Feeble from blood loss and hard pressed to even stand, Captain Mapstone had limped up to the horse marshal and shouted, “Get off those horses and help us!” She must have sounded half crazed to them, but she had sounded just the way Karigan felt. She wanted to shout and scream, too.
The cavalry soldiers practically fell over one another to make themselves useful. A mender among them set the king’s broken arm and attended the wounded. The soldiers began the grisly task of caring for the dead.
Common soldiers and nobles alike were laid out side by side. “They were all warriors of Sacoridia today,” the king said. “As such, they were all equals, and heroes all.”
Karigan had set to work to help the soldiers build a cairn over the dead, but as she bent to pick up a rock, she was assailed by dizziness and her knees buckled. That was when she must have taken the nap.
“No . . . I passed out, didn’t I?”
Captain Mapstone nodded. “Whatever it was you did on the ridge today to that . . . Eletian, it must have sapped your strength.”
Karigan rubbed her temples to stave off a ferocious headache. “Some ending to a perfectly good picnic.”
The captain tugged her shortcoat more snugly about her. “The king lives. I would not say that was a bad ending.”
Some distance away, King Zachary spoke with the horse marshal. His broken arm was splinted and bound securely to his chest, but he was quite alive.
“If you hadn’t come when you did . . .” Karigan began.
“The king would be dead?” The captain cocked her head as if considering. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. One cannot predict other outcomes so easily.”
“You cracked the code in F’ryan Coblebay’s letter?”
“Yes.” Captain Mapstone went on to explain how she and two other Riders had worked for many hours to find the hidden message. “It told of an Eletian who could not be trusted, and that the king’s brother would take the throne by force. The attempt on the king was to coincide with his annual hunt. When we learned Shawdell was missing after the king had left with his party, we became concerned. More than concerned, in fact. A Rider reported seeing a band of groundmites in this area.”
Captain Mapstone gazed sadly at the few Riders left alive. Two tended three wounded, including Alton D’Yer. The rest were disappearing beneath the stone cairn being raised by the cavalry soldiers. She cradled a dented silver horn in her lap. “I wish we could have come sooner.”
Karigan winced. “If I had given you the letter sooner—”
The captain reached over and patted her on the knee. “I don’t think any of us would have suspected the letter was more than it seemed—an expression of love from F’ryan Coblebay to one he cared about tremendously. Much in that letter was genuine. Perhaps F’ryan knew Lady Estora would find it strange and bring it to one of us. It seems he knew he wouldn’t make it back to Sacor City himself.”
“Why was it in code?” Karigan asked.
“It revealed Beryl Spencer. It was also a form of misdirection, I believe, in case F’ryan was ever captured. It would survive in its seeming irrelevance, and the false message would be of equal unimportance because the information was old. Unfortunately, it did not help F’ryan in the end.”
Captain Mapstone gazed at the horn in her lap. “We cannot dwell on what might have been. Don’t blame yourself, Karigan, about not getting the real message to us sooner. You were right before. You are not a Green Rider, at least not a trained Green Rider and we—I was at fault to assume you would know how things worked. If it helps, let me say that you, more than anyone else, helped save the king today.”
“Thank you,” Karigan whispered.
“I’m not sure you are the one who should be doing the thanking.” The captain’s hand slipped unconsciously to the bandage that bound her head wound. “We owe you much. Even the dead do.” She held out her other hand and it gleamed with gold. Gold winged horse brooches.
Karigan was astonished. “You took them? You took them from—?”
“From the dead? Yes. Like Joy’s brooch you brought back to us, they always find their way home. These brooches are curious things. More curious than you know. New Riders will be called to the service, and they will wear these same brooches. With the brooches they will discover new talents and use them. When they retire from the service, or die, the brooch will call out to someone new. It has always been this way.”
“But I wasn’t called,” Karigan said.
“Are you so sure?” The captain smiled. “The calling to become a Rider comes in a variety of ways. Perhaps you are right about it being the situation: F’ryan’s dying, you being right there.” She shrugged. “Their qualities are peculiar. They seem to attract strange adventures and extraordinary people to the wearer. Some believe it is just the nature of the job, of being a king’s messenger, yet others believe it is the magic.”
Karigan touched her brooch. It felt like cold metal, that was all, yet she knew what it was capable of. “What do you believe?”
“What do I believe? I believe in all kinds of possibilities. But as far as the brooches go, it is the rare moment that life has been dull for me since I first pinned one on some twenty years ago.”
The captain unfolded her legs, and in what looked like an agonizing movement that shone clearly in her taut features, she stood up. She covered the pain with another smile, but Karigan could see it in her eyes.