The horse, a long-legged chestnut, was lathered with sweat and huffed as if from a hard run. The rider slumped over the chestnut’s neck. He was clad in a green uniform. Branches had lashed trails of blood across his white face. His broad-shouldered frame twitched with fatigue.
He half dismounted, half fell from the horse. Karigan cried out when she saw two black-shafted arrows impaled in his back.
“Please. . . .” He beckoned her with a crimson glove.
She took one hesitant step forward.
The rider was only a few years older than she. Black hair was plastered across his pain-creased brow. Blue eyes blazed bright with fever. With the two arrows buried in his back, he looked as if he had fought off death longer than any mortal should have.
He was of Sacoridia, Karigan was certain, though the green uniforms were far rarer than the black and silver of the regular militia.
“Help . . .”
Each step she took was shaky as if her legs could no longer support her. She knelt beside him, not sure how she could aid a dying man.
“Are you Sacoridian?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you love your country and your king?”
Karigan paused. What a curious question. King Zachary was relatively new to the throne and she knew little of his policies or methods, but it wouldn’t do to sound disloyal to a dying servant of Sacoridia.
“Yes.”
“I’m a messenger . . . Green Rider.” The young man’s body spasmed with pain, and blood dribbled over his lip and down his chin. “The satchel on the saddle . . . important message for . . .king. Life or death. If you love Sacor . . .Sacoridia and its king, take it. Take it to him.”
“I—I . . .” One part of her wanted to run screaming from him, and another part felt drawn to his need. Running away to Corsa, instead of waiting for her father to collect her at Selium, had held an irresistible air of adventure that she had anticipated. But real adventure now looked at her with a terrifying visage.
“Please,” he whispered. “You are—”
The last words died inaudibly as blood gurgled in his throat and sprayed his lips, but she thought she caught a breathy the one. The one what? The only one on the road? The only one to take the message?
“I—”
“Dangerous.” He shuddered.
Everything around fell silent in an expectant hush, as if the world held its breath for her decision.
Before Karigan could stop herself, she said, “I’ll do it.” She heard the words as if someone else had drawn them from her.
“You s-swear?”
She nodded.
“Sword. Bring it to me.”
The horse shied from Karigan, but she caught his reins and drew the saber from the saddle sheath. Its curved blade flickered in a patch of sun as she held it out before her. She knelt beside the messenger again.
“Wrap your hands around the hilt,” he said. When she did, he placed his hands over hers. It was then she saw his gloves were not dyed crimson, not originally. He coughed, and more blood flecked the corners of his mouth. “Swear . . . swear you’ll deliver . . . the message to King Zachary . . . for love of country.”
Karigan could only stare at him wide-eyed.
“Swear!”
It was as if she already looked upon a ghost rather than a living man. He would not allow himself to die until she swore the oath. “I swear . . . I’ll deliver the message for the love of my country.”
Although she had sworn, the Green Rider was not ready to die yet. “Take the brooch . . . from my chest. It will ident . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut in pain till the spell passed. “Identify you as messenger . . . to other Riders.” The words were gasped as if he were forcing air in and out of his lungs by sheer will to extend his life. “Fly . . . Rider, with great speed. Don’t read m-message. Then they can’t tor-torture . . . it from you. If captured, shred it and toss it to the winds.” Then, because his voice had grown so faint, she had to lean very close to hear his final words. “Beware the shadow man.”
A cold tremor ran through Karigan’s body. “I’ll do my best,” she told him.
There was no response from the messenger this time though his eyes still stared at her, bright and otherworldly. She gently pried his fingers from her hand and closed his eyes. She hadn’t noticed the winged horse brooch before, but now, pinned over his heart, it glowed golden in the sun. Absently she wiped bloody finger marks off her hands onto her trousers and then unclasped the brooch.
A curious sensation, not at all unpleasant, as if all her nerves sang in unison, tingled throughout her body. The gold warmth of the sun embraced her, and drove the shadowy chill away. There was a fluttering like great white wings beating the air, and the sound of silver-shod hooves galloping. . . .
Moments later, the sensation receded, and she realized the sound was her own excited heartbeat, and the sun had risen sufficiently to widen the patch of light she stood in. Nothing more. She pinned the brooch to her shirt.
She then sensed, like a breeze whispering through a hundred aspen trees, invisible lips that seemed to murmur, Welcome, Rider.
Karigan shook her head to clear it of such fancies, and turned to practical matters. What to do with the messenger’s body? She couldn’t just leave it lying there in the middle of the road exposed to carrion birds and passersby, could she? She wouldn’t want to stumble across a body in the middle of the road during her travels. It just wasn’t right to leave it there.