Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(80)

Valyn gritted his teeth. Annick would need to reload her arbalest before going after the bell. That meant cranking back the bow, fitting another bolt to the channel, and resuming her firing stance. There was a slim to vanishing chance that he could use the intervening time to get off a shot, especially now that the spotters were technically out of the exercise. It should take her at least forty seconds to—

An arrow shattered the stone inches from his head, then fell like a broken bird to the gravel. Valyn stared. Annick couldn’t have reloaded the arbalest that fast. There were cords to notch and ratchets to twist. No one could reload an arbalest that fast.

“Well, she did, you ’Kent-kissing fool,” he growled at himself, rolling hard to his left, trying to put some cover between himself and the general direction of the shooter. He tumbled into a small ravine just as another arrow clattered in the dirt above him.

An arrow.

An arbalest didn’t fire arrows; it fired bolts. Annick was able to reload so fast because she was using a regular bow, although how she managed that lying down, Valyn had no idea. It didn’t matter. She had him pinned, was undoubtedly moving to a new line of sight as he lay there, and would take another shot within the minute. The logical thing to do at this point was surrender. The sniper had clearly won the trial, could ring the ’Kent-kissing bell whenever she wanted, but something in Valyn kicked against the thought of giving up. For Annick, the game wasn’t over until she’d shot everyone on the field, and if the game wasn’t over, he could still win. He scrambled up the ravine on his hands and knees. He just had to reach the—

Another arrow scudded through the dirt right beside him. The girl was fast, but her normal accuracy was failing her. Valyn started to smile—it seemed even Annick had her off days—but as he crawled past the spent shot, his breath froze in his chest. A razor’s edge glinted, bright and vicious in the dust. The arrow was unblunted. A head like that would rip right through his chest and out the other side if Annick found her target.

With a bellow of rage and fear, he lurched to his feet. There was no playing now. No hiding. No ducking behind rocks and skulking through the brush. He had no idea how it was possible, not with both trainers watching the whole thing, but Annick was trying to kill him, had the range and angle already, could probably choose her shot.

He lunged ahead, darting back and forth over the jagged path. If he could reach the low gravel berm fifteen paces distant, he could make a reasonable stand, but fifteen paces was an eternity to a well-trained sniper. His heart hammered at his ribs, his lungs heaved, and he wrestled with the fear as he ran, forced it down into his legs, into his lungs, used it to drive him on. Five more paces. If he could just reach the berm—

The blow caught him high in the shoulder, right above the lung, driving him forward onto the gravel slope. First it was just the shock of the impact that hit him. Then the pain came, a savage tearing fire. He rolled to the side and looked down at the front of his jerkin. The arrow had punched directly through his body, tearing out the front of his chest. Blood coated the head and shaft. Son of a bitch, a real ’Kent-kissing arrow, he thought vaguely.

He tried to move his hands, tried to push himself to his knees, but failed. Fog filled his vision, but he could just make out a slender shape rising from the ground some hundred paces distant. Annick held the shortbow casually in one hand, another arrow nocked to the string. They saw her, Valyn thought groggily. Doesn’t she know that the trainers are looking at her? She raised the bow easily, almost casually, drawing and releasing in the same motion. A moment later, the clang of the bronze bell reached Valyn, dim and tinny, as though heard underwater.

Only after she had lowered the bow did Annick glance toward him, turning her head with the curt, acute movement of a bird. Through the bloody haze that filled his vision, Valyn saw her eyes widen, but there was no joy, no celebration on that hard, child’s face.





19





Uinian IV did not look capable of murder, certainly not the murder of an old soldier like Sanlitun hui’Malkeenian. Where Adare’s father had been tall and strong, with powerful arms and hands, the Chief Priest of Intarra was nearly an albino, short and pale, thin-lipped and stoop-shouldered, with a head like a misshapen gourd. That her father lay dead in his cold tomb was pain enough, but that he should have been delivered to Ananshael by this pathetic wretch made Adare want to scream and sob at the same time. If Sanlitun had to die, he should have been cut down in battle, or swallowed by the raging sea. The chaos of war, the wrath of the depths: those were foes worthy of her father. Despite his post, Uinian struck her as a small, mean creature.