Chapter Twenty-three

 

They had to hurry. They had to move faster. Alyse would send the Spikes to them, not the shimmering doorway Spikes, but the massive, solid, military Spikes. Every single soul of the caravan rushed northward with renewed purpose. Ricky still felt the need of the northerly direction. Graelle had sent him that message through Eri. When a dragon places a message in your mind, your heart desires nothing else. In two days, they would be at the Spikonian training camp. What was north of the training camp by Dugan Forest? Rick didn’t even think the Spikonians knew.

An involuntary shiver trickled down his spine. Somehow, his mind had blocked out Dugan Forest, Dugan Fortress, and most importantly, the Dugan ghosts. These weren’t like the hidden Plains People. Dugan ghosts were real ghosts. Every fiber in his body wanted to pull back on Flame. He’d rather face all the companies Spikonia had to give him than meet those ghosts again.

“Neighbor,” he said, sidling up to her. “We’ll be going past Dugan Forest soon.”

Neighbor stumbled. The two of them were the only ones in this group who had been to Dugan Woods. And since leaving those ghosts behind, neither had spoken of them since. Rick needed to be on the unicorn, feel her racing heartbeat, touch her sweating sides. Ricky slid off Flame and leapt onto Neighbor’s back without even asking permission to ride her. He’d become the one unicorn-warrior-man with her if it would make any difference to spectres.

His personal guard of former thieves, minus Rogerin, were riding near him as usual.

“Boss,” Hobbie said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Neighbor stopped suddenly, and both she and Rick jerked their heads to face Hobbie.

“Sorry,” Hobbie said, raising his iron hand to block the looks. “Kidding. I was just kidding.”

He wasn’t. They had. And they were marching straight toward said ghosts. At nighttime, no less.

Rick squeezed his thighs and gave Neighbor a nudge with his heels. She stopped refusing to walk forward.

“Really, Boy?” she asked. “After all this time together, you…kick me? Like I am a horse?”

“Neigh-ah-bah-rah-shur-ah-kee-ah, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’ll be dawn soon. Let’s confer with Segan and Geoffrey before we camp. No one else needs to know about the you-know-whats.”

“What whats?” Hobbie asked. “I want to know about you-know-whats.” He gathered Flame’s reins and followed after Neighbor and Rick, leaving the magicians and Bertran behind.

Rick and Neighbor rode between king and general, and somewhat reluctantly, told them of their experience at the Dugan Fortress.

“I find it hard to believe in ghosts,” King Segan said. “Maybe what you saw last autumn were shadows. This is an ancient forest. In this light, it would easy to misinterpret what you see.”

“You were the one who told me to bring ghosts,” Rick said defensively.

“That didn’t mean I believe in them,” the king said. “I only know the Spikonians do. You’ve done well, son.”

“They are real,” Neighbor said. “I also have heard people say they do not believe in unicorns.”

If it hadn’t been for a three-hundred-year-old unicorn’s agreement, Rick was fairly sure they wouldn’t have believed him. He wished he could forget about the Dugan ghosts just like he’d done for nearly the past whole year, and not believe in them himself.

“What lies beyond Dugan Forest?” General Geoffrey asked.

Rick shrugged. “I don’t think anything but wilderness. Having the training camp there was supposed to scare the new soldiers into obedience. Even my brother-in-law Drake wouldn’t tell me any stories or peculiar incidents about the forest or the camp. I do know if we head southeast, through the woods, we’ll end up in Brandt.”

The king and general were silent for a long time. Ghosts were not something you believed with one swallow.

Rick hadn’t thought about Gaufrid and Jarvis for a while. He was fairly confident the two of them would lead the group to City Brandt. Might have. He wasn’t quite as confident that they would get there without a Spikonian encounter. The fleeing Farhnerians hadn’t seen any Spikonians since leaving the capital. And who knew when King Baal would return from the raid on Barabook? Sometimes conquering expeditions lasted for years. On the other hand, the Farhnerians were no match for sheer numbers of Spikonians, even with magic. But they couldn’t run forever, either.

“So, our choices,” Geoffrey started, “are to dig in against the Spikonians for when they find us, go forward into the wilderness with unknown terrain and adversaries, or go through the ghosts and on to sanctuary in Brandt.”

“If these ghosts do exist,” Segan finally said to Rick and Neighbor, “and I’m not saying I entirely believe that, but we should cover as many options as we have. I say we go to Brandt. If you feel we need permission to pass through Dugan Forest, since you two met the…er…ghosts before, go ahead of us and raise them from the dead once again. Tell them we mean no harm—can you harm a ghost?—and that it was not our ancestors who destroyed them, but the Spikonians, who are our common enemies. Tell them the Spikes want to extinguish our entire country just as they did to their own. After you’ve explained that—do ghosts listen to the living?—then ask for clear passage. We’ll go on to City Brandt and beg King Perez for mercy and sanctuary. I understand you have a connection with his daughter, Aldric. Perhaps we’ll be far enough from Spikonia that King Baal won’t find us.”

“They aren’t exactly friendly, your majesty,” Rick answered.

“The ghosts, or King Perez and his people?”

Rick wanted to say both, but Neighbor said, “The ghosts.” She twitched. Rick twitched. Hobbie riding behind them, who couldn’t even hear the conversation, twitched.

