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!
The chant kept time with the rhythm of pounding hooves, of her heartbeat, of the blood pumping through her ears.
They burn.
At first Karigan didn’t know what F’ryan meant. Did the spirits burn?
The arrows burn.
Karigan glanced over her shoulder, disconcerted at looking through F’ryan’s gauzy form. Indeed the arrows were aflame and falling behind. A shout of victory, like a rush of wind, arose from the spirit riders. They pulled their horses to a halt, The Horse slackening his gait without direction. Though all were stopped, the world still hastened by, as if they were being swept away on some spectral current.
“Why?” Karigan asked.
F’ryan Coblebay slipped off The Horse and backed away, melting into the others. I cannot rest till you complete the mission. His voice faded. It was a good Ride.
“Why?” Karigan demanded, the reins bunched in her fist. “Why did you intervene?”
A lone Rider broke away from the group, her long hair drifting in an unearthly breeze. Two arrows protruded from her chest. The Rider Karigan had seen dead in North. Joy.