Green Rider (38 page)

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 did 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.

Immerez nodded in response to the gesture, and clucked his horse backward. Karigan grit her teeth as the whip tightened around her, strangled her, cut into her flesh. He dragged her several yards across rocks and tall grasses away from sharp horse hooves. He dismounted, and keeping the whip taut, stood above her. The sun glared behind him, and Karigan had to squint to see him.

"I don't know what kind of training you give your Greenie horses, but my men will have him down shortly. No doubt about it." His green eye flicked over at the action, then planted on Karigan again. "What do you know about a spy in House Mirwell?"

Karigan struggled to sit up, but he drove his boot heel into her shoulder and slammed her back into the ground. Her shoulder flashed with pain.

"Mirwellians," she gasped. "Nothing but cutthroats."

There was no reply for a moment. "I asked you a question."

Karigan craned her neck upward. "I don't even know what the message is about. I don't know anything about anything. You understand?" She was surprised by her own vehemence. Her voice did not sound high-pitched and frightened.

Immerez squatted down out of the glare, which shifted the shadows on his face. Sweat gleamed on his bald head. "I don't know how it is F'ryan Coblebay passed his mission to you, but he did. You do know the information."

"I do not."

Immerez peered over his shoulder, and to the Shadow Man he said, "I don't wish to play this game anymore." There was no response. Only Sarge's curses could be heard down the track. When Immerez gazed back at Karigan, his features were tight. "You could tell me about the spy now and spare yourself some trouble."

"Does your statue friend make you do all his work?"

Immerez grinned humorlessly. "He is no friend of mine."

"Then why? What's so important?" Karigan wriggled her hand pinned beneath her body, reaching for the hilt of her sword. No one was here to help her. No eagle, no Abram, no Berry sisters, no Eletian, no ghost. Curious that F'ryan Coblebay wasn't here to help, or at least to communicate. Perhaps his time walking the earth had expired.

Immerez seemed perplexed by Karigan's questions. "What do you mean
why
? I'll wager you're trying to throw us off the track."

Sand and grit abraded Karigan's hand as she burrowed it beneath her body. She fixed her gaze on Immerez, so not to give away her intent. "I'm not really a Green Rider. I don't care what's important to you, or what's important to King Zachary. I found the messenger dead and took his horse. I'm just trying to get home, nothing more. You can have the message if you want."

Immerez laughed and slapped his thigh. He looked over his shoulder at the Shadow Man. "Did you hear that? She says we can have the message if we want!" The laughter stopped cold and he gazed down at her. "If that is so, call off the horse."

Karigan shrugged as best she could in the confines of the whip. Her fingertips touched cold metal—the pommel! "He doesn't listen to me."

"I thought so. If you're no Green Rider, you certainly look like one."

Karigan had slipped on the green trousers that morning. "The clothes… they were in the messenger's pack." Her fingers worked down the hilt, slowly tugging the sword from the sheath. A drop of sweat glided down to the tip of her nose and hung there.

Immerez seized her by the jaw, and lifted her from the ground to look her in the eye. "No more lies," he hissed.

"Admit that you know of the Mirwellian involvement. Tell us about the spy."

He released her jaw, and she fell to the ground with a solid thud, her grip on the saber lost. "I know nothing about F'ryan Coblebay or what he did.
I'm not a Green Rider
. Mirwell is a province of idiots anyway!" It sounded childish, and as the fury grew on Immerez's face, she was sure he would kill her.

"I don't care how young you look, Greenie," he said calmly. There was no explosion, but somehow this was worse. "You shall be bound to a tree and my whip will extract the information from you."

Alone. I'm alone.

The Horse was tiring, and even now Sarge reached for his reins.

Immerez towered over Karigan. "Stand up, Greenie."

Now. Now,
or I won't have another chance
.

