“It’s all right,” Captain Mapstone said quietly. “I know him. It’s Connly.”
The young man’s dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. He had run his horse hard to reach them, and without slowing his stride, he came before the king and dropped to one knee.
“Sire,” he said.
“Do you bear news, Messenger?”
“Yes, my lord.” He stood up then and looked around at each of them. When his dark eyes rested on Karigan, they registered surprise. Just as quickly, his gaze shifted back to the king. “My lord, the castle has been taken.”
The king seemed to sink into himself. Exclamations of dismay passed among the others.
“But I warned Captain Able,” Captain Mapstone said.
“Treachery was at work, then.” Connly placed his hand on her sleeve. “I am sorry, but he and some others hang at the castle gates.”
“He was a good man,” Martel said.
The others stood silently in disbelief in the midst of chorusing peepers.
Finally, Captain Mapstone shook her head. “He was a good man, and a good friend. We’ve lost so many . . . good friends.”
“Yet I am grateful,” Connly said, “to have found my captain and my king alive. I suspect our enemies believe you were defeated here, but when they hear nothing of victory by sunrise, they may grow suspicious and send someone to look things over. It is not safe to stay.”
“We can withdraw to another place,” Martel said.
The king waved the idea off. “We will do that, but first I want to hear what Rider Connly knows of the takeover.”
“Actually, very little, Excellency, except no one in the city is panicked.”
The king smiled grimly. “Another day, another king. Just so long as it does not interfere with their lives.”
“I was spending some time at an inn I frequent on Chantey Street,” Connly explained, “after a vigorous run. Osric, another Rider, was filling me in on the strange happenings over the past couple of weeks. We heard the hoofbeats of Prince Amilton’s army riding in, followed by siege engines and infantry. They simply marched through the city gates. No one was there to close them or defend them. The city went on about its business, people moving aside as the prince rode in. Some along the streets even cheered and hailed him.”
Zachary winced. “Yes, my brother has always had his supporters.”
“Very true, Sire, though there was a show of force at the castle gates. Osric and I followed the army, watching and trying to keep out of sight, of course.”
“How did they get in?”
“They scaled the scaffolding set up for repair on the castle wall, my lord,” Connly said. “They climbed over the wall and took Captain Able and killed many others. The guard seemed to lose its spirit then.”
Zachary shook his head. “The scaffolding. Crowe told me the wall needed repair.”
“Beyond that,” Connly said, “I don’t know what transpired behind the castle gates, except the gates were opened and the prince rode right through.”
“How did you know where to find us?” the king asked.
“Osric had heard of the king’s annual hunt, where it was headed, and of a bunch running off after you. I fled the city before anyone noticed me, hoping to find you alive and well. Osric is still in the city, trying to locate other Riders and regular militia who are still loyal.”
“Well done, Connly,” Captain Mapstone said. She turned to King Zachary and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You cannot blame yourself for this. This is your brother’s doing.”
“There was a time when I would have gladly given him the throne.”
“I know, but you gave up your personal freedom to lead Sacoridia, so your brother would not destroy it.”
“He may still.”
The evening darkened a shade deeper, and the chorus of peepers quickened like a heartbeat.
“Is there anything else, Connly?” Beryl asked.
“Yes.” He settled his gaze on Karigan, and a tremor of fear ran up her spine. “Your father came seeking you.”
“What?” Karigan stood ramrod straight.
“This was our second meeting, as Captain Mapstone can attest. He thought the captain or I would have information about your whereabouts. He must have seen me on the street and followed me to the inn. This was before Prince Amilton and his army came through. Of course, I had heard of your remarkable journey and arrival, but little more than that. He was surprised and more than a little gratified to hear you were even alive. He questioned me as to where he could find you. Last I had heard, you were still at the castle. I sent him there to find you.”
It took a moment for what he had said to sink in. “You sent my father to the castle before Prince Amilton arrived?”
Connly looked at his feet. “I’m sorry. I assume he got caught up in events, but I didn’t know what was about to happen.”
Karigan thought she was going to explode with anger and frustration, but she just turned away with clenched hands, missing the king’s look of sympathy.
“We must think about our next move,” Martel said.
“I think I have an idea,” Beryl Spencer said, “but it means we are going to have to move fast, and it means we need someone to go inside the castle gates to look the situation over.”
“I’ll do it.”
Everyone looked at Karigan in astonishment, and she stepped right up to Beryl, her expression one of sheer determination.
“Karigan—” the king started.
“I said I will do it. I’ll get into the castle.”
Beryl started to protest, but Captain Mapstone motioned her to silence. “Yes. Karigan will do it.”
WOMAN OF THE SHADOWS
The shadows absorbed Karigan.
She darted from the dark side of one building to another. She was like a phantom, fading in and out, and if anyone marked her passage through the streets of Sacor City, they might discount it later as some vision, or a trick of their eyes.
Karigan used her brooch to the full extent of its powers, using it to conceal herself from the armed militia of Prince Amilton Hillander. Some roamed the open streets, others stood on the city walls. But the city was not closed, nor the populace molested. Yet. A wise move on Amilton’s part—the more he left folk to their ordinary lives, the quicker they would accept him as their new king, and the less chance he would face a rebellion.
