She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think so?”
“No one can control her emotions all the time,” he said. “Not even you elves, for all your smug superiority. I have seen what you are like in battle. And I have also seen how you respond afterward, when you find out how many of your people fell. We are not so very different, after all. You only like to think we are.”
“I suspect it is you who likes to think we are more similar than our natures warrant,” she replied. “We are different, Aedan. And wishing otherwise won’t change that.”
She had spoken flatly, in a matter-of-fact tone, as was her manner.
However, Aedan thought he had detected a trace of wistfulness in her tone. He cho,t, not to pursue the subject.
Ahead of them, the emperor suddenly reined in, then leaned over to address Lord Korven, riding beside him at the head of the formation, some distance behind the scouts and the advance guar(l.
Aedan and Sylvanna reined in as well, then turned their mounts and rode off to the side, as had the, emperor and Lord Korven, so as not to halt the, troops coming up behind them.
“What is it, Sire?” Aedan asked as they rode up beside the emperor and his general.
“I don’t know,” Michael replied, frowning. “Look there, on that rise.”
He pointed.
At first, Aedan couldn’t make out what he was pointing at, but a moment later, he saw it. To their right, several hundred yards away, the land sloped up to form a rocky hogback ridge. The lower slopes of this ridge were shrouded with a thick fog, with here and there some of the scrubby, twisted trees and sparse undergrowth showing through.
The upper portion of the ridge was devoid of trees or growth of any kind and rose up from the fog like rocks protruding from the sea.
There was something moving along that ridge, paralleling the course of the army.
Aedan stared intently, trying to make out what it was. The shape that moved across the ridge was black as pitch and amorphous. From this distance, it was difficult to gauge its size with any accuracy. It seemed to flow, undulating in a peculiar way, extruding projections that seemed almost like legs, but did not quite hold their shape.
Aedan counted four of them. It was as if an inky black cloud were cantering across the ridge, thought Aedan, though of course that was impossible. Or was it? In the perpettial twilight of the Shadow World, there was much that was different from the world of daylight.
Was this some sort of strange creature they had not previously encountered? And if so, what was it?
Aedan recalled how, as a boy, he had watched (clouds roll across the sky and had searched for shapes within them. If he looked at them long enough, some would appear to take on the shapes of animals, or faces, or birds. So too, he now watched this bizarre apparition and began to see an approximation of a form. The four leglike extrusions that flowed from its main body seemed like a horse’s legs, and after a moment, he began to see the rough shape of a horse’s head, even a mane, which streamed like dark and misty tendrils from the horse’s neck.
And the lower part of the strange black cloud looked rather like the horse’s body, while the upper part
seemed to take on the appearance of a rider with a cloak streaming out behind him.
“It looks like a small storm cloud,” Korven said, and then echoing Aedan’s thoughts, he added, “and the way the wind is blowing it across that ridge, it almost resembles a mounted knight.”
“I feel no wind,” said Michael with a frown.
“That’s because we are below it,” Korven said, t, then shrugged. “It is nothing. Just a cloud, that’s all.”
“That is no ordinary cloud,” said Aedan. “It looks too small. And there is no wind propelling it. Look closely, my lord. It moves as if of its own accord.”
“Nonsense,” Korven said. “With all due respect, Lord Aedan, you are allowing your imagination to run away with you.”
And as they watched, the cloud suddenly stopped, directly opposite them on the ridge.
“Nonsense?” asked Aedan tensely. “Look again. If the wind has ceased to blow it, why does it not drift?
It’s stopped. And now it’s watching us.”
Up on the ridge, the shape of the black cloud shifted. It seemed to solidify before their eyes, and it unquestionably took on the distinct form of a horse and rider, except the two seemed to be one form.
“That is no cloud,” said Michael. He turned to young Viscount Ghieste.
“Davan, ride ahead and bring me Futhark.”
Young Ghieste set spurs to his mount and galloped off, returning shortly with the halfling guide seated on his horse behind him.
“You summoned me, my lord?” asked Futhark.
Michael nodded and pointed to the ridge. “Look there,” he said. “See that dark form on the ridge?”
The halfling looked, then paled, and his eyes grew wide as he beheld the shadowy form. “May all the gods protect us!” he said.
“What is it, Futhark?” asked Sylvanna.
“Doom, my lady,” the halfling guide replied fearfully. He swallowed hard. “It is what I feared the most each time we came this way.” He turned to Michael. “We must flee, my lord! We must leave this place at once!”
“Flee?” Lord Korven said. “From what? What is that thing?”
“That which has driven my people from this once sunlit world to yours,”
said Futhark. “It is the Cold Rider.” form for more than a moment or two.
“He is the Usurper,” Futhark said, averting his gaze from the dark form on the ridge. “Many years ago, he first appeared in our world, no one knew from where, and wherever he rode, the green plants withered, the animals died for lack of forage, the numbing cold spread and the gray mist followed.
