Chapter 2: Two Riders

The small campfire did little to dispel the darkness encompassing him. It was almost like the dark was a palpable thing looming over his head. The thought was discerning to say the least.
Shifting in his seat, he reached out with a dark, gnarled branch to stoke the red hot embers of his fire. There would be no sleeping this night, he determined sadly looking at his bedroll. That would be the second night, the few measly hours during the day had done little to dispel the exhaustion, but something would take him if he slept for too long, he was sure of that.
His horse snorted, pulling against the lead rope tied round one of the more normal looking trees. He stood, meaning to go sooth the poor animal when he heard the wailing of some beast out in the blackness. As he neared his horse he pulled his sword, the blade whispered against the sheath as he drew the artistically crafted weapon. At least it had made the journey to this strange place with him.
He hated to think of what he would be doing if it had not.
"We'd probably be dead," he whispered to his mount, running his hand down the bay battle horse's neck. The horse snorted in response, pawing at the ground. The knight smiled grimly, running his hand down the horse's neck again.
"Don't worry boy. Nothing's going to get us tonight," he hoped he was right.

The steely grey of the approaching dawn awakened Karigan. She sat up groggily on the cot rubbing her eye as she tried to remember where she was exactly. She knew she made it to the D'Yer Wall, and she had talked to Alton, but the rest of it was unclear.
There were vague memories of being shaken awake as the camp grew dark, and moving, but that could have just been a dream. She sighed reaching out for her boots. What she would give for her comfortable bed in the Rider Wing, and the chance to sleep in while other people handled everything. But she was a seasoned Rider, there was no sleeping in, and no one else to handle the majority of her workload.
Her mud encrusted boots finally gave way, allowing Karigan to pull them on. She should have cleaned them the night before. But she had been so tired, and had neglected to do so. She had also failed to make sure Condor was looked after. She sighed again, pulling a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she tied the rest of it back. Condor would make her pay for that.
The morning was cool beneath the Wall. The camp was silent, but in a comfortable way. The only people awake were the guard; they leaned heavily against trees and hitching posts, their eyes drooping as they neared the end of their watch. Karigan passed them, offering a brief nod as she heading toward the Tower.
It was still odd to pass through the stone wall to enter the tower. She had been in and out several times, but like fading out with her ability, it was still an odd sensation. Perhaps the keeper of the tower could offer some insight as to what had passed through the breach.
In her half awakened state the night before she had heard some talk about the mysterious thing had had breached the camp twice. It was still roaming the Green Cloak along the Wall. No one had been able to track it, for all intents and purposes it had vanished like a wraith.
"If it isn't, Rider Sir Karigan G'ladheon."
"Good morning, Merdigen," she greeted. "How is your game of Intrigue?"
"Dismal," the ancient sorcerer tugged at his beard looking down at the half completed game. "That young Jackson has spent the last three days staring at the board refusing to make a play."
Karigan smiled looking at the game beside the wizard. She knew about his love of Intrigue, anything to help pass the unending time. She had suffered through more losses than she cared to count at the hands of the projection of the long dead magician.
"He's still trying to find a way to beat you."
Mergiden huffed turning from the board, making the sunny glade they had been standing in vanish, returning it to the stone interior of the tower. "What brings you to the Wall?"
"I was stationed here," she answered simply. "And I was wondering,"
"If I knew anything about that Rider who tore through here yesterday, wreaking havoc upon those half-wit soldiers King Zachery placed here?" Merdigen's brows rose at the question, looking quizzically at Karigan.
Karigan's mouth fell open. She had only been in here for a few minutes. Whatever had come through must have upset the guardians, warning the Tower Keepers. "I couldn't have said it better myself," she finally managed to respond.
"The guardians say they are friendly," he responded waving his hand to supply himself with a chair. "If they had just let the one who ventured out yesterday alone, he would not have wasted his arrows."
"He?" Karigan questioned, her mind processing what Merdigen had said. "A rider, like a Green Rider?"
"Oh no, there are no Green Riders where he came from." A cup of tea appeared in Merdigen's hand, he stirred it idly.
"How do you know that?"
Merdigen smiled holding his hands out innocently, his tea cup floating in the air between the two of them, "know what?"
"You know what," Karigan snapped, trying in vain to take hold of Merdigen's robes to shake him. "And what is this 'they'? Only one thing tore through the camp, raining arrows down on the King's soldiers!"
Merdigen smiled again, his eyes twinkling at her in her attempts to force the answers from him. The guardians had reported two new beings in Blackveil, and they sensed these new arrivals were friendly, but who they were and where they came from was a mystery. Even now, the guardians were marking the progress of the second rider, bearing down upon the breach like a moth to flame.
