“No one wants to risk their hide. I see you are sensible and carry a sword. Not common on a girl, but sensible. What can I do for you this morning?”
It took a moment for Karigan to shake off her sense of disgust at how easily the shopkeeper slid from murder to commerce. She couldn’t think about it. She had to carry out her own mission, and there was no time to dwell on North’s problems. She suspected that if she didn’t get to Sacor City soon, more people would die.
She chose dried meat and fruit, tea, bread, and cheese from shelves, and some grain for The Horse from a hogshead. She set them on the counter in front of the shopkeeper.
“Two silvers,” he said.
“Why, that’s—” Robbery she wanted to say. She held her tongue, the price raising bile in the back of her throat. But she was, after all, a merchant’s daughter, and not without bargaining skills. “Half a silver,” she said.
The shopkeeper smiled in appreciation. He was a bargainer, too, and looked so smug that few probably got the better of him. “Two silvers is how it stands.”
Karigan furrowed her brows together. “Half a silver is all those goods are worth, but I’ll raise it to a silver. I can see it is difficult to earn a living in a town such as this.”
The shopkeeper nodded. “A fine offer, but a man needs more to make a living. A silver and a half, plus a copper.”
Karigan shifted her stance. The man didn’t give in easily. She wondered how many people were taken by bargainers such as him. When she lowered the price to one silver, the shopkeeper scratched his bald head as if not sure how it had happened.
“One silver is still ridiculous for these goods, but I’ll accept the price.” She passed the precious coin across the counter. As she did so, something gold glittered in a basket of trinkets on display on the far end of the counter. “How much for the brooch?” she asked.
The shopkeeper brightened. “Why, one silver. Not so much for such a fine piece.” He placed the winged horse brooch in the palm of his hand for her to look at.
“A deplorable price,” Karigan said. “A cheap trinket. One copper is generous.” She knew full well that the brooch was just as much pure gold as her own, but chances were that the shopkeeper saw it as a gaudy piece of costume jewelry, as had Torne and Jendara seen hers.
The shopkeeper raised his brows. “That ring you’re wearing . . . a clan ring?”
Karigan had forgotten about her mother’s troth ring. It probably wasn’t something she should wear openly, with its gold and diamond, in a town such as North. She sensed, however, that the shopkeeper was suddenly intimidated. Rarely did she ever use the traditional clan bow, but she did so now. She placed her hand on her heart and dipped low. “Clan G’ladheon at your service.”
“Merchant clan?”
“Yes.”
“I should have known. I wondered how you managed to outbargain me.” He chuckled good-naturedly. “A copper it is, for the brooch.”
Karigan couldn’t believe her good fortune. She thought she would end up having to pay at least half a silver. She pushed the copper across the counter and took the brooch. It was heavy and cold in her hand. All of the blood hadn’t been polished off. The folk here were no better than Torne and Jendara, picking valuables off the dead. She dropped the brooch into her pocket, collected her goods, and left just as a bewhiskered man dressed in buckskin strode in, beaver, fox, and mink pelts swaying over his shoulder.
The body of the shopkeeper had been removed. Farther down the street, a crowd assembled. Most folk were garbed in the colorless textiles or buckskin of the town. A few merchant types added a splash of color. Karigan loaded the saddlebags with her newly purchased goods, and mounted The Horse. The sooner they left town, the better.
They plodded carefully toward the assembly. Members of the Anti-Monarchy Society formed a barrier around Lorilie Dorran who stood atop an overturned apple crate addressing the crowd. Not everyone likes Lorilie’s ideas, Karigan thought idly. Or they just don’t like Lorilie.
“You say the king protects you?” Lorilie demanded.
A man shifted uncomfortably in the crowd. “That’s right.”
The crowd jeered him. He was well dressed, perhaps a merchant, and definitely not local.
Lorilie held her hands up to quiet the crowd. “I suppose the king does protect and favor the wealthy. The wealthy can afford it. Your merchant’s guild is as bad as the governors’ council, trying to control entire villages with your trade, and your rules.