Hence the appellation he was given, the Cold Rider.
As to what manner of creature he may be, I cannot say. I know only that where he passed, our world was blighted until it became the dismal place you see about you now.”
“Is he dangerous to us?” asked Aedan.
“However
powerful a creature he may be, surely he
would not
attack an army.”
“The Cold Rider has never been known to
attack
directly,” replied Futhark. “It is enough merely to
see him. Those who have the
misfortune to lay eyes chCtptC-C TWO
upon that
evil apparition soon experience some
awful
tragedy, and many do not live to tell the tale.
“What manner of creature is this Cold Rider?”
He
is a harbinger of doom, a manifestation of evil Michael asked, curious
at Futhark’s reaction. In all
itself. We must make
haste to get away from here, the battles they had seen, with either humans or
my lord, before some evil fate befalls us.”
demihumans, the halfling had always displayed
“It all sounds like a lot of superstitious nonsense crafty
survival instincts, but he had never shown
to me,” Lord
Korven said scornfully. ‘Such things as any fear. Until now.
The dark form on the ridge had
weather and the
climate change purely of their own not moved since he-or it-had stopped to watch
accord, and not because some ghost decrees
it so.
them. Yet there appeared to be movement within the For all we know, that shape upon the ridge is noth form.
Watching from a distance, they could noting more than swamp gas or some strange trick of make out any facial features or other details, if i the light.”
indeed there was a face, but like a reflection cast
“With respect, my lord, there is much about the upon a pond that
rippled when a stone was tossed
Shadow World that you
/> have yet to learn, despite
into the water, the outline of the dark
figure on the
your travels here,” said Futhark. His
voice had a hol
ridge appeared to shift, as if unable to retain solid
low ring to it. He was clearly frightened. “Before the Cold Rider came, this was a world of sunlight and bountiful beauty.
Brightly colored birds sang in the trees; the meadows bloomed vividly with wildflowers in profusion; faeries flitted in the forest clearings like playful fireflies; and there was game aplenty.
Now look about you and tell me what you see.
“And there is much here that, thankfully, we have not yet seen or experienced. Wherever that ghastly apparition rides, the undead are sure to follow. Monsters such as your world has never seen are presaged by his appearance. Whether he commands them or they simply follow in his wake, no one can say, but it is not for nothing that my people have fled this world for yours and only return here for brief periods, and often at great risk.”
“Why come at all then, if this Cold Rider poses such a danger?” asked Lord Korven, still skeptical of the halfling’s claims.
“Why have you come?” Futhark countered.
“Sometimes necessity entails acceptance of great risk. Shadowwalking is something only we halflings can do, and in the case of my scouts and myself, we are being well paid for the risks we take.
This world is wide, and there is only one Cold Rider.
The odds against encountering him are great, but this time, they have turned against us. If we do not leave this place as soon as possible, there is no telling what may happen, but I fear we may not even live to regret it.”
Michael shook his head. “If you were to create a portal back into our own world now, it would bring us out well within the borders of the Spiderfell. We could easily get lost there, and I have no wish to make my weary troops do battle with the Spider’s
minions. We must go on, at least until we can emerge in Diemed.”
“As you wish, my lord,” Futhark agreed reluctantly “But I would strongly advise that we make all haste and do not camp for the night.
I know the troops are tired, but they can rest far better and more safely once we have reached Diemed than they shall here.”
Michael pursed his lips, considering the halfling’s suggestion. “I am loath to push the men more than necessary. They have already marched a long way after a failed campaign in which they lost many of their comrades.” He fell silent for a moment, and Aedan could tell that those losses weighed heavily upon the emperor. “But if you feel strongly about the matter, we shall press on.”
“I do, my lord,” the halfling guide replied. “The appearance of the Cold Rider bodes us ill, very ill, indeed, and I shall not rest easy until we are well quit of this place.”
Michael nodded. “So be it, then. We shall press on.
Inform the men. Tell them we shall march tonight and make camp in Diemed tomorrow, where they shall have two days to take their ease. I am anxious to reach home, but that is the very least that I can do for them. Haelyn knows, they all deserve a resi.”
“Look,” Sylvanna said, glancing back at the ridge.
“He’s gone.”
They turned back to the ridge. The shadowy horseman had disappeared, as if he were never there.
“An ill omen,” Futhark grumbled. “An ill omen, indeed.”
Bas
Night within the Shadow World was not much different from night in the world of daylight, at least insofar as appearances were concerned. It was the days that were different. During the day, the sun never showed itself in the world of shadow. It was like a heavily overcast and foggy day back in the world of light, with gray skies and mist perpetually floating just above the ground. At night, however, with the twisted trees and scrubby undergrowth camouflaged by darkness, one could almost think that it was any other place in Cerilia, save for the ghostly silence, occasionally broken by the cry of some … thing …
out in the darkness. And despite having journeyed through the Shadow World on previous occasions, Aedan could never quite grow accustomed to those sounds. Or to the deathly silence when they ceased. No crickets, no night birds … nothing. He did not know which was worse.
