A FINAL MESSAGE
Leese Callan, master mender and chief of the menders at the wall, was up to her elbows in Lord Alton D’Yer’s blood as she worked to staunch his wound. She was damned if she was going to let him die.
They had swiftly moved him from outside to the large mending cabin so she could be within reach of her supplies, but every second had cost them. He had gone in and out of consciousness, mumbling about Sleepers and warning the king. She and her assistant, Nera, tried to reassure him the best they could, but she doubted he heard them.
The injury was bad. The serrated edge of the blade had done significant damage. She tried to repair as much of it as she could and stop the bleeding, but she did not know if she’d gotten it all, or if it was in time to save him.
The door burst open and a figure in green rushed in. She, too, was covered in blood—not her own for the most part, but that of Captain Wallace. Her face was a torment of grief. Dale Littlepage looked down at Alton where he lay on the table more dead than alive.
“Dale,” Leese warned. As sorry as she was for the Rider’s loss, for all their losses, she did not need this distraction.
“Is he—?” Dale began.
“Please leave, Rider,” Leese replied. “We are doing the best we can.”
“Master Callan,” Nera said, “he’s stopped breathing.”
Leese checked his pulse and listened for breaths. Nothing. “Damn it.”
Before she could do anything about it, Dale grabbed Alton’s shoulders and started shaking him. “Alton! Don’t you dare die on me, too! Do you hear? Don’t you die!”
“Get her out of here!” Leese ordered other menders who were working on less critically wounded patients nearby.
Even as they grabbed the struggling Rider and dragged her out of the cabin, Leese and Nera worked to revive Alton. Nera breathed for him while Leese pounded on his chest to get his heart pumping blood again. The third time she hit him, she felt his sternum break beneath her fist. It would be the least of his problems if he survived. If.
The night was so clear that the stars seemed close by. Alton gazed at the heavens in wonder. A falling star whisked through the deepest midnight blue, trailing a tail of light.
He stood upon a hill that looked like the one he used to play upon when he was a child. It was just far enough from Woodhaven to feel like an adventure to his younger self, but close enough to be safe. In winter, he and his friends went sledding down it.
However, where he should have seen the lights of Woodhaven, there was nothing. Though the semblance was strong, this was not the hill of his childhood. He walked a different path now.
The circumstances that had brought him here were dim. He remembered little except flashes of pain, confusion, violence. His life had held many dangers, but he’d hoped he’d overcome them and live on for many years with Estral at his side. He regretted not being able to see her one last time.
He continued to follow the path that had brought him up the hill until he came to a bench of wrought iron with a swirling leaf and branch design that one might find in an estate garden. It was not unoccupied. Beryl Spencer sat upon it, gazing into the distance. She wore her Green Rider uniform. Had he actually ever seen her wear it? He’d only seen her attired otherwise for whatever mission the king had in mind for her. How odd, he thought, that it was she whom he encountered on his way to the heavens. Shouldn’t it be those he’d been close to? His grandparents, maybe? Even his bitter cousin, Pendric?
The stars reflected in her eyes. Her expression was distant. He sat beside her.
After a time, she spoke. “I must follow the path to its end.”
“What is at the end?” he asked.
“Eternity? Peace?” She shrugged. “I do not know.”
“Looks like I’m headed that way,” he said. “I could keep you company.”
“No.”
“No?”
“We do not travel the same path.”
“But—”
She gazed at him at last, her eyes all stars, infinite. “You must turn back.”
“What? I thought—”
“This is not your path to walk yet. Turn back.”
“I don’t understand.”
She stood and pointed back down the trail. “Go.”
“Why? Aren’t I dead?”
She still pointed. “Go.”
“All right, all right,” he said, and he stood. “I will go, but what will happen?”
She did not answer, but started striding away from him until she vanished into the dark.
He turned to walk in the opposite direction as Beryl had ordered him, back the way he’d come. He did not know what would happen. He glanced over his shoulder, but saw no sign of Beryl.
He continued on and on. The night gradually turned gray and the stars faded from view, but not because of a sunrise. As the world brightened around him, Beryl’s voice came to him: There is a final message you must take with you.
“Master,” Nera said, grabbing Leese’s fist before it could fall once more on Alton’s chest. “It’s been too long. He’s gone, he’s gone. You’ve done everything you can. This won’t help.”
Leese staggered back, gasping for breath. Alton lay lifeless on the table, flesh pale, the ghastly wound exposed. The heir of Clan D’Yer, her friend, and she had failed him. No, this couldn’t be happening.
Nera moved to pull a blanket over him. A shroud. As if to conceal the evidence of their failure, or to somehow diminish the pain of his loss. Why do we hide the dead? she wondered. He had been a whole person, full of life, animate, and now they were just going to cover him up and forget about him?
“Master?” Nera said.
Leese had lost many patients there at the wall. It was never easy, but this one hit hard. He’d been her friend.
“Master?”
She shook herself, saw that Nera had paused, had not finished covering Alton’s body. “What is it?”
“I think he’s breathing.”
“What?” Leese jumped to the side of the table, leaned over him, and listened for breaths again. Nothing. Despair set in again after the brief surge of hope, but then, just as she was giving up, she felt the slightest exhale of breath against her cheek. With a shaking hand, she checked for his pulse. It was weak, but it was there. His heart had begun to function again.
“Thank the gods,” she said, despair now turning to elation. She needed to be careful, though. They could lose him again.
His eyes fluttered open.
“Lord Alton,” she said, “can you hear me?”
His gaze was dull. His lips moved, but he made no sound.
“Welcome back,” she told him. “You have been through a great deal, but we are here to help you. Even so, you must fight with us.”
“Message,” he whispered. “Must . . .”
“Don’t worry about messages,” she told him. Green Riders made the worst patients after menders. They were obsessive about their work. “We’ll take good care of you.”
“. . . come,” he said.
“What now?” She leaned close to hear his soft whisper.
When he finished, she stood up and watched as his eyes closed and he fell unconscious again.
“We will need to keep a close watch on him,” she told Nera. “His condition is precarious.”
“What did he say?”
Badly injured patients sometimes got out of their heads and spoke nonsense. She supposed that was what this had been.
“He said he had a message from Beryl, who I think is another Green Rider.”
“What was it?” Nera asked.
“It sounds mad, but he said, ‘Dragons will come.’ That’s it. He said, ‘Dragons will come.’ ”