Page 2 of Arrows

But maybe that wasn’t the problem at all. Maybe the problem was exactly what Milo had said: getting through this. The strain of waiting. The orders, whatever they might be. A fight, a show of strength, a dismissal. A crackle of magic, laced through the air like ready bowstrings.

He understood, because he felt it too: the exhaustion of not knowing, of balancing on the edge, an army summoned and not yet used. Arrows in a quiver.

The stars hung cold fire overhead. Quiet conversations, chatter, laughter bounced around the camp: everyone coping with the night in their own ways, as best they could. The largest tents—the Queen’s, and General Freye’s, and the striped cerulean fantasia that Lorre had conjured up—sat a little removed, tucked against one of the low hill-rises, lamplit. Inside, the fates of countries, boundaries, lives were no doubt being debated and decided.

Van, only one small cog in that vast turning clockwork, sighed and finished his own stew, and Milo’s, even though he wasn’t terribly hungry; he was practical, though, and Milo had been right about not wasting anything.

He scrubbed the bowls, after; and he ducked into the tent with as little noise as possible, trying to be kind. The tent wasn’t large, and their bed-rolls lay close; Van settled in, feeling as though he was balancing on tiptoes.

After a second Milo, clearly not asleep, said, “Sorry.”

“About what? I know you’re thinking about tomorrow. We all are.”

“Tomorrow. Right. Anyway, sorry.”

“No need for that. And, hey. I’m here. For you. The way you are for me. Together, right? No matter what.”

Milo wasn’t facing him; Van couldn’t see his eyes. But his voice sounded affectionate, if ragged. “No matter what. You and me. Get some sleep, Van.”

“Well. You too.”

Milo made a grumbling sort of sound, but that was fine, that felt almost normal, the two of them talking. Van shut his eyes, and waited for morning.

Chapter 2

The morning dawned in shades of ice-thin color: low grey skies, dull gold grasses, washed-out hues. Even the oat-cakes and sausages seemed tired, frying in their pans. Van ate a bite, nodded hello to fellow bowmen and women in the archers’ division, and wondered how long this stalemate could last.

He also wondered what the magician was doing. Obviously open war hadn’t happened yet. But nobody’d gone home, either. The long spears were visible, stuck into the ground like a pointed warning, outside the Penthii camp across the plain. Lorre’s barrier fluttered and twinkled in non-existent wind, for all the world like a sparkle-dusted bridal veil.

A few more of the division had joined him and Milo, this morning; talk turned, as expected, to yesterday’s arrival and the advantages or disadvantages of magicians. Deceptively petite and pretty Claudette, who could string a longbow faster than any of them, said, “Yes, but what’s he actually done?”

“Well,” rumbled her tent-mate Thom, “nobody’s fighting, so there’s that…” Thom’s brother was over in the cavalry, as his father and grandfather had previously been: Averene as a unified kingdom had only existed for a few uneasy decades, and even now some of the baronies held out fiercely for independence. Thom’s family had seen some of those skirmishes with Valpres, and Van knew he had certain opinions about the worthy causes, or not, of said fighting.

“I thought magicians were supposed to wave their hands and change the world.”

“He did,” Van said. “Haven’t you noticed the shield?”

“Anyway,” Milo said, “it’s probably more complicated than that. A solution people can live with, after he leaves.”

Impressively mustachioed young Robert and his current lover Thayil strolled by, as usual embodying more commitment to fashion than actual archery practice; Van had heard, in the way of training-ground gossip, that they’d only volunteered because Robert’s father had wanted to impress the young Queen with family loyalty and talent. Van wasn’t certain that this was, in reality, working.

Robert paused at their small gathering to say, about Lorre, “And of course he’s going to leave; not as if magic’s reliable, is it?” and Thayil nodded.

“He’s here to help,” Van protested.

“Magicians.” Robert shuffled the moustaches. “Especially this one. Unnatural. Not human. Like the Church says.”

“He looks human,” Claudette said, sighing. “And pretty.”

“Does he look human, though?” Robert took the mug of tea right out of Thom’s hands and drank some. “Looking like that. Walking out of the air. He must be eighty years old, too. Unnatural, I said. Not right.”

“That isn’t fair,” Van said. If Lorre was in fact eighty years old, no one would ever guess: he looked perhaps twenty, a glorious spectacular twenty. “He can’t help being himself.”

Milo glanced at him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t trust him.” Robert handed back the tea. “He’s not one of us.”

“No,” Milo said slowly, country-farm accent warm over the words, “but Van’s right, he’s here to stop a war. And he can’t help how he’s made. And anyway if you think about it, he can’t be unnatural; if you believe the Goddess made everybody, all of us, then She made him too, right?”

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