Finally, with the formalities concluded, the company dismounted and all the Green Riders converged on Dale for greetings and hugs.

“Hello, hello. Ouch! Watch my shoulder!”

When it was Karigan’s turn to hug her friend, she did so gingerly.

“Your shoulder,” Karigan said. “Still ...”

When last they’d stood together before the breach, a terrible, huge avian creature had attacked the Riders and grasped Dale in one of its talons, nearly carrying her off. It had succeeded in giving her a ghastly wound, preventing her from making the journey back to Sacor City.

“No,” Dale replied. “That’s pretty much healed. “This is, er, something else. Long story.”

Trace Burns then introduced Fergal, Sandy, Oliver, and Fern, who, being relatively recent additions to the messenger service had never met Dale.

“Green Greenies, eh?” Dale said.

“Not nearly,” Fergal replied with a sniff. “I helped rescue Lady Estora.”

“Ah, so you’re the one,” Dale replied with a grin and a wink to Karigan.

“Those of us not going over into Blackveil are here to assist Alton with the wall,” Trace said.

“That’s what the orders Garth carried from the captain told us,” Dale replied. “Lynx, Karigan, and Yates are going into the forest and the rest of you belong to us.”

“Where is Alton?” Karigan asked. Another glance around the encampment did not reveal his presence.

“Down by Tower of the Heavens. He’s expecting you. All of you.” Dale spoke directly to Karigan, and Karigan wondered if there was something pointed in Dale’s statement, a warning of some kind? And if so, why?

Dale retrieved her horse to lead them to Alton, but Plover was so excited to see her fellow messenger horses that she wheeled and pranced and tossed her head, and made it very difficult for her Rider to mount. “Be still, you silly mare!” Dale cried in exasperation. Plover paused long enough for Dale to get her toe in the stirrup, but she was barely in the saddle when the mare continued to carry on with her high spirits, hopping and bucking and snorting. Her antics vexed Dale, but amused everyone else.

As they rode alongside the wall toward the secondary encampment, Karigan found herself nervous, pushing back a loose strand of hair and wishing she could at least scrub off some of the travel dirt before seeing Alton. She laughed at herself. He’d seen her in far worse straits before, hadn’t he? She wondered how he was looking these days.

Ard suddenly cantered up from behind and hauled his horse to a walk alongside her. “You left without me,” he said a little breathlessly. “And I’d rather not be left back there with those others. Green Riders make better company.”

Karigan did not disagree.

“This is some edifice, isn’t it?” he said in a low, awed voice, sweeping his arm toward the wall. “Like the gods made it.”

Karigan often thought of it the same way. “But it wasn’t. It was made by people like us.”

“And magic,” Ard muttered.

“Yes, and magic.”

The secondary encampment resembled a small tent village. It appeared no cabins had yet been constructed here, which must have made for a miserable winter, more so than what Alton had described in his last letter. The encampment’s inhabitants came forward to greet the Riders, mainly soldiers and some laborers. Karigan’s gaze pinpointed Alton immediately as he strode forward with Garth beside him

He looked leaner, more broad shouldered than she remembered, his hair longer and wilder. It seemed to Karigan that his experiences in Blackveil and at the wall were chiseled into his face so that there was little of the softness of youth left there, making his features all the more intriguing. She couldn’t help but grin at him. He smiled tentatively in return.

Then she noticed someone else with him. “Estral?”

REUNION

Alton could not remember being happier. He and Estral spent long hours into the night talking, laughing, singing, and holding each other close. He almost forgot the danger so nearby, but there was not much he could do about the wall or the towers until Merdigen returned. It surprised him he wasn’t as frustrated as he normally would be. He was grateful for the respite actually, as it presented more time for him to spend with Estral.

Upon Garth’s appearance at the wall and his news of the impending arrival of the company that included Karigan as a member of the Blackveil expedition, Alton had gone cold, not hearing another word Garth spoke. He spent the interval between Garth’s arrival and Karigan’s pacing in his tent and trying to decide what he’d say to her. Hello, Karigan, I’m in love with your best friend, did not seem like the best approach. Then he fell into deep thought wondering how she looked, how she’d be. She was “Sir Karigan” now, he reminded himself. How had she changed?

Fortunately Estral was absent from his agonizing. She was giving a music lesson to an off-duty guard.

“You look like you’re being pecked to death by a clutch of baby ducks,” Garth said, poking his head into the tent. “That anxious to see Karigan?”

“Anxious? Yes.”

Misinterpreting, Garth just laughed.

And then the Riders rode into camp and Alton and Garth strode out to greet them. He immediately picked out the rarely seen Lynx, and there were Yates and Trace. The others were unknown to him. Except Karigan, who rode at the end of the line with a man in forester’s garb.

Alton caught his breath. There she sat mounted on Condor, her posture that of a true horsewoman, the reins easy in her hands. Her long brown hair was drawn back into a single braid, just as he remembered she often wore it.