HEROES

Karigan was submerged in pain and misery as the horses pounded at a mad gallop. Arrows and crossbow bolts zipped past them. Since the city was closed with the main body of Second Empire’s army before the gate, as Ty had said it would be, Karigan and her companions had sought the Heroes Portal, but they were spotted by Second Empire’s scouts, who set off after them. She did not know how many pursued them. She cared only about keeping far enough ahead of them to reach the portal and safety.

An arrow passed right over her head and thudded into the ground in Loon’s path. He trampled the shaft as he surged forward. In the haze of pain, Karigan had a vision of arrows arcing through the sky, a vision that seemed familiar. Arrows raining from the sky toward her, but she never saw where they landed.

She shook her head. She must stay focused. She wasn’t even on a half dose of Mender Bertine’s concoction and she was still having visions. Or maybe visions of visions?

Travis brutally whipped and spurred his horse forward. He and Erin had released their remounts when Second Empire came after them. The poor horse was managing to keep up with Loon, but it wouldn’t last. Travis reined the stallion sharply into the trees, and Loon and Curlew sprang after him, with Erin on her horse trailing. They did not slacken their pace through the woods. Loon flew over a blowdown, the dead branches scraping his belly, and pushed on without missing a stride and bounded after Travis and his horse. They whipped by a pale obelisk, and the nonexistent path turned into the remains of an ancient road bordered by a grove of tall hemlocks. Somber and dark they were, fitting sentinels to an entrance of the tombs.

They passed a granite slab that was a coffin rest set beside the road. After that, the portal came up quickly, and they plowed to a halt before a ledge that loomed above them. Into its face, the round iron door of the Heroes Portal was embedded. Travis flung himself at the door and pressed the glyph of Westrion in its center. A handle popped out and he hauled the portal open. Cool air flowed from the depths of the tombs.

“Go in,” he ordered.

“We’re not leaving our horses,” Trace said.

An arrow hit the ledge above the door and stuck in a thick mat of moss.

“Take them!”

Karigan hissed in pain as she dismounted. It made her lightheaded. Darkness stained the edges of her mind. Travis grabbed her arm and dragged her through the doorway. Loon trotted in behind her. Trace and Curlew were up ahead. Travis then disappeared behind and waited for Erin and her horse to enter, and then pulled the door shut behind them. It closed off the world, and only the harsh breathing of Karigan’s companions and the huffing of the horses filled the tubelike corridor of stone they stood in.

The sound of running feet echoed up the corridor. A pair of Weapons appeared, and Travis hastened to greet them. They had a short discussion; then he waved them to come on. They followed him to a chamber that was a nexus to other corridors, one that was, fortunately, large enough to accommodate several people and four horses though the ceiling was a little low.

Karigan had been here twice before, though she truly only remembered the first time. A coffin rest dominated the center of the chamber, and on the walls, murals of battles came to life in the flickering lamps: swords raised to take down the enemy, horses bearing knights at full charge, the enemy trampled beneath hooves.

“Sir Karigan, Rider Burns,” Travis said, “these are Weapons Gord and Harris.”

The two tomb Weapons nodded solemnly.

“Your unexpected entrance will—” Harris began, but suddenly there was the sound of someone falling, a thud on the hard stone floor. Karigan looked behind and saw that Erin had collapsed. A broken arrow shaft protruded from her back. The Weapons rushed to her side.

“She’s alive,” Travis said.

“I’ll get help,” Gord replied, and he hastened off into one of the corridors.

Travis dug through his saddlebags, withdrawing bandages to staunch the wound, and a cloak with which to pillow her head.

“Will she be all right?” Trace asked.

“Weapons are strong,” he said simply as he worked.

The motto of the Black Shields, Death is honor, rang through Karigan’s mind. In her own misery, she couldn’t shake a certain darkness.

“Gord will bring a death surgeon,” Travis told Erin.

If she replied, Karigan could not hear it. Erin had been their rear guard, and had paid for it.

“I guess we didn’t all make it unscathed,” Trace whispered to Karigan. “I’ve told Connly we’ve made it, and the king is apparently very relieved. They are marching hard to reach the city.”

Karigan nodded, distracted by her own pain, and wishing there was something she could do to help Erin.

“Won’t Second Empire try to get in?” Trace asked Harris.