“But what of the folk here in North?” Lorilie’s eyes seared those of her audience. “A man was killed this morning in the street. No one was here to prevent the crime. The king didn’t protect him. The king won’t fund a constable to keep order in this town. He will fund constables to guard the warehouses of rich merchants in Corsa.” Her hands flew as she spoke. “The only time we see a representative of the king is at tax time.”
A low grumble circulated among the gathered. Karigan tried to guide The Horse around the fringes of the crowd without drawing attention to herself, but people blocked the entire street, and were too transfixed by Lorilie to move out of the way.
Lorilie drew herself to her full height, which was not considerable, but seemed impressive nonetheless. “Will raising taxes on lumber products protect the folk of North, or other small villages like it? No! It will cast more beggars into the street. More families will go hungry. Despair, my sisters and brothers, will consume them.”
“The king uses the taxes to fortify the country,” the merchant shouted. “I call that protection, what with all the groundmites lurking about the borders these days.”
The crowd cast questioning eyes on Lorilie, but she didn’t hesitate with her response. “Yes, King Zachary is putting the taxes to good use. He is refortifying the wall around Sacor City. He is strengthening the defenses of the castle. This will surely protect the people in the rest of Sacoridia from groundmites.”
This had to be only half the story, Karigan thought, but what if it wasn’t? Maybe the Mirwellians were right. Maybe Sacoridia did need a new king. But Lorilie Dorran did not want a king at all. What would she put in his stead? Herself? Karigan shifted in the saddle, guiding The Horse toward a sudden opening between some clumps of people. She wasn’t ready to side with the Mirwellians or Lorilie Dorran.
“King’s folk will protect Sacoridians!” shouted another man.
Lorilie met his outburst with laughter. “Like they protected the families on the borders? A whole unit of soldiers was slain down the North Road. Is that protection?”
The arguments went back and forth for some time, and Lorilie churned the emotions of the audience. She pounded her fist into her hand to add emphasis. She used facial expressions to affect sadness or anger, her voice alternately beseeching and persuasive. She derided all forms of kingdomship, including those who served the king, such as Green Riders, and accused the wealthy class of supporting the tyranny of the king. The merchants walked away amidst jeers. Lorilie was a master performer, and soon she had the crowd waving their fists above their heads and chanting, “A kingless land is a free land! Monarchy is tyranny!”
Karigan tried to work the horse through the log jam of people and was cursed at for getting in the way. “Well, if you let me through,” she said, “I’ll get out of your way.” In the distance she espied the wooden bridge that spanned the River Terrygood, which upon crossing, would free her from the main portion of the town of North.
Then, above the chanting, one voice rang out, “She’s a Green Rider!”
Karigan froze. Two men pushed through the crowd and pointed in her direction. Abram’s tree poachers. An angry murmur swelled through the crowd though they couldn’t quite figure out who the lumberjacks were pointing at. There was no one dressed in green.
Karigan had to act fast before the anger of the mob, for mob it was now, turned on her. If they realized who the lumberjacks were pointing at, they would tear her apart. She glanced ahead and saw a woman wearing a light green tunic. It was the burl
y woman she had seen Clatheas giving a card reading to the previous night at The Fallen Tree. Karigan pointed at her and yelled, “There she is! There’s the Greenie!”
An expression of bewilderment, then fear, took over the woman’s face. As the crowd surged toward her, Karigan meandered through the angry people until someone grabbed her boot and tried to pull her from the saddle. It was the two lumberjacks.
“You’re the Greenie,” one yelled at her. Fortunately, no one else could hear over the roar of the crowd. “I heard that troll call you a Green Rider.”
Karigan clung desperately to The Horse’s mane, and gasped as she was pulled inch by inch out of the saddle. A well-placed kick from The Horse, however, quickly ended the struggle, and one of the lumberjacks fell with a howl beneath the feet of the crowd.
