STILLNESS

Loon’s strides were unflagging as he ran through the countryside. If Karigan didn’t make him slow down and walk, he’d run his heart out, run to exhaustion. It was as if he understood the urgency of the situation, and she thought he probably did. He was, after all, a messenger horse.

Even Trace’s Curlew had a hard time keeping up with him. The fine-bred horses of the Weapons tended to fall behind.

“Haven’t done all-out riding like this in a while,” Trace said as they slowed to walk to rest the horses. A ground fog drifted from the woods into the road and twined around the legs of the horses.

“The colonel will be very pleased to hear how well Loon has performed,” Karigan replied, and she slapped the gelding on the neck. “Might even give Crane a challenge the next Day of Aeryon race.”

“Now that would be something to see.”

They both fell silent, neither daring to broach the subject of the colonel’s abduction and whether they’d actually see her again.

In time, the Weapons caught up, their black horses heaving and lathered in sweat, but neither spoke. They simply fell in behind, willing to let the Riders set the pace. Karigan and her companions were making good time, even if the Weapons were slowing them down slightly, and they’d already passed Oxbridge without stopping two days ago.

Throughout their journey, the roads had been eerily empty. Occasionally they encountered a traveler or two hastening along as if all the demons of the hells were pursuing them, but mostly the absence of travelers was notable. It was like most everyone had gone home to sit out the storm, and Karigan supposed that was an appropriate way of looking at it.

At night they had made simple camps alongside the road and took turns keeping watch. There was even a Rider waystation a little way off the road where they spent one night. This evening they decided to make camp in a clearing Trace had known about. It had been used by other Riders, and she had learned about it from Connly. It was nicely screened from the road, had a firepit, and there was a stream nearby in which they could refresh their waterskins.

Karigan drew final watch and so bedded down early, looking forward to an almost full night of unbroken sleep. Her dreams did not cooperate, of course, and she launched from one nightmare featuring Nyssa to another. She was fighting, constantly fighting.

Nightmare merged into reality when someone clamped a hand over her mouth and pinned her to the ground. She kicked hard and struggled, as helpless as she had been in her dreams.

“Easy, Sir Karigan,” came a whisper. “It is me, Travis.”

It took a moment for his words, and understanding, to sink in, and when they did, she stopped struggling, though Travis was likely to have some nasty bruises. They had no fire, so it was difficult to make out his features as he knelt over her.

“You were crying out in your sleep,” he continued, “and we have company. I am going to remove my hand from your mouth, all right?”

She nodded, and when he released her, she sucked in a deep breath, then rose to a sitting position.

“What’s going on? What company?” she whispered. Then she heard it, raucous laughter in the near distance.

“A group of raiders,” he replied. “Darrow Raiders.”

Someone else came over. Trace, Karigan thought, because her footsteps were not as silent as Erin’s would have been.

“There are eighteen of them.” It was indeed Trace who spoke. “They’ve a couple female captives.”

“What is the plan?” Karigan asked.

No one answered her at first; then Travis said, “To remain inconspicuous. Erin is keeping watch.”

“That’s not exactly a plan,” Karigan replied.

“It would be hard for us to move without their noticing.”

“Is Torq with them?”

“I didn’t see anyone with that skull tattoo on their face,” Trace replied.

A woman screamed from the direction of the Raider camp.

Karigan grimaced. “Don’t you think we should help the captives?”

Travis paused again before responding. “It is important that your messages reach the queen, and we are outnumbered.”

He was right, of course. They had to ensure they reached the castle with the king’s messages. But another scream rattled her down to her marrow.

“Travis . . .”

“Sir Karigan, I don’t—”

There was the sound of rustling vegetation, and a thud.

“I will go check it out,” he said.

After he left, Trace whispered, “You don’t think we can take on eighteen of them with just four of us, do you?”

“They are Weapons,” Karigan said. “They’d go right through those Raiders like a scythe.” Then amended, “More or less.”

“You’re a Weapon, too,” Trace said.

“Only honorary, and my swordwork isn’t what it once was.”

Travis returned. “It looks like we’re going to have to take some action,” he said. “Erin killed one who wandered too close to take a piss. They are going to miss him soon.”

“Well, then,” Trace said, “that leaves only seventeen.”

“My ability,” Karigan said, “might come in handy.”

They sketched out a plan, and indeed, Karigan’s ability would prove useful, especially in the dense fog of the night. Trace’s part in the plan was to sit it out, astride Curlew, and to ride with the messages in case things went bad.

Karigan stepped through the woods as quietly as possible. Water dripped from leaf and bough, and the ground was soft beneath her feet. The smoke from the Raiders’ fire smelled of wet wood. They did not appear to have sentries on watch, and they probably would not have heard a herd of horses the way they were carrying on, but she was not about to take unnecessary chances.

She stepped just outside the light of their fire. They were passing around a jug drinking whatever it held, and trying to make their two captives dance by the fire. One of the women was holding her ripped chemise closed. The other was in tears.

“Dance,” the Raiders shouted. “Dance and show us your flesh.”

“I’ll make ’em dance.” A Raider rose and picked up a burning stick from the fire. He was about to light one of the women’s skirts on fire.

Karigan dropped her fading and stepped into the light. “Hello. You’re having a party and you didn’t invite me?”

They stared agog at her. So did the captives.

One of the Raiders shouted, “It’s that Greenie!”

While Karigan held their attention, Travis and Erin were cutting down some of their number who stood near the fringes of the campsite.

“Did you miss me?” she asked.

Apparently they had, for they jumped up to grab her.

“Run!” she yelled at the captives, and then she disappeared. The Raiders milled about in confusion as their captives ran off.

