Memory 011: Black Arrows (SigNeg)

[justarider]

Game Received: Story game, Day 396, late morning
Team Played With: n/a
Memory Form: blank white card—write something on it to receive the memory



Twenty to thirty metal-clad figures swarmed over each ridge toward the
valley floor. The brave little terriers charged the groundmites as if the
instinct to attack the creatures had been bred into them. Nobles fell to the
ground with arrows bristling from them like pins in a pin cushion.

"Who is that?" Alton asked. He pointed at the opposite ridge and passed
Karigan the scope.

She trained it where he pointed. At first she saw no one among the trees
and tall grasses, but then a solitary figure standing there became
discernible. Just barely. He was dressed in gray. She nearly dropped the
telescope.

"You know him?" Alton asked.

"I've encountered him," she replied, overcome by shakiness. "A gray
rider. The Shadow Man." Condor shifted his weight and pawed the
ground, his ears laid back. "We've got to do something."

"I agree, but what? We would most likely get ourselves killed down
there."

Karigan grabbed only air where the hilt of her saber should have been.
It was the one thing that had not been returned to her. "We must stop that
gray rider. He uses terrible black arrows. They're magic… and evil. We
must stop him."

Alton loosed his saber from his saddle sheath. "Well," he said with a
rueful smile, "I was tired of being left out of the action. My family will kill
me if they find out about this. And if I survive."

Karigan saw that he was about to charge down into the midst of the
ambush. "Don't go yet. I'm going to ask for help."

She freed the little velvet pouch from her belt and drew out the
bunchberry flower, now with only three petals left on it. Alton held
himself taut, ready to ride into the valley to fight for the king, but watched
Karigan with his head cocked at a quizzical angle to see how she hoped to
find help.

She plucked a petal from the flower and threw it into the breeze. It
floated into the sky and was whisked away by the air currents. "Please
bring help," Karigan said.

Alton snorted in disbelief. "If that isn't the most outrageous—" Night
Hawk reared, and he fought to keep his seat. "Now what?"

What Alton D'Yer considered to be outrageous was blown away by a
gathering of wispy, shifting spirits who arrayed themselves before
Karigan. F'ryan Coblebay, dead F'ryan, stood frontmost. The faces of his
companions stirred and changed as if under water, their voices a breathy
babble. Alton blanched, enabled by some whim of the shadow world to
perceive the dead, too.

"F'ryan," he said. "How—?"

F'ryan did not acknowledge the young lord, as if he must keep each
movement to the barest minimum. Instead, he stood before Karigan. I have
come to help one last time, he said. One last time for the Wild Ride.

The Wild Ride, the other ghosts echoed.

Alton glanced at Karigan, stricken, and she knew exactly how he felt.
In the valley, several nobles had been slain, though the rest attempted to
repel the attackers, but mostly in vain. The remainder of the guards and
Weapons left them unprotected and ringed the king, and though several
groundmites lay dead, the odds were impossible.

You must end the pain, F'ryan said to Karigan. Soon I will fade and be
enslaved by him. He swept his pallid hand across the valley where the gray
rider stood unseen without the aid of the telescope. So many have already
fallen to him. You must break the arrows. Break all the arrows.

Break arrows, the ghosts echoed.

It is the last time for the Wild Ride, F'ryan said.

The Wild Ride! The Wild Ride! The Wild Ride!

"Hang on for your life," Karigan warned Alton. His wide eyes told her
he was clearly frightened.

Condor and Night Hawk sprang down the hill after the ghosts, and it
was as Karigan remembered. Everything wheeled past her as an indistinct
blur in streamers of color. But this time the ghosts remained hushed and
grave, intent upon their goal. Their passage was like a rustle of wind
across the grasses, for this Wild Ride lasted only moments, and when it
ended, they stood on the opposite ridge abreast of the Shadow Man. The
ghosts seethed and wavered behind them. Alton was still white from the
shock, his features taut, but he was in one piece.

The Shadow Man gazed into the valley. He leaned on his longbow and
held in his hand in a casual, careless way, a black arrow. The spectral
breeze of the ghosts fluttered his gray cloak. He turned to them, and
although his features lay shrouded in the shadow of his hood, Karigan felt
his gaze upon her.

