And Damian echoed her own belief that the Riders were a family, or maybe even better than a family. Fergal would find friendship and respect among them. The Riders watched out for one another, cared for one another, and sometimes even squabbled like true siblings. Karigan smiled as she imagined herself as Fergal’s grouchy, older sister.
A stiff breeze funneled into the valley, plowing down the grasses before it, tousling the manes of horses, tugging yet again on that bit of hair Karigan had forgotten to rebraid. Damian took to scanning the valley, his back erect.
“What is it?” Karigan asked, her hand going to the hilt of the saber. Could it be predators he was worried about, or maybe even groundmites?
The horses all faced into the wind, their ears perked.
“Damian?” Karigan said. She glanced up the ridge. Jericho stood in a watchful attitude as well.
She started to draw her saber, but Damian leaned over and stayed her hand with a touch. “No, lass. It’s the patron. He comes.”
Karigan released the saber’s hilt, but remained suspicious. “Where is he?”
“He comes.” Damian rose to his feet and she followed suit.
“Well I don’t see him.”
“Not here yet.”
Karigan asked, “Then how do you know he comes?”
“The wind, lass,” Damian said. “The wind precedes him, and the wind follows. He is Eolian.”
“Eolian?” Was it some exotic breed of horse she had never heard of before?
“Shaper of wind,” Damian said.
Karigan sighed. The more Damian tried to explain, the less she understood.
“There,” Damian said, pointing toward the mouth of the valley. “There he is.”
Karigan squinted trying to see, but no horse was visible to her. Then her vision blurred and there was a flutter of motion…She blinked and her eyes cleared. She couldn’t have seen anything; just a trick of the eye, the wind tossing grass and brush around…
Then she was met with the absurd sight of the horses bowing their heads. Up on the ridge even her Condor did so. Damian had meant it literally when he said the horses bowed to their king.
She gazed at the valley anew. Maybe her eyes had not been playing tricks on her after all. The pressure in her head, in the air, continued to build, swell. She rubbed her temple.
“Do you see him?” Damian asked.
“No.”
“Do not look with your eyes.”
It was one absurdity after another. She closed her eyes and saw only the back of her eyelids. What did Damian mean? Her Rider brooch flashed in warmth. She touched it, felt a throb through her fingertips, like the rhythm of hoofbeats. When she opened her eyes, the world had gone gray—the land, the horses, Damian, everything.
“You’ve faded, lass, like a ghost!” There was consternation in Damian’s voice.
Karigan smiled. It was fair play to perplex him this time. Her special ability worked better in darkness and shadows in which she seemed to vanish completely. In direct sunlight like this, the effect was less successful, making her a living wraith.
Something in the air had prompted her to use her ability, so she gazed across the valley anew, and there he was, the stallion, practically pulsating in her vision with blackness against desolate gray. He pawed the earth, each muscle rippling beneath a hide smooth as ebon silk. He negated light, was made of its absence, like the night sky, the heavens; and when he moved, the grasses around him swirled like a dervish, though his long mane and tail remained undisturbed.
“Eolian,” Karigan murmured.
He raised his head, tossing aside his forelock, as though deigning to take notice of the more earthly creatures around him. He snorted and trotted over to Fergal’s little colt and his dam. The colt’s legs folded beneath him—or buckled—and he lay on the ground looking up at the god-being that was his patron.
If not a god-being, Karigan thought, what else could the stallion be?
The dam bobbed her head and, incredibly, nibbled just above the stallion’s withers, and he reciprocated by nibbling at the base of her tail. This friendly grooming went on for a short while and gradually others among the horses came to touch noses to the stallion or offer grooming. He flicked his ears as they came and went, chasing none off. The only ones who did not approach were the other stallions, who remained at their watchful distance.
Once again the black stallion raised his head to the sky, curling back his upper lip.
“Our turn,” Damian said. “He’s taking our scent.”
“Wouldn’t we have…I mean, shouldn’t he have been concerned about us sooner?”
Damian chuckled. “And what could we do against him if he thought us a threat? No, lass, he knows we’re no threat. And he’s familiar with my scent.”
The stallion left the herd and approached them, head lowered, each stride self-contained power. He halted and gazed at them through his long forelock. A breeze pulled on Karigan’s hair and this time she didn’t push it away.
Beside her, Damian knelt to one knee. “Greetings, Eolian,” he said.
Karigan’s own knees trembled, for she believed she looked upon something greater than a king, something not of this world. When she gazed into his eyes, she saw beyond simple intelligence, saw chaos and the infinite. The blackness of his eyes absorbed her, consumed her, and in a vision she saw the star-draped universe, and amid the constellations galloped the stallion, muscles flowing in midnight hues. Upon his back rode a winged warrior whose helm was the beak and visage of a raptor. Westrion, the Birdman, god of death.