Karigan urged The Horse on toward the bridge, heedless of people who got in her way.The Horse did not trample them, but rather pushed them aside like the prow of a boat on the water. When she was clear of the mob, she galloped the horse over the bridge, his hooves clattering on the wooden deck, the river churning frothy and turbulent below and sending up mist and spray that dampened her face. When finally she was across, and thus free of the town except for a few ramshackle shops and a tavern on this bank, she reined the horse in and looked back.
It was impossible to discern exactly what was happening—the mob had become a single moving mass. She wondered what had become of the woman she had “accused” of being a Green Rider. She had done it not out of mischief, but to save herself.
A mounted figure stood amidst the mob, a gray figure fixed like a statue in the middle of a swift-running, roiling stream, unable to move forward or backward. Karigan felt cold, knowing with some certainty that he watched her from beneath his gray hood.
WILD RIDE
Karigan rode for two days, snatching moments of rest when she could no longer keep her eyes open. The landscape varied little—tree stumps interspersed with staghorn sumac and tiny birches and maples growing up where a vast spruce forest once stood. Many of the useless trees had been toppled to allow easier access to the more profitable ones. Their skeletons lay on the ground, bleached gray and dry by the sun.
Karigan’s skin burned, and she felt bleached and dry herself in the intense sunlight without sheltering trees to offer shade. The scolding of squirrels and the spring songs of birds were eerily absent.
She spent much of her time scanning the land. The horse track offered no concealment and anyone could be seen from a long way off. She tried to think of this as an advantage. Without concealment, a trap could not be set for her. She would be able to see her foes from far away.
There was no telling how far it was to Sacor City.They came upon an ancient stone marker so weathered and splotched by lichen that it was impossible to read the inscription.
They passed several teams of oxen hauling sledges piled high with logs, leaving plumes of dust in their wake, which could be seen miles away. Karigan coughed and gasped behind them, wishing she had a scarf to tie around her nose and mouth. The cargo masters paid her no heed, intent on the track ahead.
She spent sleepless nights, huddled beneath the greatcoat, the saber drawn and ready. There was no sign of pursuit, and this was somehow more disquieting. Did other Green Riders spend sleepless nights, too? Or were they used to the dangers of the road?
On the third morning out of North, logged forests gave way to farmland. Fields checkered in spring green and deep brown loam rolled away in each direction. The air freshened and was less arid. Here, birds sang in hedgerows and the occasional trees, but the land still offered no cover. Farmers plowed on distant hills with their teams in plain view. Karigan continued her rigid pace, pausing long enough only for The Horse to recover for another run.
They found an abandoned barn netted by clinging grapevine and thorns to spend the night in. The barn leaned to one side in an attitude of collapse, but the grapevine, Karigan thought, ought to hold it up for at least one more night.
Under cover and out of sight, she slept soundly, not even flinching when bats left their roosts above where she lay curled up in her bedroll. She didn’t awaken when they returned from their hunt, or to the yips of coyotes ranging the countryside. The night world moved about her, but did not disturb her.
In the morning, sunlight thrust between boards and broken windows like bright spears. Motes of dust drifted upwards in the light as she slipped tack and packs on The Horse. Both messenger and messenger horse were better for their night of rest.
Karigan peered through the old barn windows before stepping outside. If it had occurred to her that the barn was the only place that offered concealment in the area, and she had been in a less exhausted state, she would have abandoned it as too obvious. What was done was done, and no harm had come of it. No one was in sight except crows which launched into flight as she led The Horse from the barn. She mounted, and the race went on.
That afternoon, a wood came into view. It wasn’t the deep forest of the Green Cloak, but a young forest of slender birches, oaks, and maples. They had grown up in what had once been a farmer’s field—a wall of fieldstones skirted the horse track and disappeared into the wood.
Karigan approached it with both relief and apprehension. The wood offered cover, but also offered concealment for foes, the opposite of her previous problem. A breeze rustled leaves which whispered secrets among themselves.
A figure in green appeared ahead, and she stiffened. He merged with the vegetation, and disappeared. F’ryan Coblebay? When he appeared, dire things tended to happen. Karigan licked her dry, cracked lips.