She licked her lips, seized by fear and dread, wondering what it was the
ghosts expected her to do against this one who possessed dark magic. She
hadn't even her saber to use.

Alton overcame his fears first. He sat tall in his saddle, and with the
most aristocratic bearing he could summon, he commanded, "Call off your
attack."

Soft laughter trickled from beneath the Shadow Man's hood. "What a
pretty hero you make, Lord D'Yer." The Shadow Man tossed his hood
back, revealing deep golden hair that seemed to shine with a halo beneath
the sun.

"The Eletian!" Karigan said.

Eletian, Eletian, Eletian, the ghosts babbled.

"I see the shades have come to your aid again, Karigan G'ladheon, but
to what end? Here they have placed you within my grasp. Of you I shall
make another slave."

The ghosts shrieked like the winter wind in the fury of a tempest; their
otherworldly voices rose in a crescendo to an unbearable, piercing whine,
and they began to spin around Karigan, Alton, and the Shadow Man, in a
dizzying blur of white like a cyclone. The faster they revolved, the more
high-pitched their voices rang, until it was almost beyond the hearing of
living beings. Alton and Karigan covered their ears, the horses dancing
beneath them and rolling their eyes.

The Shadow Man stood still, undismayed by the spirits' display, and
uttered quietly words that had not been heard for hundreds of years, words
of evil summoning that had never been spoken since the end of the Long
War. And yet he spoke these words with ease.

The wail of the ghosts died abruptly, and they split apart, fell away, and
reassembled in a mass behind Karigan and Alton, waiting. Waiting for
what?

A new moaning grew as if from the very earth, and resonated in the air
all around them. The trees trembled, and a gloom materialized behind the
Shadow Man. Shawdell spoke the harsh words again, and the Green Rider
ghosts seemed to cringe.

"What—" Alton began. His hair twisted and turned in a spirit wind.

"What could ghosts be afraid of?"

"Other ghosts," Karigan said.

A host of the dead formed behind Shawdell, merging and separating
among themselves. Their moaning was worse than a dirge, low and leaden
and despairing. Slowly they passed around and over Shawdell intent on
facing the Green Rider ghosts. They were young and old, some in
uniforms, others dressed in the plain clothes of commoners.

Karigan and Alton put their hands in front of their faces as if to ward off
the spirits as they surged toward them. But the ghosts passed by and
between them. Karigan uncovered her eyes, but too soon. A spirit with the
visage of a matronly, older woman, walked straight through her. Karigan
felt the spirit as a blast of cold, like stepping into a winter cold room.
Each of Shawdell's spirits was impaled by two black arrows.

The faint trumpet of a battle horn could be heard, muffled as if an echo
of time, and then there was the distant ring of blades being drawn, and still
the low dreadful moan. The spirits streamed all around them like a fog on
a hilltop shaped and reshaped by the wind.

Shawdell stood unflinching as the ghostly battle was waged around him.
The horses trembled, their necks lathered in a foamy sweat, barely
tolerating the spirits that swarmed and moaned about them. Karigan
watched as Alton slid off his unsettled horse and grimly dodged the ghosts
to put himself in front of her and Condor. He stood erect and proud before
the Eletian and drew his blade. Karigan wished he wouldn't put himself in
the line of fire, further endangering himself. She jumped off Condor to
stand beside him and lend support. They were in this together. He glanced
briefly at her and she saw the apprehension in his eyes.

To Shawdell, he said, "You will stop this, traitor."

"Traitor?" Shawdell chuckled. "I owe allegiance to none, and certainly
not to a mortal kingdom like Sacoridia."

The spirit of a young boy tottered by, and reached out to unravel an old
Green Rider. Karigan rubbed her eyes and tried to put the ghosts out of her
mind. "Then why were you trying to court favor with King Zachary?"

"Court favor? Sacoridia borders Kanmorhan Vane, the single, greatest
concentration of power left in this world. Your king refused to take
advantage of the situation, but Prince Amilton comprehends what it
means."

"What has Eletia to gain?" Alton asked, his eyes betraying incredulity.

