“A handful of Greenies,” Shawdell said, “should not change my plans overmuch.”

Karigan grabbed Alton’s sword and with an angry growl, lunged at Shawdell. He dropped his bow and met her with his own sword. When the two blades pinged together, Karigan felt shock waves tingle through her arms. How stupid, she thought, to use a saber against a long sword. He easily countered every move she made, his pale blue eyes steady, and his lips curved up in a parody of a smile. He was enjoying this!

He toyed with her, let her exert herself. He parried her blows, neither defending himself, exactly, or attacking. Just playing. He had the reach of her, and in quick succession, sliced the brass buttons off her greatcoat. Karigan tried harder, tried to remember everything she had learned, but the harder she tried, the more Shawdell looked like laughing. He could have killed her long ago.

Then the saber snapped. She looked stupidly at the jagged shards.

“Those sabers are no match for a sword wrought Ages ago by the smiths of Mornhavon the Black,” Shawdell said, slipping his into its sheath. “And your fledgling skills are nothing to me. I’ve been at the sword four hundred years and twice that, and I’ve access to power none of you can reach. I broke the D’Yer Wall.”

A black orb like the one Karigan had seen in her room at the Fallen Tree Inn in North formed just above Shawdell’s upturned palm. It pulsated and rotated, and repelled the light. He hurled it at her.

Karigan dodged to the side, but the ball struck her shoulder. The sensation was like the shattering of a glass window, fragments flying through the air, flying through her. Pain crackled through every nerve ending in her body and she crashed to the ground in agony. Black, ropy fire wrapped around her and she tried to scream, but her voice was stuck in her throat.

“This should hold you for a time,” Shawdell told her, “while I attend to other matters.” He took up the bow and faced the valley, gazing intently at the scene below.

Laren Mapstone and her Riders had blown past Tomas Mirwell and his aide and guard. Mirwell may have master-minded this ambush on King Zachary, but he did not pose a serious threat in the immediate battle. She would deal with him later, and gladly. The groundmites, on the other hand, pushed hard on King Zachary and his guards. Only the skill of the remarkable Weapons had set back the crude slashing of the snarling groundmites.

A great mist had settled on the ridge to the east. It shifted in some unnatural way. Then, in response to a blast from Patrici’s horn, a distant sequence of notes, the battle call of the Green Riders, sounded from the mist. A figure loomed out of the mist, like a rider on a rearing horse, her hair flowing behind her, and she held her horn high as if in salute.

Fly, Riders, fly, a chorus of far-off voices chanted.

What was it Laren had said about the First Rider?

She didn’t know how much time had elapsed since then, for they had engaged the groundmites. The mud-colored, hulking creatures cowered beneath the flying hooves of enraged messenger horses. Several fell to Rider sabers. Then the king’s banner fell, was trampled underfoot, and the groundmites rallied and fought back. They growled through sharp teeth and beat their swords on black shields in defiance. Before the Long War, Mornhavon the Black had bred these creatures to be unthinking killers.

Laren was aware of some of her people being hauled from their saddles and falling beneath the blades of groundmites. Horses were hacked down, their Riders never reemerging. Grimly she fought on, pounding through the thick skull of one groundmite, and slashing the throat of another. Her sword notched on the black breastplate of one, and when his sharp claw rent through her trousers and into the flesh of her calf, she drove the sword through his eye.

It seemed to rain blood, and Laren lost count of how many of the enemy she killed. One grabbed for Bluebird’s bridle, she hacked his claw off. The din of metal against metal was punctuated by grunts and shouts. Foremost in Laren’s mind was to stand by the king’s side and defend him, and she mindlessly hacked at groundmites to reach her goal.

She wondered in some distant corner of her mind if all her training, all her years in the messenger service, had come down to this base savagery, of indiscriminate thrusts and hacks. There was no fine technique here as was taught by the arms masters, and no sense of time. Just forward momentum and another groundmite to kill.

When there were quite suddenly no more before her, she stopped, blinking in surprise. The few remaining groundmites fled, throwing down their weapons as they ran, in the end no match for the mounted Riders. One of the surviving Green Riders began to chase after them, but Laren yelled, “Halt. Enough. We need your help here.” She set him to helping the wounded.

Just two of her people remained mounted. All around her lay the dead and wounded, and it wasn’t easy to know which was which. She shook her head in disbelief. Her people . . . She was responsible for them, for this. She swallowed, forcing back emotions that must wait for another, private time. She was still a captain of the messenger service, and there was work yet to be done.

She glanced at the king, who was leaning wearily against his horse. Of his original hunting party, only one haggard Weapon stood beside him. She saw the lines of grief and pain on Zachary’s face, and when his eyes met hers, he said, “Mirwell.”

Laren nodded in understanding and wheeled Bluebird around. She galloped her exhausted horse across the valley, fearing Mirwell would escape.

She found him sitting calmly upon his horse watching her approach with interest. She pulled Bluebird up before him.