“They can try,” he replied. “The structure of the door is sound and strong, and is enhanced with spells. The area is also warded, so they’ll become disoriented and perhaps lost.”

“But we didn’t.”

“You were guided by a Weapon.”

Soon a man in long dark robes strode into the chamber, followed by four caretakers in drab white and gray bearing a litter. The caretakers gawked at the newcomers, especially the horses. The death surgeon went right to Erin’s side, knelt down, and examined her wound. Death surgeons not only prepared the dead for interment in the tombs, but served the caretaker community as menders. To Karigan, the tombs always seemed a place of contradictions—death surgeons who preserved the dead and healed the living, caretakers who lived among the dead.

Erin was gently lifted into the litter so that she lay on her side as the broken arrow remained in her back. She groaned, and Karigan was glad to hear some sign of life from her. The litter bearers swept her from the chamber with the death surgeon leading the way.

“Aren’t you going with her?” Trace asked Travis.

“My duty is to stay with Sir Karigan. And you.”

Karigan narrowed her eyes. She’d heard that pause after “Sir Karigan” before he included Trace in his statement of duty. She would have to have a conversation with him the moment she could pull him aside.

“What now?” Trace asked. “Shouldn’t we get moving?”

“We await Agemon,” Harris said. “This is his domain, and, well, with an outsider and horses here, our approach requires delicacy, and his blessing for your passage.”

“But we’ve urgent messages for the queen, and a letter from the king allowing us to pass.”

“Even so,” he said. “Agemon is the chief caretaker, and his word is law here. He will not be long.”

Karigan hoped not. The cold was adding to the ache in her back. It wasn’t freezing cold in the underground environs of the tombs, but it was persistently cool enough that the Weapons wore extra layers even in the midst of summer. She leaned against Loon, taking in his warmth and sweaty horsey scent. He turned his head to nuzzle her shoulder. She’d grown immensely fond of him, but could not wait to see her own Condor. That reunion, however, would have to await the chief caretaker and her duty to the queen.

Trace fidgeted. “Outsider,” she muttered. “I am a servant of the king as much as this Agemon is, and these tombs are Sacoridian.”

“There are reasons why entry is limited,” Karigan said, thinking not only of the priceless treasures that were hidden within, but the fact that they also held artifacts of a more arcane nature that must be kept hidden from those who would misuse them. She did not know how many there were, or what they were, just that caretaker culture had evolved to consider the intrusion of outsiders, the living, as offensive to the dead, and that intruders must never see the outside world again.

“Easy for you to say,” Trace replied, “since as an honorary Weapon they let you in.”

Grudgingly, Karigan thought.

Fortunately, Agemon did not dawdle, and he entered the chamber with Gord striding beside him. The chief caretaker was in his elder years with long gray hair, but his face, like that of other caretakers, was curiously pale and unlined from a lifetime of inhabiting the tombs. He wore robes that were of muted and dusty tones, shroudlike. He adjusted his specs on the end of his nose.

“Not horses,” he muttered. “Not horses.”

“I am afraid so,” Harris told him. “This is the only way into the city right now, and these Riders carry important messages for the queen from King Zachary.”

“This green!” Agemon pointed a shaking finger at Trace. “It must never depart the tombs to see the living light of day again.”

“We’ve a letter from the king for you about that,” Karigan said. Not that such ever carried much weight with Agemon.

“You!” he cried. “You and your green, you and your horses, and your infernal dragonfly device.”

“Yes, me,” Karigan said, fighting to keep her tone even and patient so as not to escalate the chief caretaker’s agitation. “And yes, we do need to discuss the dragonfly device.”

He gave her a sour look. “Indeed.”

“But first, more urgent business,” she said, and she handed him the king’s letter.

While he read, Trace whispered, “Is he slightly . . . mad?”

“The caretakers don’t deal with outsiders, with only a few exceptions. It makes them nervous.” She recalled her first visit to the tombs. She, Zachary, and others were sneaking into the castle via Heroes Avenue during Prince Amilton’s coup attempt. Upon their first meeting, she’d thought Agemon quite mad, as well. He did tend toward expressing his dismay and querulousness, but he knew his tombs and his people, and was not mad.

When he finished reading Zachary’s letter, he passed it back to Karigan and she stowed it in her satchel.

He sighed. “Might as well invite the world in, build a road through the tombs.”

