Then, without warning, Lady Estora kicked her horse into a quick trot, then into a canter, and they were off again, careening through the trees, ducking beneath low limbs, clods of dirt flying up from hooves. They came upon a series of old rotted logs lying across the path and leaped them. Goss refused the trees and paced in a circle until Lady Miranda’s mare went before him.

Amberhill leaned forward and said into his horse’s ear, “Before the day is done I will see you gelded!” It was an empty threat, for he’d intended to use Goss as the foundation stud of his horse farm.

But Goss did not pay a whit of attention to him anyway, all his senses focused on the mare, his nostrils flared. Amberhill growled. He needed to be up front, closer to Lady Estora, but Lady Miranda, a more timid rider, hung toward the back. The trail was a narrow track, and it would not be easy to thrash through the trees to get to the front, and they were nearing the place…

In a moment of inattention, Goss snapped at Lady Miranda’s mare above the tail. The mare kicked and Goss sidestepped with a snort.

“Idiot!” Amberhill slapped Goss with his crop, causing the stallion to half-rear and circle. While he struggled to control his horse, he was passed by the servants. A Weapon on a steed as black as his uniform gave him a sympathetic glance as he cantered by.

“I will feed your bones to the dogs!” Amberhill told his unimpressed horse.

When Goss realized the mare was out of sight, he whirled and charged down the trail, Amberhill barely maintaining his seat. By the time Amberhill caught up with the party, it was too late.

FOG

An unnatural fog crept through the woods, tumbled across the trail, obscured everything farther than a few feet ahead. Panicked whinnies and shouts echoed through the woods. A riderless horse galloped back down the trail, dragging its reins. Then silence.

Goss seemed to run in place even as Amberhill laid his whip into him. “Damnation,” he muttered. The fog must be some trick of the plainshield’s. At its edge, he pulled Goss to a halt. He could not gallop heedlessly where he could not see. Goss pranced and snorted, but Amberhill held him in, trying to decide what to do.

A voice rang out somewhere ahead. “My lady, you will come with me.”

It was Morry. Amberhill imagined him sitting tall upon his sleek horse attired as the Raven Mask, the silk obscuring his features. The plan was going ahead even without Amberhill in his place.

Morry, as the Raven Mask, was supposed to present Lady Estora to the mysterious noble who was behind the abduction. Amberhill was then to pretend to be held at bay by the Raven Mask while the noble made his terms for Lady Estora’s release known. Then they’d go their separate ways, the noble with Lady Estora to whatever estate he held, Morry into the woods with his payment, and Amberhill back to the city to report the honor abduction and pass on the noble’s demands.

In an honor abduction, the captive wasn’t supposed to be placed in danger, and was required to be treated well by her captors. Nobles understood what was expected, for this code of honorable conduct had ancient and revered roots among the Sacor Clans. The demands would be met, maybe a grievance aired, and the captive returned unharmed, and the realm could go about its business.

The unnatural fog, however, heightened Amberhill’s sense of foreboding. Anxiety knotted in his gut. Morry had warned him that the best of plans could go awry. Morry hadn’t liked this plan from the beginning…

Amberhill urged Goss into the wall of fog. It was like entering another world, or maybe one of the five hells. Horses thrashed this way and that, limbs of trees reached out of nowhere to grab at him. Goss leaped over an unhorsed servant cowering beside a rock. He glimpsed Estora’s youngest sister clinging to her horse’s mane as it bucked in fright.

He heard swords slide from sheaths. The Weapons would be moving forward to protect Lady Estora. His gut clenched at the whine of a crossbow bolt and the scream of a horse as it crashed to the ground. Goss reared and Amberhill fought him down.

“No!” he cried.

More bolts whined through the fog. Now there were human cries among the trampling hooves and the squeals of terrified horses.

“No.” This time it came as a whisper.

Goss planted his hooves, sweat foaming on his neck. Amberhill dug his spurs into the horse’s sides and Goss leaped forward. Deeper into the fog he found the dead horse lying on a dead or unconscious Weapon. He found a cavalry officer with a crossbow bolt through his neck, his eyes wide open.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Amberhill said.

Lord Henley was draped across a log, his body twisted at an impossible angle. Another Weapon with a bolt in his stomach writhed on the ground, blood bubbling from his mouth.

A third Weapon appeared out of the mist beside him like a ghost. “Sir, you are all right?”

Amberhill nodded. “Yes, yes.”

He worked Goss along the trail, the fog wisping before him like layers of veils, revealing in only small increments the scene around him. Lady Miranda knelt on the side of the trail weeping, another dead cavalryman sprawled across a boulder.

Goss’ nostrils flared and he champed on his bit as they picked their way down the trail. Lady Estora’s other sister helped a Weapon with a bolt in his leg. The Weapon struggled to rise, holding onto a tree. With a scream of pain and frustration he fell back to the ground.

The sister looked up at him then, her face pale. “Someone has taken Estora.”

He did not answer, but nudged Goss forward and forward until the fog revealed a man lying prone on the ground on a bed of moss, a bolt in his back. A mask concealed his face.