Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(79)

Bad luck trumps a lifetime of training, Valyn thought, twisting his head without raising it from the rough ground to try to get a view to the west.

Rocks dug into his shoulder and chest, sharp stones tore at his blacks, and the miserable drainage along which he was dragging himself proved too narrow for the bent bow of the arbalest, which caught on a corner and gouged at his stomach. Kettral were trained in all manner of ranged weapons, but nothing could beat an arbalest for sniping. Unlike a normal bow, you could fire it from a prone position, and the only movement necessary, once you’d cranked it all up, was a twitch of the finger. Of course, it meant you had to haul the ’Kent-kissing thing around.

Compounding his problems, Valyn had no idea where Annick was. He hadn’t expected to, of course. It was more than enough work trying to stay low and keep out of sight of the spotters without expecting to hunt down his competition as well. In any other contest, he wouldn’t have given half a toad’s turd for the location of the other sniper, but this wasn’t any other contest. Annick was out there, and she was hunting him as surely as she was hunting the bell. Despite what he’d told Laith the night before, Valyn’s shoulder blades itched at the thought. His only consolation was that the sun, the heat, and the ground would be as tough on her as they were on him.

Best get on with it, then.

He’d been counting on the meager ravine to carry him within shooting distance, had been following it half the morning, making reasonably good time—a pace or two every few minutes. Unfortunately, the groove had grown shallower and shallower as he moved uphill, until it provided no real cover at all. He had only to raise his head the barest fraction of an inch to see the wooden structure of the spotters’ tower and the bright smudge of the bell hanging from it five hundred paces distant. Still too far off to make the shot, too far by a good stretch.

He considered doubling back. It was the right call, all other factors being equal, but all other factors were definitely not equal. It wasn’t enough to move silently into position; he needed to move quickly, too. In front of him stretched about eight paces of sparse cover—some loose scrub and a patch of dune grass—but if he could make it through those without being spotted, he could hunker down behind a line of boulders, maybe even follow them close enough. It was risky, but then, everything the Kettral did was risky, just being Kettral in the first place was risky. No one taught you to avoid risk on the Islands; they taught you how to assess it, how to gauge probabilities, how to deal with uncertainty.

At the moment, Valyn didn’t feel much like assessing and gauging. Annick was out there, and unless he was very lucky indeed, she wasn’t spending her time hemming and hawing over probabilities.

“’Shael on a stick,” he muttered, pushing himself up to his elbows and knees, then lunging forward in a mad scramble over the stone, trying to stay as low as possible and move quickly at the same time. It took him about fifteen heartbeats to worm through the dirt and gravel, and although his heart was pounding, each beat seemed to stretch on forever. He collapsed, finally, up against the back of a hefty limestone boulder, then rolled to his right, putting a leafy spray of firespike between him and the southern expanse of the area. Only once he’d managed to set up a reasonable amount of cover did he pause to catch his breath. The spotters hadn’t blown the whistle. Annick hadn’t shot him. He grinned to himself. Sometimes gambling paid off.

Over the course of the next hour, he wound his way closer and closer to the observation platform, maneuvering from shrub to low grass, from broken ground to gravelly berm. The bell was clearly visible when he raised his head far enough to get a look at it, as were the two instructors flanking it, scanning the terrain with their long lenses. Come on, Hull, he prayed, inching forward through the grit. Just a little closer. The arbalest he carried was bulky but powerful. If the wind died, he could hit the target from a little over a hundred paces. Just keep Annick busy for a little longer.

He was moving forward behind the cover of a slanted shoulder when someone let out a sharp curse from the spotting platform. He risked a quick look. One of the two trainers, Anders Saan by the sound of the voice, was holding a hand to his chest and swearing like a sailor.

“’Shael take it,” Valyn snarled, scrambling forward. Annick had the range and had already gone to work. A few moments later, the other trainer on the platform doubled over, black silhouette jerking as though stabbed. Stunner arrows wouldn’t kill you, and Annick was showing her respect for the trainers by aiming for their torsos rather than their heads. Still, the dull bolts packed a painful punch.