“It’s just one outsider,” Harris reminded him.

“And four horses. Oh, the mess. Always the mess in my tombs.”

“Agemon, these Riders need to see the queen. Immediately.”

“Yes, yes, always some emergency with these greens.” Agemon tugged on his hair, then turned, muttering to himself, to lead them into the one lit corridor.

To Karigan’s mind, the sooner they were out, the better. Though the tombs were well-lit, dry, and kept spotless by the caretakers, they made her skin crawl. She did not like being surrounded by so many corpses no matter how long ago it was that they had died. She never felt that way in graveyards, but then she wasn’t underground with the dead in those. There was an intensity about Heroes Avenue and the royal tombs, the number of sarcophagi and chambers and artifacts, that overwhelmed. It was as if the dead and death pressed in against the living.

She grimaced in pain as they set off after Agemon and Harris, the clopping of horse hooves on stone reverberating down the corridors. Travis and Gord brought up the rear, leading the Weapon horses. She had stood too long in one place, and even with Loon acting as a live hot water bottle, her back had grown stiff. What she really wanted was a hot bath and her own bed, so long as Second Empire wasn’t overrunning the walls. Maybe even if they were. In any case, it was unlikely they’d make any major moves for a while. It took time to arrange one’s siege.

The first few chambers they passed through lacked corpses, but there were symmetrical rows of granite slabs awaiting dead heroes of the realm. This was, after all, the part of the tombs reserved for Sacoridia’s heroes. When finally they entered a chamber where the slabs were occupied by remains, she heard Trace’s sharp intake of breath.

Some of the dead reclined in full armor. Others were covered by shrouds or wrapped in linens. Others, still, were encased in sarcophagi with lifelike effigies on the lids. Karigan kept her gaze straight ahead, but when they came to one room in particular, she kept an eye out for a specific slab of granite. When she saw it, she pointed it out to Trace.

“The First Rider.”

Lil Ambrioth’s remains were just lumpy shapes beneath a shroud. Blue-green plaid was draped from her feet to her hips, and her swords—a two-handed greatsword and a saber, along with a battle ax—were mounted on the wall behind her. Lil’s portrait was painted on the ceiling above her slab. She rode astride a warhorse and wore the plaid about her shoulders. She bore her saber, and a shield with the device of the gold winged horse on it.

Karigan felt a brief flush of warmth from her brooch, a recognition that she was in the presence of the great Lil Ambrioth, the hero who had founded the Green Riders, and it was an acknowledgment that Karigan was her descendent—not by blood but by the brooch both had worn.

Karigan had traveled to the past and met the living Lil Ambrioth, a person far more vibrant and interesting than the ceiling portrait made her out to be. She was indeed heroic, but also flawed, and so very alive. Karigan found she could not look at her remains. Trace, conversely, halted and stared.

“Come, come,” Agemon entreated. “You must leave my tombs as soon as may be. Yes, yes.”

Karigan understood Trace’s awe. It was something to confront the person who had created the life you now lived, a person of legendary proportions who all Riders revered. And the horses. If Karigan had been looking in a different direction, she would have missed it, the bob of Loon’s and Curlew’s heads toward the slab.

“Come,” Agemon insisted.

Trace nodded and, with reluctance, fell in step. “That’s really the First Rider?”

“Only her remains,” Karigan replied, glad she’d gotten to meet the living woman and not just see her mortal husk.

“It’s a little disappointing in a way,” Trace said.

“What is?”

“To see that all these heroes are so very human. That they turn to dust just like the rest of us. It makes them kind of ordinary.”

Karigan thought she understood. Heroes were bigger than life, seemingly infallible, and to learn they were just like anyone else? Yes, she could see being disappointed. But to her, their mortality, their ordinariness, made them human, and their feats all the more astonishing. The legends made great deeds seem unattainable, but seeing the humanity behind the legends brought them within grasp. She bet few of these heroes set out to be such. They were just trying to defend their homeland or do the right thing. They might have chosen to stay home in safety, but the true heroic deed was that they did not, even knowing the danger they faced.

And had they truly turned to dust? Karigan glanced over her shoulder, but the remains of the First Rider had already vanished from sight. The physical form might disintegrate with time, but even after so many centuries, Lil Ambrioth’s name and deeds lived on, as did her progeny, the Green Riders.