across the rough texture of the granite wall, a wall also built by Clan D’Yer. “The wall,” she said. “They want me—us—to go to the D’Yer Wall.”
There were a few satisfied snorts among the horses as they turned around and dispersed at a leisurely plod.
The captain rubbed at her neck scar. “Zachary isn’t going to like this.”
“Are you well?” the king asked Karigan.
“Yes, sire.”
“I’m very glad.” His voice was soft, and his gaze lingered on her for a few moments as if to make sure with his own eyes. Then abruptly he started pacing the room. He was attired in riding breeches and shiny black boots, with a short-coat of midnight blue. To Karigan he looked stormy, but strong and unbending.
“I have been out riding through the city and countryside,” he said, “to see for myself what the breach in the D’Yer Wall has wrought.”
He told them of people frozen in time—turned to stone—down on the Winding Way, while grieving mothers, husbands, sisters, and children left flowers at the feet of these all-too-lifelike statues. He told of the village of Merdith, which no longer existed. The buildings, the people, everything had vanished.
“The work of the wild magic,” he said, “was far more widespread than just the armor coming to life in our corridors, or the falling of snow. That’s why,” he continued, pausing to stand before the captain, “I would like you to take your Riders to the wall. I need information. I have heard nothing from the wall in too long.”
Karigan and the captain exchanged incredulous glances. Here they had been expecting a fight. They had put their heads together conspiring a way to convince the king to let them go to the wall, and now he was handing them the opportunity.
“Your Riders,” he said, “are trained observers, and know how to prepare a report that would be useful to me. They have experience as scouts, and in the use of magic. I had planned to send but one Rider. However, in light of recent occurrences, I think several should go. Take all who are available. This way you can send me messengers with reports should conditions warrant.”
“Very good,” the captain said, as though she had expected such an assignment from him all along. “I will assemble what Riders are here, and leave on the morrow.”
The king nodded. “I am . . . reluctant to send either of you.”
“We both need to go,” the captain said.
“I know.”
“Will that be all, sire?”
“Yes.” Before they could leave, he stepped forward and touched Karigan’s sleeve, softly, with only his fingertips. “Take care. Come home safely.”
Although he addressed them both, his fingertips lingered on Karigan’s sleeve, and she thought he gazed at her longer and harder, but the moment was quickly over, and she did not know what to think. As she hurried after the captain down the corridor, she was aware of him watching after them, and she absently caressed her arm where he had touched her.
A Green Foot runner hurried past them on his way to see the king. Karigan glanced back in time to see him bow before the king. “Lord Coutre has arrived with the other eastern lords, Your Majesty.”
The expression on the king’s face seemed to fall, but then Karigan turned a corner and saw no more.
In the darkness of the stable, the greenish glow of the apparition reflected in the eyes of messenger horses.
I certainly hope you know what you’re about, Lil Ambriodhe chided them.
Most of the horses were half-asleep, unimpressed by the presence of the First Rider.
I won’t deny that a Rider must face danger in the course of her duty, Lil continued, but you are delivering them right into the hands of the enemy. The enemy that is blocking me from communicating with the Galadheon. She paced, her feet hovering just above the hay-strewn floor.