Fergal cupped his hand to his ear. “What?”
“Oh, never mind.” She waved him off and mounted, hoping she could keep the directions straight.
After the yellow house down the main street she was to head due north on a path. She somehow missed the yellow house. Up and down the street they went, Karigan muttering to herself and Fergal following with an oblivious expression on his face. No yellow house was to be found. The proprietor of the outfitter shop must have observed them going back and forth for he emerged on the street and pointed to a ramshackle cottage that was weather-beaten to a dull gray.
“That’s the yellow house,” he said.
Karigan rounded her lips into an O and thanked the man. On closer inspection she discerned a few faded flecks of yellow paint the wind hadn’t peeled away.
“Yellow house. Right. Hope the rest of his directions are more clear.”
“What?” Fergal demanded.
Karigan urged Condor past the “yellow” house and onto a trail. It passed the back side of a tiny chapel of the moon and the town’s burying ground with its cairns and carved stone markers. Other paths branched off from the main trail to homesteads and farms. She was not to turn off until she came to the “big rock.” The proprietor of the outfitter shop assured her she could not miss it. She hoped not, for large rocks were plentiful along the trail.
When she came to it, she had to admit the rock was rather obvious. It was a behemoth of a boulder that looked as though the gods had planted it in place. It dwarfed everything around them, including the horses, and was a finer grain of rock than others in the landscape. Deer moss grew like a furry cap atop it and splotches of blue-green lichens spread across weathered carvings. Karigan had seen the ancient picture-writing elsewhere on other travels, and it did not surprise her to see it on this boulder that was such a major landmark.
There were more recent markings as well—initials scratched over the pictographs, some with dates. People were always wanting to announce their existence to the world in a way that would surpass the ages, creating some sort of immortality. For all Karigan knew, the more ancient carvings were just another incarnation of such an urge.
She almost missed the horse carving, it was so faded and matted with lichens. Elsewhere she had taken the image to represent Salvistar, steed of the god Westrion, who carried souls to the heavens. Legend had it that Salvistar was the harbinger of battle and strife. But in this location the carving of a horse could be far more simple in its symbolism.
The path forked at the boulder, and Karigan reined Condor left. The trail narrowed and rambled through thicket and field and under the crooked boughs of apple trees. Trying to remember the shop proprietor’s directions was not easy. She reined left again at the “broken oak,” straight at the “old wagon wheel,” right on the path at the stream.
Very soon their daylight dwindled. Karigan paused to recall what their next landmark was, the stream rushing and swirling beside her, and aglow with the last gleam of day. Fergal rode Sunny on ahead, quickly disappearing into the dusk.
At the stream, there was something important she was supposed to remember. As soon as she heard the sounds of thrashing in underbrush and a shouted, “Stupid horse!” from Fergal, she did.
She moved Condor out at a swift trot, and in moments they reached Fergal, who was digging his heels into Sunny’s sides in an effort to convince her to cross a bridge over the stream. He’d broken a branch off a tree and was using it like a whip. Sunny, the whites of her eyes flashing in the dark, placed a tentative hoof on the bridge, pushed as she was by Fergal, then whirled away on her haunches in terror.
Fergal hauled on the reins and swatted her with the branch. “Idiot!” he hollered.
Before he could raise the branch again, Karigan and Condor were there. Karigan ripped the branch from his hand and Condor pivoted, placing himself between Sunny and the bridge.
Karigan and Fergal stared hard at one another, each breathing hard. Fergal pulled out the wads of linen from his ears and looked ready to shout something angry at her. Karigan beat him to it.
“Never, ever use a stick on this horse or any other,” she said, barely restraining the full force of her anger. She threw the branch clattering into some trees. “If I ever see you mistreat Sunny again, you will be walking back to Sacor City and I’ll see to it you wished you never even heard of the Green Riders.”
It was hard to read Fergal’s expression, for his face was shadowed. Karigan trembled with fury.
“There is only one idiot here,” she continued, “and it’s not Sunny. She may have just saved you from a bad accident. She may have even spared you your life.”
At Fergal’s snort of disbelief, Karigan dismounted and walked onto the bridge. It looked fine and sturdy in the dark, crossing the deep, strong stream flowing between steep embankments. It would be difficult, if not foolish, to attempt fording the stream without a bridge.
But, according to the shop proprietor in town, this was not the bridge to cross, and Karigan felt it the moment she stepped upon it. It swayed with her weight and the planking creaked beneath her feet. It would never support a horse.
“That shopkeeper warned me it might be in bad shape,” she said, “especially after that storm we had.” Some of the planking was soft beneath her foot, and she stomped on it, breaking through rot. Pieces of wood splashed into the stream below.
“Sunny sensed this bridge was not safe,” Karigan explained. “Instead of beating her, you should have listened to her warning. Call horses stupid if you must, but they’re more intelligent than some people.”