Snatches of conversation at the gates came to her: “I will not leave my girls behind!” and “You just go tell the captain I’m here.”

The flicker of a cooling shadow glided over Karigan. Idly she gazed up and saw a vulture circling slow and low. Another fluttering of black wings caught her eye as ravens alighted on the arch that spanned the gates. She wondered what attracted them. She glanced skyward again, and a second vulture looped on drafts high above the first.

That can’t be good.

The man ahead was still bickering with the guards, but Condor, who’d been drowsing, raised his head with nose pointed to the air.

“What is it?” Karigan asked him.

From behind came shouts and a scream. Karigan swiveled in her saddle to see what was the matter. Pedestrians pointed at a horse and rider cantering up the street. The horse’s strides were exhausted, and the rider’s position stiff and lopsided, jerking against the motion of the gait instead of flowing with it. Ravens swooped at and fluttered around him.

Karigan squinted against the glare of sunshine on the wet street. The horse was bound for the gates, and as it neared, her horror grew by the second.

She recognized the star on the horse’s nose—it was Petrel, belonging to Osric M’Grew, a fellow Green Rider. Indeed, the figure mounted on Petrel wore Rider green, though it was hard to tell, for the uniform was so saturated with dried blood. The sun flashed on his winged horse brooch.

“Osric ...” she whispered.

He was clearly dead, his head tilted at a bad angle and his jaw flapping to the rhythm of Petrel’s strides. His eyes were missing, pecked out by the black flock that plunged and fluttered around him. He was secured to a wooden frame and propped in the saddle to sit erect, much like a mounted scarecrow.

Petrel herself was almost gone, stumbling as she approached the gates, her ribs protruding, and her nostrils dripping blood. Her once gleaming coat was now ragged and dull, and crossed with striations from the attack of some predator probably attracted by the scent of the corpse upon her back. The only sounds in the silence were Petrel’s harsh huffing and the sharp cries of the ravens.

Karigan could not move, could not look away, as Petrel passed by her. Osric’s lips were black and peeled back from his teeth. His ears and nose were nearly pecked away. Beneath the encrusted blood, she saw a thatch of blond hair she recognized.

Yes, Osric.

The man at the gates and the guards parted to let Petrel through. Karigan retched on the sickly sweet stench of rot that followed Osric, and Condor half-reared, the whites of his eyes showing.

“Gods,” Karigan said. She mastered Condor and kicked him past the donkey cart, through the gates and over the bridge to the castle grounds. Condor ran hard after Petrel, and tears glided across Karigan’s cheeks. She knew exactly where Petrel was headed.

In this, the final stretch of Petrel’s terrible journey with her beloved Rider dead upon her back, she put on an unearthly burst of speed, giving the last of her being to end it. Condor pounded after her; followed until they reached the small stone building that was officers quarters.

Petrel came to a trembling halt, and Karigan reined Condor to a walk. The door to officers quarters flung open, and Captain Mapstone stepped out.

Having completed her mission, Petrel’s legs buckled beneath her and she collapsed hard upon the earth, the corpse of Osric M’Grew going down stiff and lifeless with her.

A couple hours later, Karigan sat in the common room of the Rider wing, still not sure who Elgin Foxsmith was, except that it was the name of the fellow with the donkey cart at the castle gates. He’d followed after her on his own horse to officers quarters, arriving only moments after Petrel fell dead.

The captain, pale as bone, had ordered Karigan to inform the king, and as she reined Condor away from the awful scene to obey, the fellow dismounted and went to the captain, speaking softly to her, placing his hand on her shoulder.

As it turned out, word of Osric’s return reached the king and others ahead of Karigan and they were already rushing from the castle when she arrived. After that, she did the only thing she could do: she saw to Condor’s needs, then came to the common room to sit and wait. Wait for what, she did not know.

At some point, Elgin Foxsmith had come by in search of Mara, offering to take charge of the newer, younger Riders. He promised to keep them busy. Out of the way and away from senior Riders in mourning.

“I’ll explain it to the young ones,” he assured Mara.

Relieved of that concern, Mara went to the captain, and Elgin Foxsmith marched the young Riders out to the weapons practice field for calisthenics.

Karigan felt drained. She’d seen a lot of death during her time as a Rider, everything from the freshly killed to the ancient corpses down in the tombs, but never had she seen such a thing as Osric propped like that.

And the gaping sockets where his eyes should be ...

Beside her, Yates was passed out with his head on the table, a goblet tipped over by his half-curled hand, and the sour stench of wine heavy in the air. Garth sat in an armchair in front of the hearth quietly drunk, his eyes glassy.

Karigan did not drink. She could not even hold a cup for all the shaking. She had not changed out of her uniform—hadn’t even removed her boots or greatcoat.

The risks were known to each of them. Every time one of them set out on an errand for the king, there was the real possibility they might not return.

This was different, though. None expected to come back the way Osric had.

What color had his eyes been? Karigan found she could not remember.