A few folk still meandered on the streets. Peddlers closed up their hand carts and pushed them away for the night. Others entered inns and pubs. A good portion of the populace was in for the night, and they did not notice if there was a green flicker where the gold light of their lamps spilled out into the dark.
From time to time Karigan rested, sinking to the ground in a darkened close or alley, struggling to catch her breath and relieve herself of the suffocating gray world she submerged herself into every time she used the power of the brooch to fade out. Now she squatted in the narrow close between a Chapel of the Moon and a market, among the stinking refuse that hadn’t sold in the latter. Both buildings were dark and empty, and she felt safe enough that she could drop the invisibility for a few moments.
She mopped sweat from her brow with her sleeve. The headache was coming back and exhaustion made her body tremble. Would the day never end? Or had it become an eternal nightmare?
Black clouds drifted across the nearly halved moon, and she darted into the street again, fading out and avoiding the light pooling about the oil-burning street lamps.
As she trotted along, King Zachary’s short hunting sword slapped her thigh, a constant reminder of him. He had protested her further involvement with his brother’s takeover, but Captain Mapstone convinced him Karigan was the only one to complete this mission. When Karigan demonstrated the power of her brooch, he could not argue.
“I must go,” Karigan had said. “If my father is there, he may be in danger.”
King Zachary smiled. It was a smile saddened by too many things. “I hope he k
nows how fortunate he is to have a daughter like you.”
“I am fortunate to have him as my father.”
Zachary lifted his sword and baldric over his head and awkwardly, with one hand, placed it over her shoulder.
“You want me to take your sword?” Karigan asked incredulously.
“Alas, brave lady, it is but a hunting sword. Yet it will be better than nothing, for I see you are without your own.”
He had put his hand on her shoulder, and she could see many things in his brown eyes. Things she did not wish to think about.
“Come back ...” he began, and she thought he might have finished with “to me,” but he turned hurriedly away without saying another word.
Karigan wrapped her hand around the hilt of the sword now. It was a fancy thing with an intricate guard and blade etched with a hunting scene. Hopefully she would not have to use it. A hunting sword it was, but she did not pursue sport.
Before she knew it, her tired feet brought her within the shadows of the castle gates. A curious sight greeted her there: the Anti-Monarchy Society, gathered together, as if making some sort of plan. She moved closer and heard the confident tones of Lorilie Dorran who stood in the middle of the group.
“We can’t deny something big has happened,” Lorilie said. “But even if Zachary is dead and his brother now rules, it shouldn’t change our plans. After all, monarchy in all forms is tyranny, and this monarch seems more tyrannical than some.”
Her supporters glanced toward the gates. The gates were wide open, but well guarded by soldiers in Mirwellian scarlet. Others stood watch in silhouette on the surrounding wall, archers among them. Torches illuminated corpses swaying from nooses on either side of the gates.
Karigan would have to move fast lest the torches break the spell of fading and arouse the Mirwellians to her presence. A pair of sentries marched back and forth beyond the gates, and she would have to time it just right.
The Anti-Monarchy Society broke its huddled grouping and defiantly faced the gates. As one voice, they chanted: “Monarchy is tyranny, no king is a good king. Monarchy is tyranny ...”
The sentries beyond the gate passed one another, and Karigan sprinted across the drawbridge. She nearly ran into a hulking soldier who appeared out of nowhere in the gray mist of her vision. She veered just in time to miss him. She bolted over to the guardhouse and leaned against the cold, stone wall.
Boots swung above her head. Ropes creaked on timbers. The sound knotted her stomach. The hanged hovered above her like stiff marionettes some puppeteer had abandoned, the flickering of torches distorting their bloodless, wooden features.
The guard Karigan had nearly run into had simply stepped out onto the drawbridge to get a better look at the Anti-Monarchy Society. Miraculously, he seemed unaware of her.
She felt her way around the guardhouse and watched the sentries pace back and forth beyond the gates once more.
Instead of running straight across the courtyard, she continued to edge along the guardhouse, hurrying past the open doorway where lamplight glowed, and under the portcullis. Once she was inside the gate, she adhered to the shadows of the inner castle wall. One of the sentries paused his rhythmic pacing. The other joined him.
“Something wrong?”
“No . . . Just . . . I thought I saw something by the guardhouse caught in the light.”
His companion glanced in Karigan’s general direction. “Nothing there. Torchlight can trick your eyes.”
“I suppose, what with those corpses hanging about.”
Karigan listened no further and sprinted across the courtyard. There was a breezeway here, that separated the outer courtyard from the ornamental gardens of the inner courtyard and connected two wings of the castle. A glance at the main entrance to the castle convinced her she would gain no entry there, for it was heavily guarded by Mirwellians.
She swung her legs over the low wall and into the breezeway. Surely some guards would patrol this way. No sooner had the thought entered her mind than guards appeared from either end of the breezeway bearing torches. They paced toward one another. Karigan dived over the low wall on the other side of the breezeway, and fell to the ground of the inner courtyard right into a clump of rose bushes.