On previous expeditions through the Shadow World, they had always made camp at night, for the curious suspension of time in this unearthly place meant that there was no reason to conduct forced marches through the night. They could remain within the Shadow World for days or even weeks, and when they came back out into the world of light, only minutes or hours would have passed.
However, that was no reason to tarry. There were too many dangers in the Shadow World for that, and the longer they remained there, the more they risked.
When they made camp in the Shadow World, they kept bright fires burning and posted sentries around the perimeter of the camp, more than they would have in their world. And in the Shadow World, there was never any temptation for sentries to sleep on the watch. While the others warriors slept-always very lightly-the sentries on duty would remain wide awake, eyes always scanning the darkness just beyond the camp perimeter. These were lessons they had learned the hard way.
Once, Aedan recalled, during their first excursion into the Shadow World, a sentry had fallen asleep on watch. The others had been alerted by his frenzied screaming. The nearest sentries to his post were merely a score of yards away, but by the time they reached his picket, there was no sign of him. They never found him. He had simply disappeared without a trace, dragged off somewhere into the darkness.
No one knew by what. After that, there were never fewer than three sentries at any one picket, and the memory of what happened to that poor soul who had disappeared kept a fine edge on their alertness. No one ever fell asleep at his post again.
This time, however, the Army of Anuire, the famous Ghost Rangers of Emperor Roele, did not make camp. They kept marching through the night, lighting their way with torches. They would be visible for miles in the darkness, but that was less cause for concern than the inability to see whatever was around them. A good number of them had seen the ominous figure of the horseman on the ridge, and it had not taken long before word of the Cold Rider spread throughout the ranks.
Many of the troops had become friendly with the halflings that marched with them, and by nightfall, there wasn’t one of them who did not know what the Cold Rider represented. Aedan supposed there was nothing that could have been done about that. Though it was cause for unrest among the troops, at the same time, it would keep them on their toes. With men that were as tired and dispirited as they were, that was perhaps only for the best. They could not afford to relax their vigilance until they had passed back through the portal and reached Diemed.
They kept moving at a steady pace, with the emperor and his retinue leading the formation on their mounts, Aedan bearing Michael’s standard, and Sylvanna riding by his side just a few yards behind them.
The advance guard had been strengthened and pulled back, so that they were only a short distance in front of the main body, their torches clearly visible. The archers marched with arrows nocked in their drawn crossbows, and almost every man had his hand upon his sword hilt. The tension in the air was palpable.
How much farther? Aedan could not be sure. He did not know this territory as well as did the halfting scouts, but by the first gray light of morning-if one could truly call it lighthe felt they should have covered enough distance to be able to emerge just beyond the borders of the Spiderfell. Morning could not come soon enough.
As he rode at a slow walk, Aedan kept thinking about the apparition they had seen upon the ridge.
Just who or what was the Cold Rider? Could he be human, demihuman, or something else entirely?
How much of what the halfling said was literally true and how much was merely his belief?
Halflings were a strange lot. Over the past eight years, Aedan had come to know the halfling
s who marched with them, but there was still a great deal about them that he did not fully understand. Their beliefs, for one thing. They swore by the godsr at least Futhark and his scouts did-but Aedan had never seen halflings attend services at any of the temples. For that matter, there were many humans who never took part in religious services, but still had faith in the gods. With the natural tendency that halflings had to assin-fflate themselves into whatever culture was predominant in the places where they lived, it was difficult to tell what they really believed. And the halflings never spoke about it.
They were willing to answer certain questions about themselves, but only to a point. They had a way 0 f turning aside unwanted questions by speaking in circles, appearing to give replies when in fact they were engaged in loquacious obfuscation. Talking to a halfling could sometimes be like trying to catch a will-o’-the-wisp, thought Aedan.
They seemed outgoing enough and friendly, but there was still much that they kept to themselves.
For all the times that Futhark had guided them on expeditions through the Shadow Word, this was the first time he had ever made mention of the Cold Rider, and if they had not seen him-or it-Aedan was sure Futhark would not have volunteered the information.
If he was so afraid of this mysterious apparition, why keep coming back to this place? Why agree to guide them through the Shadow World? Why not simply stay in Cerilia, in the comparative safety of the world of daylight, and never return to this place that he and his people fled?
Was it truly only a question of money, or necessity, as Futhark had put it?
Halflings needed to five, like anybody else, but there were many halflings-the vast majority of them, so far as Aedan knew-who had found vocations for themselves as craftsmen, traders, merchants or entertainers in Cerilia and never went back to the world from which they had come. What made Futhark and his scouts so different?
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