"Eletia? A land of fools always hiding, always hiding among their trees.
I serve myself, but never Eletia. It is time for old powers to rise again. And
you, my lord Alton D'Yer, threaten those powers. You possess the skills to
repair the breach in your ancestral wall."

Faster than the eye could follow, and with the spirits aswirl about him,
Shawdell raised his bow, speaking in whispers as if to himself, and loosed
his arrow. Karigan cried out. Alton dropped his sword and raised his hand,
palm outward, as if to stop the arrow. And he did. An arm's length from
his breast, the arrow smacked some invisible barrier and dropped to the
ground. All three looked at the arrow in utter amazement.

"I… I imagined a granite wall," Alton said.

"Your Greenie defenses are impressive," Shawdell said, "but like the
D'Yer wall, they are not enough."

Before Alton had time to react, Shawdell nocked another arrow, drew it
back, and shot. This time the arrow skimmed across the invisible wall and
penetrated, piercing Alton's side. Alton wavered on his feet before
crumpling to the ground.

With a cry of dismay, Karigan knelt by his side. The arrow had not
pierced him deeply, but who knew what magic was at work?

The trumpeting of a horn shattered the air— not the trumpet of the
dead— but clear, ringing notes of the living, and Karigan felt hope build
inside her. Shawdell glanced down into the valley where five still
defended the king. Their swords slashed at more than twice as many of the
enemy, and as the horn sounded again, the fighting seemed to pause.
Watching the scene through the embattled ghosts was like looking through
a veil.

Nine Green Riders flew from the north end of the valley. Unmistakable
red hair streamed behind the first and foremost Rider. Behind her, another
Rider blared the horn. Somehow they had known to come!

"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.

• • •

Karigan's head buzzed and she fought against fainting, wrapped in the
searing pain. The energy of the Eletian's magic burned her inside and out
like hot, writhing coals. She saw images of her charred flesh exploding
open and molten fire pouring out.

She saw other images of the Berry sisters, weaving between the pale
faces of ghosts, looking at her kindly, clucking and shaking their heads.
The child looks out of sorts, Miss Bunch said. Do not be too harsh on her,
Miss Bay said. She may have failed, but she did try. Arms Master Rendle
shared a cup of tea with the ladies. You forgot to watch your back, he told
her.

Her friend Estral sat in her dorm room plucking a lute. I will write a
song in your memory, she assured her. Abram Rust sat next to her and
blew smoke rings. The tree fell long ago, he said.

Torne and Garroty crowded her vision, pushing away even the ghosts.
You deserve this. Die, Greenie.

And the ghosts whispered, Break the arrows.

Die, Greenie, Torne said. Die.

Break the arrows.

Karigan stopped struggling. She just wanted to sleep and not wake up.
Why did everyone keep nagging her?

Break the arrows. She felt the pressure of all those ghosts crowding her.
Shawdell nocked an arrow to the bow string. His lips moved as if he
spoke a prayer over it.

Karigan saw an image of King Zachary sitting on his throne patting a
ghost dog on his lap. The ghosts massed behind him and oozed around the
edges of his chair. He looked up toward the ceiling where an artist lay on
scaffolding, painting his portrait. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was
not his voice she heard.

"This is for your king," the Eletian said.

The Eletian blurred in her tearing eyes. He stood erect and drew the
bow string taut.

"One arrow to kill him," he gloated.

Karigan fought the agony of his magic on her. She staggered to her feet.

"And the other to enslave him."

Karigan tackled Shawdell as he loosed the arrow. It flew wild. She
attempted to get a hold on him, and they struggled on the ground for a
moment, limbs and bow entangled. Shawdell threw her off.

She tumbled through ghosts, feeling their cold presences pass through
her. An old man with an arrow in his throat leered over her. He held a hoe
over his head as if to strike her. F'ryan Coblebay pushed the spirit and it
dissipated.

Break the arrows.

The Eletian faced Karigan, his features drawn with anger. He drew his
sword once again.