Rick almost felt that encountering and going through ghosts would be far less frightening than facing Alyse. Ghosts seemed more…predictable. Ghosts it was, then.

 

* * *

Once the Spikonians freed themselves of the nettle wall, it would take them two days of hard marching or a day of hard riding to reach King Segan and the Farhnerians. Rick thought they still had some time to reach either the wilderness or the ghosts. Even Neighbor thought being near the ghosts would make the Spike soldiers hesitate before following them through Dugan Forest. The ghosts sure gave her hesitation.

Rick wondered whether to warn the Farhnerians of possible ghostly encounters. He didn’t want to terrify them. The Spikes were bad enough. Neither did he want them unprepared. Rick would have liked to have had his father’s advice on all this, but Matthew was still unwell. His outburst with the shimmering Alyse was the most responsive he’d been since the rescue. Neighbor had assured Rick his father was physically healed, but his heart was crushed from of the loss of his daughter. Even the other Nimrock magicians who knew her grieved over Lolly’s death, although no one gave Rick the details. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. What different would it make? There wold be an emptiness inside him forever, an insatiable hole, raw and exposed until he, too, became a ghost.

Rick sought out the eldest magician, the one who was a former soldier himself and a former member of his personal guard. Neighbor went by his side. Rick bit his lip as he approached the doppelganger sitting with Lydia and the guild mistress Anna. “I simply don’t know what to say to you, Rogerin.”

Rogerin looked up at Rick and grinned. “Surprise,” he said. His eyes twinkled. He looked relieved, happy, even while there was danger and uncertainty all around them.

Rick burst out laughing. “I don’t know about the other Rogerin, but from what I know of you, he must be good and faithful. As far as I’m concerned, you are no different from who I’ve always known, not a double, but real.” Rogerin gave a slight grin. “And thank you,” Rick continued. “Thank you for choosing us.”

“It wasn’t a hard choice,” he answered. Anna blushed.

“So I have a question for you. A dilemma. Shall we tell the others about the ghosts or not?”

Rogerin pulled at his beard. “Tell me about your experience.”

Rick put his hand under Neighbor’s mane, to feel and smell the unicorn without having to look at her, and he told Rogerin everything he remembered about the encounter. Neighbor was silent. Rogerin looked at the unicorn a couple of times as if to have her confirm it. She neither confirmed nor denied. It was affirmation enough for the magician.

“I’ve never met a ghost before,” Rogerin said when Rick finished.

If he had met one, Ricky thought, he wouldn’t be so nonchalant about it.

“You know,” continued Rogerin, “when I agreed back in City Brandt to come with you, I had no idea you would present me with such an adventure. I figured there might be a little fighting here, a quick extraction of a few prisoners there, payment for the rescue, and then I’d be on my own again, like always.” He glanced at the other magicians, making Rick wonder if Rogerin the loner had at last found a place to be, with a group of people, with a family he would defend and settle down with.

“I want to be there with you when you call them up and talk with them,” Rogerin said.

“I don’t call them up,” Rick said. “They just appear. You aren’t going to do anything foolish, are you?” Rick asked him.

“What can one do with a ghost?”

Run away, Ricky thought. He looked at his father, who stared into the fire. There was no healing for a broken heart.

After a few moments of thinking of the dozens of things which could go wrong, Rick, Neighbor, and Rogerin went to inform Geoffrey of the updated plan. The king was in the council tent along with the general, his two officers, and a few others. They seemed to be arguing, but Rick couldn’t make out the words. Everyone stopped talking and turned to face the three of them as they entered the tent. Petros grinned at him.

“Tell us all again what happened the last time you were here,” King Segan said.

How many times would he have to tell this before people believed him? Rick repeated the encounter, with Neighbor adding a few missed details this time. Their story was turning into a folk tale, getting smoother and more refined with each telling.

“We all know what happened the last time you two went in alone to talk with group of people,” Petros said, not having to mention the Plains People by name. “The military needs to be represented. With your permission, General, I’d like to go, too.”

“Rogerin’s coming as well,” Neighbor said.

Geoffrey didn’t want two of his officers away from their companies, but agreed after it was decided Ian would take over Petros’ company in his absence, and Anna would be in charge of the magicians. They also felt one of the citizens should go as well. Although a couple of people had already stood out as leaders, in the end it was decided that Eri the Bird Boy would go. They all knew he would be willing enough, as well as be able to fly away, hopefully higher than a ghost, and bring the news back faster than those walking.

“So, you agree that we let everyone know about ghosts in order to prepare them,” Rick asked, assuring himself of the answer, “instead of letting it unfold? And that’s saying that I have no idea what will unfold. These ghosts have scared grown Spike soldiers.”

“And an old unicorn, who’s never run from battle,” Neighbor admitted. “No one can fight ghosts. You simply cannot.” She twitched again. Rick guessed she needed to retell the encounter herself a few hundred times before she would no longer be afraid of the ghostly spectres.

In the end, they decided to tell people to be prepared for the unexpected. But wasn’t that what they’d been doing all along? They decided to add the words “perhaps something supernatural, rather than magical”.

“Wonderful,” Neighbor said, snorting, as she and Rick headed back to the magicians’ group. “Now everyone will have nightmares. Good thing we sleep during the day.”