She climbed to her feet, gripping the hilt of her sword as she did so. Immerez gasped in surprise, tightening the whip too late. The leather thong unraveled from her shoulders and she jumped to the attack.

She was too close for Immerez to draw his own sword, but he ducked as she swung the saber at him, and double fisted his hands into her stomach. She crouched over, holding her stomach and retching.

"Foolish. Very foolish." Immerez lashed his whip as slowly and deliberately as a cat would its tail. "Drop the sword."

Karigan's lungs ached for air. Blood thrummed through her ears. It was rhythmic, like the galloping of hooves.

"You won't drop the sword, then?" Immerez flung the whip at her. It coiled around her ankle, and he jerked her foot out from under her. She crashed back to the ground.

Karigan cried out. It was the same ankle the creature of
Kanmorhan Vane
had clenched in its claw. The sense of complete helplessness rushed back to her, and the memory of how she had overcome it to defeat the creature and its offspring. She chopped at the leather thong, but it was too thick to be severed completely through. Immerez threw back his head and laughed at her futile attempts. He loosened the whip, drew it away, and gathered it for another lash.

I killed the creature of
Kanmorhan Vane, Karigan thought.
But I had help
… Yet she would not allow Immerez to use the whip again. The crescendo of hoofbeats… Heartbeats thundered in her ears. She sprang to her feet with a growl, and this time she didn't hack at the whip, but at the hand that held the whip.

She stopped, staring stupidly at the saber dripping blood, at Immerez groveling on the ground. His hand was several feet away just like in the vision she had through Professor Berry's telescope. The hoofbeats in her head drowned out his screams.

"Horse!" she cried, but he was already beside her, quivering with energy she did not understand. Sarge's and Thursgad's horses spooked at the air. Even the Shadow Man's mount pawed the ground, his neck foamy with sweat. Immerez's stallion had run away.

Mount
. The voice pierced through the hoofbeats drumming in her ears. She obeyed, and the world reeled out of balance.

Thursgad and Sarge and their horses turned slowly, each movement prolonged and exaggerated, removed from real time. Everything blurred in Karigan's vision except herself and The Horse… and the Shadow Man.

The Shadow Man sat serenely on his stallion. A bow appeared in his hands where there had been none before. He removed two arrows from his quiver, each black-shafted with red fletching. He nocked one to the bow string.

Ride
! the voice commanded.

Karigan dared not disobey. She squeezed The Horse's sides just as the first arrow was loosed. The Horse leaped into a gallop. Blue of sky, green and brown of wood, rushed by in streaks. The buildings of a village were a smear they left behind. Two arrows, she knew, sang behind her and would not stop till they found their mark.

Wind buffeted her, loosened the braid in her hair. The rhythm of The Horse's hooves pounded through her body, but for all she knew, they flew.

There were other pounding hooves, other riders abreast of her, filmy white and transparent. Trees and buildings did not hinder them, they traveled right through. They called to her with far off voices in what was like a battle cry:
Ride, Greenie, Ride! It's the Wild Ride
!

Cold arms slipped around her waist from behind.
Ride
, F'ryan Coblebay whispered.
It's the Wild Ride
.

The more the landscape grew indistinct, the more the riders clarified. Men and women in greatcoats or tunics striding alongside, some in light armor of war astride battle steeds, and some in uniforms of archaic vintage riding lean messenger horses. All traveled at the same unnatural speed as she and The Horse. All of them were Green Riders from times past, all of them dead. What stake did ghosts have in her survival?

Ride, Greenie, Ride!

Their chant spun the world faster, and still The Horse surged blindly ahead. Their pale faces were young, few were old. Some Riders thrust their sabers above their heads, others shook their fists, their shouts echoed to her from someplace far away. A cold sweat blanketed her body as she charged along with the ghostly cavalry.

The arrows still followed behind with the same momentum, she knew. She could hear them whining through the air. How long could this Wild Ride last?

Ride, Greenie, Ride! It's the Wild Ride!