This time, Karigan did not have a saber with which to defend herself,
and it did not look like Shawdell was in the mood to play anymore. It was
hard to think amidst the burning coils of his spell. She could toss a
bunchberry petal to the wind, but by the time help arrived, Shawdell
would have her sliced into a hundred pieces. The sprig of bayberry might
make her feel better, but it was no defense against Shawdell. The winged
horse brooch she wore pinned to her shirt had certainly been no advantage
against him before.

There was only one more thing. She dipped her hand into her pocket
and felt the smooth cool sphere she always kept there.

Immediately the spell shattered to pieces. Tendrils of black burning
filaments fell to the ground, scorching and burrowing into the soil. No
more burning hot coals. No more boiling flesh. When she looked at her
skin, it was smooth and untouched.

But Shawdell still held the sword.

Use what is available to you, the king had told her following their game
of Intrigue. She drew the moonstone out. It was all she had.

At first the stone did nothing, and all Karigan could do was back away
from Shawdell's intent advance. Then the stone flared to life in a single,
silver blade of light. Shawdell stopped his advance in surprise.

It was like a sword in her hand. She shifted it this way and that and it
swept through the air as a well-made blade should. Now she advanced,
and Shawdell met her.

Their swords did not clang when they touched as two metal blades
would, rather they hummed as if resonating against one another, light and
dark. Silver sparks cascaded about them and a thread of smoke curled up
from Shawdell's sword.

The light of the moonstone grew within and without her, drawing on her
strength and memory; gathering together everything she had ever learned
about survival and putting that knowledge in her immediate grasp. It was
as if all her experiences during her long journey had finally come full
circle in a combination that guided her hands and feet with a confidence
and a competence she had not known before.

When their swords crossed and they pushed on one another, Shawdell
hissed, "Eletia has truly failed if it relies on a weak mortal to fight its
battles."

Karigan pushed him away with a grunt and battered him with another
volley of blows.

"Eletian moonlight is nothing over the power of Mornhavon the Black!"
Shawdell shouted.

In a calm, quiet voice, Karigan answered, "Eletia has nothing to do with
it."

The ghosts stood as supernatural witnesses in a fluctuating, gray ring
about the two combatants.

Shawdell cut low at Karigan's knees, she whipped the moonbeam blade
in a luminous arc and blocked it. She thrust at his chest, but he sidled
away and swung back with a slash to her stomach. It went back and forth
like this, this oddly silent sword fight.

Karigan used many techniques she learned from Arms Master Rendle
and F'ryan Coblebay. The ghost had shown her more than anyone when he
had claimed her body during her fight with Torne. She had felt how to
move her body in a precise way when wielding a sword. She had learned
how to anticipate and meet the enemy. Rendle and F'ryan had taught her
well, and she owed her survival in this duel, thus far, to them. One element
was missing, however, that would help her overcome Shawdell. It was
what the cargo master, Sevano, had taught her: unpredictability.

As they traded blows, Karigan awaited the appropriate moment. It came
in the form of an especially hard blow delivered by Shawdell.

Karigan stumbled back and fell to her knees as if stunned. She looked
up at Shawdell with beseeching eyes, holding her breath, the sword tip to
the ground in the position of surrender.

Shawdell laughed in triumph and brought his own sword down like an
ax intended to split her in half.

Karigan loosed a bloodcurdling scream of suppressed rage, closed in on
him, and wrapped her arms about his waist. The sword swung far too wide
to touch her. She knocked him over and rolled away.

Quick as a cat, Shawdell was on his feet again. The ploy had failed, and
now he would expect anything from her.

Where Karigan's instincts of survival and her experiences once helped
her, they now faded away, leaving her drained and feeling hopeless. She
could not go on much longer. She saw in Shawdell's sparkling eyes that he
knew.

The light of Laurelyn had been made Ages ago to face the dark, to repel
and defeat it. A thousand years ago, Eletian warriors of the League had
carried blades of light to turn the tide of the dark. The light would not
tolerate the dark then, nor would it now.

The blade of light intensified rather than diminished at Karigan's
despair. Hope flared within her as if she were part of the light. The whole
ridge ignited in brilliance, more brilliant than sunlight, and the ghosts,
shadows of the afterlife, blanched. Shawdell's triumphant look turned to
one of uncertainty, and Karigan sprang forward.

