First Rider's Call
Page 9

“Exactly my point,” Bard said. He drew his needle through the cloth as Ty watched very closely. “There are many generations of forgotten Riders and I think it very sad.”
“Then I think,” Karigan said, “our first tale should be about Ereal and Crane.”
They all looked at her.
“Crane is the fastest horse in all the provinces.” She gazed at Ereal. “When was the last time you lost a Day of Aeryon race?”
Ereal raised her eyebrows, her mouth open in surprise. “Never. We’ve never lost a race.”
Bard was laughing again. “A good thought, Karigan. A story would put ever more pressure on our good lieutenant and her valiant steed—she’d never live it down if she lost!”
Ereal blinked. “I thought I was already under that pressure.”
“An officer racing horses.” Ty shook his head in disapproval, his eyes still following Bard’s inexpertly guided needle.
“And Captain Mapstone hasn’t lost one silver betting on them,” Bard said with some acerbity. “In any case, certain stories take on lives of their own. Who knows what the citizens of Darden may be saying ten years from now about the girl who rode to town in her nightgown.”
“They’d say nothing if you’d drop it,” Karigan said. Then the terrible thought occurred to her that this accursed incident might be the one thing in her entire life that anyone remembered her for. Her life’s legacy. Wouldn’t her aunts be furious!
Ty, suddenly unable to contain himself, reached toward Bard. “Give me that.” He snatched the sewing right out of Bard’s hands. “Awful,” he muttered, examining the handiwork. He drew his knife and ripped out the stitches.
Ereal and Bard traded knowing looks. “Rider Perfect” had struck again, and Karigan watched as Ty deftly sewed tiny, neat stitches in the sleeve.
Bard leaned back on his elbows, content to let Ty wrestle with his sewing.
“I believe this calls for a song,” he said. “When I was last on an errand to Selhim, Karigan’s friend Estral dug up an old song for me about the First Rider. It’s not one most remember. The title is ‘Shadows of Kendroa Mor.’ ‘Mor’ in the old tongue meant ‘hill.’ ‘Kendroa’ did not survive as a place name, so the mor of the song could be almost anyplace in Sacoridia.”
Bard cleared his throat, and in his baritone, began the fast paced tune:
Hee ya, hi ya, the Riders ride
Gallop ’em down the mor
Gallop ’em fast, Lil
Slay them ’mites, Lil
And ride down the clans of dark
Their chiefs with branched crowns
Burn black pale brows
Ride ’em down, Lil
Ride ’em down the mor
Faster than an arrow, Lil
Beware the dark chiefs, Lil
Ride ’em down the mor . . .
The song depicted a desperate nighttime ride—a charge or retreat?—led by Lil Ambrioth. Since the song relied mostly on its fast beat, the particulars of the story were vague at best. If the song depicted an actual event, then the particulars had been well known to the singers and audience at the time it had been written.
“It could have simply been inspired by the First Rider in general,” Bard said afterward. “Maybe a conglomeration of events in her life. The actual theme of outrunning and slaying the enemy isn’t too specific.”
“What is meant by ‘clans of dark’?” Karigan asked.
Bard shrugged. “Estral thinks it refers to Sacor Clans that took Mornhavon’s side during the Long War.”
The Riders fell silent. Ereal stirred the embers of the fire with a branch and threw on some more wood. Growing flames hissed and popped as they consumed the wood.
The idea of clans betraying their own people had quieted the Riders. Sacoridia had come a long way in its sense of unity since those days. But the thought of Sacoridians joining a monster like Mornhavon who committed atrocities against their own people was sickening.
“Hah!” Ty said, startling the others. He broke the thread with his teeth, and knotted it off. He then presented Bard with his expertly mended shortcoat. “This is the way it should be done.”
Bard took the coat, smiling. “My humble thanks, Rider Newland. Next time I need some mending done, I’ll know who to call on.”
This brought more laughter, but despite the lightened mood, when Karigan finally kicked off her boots and wrapped herself in her bedroll, she still heard Bard’s rhythmic song ghosting through her mind as she fell into sleep.
BLACKVEIL
Far beneath the canopy of dark, twisted trees and vaporous shroud; buried beneath layers of loam, moss, and decayed leaves—a thousand years’ accumulation of growth and decay—a sentience stirred in deepest Blackveil Forest.
Even as it struggled to shudder off the captivity of sleep, voices called it back, lulling it, willing it to sleep. Sleep in peace, ancient one, they sang. Disturb not the world, for it is not for you. Sleep in peace . . .
The sentience tried to block the voices and their enchanting songs, but it was a terrible labor. The sentience moaned, which in the forest was a breeze that rattled tree limbs and sent drops of moisture plinking into still, black pools. Forest creatures paused their scavenging, yellow eyes aglow and alert.
The sentience wanted nothing more than to obey the voices, to slumber undisturbed. Yet it was too restless, and so it resisted, spreading tendrils of awareness, like vines, creeping outward through duff and leaf litter to try and feel itself out, to understand itself, to seek and comprehend its boundaries.