She moved to another location in the opposite direction the captives had gone. “Over here!” she called. Her appearance was brief before she disappeared again. The Raiders ran after the sound of her voice, and when the first one neared her, she drove Colonel Mapstone’s saber through him. She thought how satisfied the colonel would be to know that her sword was being quenched in Raider blood.

She moved to a new location and called out again. The fog carried her voice in unexpected ways, seeming to make her appear closer or farther away than she was. The confused Raiders changed direction. As Karigan lured them from place to place through the woods, Erin and Travis trailed and killed them. It turned out to be almost too easy to distract and kill them. Their numbers declined rapidly. Without their leader, the Raiders were not terribly bright. Before long, the woods were still and she withdrew her sword from the gut of the last Raider. Erin and Travis had already made their way back toward the campsite, and she made to follow, fully visible but for the dark and fog. It was a mistake. One of the Raiders had been waiting in hiding for her and struck out.

She raised her saber just in time to fend off his blow. Her opponent was an amorphous shape, and in the swirl of fog, not only was sound and vision distorted, but perception as well, which made catching his blows difficult. Even worse, evergreen boughs fouled her swordwork and made defense all the harder. She slipped on a mossy rock and nearly fell. It would have been all over then if she had not saved herself.

“I remember you, Greenie,” the Raider said. “Escaped, didn’t you. Well, you won’t this time.”

Karigan followed his voice and went on the offense, but he was slippery. Her blows merely glanced off his blade. His footwork was good, steering the course of their bout, drawing her away from the campsite just as she had done with the others.

Then he stepped toward her, taking her by surprise. She jumped behind a tree just in time to avoid a blow that would have cleaved right into her neck. He seemed to have a sixth sense about what she would do next, and it made her uneasy even as they traded blows. Her new, hard-won confidence began to erode.

You were never that good to begin with, Nyssa whispered in her mind.

Hearing that voice she had not heard in so long caused her to take a misstep on a tree root that threw her balance. The Raider’s sword bit into her upper arm and she cried out.

“Karigan?” Trace called out in the distance.

Karigan was so disoriented she could not tell which direction was which, and she could not answer for the Raider attacked and she barely held off his fierce buffeting. He pressed her back, and she feared she’d fall over a branch or rock, or into underbrush, and if that happened, she was finished.

She was flailing and dancing about, allowing her assailant to command the terms of their contest. He knocked her back, and her wounded arm slammed into a tree trunk. She cried out again as pain jarred her from her fingertips to her shoulder. She almost dropped her sword. But the pain also seemed to awaken something in her, a memory of her sword training, a lesson from long ago. Arms Master Drent had hobbled her ankles to prevent the dancing and flailing, and to teach her the art of minimalism. He had taught her that she only need move when required, which conserved energy, enhanced precision, and allowed the swordfighter to exert control.

She took a deep breath and invoked stillness. Stillness inside, and stillness without.

“What’s wrong, Greenie? Giving up?”

He must have smelled blood because he lunged. She did not quail. Instead she held firm and defended herself with precision. Gradually she gained control of their engagement. She made him come to her in the way she wanted, and when he did, she battered him with an array of forms he could not keep up with. Her sword slipped through his guard more than once, slicing him. She heard him gasp with effort. His footing grew unsteady and his sword work desperate.

Karigan pressed him and he fell. She discerned in the dark that he was holding his hands out to forestall the killing blow. She raised her sword in triumph to deliver it, but as had happened before, her back betrayed her. A muscle, or some other tissue, that had been damaged by the whip of Nyssa Starling gave out. She fell to her knees with a cry at the paralyzing pain, her sword tumbling out of her hand.

The Raider, seeing a reversal in fortune, dug his own sword out of the leaf litter and rose to his feet. Karigan tried to lift hers but could not. The pain was all-consuming and filled her vision with white hot agony.

The sharp edge of a blade was pressed against her neck.

“I’m gonna lop your one-eyed head off, Greenie,” the Raider said, and he swung his blade back for the killing stroke.

Tears of pain pattered onto the forest floor. She wanted to call out or disappear, but the shock and pain overwhelmed her. She could do nothing but gasp for breath. This was it, she thought, and though she’d some regrets in life, at least the pain would be done. All the striving and darkness would be done. She called Zachary to her mind as the last image she’d see, his brown eyes gone soft as they sometimes did when he looked at her, a slight smile to his lips, a lock of amber hair hanging over his forehead.

Then, when it seemed to take a long time for the death blow to come, she looked up and saw the body of the Raider fall. Erin removed her sword from his back, and knelt before Karigan.

“Sir Karigan, can you stand?”

“I—I don’t know. My back . . .”

Trace came through the woods. “Karigan?”

“Let us get her to the campfire,” Erin said.

They helped her stand and she cried out, but it was a little better once she was upright and walking.

“Your arm is bleeding,” Trace said.

The pain of her back had overwhelmed all else.

“Let’s get you back to the campsite so we can bind it up,” Erin said.

Each step jarred her back, and she bit her lip to prevent herself from screaming.

“The women we rescued are a mender and her apprentice,” Erin said. “Perhaps they can help.”

When they reached the campsite of the Raiders, the bodies had already been dragged to the side. Travis was conversing with the two women.

“Menders,” Erin said, “we require your assistance. It’s her back, and a wound to her arm.”

Before Karigan knew what was happening, they’d removed her coat and were helping her lie down on her stomach on a blanket. It was a position with which she was all too familiar.

“Arm will need stitches,” one of the women said.

“Fetch our satchels, Aldena, and set about suturing the wound,” the other said. To Karigan she added, “You are in good hands, Rider. We’ll do what we can for you.”