She yelped involuntarily and bit her lower lip before more could spill out of her mouth. The sickeningly sweet fragrance of crushed roses thickened in the air about her.
A torch-bearing guard paused near her on the breezeway and waited for the other to join him.
“You hear something?” he asked.
“Nope,” the other said affably. “Quiet as the dead. Only interesting place is the throne room.”
The first guard snorted. “I would like to show some of those nobles a thing or two myself.” He sniffed. “Phew. Just smell those roses.”
The two moved off, conversing companionably, and Karigan breathed again. She plucked thorns out of her hands, arms, and legs, and stood up.
“I’m doing well,” she muttered to herself with sarcasm as she unsnagged her coat from one of the bushes. “Vicious shrubs.”
She trotted along the garden paths to where she remembered the ballroom was. Perhaps she could enter there, undetected. But when she reached the ballroom entrance, it was ablaze with light. Inside, soldiers in silver and black were jammed together under many watchful guards in scarlet.
She turned away, but the sound of a commotion just outside the doorway caught her attention. A guard pulled on the arm of a small, struggling prisoner.
“C’mon, li’l Greenie. Tagard wantsa li’l fun.”
“Nooo!”
Mel? Karigan cursed silently. As a member of the Green Foot, Mel would be treated just like any of the other soldiers, or even worse.
The guard slapped the writhing girl and knocked her to the ground. Mel cried out again in a terrible sob.
Karigan knew the feeling. The helplessness of being under the power of someone much bigger and stronger than she. She could almost smell the foul Garroty and feel his hard, callused hands on her.
Without another thought, King Zachary’s sword was in her grasp. Although it might ruin everything, she could not simply let the soldier hurt her friend. She knew . . . she knew the fear.
She crept up silently behind them, and though the light from the ballroom touched her, she was barely perceptible. The soldier was too busy with his prey anyway and would not have noticed Karigan even if she were fully visible. He giggled like a boy.
Karigan plunged the sword into his back.
There was no sound, no outcry from the soldier. He simply collapsed on top of Mel. Her cries were muffled beneath him. Karigan hoisted the man away, and Mel curled up into a ball in a fit of sobbing.
“Mel,” Karigan whispered. She reached down and touched the girl. Mel cried louder and kicked out. “Mel! It’s me, Karigan.”
Mel rubbed her eyes. “Karigan?” Her tone was one of disbelief. “Where . . . ?”
Karigan touched her brooch. The gray world fell away and she sighed with weariness. No sooner had she appeared than Mel sprang over to her and wrapped her arms around her. The girl wept into her coat, her whole body wracked hard by sobs like unrelieved grief.
“Quietly now,” Karigan said in a soothing whisper. She stroked Mel’s hair and rubbed her back, keeping watch on the ballroom door, fearing they would be discovered at any moment.
“It w-was so t-terrible.” Mel’s whole body shuddered.
“You’re fine now,” Karigan said, still stroking. “You’re fine.”
Then Mel pushed away, sniffing, her face wet with tears. “It’s . . . it’s really you.”
“Who did you think?” Karigan smiled down at her.
“I-I thought you went away, or were dead.” Mel wrapped her arms around her again and a new freshet of tears began. “The captain’s dead, isn’t she, and King Zachary . . . ?”
“Absolutely not.”
Mel stopped in mid-sob. “What?”
“They are both alive. We ha
d some trouble, but we made it.”
“Truly?”
Karigan nodded, and Mel wiped tears off her cheeks, a wide grin shining on her face. “Thank you, Karigan. You don’t know how happy I am.”
“I can guess,” Karigan said. “We can’t stay here. Those guards are going to miss this fellow soon.” She pointed at the dead soldier. “Help me pull him into the bushes.”
They each took an arm and dragged until he was concealed in the darkest shadows they could find beneath a clump of shrubbery.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Karigan asked.
Mel shook her head, then shivered a little. “He . . . he frightened me.”
“I know,” Karigan said. “Listen to me, you have got to get out of here. Is there somewhere you can hide?”
Mel thought for a moment. “Maybe at the stable.”
“Good! You hide as well as you can, all right? There are some things I’ve got to take care of here, and it may be a while. Don’t be scared, but don’t come out of hiding. Do you understand?”
Mel nodded.
“Good.” Karigan looked down at her friend, but her face blurred. She rocked on her feet, assailed by dizziness. She passed her hands over her eyes.
“You all right?” Mel asked. “You look . . . I don’t know. Not good.”
Karigan shrugged.“I’m fine. I ’ve j ust been using my brooch an awful lot. Now you run. I’ve got some things to do.”
Mel started away, but glanced over her shoulder at Karigan.
“Go,” Karigan said, waving her off.
Mel disappeared across the courtyard and Karigan prayed she would reach safety unmolested. She sagged in the shadows herself, closing her eyes briefly and taking a breath. She just wanted a nice long sleep in a feather bed. But just as she thought she was at the end of her endurance, she pushed herself to continue.
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