"Answer me," Karigan shouted at the projection.
"Or what? You'll beat me to a pulp? Slam me against the wall? Deny my basic needs until I supply you with the information? I hardly think so," Merdigen rebuked, folding his arms where Karigan was still attempting to take hold of his robes. "If you feel the need to know where they've come from and what their mission is, I suggest you ride out to meet the second one."
"He's coming here?"
"Of course he is! You can't expect him to stay in Blackveil indefinitely can you?"
"How long until he arrives?" Karigan started back toward the camp, leaving Merdigen before he could answer.
"He should be here any moment," Merdigen shouted as Karigan vanished. Merdigen harrumphed, "no manners at all."
Outside, the camp had come to life. Soldiers were running haphazardly bearing their weapons as they moved toward the breach. Something was coming.
Karigan took off, running along the wall, trying to find the generals or Alton. She had to stop them before they tried to kill whoever was coming from Blackveil. She ran, pushing people out of her way, "Move!" she commanded trying to reach the head of the straggling line.
Alton was at the breach when Karigan finally forced her way to the front of the line. He was astride Nighthawk, his saber held in his hand as he stared into the swirling mist of the tainted forest. She ran to him, panting from her run.
"Alton, there's two of them," she gasped. "Merdigen says they're friendly."
"Nothing that fires arrows at men trying to uphold their duty is friendly," Alton did not turn from the forest as he spoke to Karigan. "And if another one is coming, it's not getting out of Blackveil."
"They have a mission here," she tried to explain; forming conclusions based on what Merdigen had told her. "We should talk to him, not trap him in Blackveil."
Before Alton could respond to Karigan, grey arrows rained down around the assembled troops. The men panicked scattering from the arrows, which amazingly were missing the soldiers as they ran for cover. Karigan turned to see the shadowy figure that had saved her from the groundmites the day before, a massive longbow nocked with more of the arrows. He fired so quickly it seemed like one shot sent a dozen more arrows arching through the air.
Quickly Karigan turned to Blackveil. If one of them was here the other must be coming soon. As she stared into the dark forest she saw a great bay gelding charge through the barbed vegetation that was encroaching on the wall. The rider was dressed in a hauberk, a green surcoat fashioned with a golden leaf etched over his chest. A shield was hanging from his left arm and in his right hand he held a sword, a long hand and a half straight-bladed affair, that slashed at the plants that seemed to be reaching up to him as he urged his mount to greater speeds.
Seeing his destination so close, the rider laid his heels to the bay's sides, leaning over his neck as much as possible while still hacking at the bushes crowding his horse. The bay ran faster, Karigan could see the whites of his eyes as he grew closer.
She realized what was going to happen just before it could transpire.
Quickly Karigan reared back and smacked Nighthawk on the hindquarters with on open hand. Nighthawk screamed in protest, bucking wildly and running away from Karigan, carrying Alton out of the way just as the bay gelding galloped through the breach and what remained of the assembled troops.
As he passed her, Karigan watched the rider sit up in his saddle, and without pausing changed direction while expertly returning his sword to a scabbard belted at his side. He rode through the storm of grey arrows, heading toward their source. Was she imagining it, or did she see the man visibly relax seeing the shadowy figure on the edge of the camp?
Just before the new rider reached him, the shadowy figure paused his firing. He held his hand up in greeting and brushed back his cowl. Karigan's breath caught in her throat, she had seen the rider before while using her ability. He had been watching her in the shadowed layers of the world.
"Aeryc have mercy," she mouthed watching as the two riders charged away from the camp.

"It's nice to see a familiar face," Horace groaned, stretching out on the ground by the campfire. "And to be out of that forest."
"There's something off about that place," Will agreed stoking the coals of his small fire. "I'll assume you're hungry."
"More tired than hungry," Horace yawned from where he had spread his bedroll out. "I felt a presence in that forest, I couldn't sleep."
"Then sleep," Will nodded to Horace. "Those soldiers won't travel far from their camp. And Tug should warn us if any of the monsters approach."
"There are monsters on this side too?"
Again Will nodded, "on top of the Kalkara, there seem to be a variety of beasts roaming these lands."
"Did they come through that wall as well?" Will shrugged.
He had no idea where the monsters had come from, and he hardly cared. All he was really concerned with was the Kalkara he and Horace had been tracking. And the woman he had helped reach the encampment.
Some deep sense of premonition told him that woman was the Kalkara's target. The fact that the thundering voice of the space between home and this strange forest had told him to find her just added to Will's assumptions. Whoever had commanded him must have some interest in the woman, but why?
Who was she and why were the Kalkara after her?