With all her power and might, she chopped down on Shawdell's blade.
There was an explosion of light that went beyond the brilliance of a silver
moonbeam— it was a crystallized, pure whiteness that blinded the eye.

Then she thrust at him and cut deep. Shawdell floundered back. He held
a shattered sword in one hand and held his stomach to keep his guts from
spilling out with the other. He opened his mouth to speak, but only blood
poured out.

Karigan panted. "You underestimate the will of mortals to survive.
You've underestimated all along."

But even as she watched, the folds of flesh around his gashed belly
began to knit together beneath his hand. Though blood still spilled from
his lips, he said, "And you underestimate the dark powers, girl. Your
moonbeam is nothing."

As if in angry response, the moonbeam sword coalesced upon itself into
a bright shining sphere. The light grew and flared with multiple rays of
light, seeking, searching. Shawdell dropped his useless sword hilt to shield
his eyes and staggered backward. As on the silver moon night when she
had seen him walking after the ball, he seemed protected by a black shield.
But this time, the shield fluctuated, thinning here, and thickening there.
The more his shield faltered, the more the moonbeams grew and probed
for a weakness. And stabbed.

Shawdell screamed, and his gray tunic darkened with blood. He backed
away, still holding his half-healed belly and flailing his other arm madly
as if he were being attacked by a hive of bees. His gray horse appeared
from the woods, and he staggered after it, fighting the moonbeam all the
way.

He crawled onto the horse's back like a wounded spider and urged it
into a gallop. The blade of light streaked after him into the woods.

Shawdell's slave spirits howled plaintively, and disappeared. The Green
Rider ghosts merged and faded. Somewhere in the valley, a Green Rider
captain watched incredulously as her assailant dropped her sword in midstrike.

Karigan closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she
looked at her palm. The moonstone was no more than a handful of
crystalline fragments glittering in the sun. The moonbeam was gone
forever. She slipped the fragments into her velvet pouch.

Karigan sagged to the ground next to Alton D'Yer. She brushed hair
away from his wan face. He breathed shallowly, still alive despite the
arrow in his side. She didn't know how to help him, but held his hand and
spoke quiet, encouraging words, not knowing if he even heard her.

In time, Captain Mapstone limped up the ridge toward her, leading her
horse behind her. Her green uniform was splayed with blood— that of her
enemies, Karigan concluded, though there was an ugly gash above her
brow and blood stained her face like a mask. The captain gazed wearily at
her, at the two messenger horses, and at Alton D'Yer sprawled on the
ground. She dropped the reins of her horse and knelt beside Alton.

"He still lives," she said in surprise. She yanked the arrow from his side
and quickly wadded the wound with cloth. "The wound itself is nothing,
but who knows what evil this arrow is tainted with. He is in fever now."

"Give it to me."

"What?" Captain Mapstone gazed at Karigan's outstretched hand, not
comprehending.

"The arrow," Karigan said. "Give it to me."

The captain looked at it doubtfully for a moment, but complied when
she observed Karigan's determined expression. Karigan touched the arrow
reluctantly. She could feel the taint of death in it, the torture. Before that
taint could seep through her skin, she broke the arrow on her knee.

"What?" Captain Mapstone raised a brow, but when Alton coughed and
groaned, she returned her attention to him.

Karigan walked down into the valley among the carnage, across the
blood slick grasses. The dead lay in mockery to the beautiful lupine that
wavered in a breeze. The Sacoridian dead had been separated from the
groundmites. She detached herself from the gore, and searched for those
impaled by black arrows. When she found the arrows, she broke them.

When she dropped the remnants of the last arrow to the ground, she
found herself by King Zachary. He knelt amidst the Sacoridian dead, his
people, and sobbed into his hand. The other hung at an awkward angle at
his side as if his arm had been broken. Nearby, six white corpses lay in a
row, including the smiling terrier, Finder.

She looked away, not wishing to intrude on his grief, and walked to
where Condor stood at the edge of the battlefield, his head hanging low.
Karigan stumbled over a groundmite shield emblazoned with a dead, black
tree. What it could portend, she did not know, and was too tired to think
about it.