Fergal jumped up from a dead sleep, looking wildly around. “What is it? What is it?”
Karigan opened her mouth to speak, but the arrow turned to smoke and drifted away. The blood vanished, too. She pawed at her chest finding no evidence of arrow or wound.
“What is it?” Fergal repeated, blinking blearily.
“I–I…dreams,” she said, more than a little rattled. Had she merely imagined the arrow, or had one of the Eletians left her a message? Gods, if it had all been real, the Eletians, the faction that wanted her dead, already knew she yet lived.
“Dreams.” Fergal yawned. “I dreamed of people laughing at me, and singing ‘knacker’s boy, knacker’s boy…’” He shook his head. “I can’t remember it too well.”
When he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Karigan noticed it glittered like gold dust as it drifted to the ground. She shuddered.
WALKING THROUGH WALLS
Dale Littlepage’s stomach clenched as the wagon bumped along the “road” into the encampment. She closed her eyes not against the sunshine suddenly unfiltered by the forest canopy, but against memory, against black wings.
They had ridden to the wall this summer past, Captain Mapstone and all the Riders she could muster, to gather information for the king. A blast of wild magic from Blackveil Forest had turned life upside down in Sacor City and elsewhere—whole villages had vanished, people had turned to stone in the streets…When they arrived, they’d been astonished to discover a swath of forest toppled by the force of the wind and magic that had funneled through the breach. Branches had been hurled with such power they’d impaled tree trunks. Other trees had been uprooted and huge boulders rolled over. They also found a fresh row of graves dug for those who had not survived the maelstrom.
At the breach itself, there had been confusion when a wraith that had assumed Alton’s appearance tricked them all except Karigan, who attempted to attack him. And it was here that Dale’s memory faltered, became shadowed by the wings, and only afterward had she heard about the illusion of Alton melting away to reveal the wraith, and of Karigan racing through the breach into Blackveil. A battle ensued when groundmites poured out of the forest and attacked the Riders, but for Dale, there were only the wings.
Black wings that had shot through the breach and hovered over her like death’s shadow. She had been certain she was going to die; she’d heard the hunger in the avian’s screech. The wings had closed down on her, their fetid wind roaring in her ears. Talons had hooked into her flesh, and that was all she could remember. The Riders had to fill in the rest for her. Though she did not die that day, others among her comrades had, and she did not understand why. Why had she been spared when others died? A whimper escaped her lips.
“Are you well, Rider?”
Clyde’s voice drew her back to herself and she opened her eyes to the sunshine again, realizing with a start that the wagon had come to a halt. Voices of men at work and the sound of hammering echoed across the encampment. The soldiers had scavenged in the forest for the fallen trees and used them to build log structures to replace their tents for the oncoming winter. Now they framed out the roof of a cabin.
The rest of the wagon train rumbled by and into the encampment. There were many glad greetings from the guards on duty here, for the wagon train brought not only supplies, but letters from home and relief troops.
“Rider?” Clyde asked again.
Dale turned to the grizzled drover. A gruff fellow, he had taken her into his care during the journey from Woodhaven, ensuring their travel did not harm her mending wounds.
“I’m all right,” she told him. The truth was the journey had taken its toll and she was exhausted, but she had only herself to blame, insisting to Garth that she be the one to return to the wall to help Alton. She had tired of “quiet” recuperation and wanted to feel useful again, fully healed or not.
“Let’s find Alton.” Then, for Clyde’s benefit, she amended, “Lord Alton.” Clyde was a devout clansman and frowned on her casual use of Alton’s name, no matter that the nobleman in question was also a Green Rider and her friend.
Clyde nodded and slapped the reins against the rumps of his mules, and the wagon lurched forward. Dale’s horse, Plover, trailed behind on a lead rope. She twisted round to watch the mare, who had become frisky at the prospect of a journey, despite the kindness and good care that had been lavished upon her at Woodhaven.
Just as happy to leave as me, Dale thought. But when she glanced at the breach in the wall, she wasn’t so sure of her decision. The breach had been repaired again with ordinary stonework, but above the new stonework where the wall was pure magic, there was a cleft that looked as though an angry god had torn out an entire section of the wall.
Clyde asked after Lord Alton and was directed to a secondary encampment a bit of a distance along a path heading east. Here they found no log cabins being built, but crisp rows of tents set up between the woods and the wall, and a tower. Dale’s gaze followed it up to the clouds. Tower of the Heavens. This was the tower Alton needed her to enter, if her Rider magic was working properly.
“This is the place,” Clyde said, hauling back on the reins and setting the brake.
As he had so many times before, he jumped from the wagon and hurried round to lift her down despite her protestations she could manage on her own. She had to admit she felt about a hundred years old when she rose from the bench, all aches and exhaustion, all her joints creaking in protest. Her arm bound to her body did nothing to enhance her balance. Clyde was at least twice her age, but he was strong and possessed boundless energy. Before she knew it, her feet were firmly planted on the ground.