The sun was high and bright, glistening on leaves, turning them into emerald jewels. The shade within the wood beckoned her out of the hot sun, would soothe the sunburn that had afflicted her since leaving North. She could think of no place less sinister than the wood. She took a deep breath and plunged in.
The shade cooled her down. It was like stepping into her father’s wine cellar on the hottest of summer afternoons. A bee droned past her ear, and she inhaled the woody scents of decayed leaf litter and earth, much different than the evergreen scent of the northern forest she had left behind.
Leaves thrashed like the sound of a bear charging through the woods. Karigan grabbed the hilt of her sword and looked wildly about. When she saw the source of the disturbance, she laughed nervously. A red squirrel! A squirrel stirring up the leaf litter!
Her imagination was getting the better of her, but what was upsetting The Horse? He sidestepped, his ears flopping back and forth.
“What’s wrong?” She had long since learned to trust his signals.
“Hello, Greenie.”
Karigan twisted around. Sitting motionless on their horses were Immerez and the gray cloaked rider. She screamed inside.
Immerez uncoiled his whip. Karigan reined The Horse around to flee, but two mounted figures rode from the woods and blocked her path. Sarge and Thursgad! Where had they come from? Immerez leaned toward the gray-cloaked rider, the Shadow Man, listening as something was whispered to him. His one eye was anchored on Karigan, and his hands worked the whip as he listened. Karigan’s hand went to her saber, but not soon enough.
“Drive her into the sunlight, boys!” Immerez shouted.
The soldiers charged her in a flurry of Mirwellian scarlet, their swords drawn. Their steeds rammed into The Horse, biting and pushing. Karigan fought to stay mounted as he half-reared and bucked, but the mere force of two against one was too much, and she found herself squinting in the sun. She reached for her brooch and wished for invisibility. The bright world became dull and heavy, and the Shadow Man faded from sight.
Immerez laughed. “I see the Greenie magic doesn’t work so well in the bright light of day.”
Karigan gasped as she looked down at herself and The Horse. They were too solid. And somehow Immerez and the Shadow Man had known this would happen. She dropped the invisibility—maintaining it would only exhaust her. The Shadow Man reappeared. What d
id it mean?
She veered The Horse around, but Immerez and his men crowded her. The Shadow Man stayed aloof, watching from the depths of his hood.
Bunchberry flower. Someone would come in need—Before she could even complete the thought, Immerez’s thong snarled past her face and lashed around her chest and shoulders, gashing her left arm. She cried out. The leather thong tightened, and Immerez dug his spurs into the sides of his stallion. It leaped backward, and Karigan was hauled from her saddle. When she hit the ground, all the air whooshed from her lungs. She struggled dazedly against the binding thong, fighting waves of pain from the jarring impact of her fall. The whip held her fast.
“Get the message satchel, boys.”
Sarge and Thursgad hurried to obey their captain’s command, but The Horse wouldn’t let them near. He kicked Thursgad’s steed squarely in the chest. The unfortunate horse grunted and shied away. The Horse backed from Sarge as if to flee, then swerved around and lunged at him in a rear.
“Damn the beast!” Sarge pulled away unsuccessfully as the hooves of The Horse collided with the shoulder of his bay, leaving behind shiny streaks of blood.
“Hamstring him, or cut his throat,” the captain said. “I don’t care. Just get that message satchel.”
“I’ll help ya, Sarge.” Thursgad kicked his horse, but it would only step backward. Sarge’s horse now shied from The Horse who, with teeth bared, snorted aggressively.
“Proud cut, I’ll warrant,” Sarge grumbled.
Karigan shook her head to clear her thoughts—not an easy task with hooves flying just inches from her. The hilt of her sword was lodged beneath her hip. She wasn’t disarmed yet. The Horse would occupy Sarge and Thursgad, but she would have to deal with Immerez and the Shadow Man by herself. The Horse lunged at Sarge again, and she was showered by clods of dirt and pebbles.
The Shadow Man made a sweeping gesture with his hand. It was a white hand, perfectly proportioned, not the skeletal hand she had somehow imagined. Someone living and breathing was concealed beneath that hood.
Green Rider Page 24