Page 102 of Silverbow
Beyond the picket, a raven haired woman clasped in irons at wrist and ankle sat with her back against an iron spike driven into the earth. She wore little more than rags, but she watched Enya intently from strange, violet eyes over her own gag - a hard iron ball that made Enya shudder. A handful of men sat on logs around a smokeless fire, turning curious eyes her way. Enya stared at that fire that consumed nothing, realizing too slowly it was a wielder’s fire. Her eyes frantically searched. When a man with a dark top knot like Colm’s turned his head, she caught the glimpse of a pointed ear.
She screamed into her gag, trying to get his attention. Some of the men turned her way and chuckled. She swiveled her gaze wildly from the demi-elf to the man who held Oryn’s ring, screaming unintelligibly into the fabric. He didn’t look up.
Kolvar paused adding her coin to his own purse and laughed. “I don’t think she likes your kind, Ruven.”
The demi-elf finally raised his head and squinted at her, but he shrugged and went back to sharpening the blade that rested over his knee.No, no, no. The ring.It was then she caught the flash of silver. For a moment, she thought he’d come for her, and her heart tried to beat out of her chest, but dread sent it plummeting again. It was only a man with hair like Oryn’s emerging from a shabby tent.
The silver haired demi-elf didn’t spare her a glance as he advanced on Kolvar. He was a handsome man, but half his face was marred by an angry red burn scar like the ones that twisted down Bade’s side. One of his eyes that should have been blue was milky white, unseeing, but he still moved with the grace she now recognized.
“We should be gone from here, Kolvar,” he said. “There’s far too much wielding in the village.”
Elling
The fire wielder’s screaming made Elling’s skin itch. Men had vanished from the Misthol Road when five black coats marched down it, and he wished he had been one of them. The collaring was always like that. Pain at the initial forging. Pain when the recruit inevitably reached for the collar. It was particularly brutal for the ones who already knew how to handle their gifts. They always tried reaching for them and were met with the most excruciating agony. He wished the man would stop. He wanted to shout it at him, but he stood silently behind Wielder Manov.
The Wielder’s eyes had gone wide when the collar closed and then he roared a terrifying laugh and clapped Elling on the back so hard it stung. “Well done, Recruit Coblegh,” he barked. “Well done.”
Gods, what have I done?
Elling felt sick. Sicker still when the man reached again for his gift and a fresh wave of screams echoed through the deserted streets of Midbury. The others in their party had come out of the inn to see what the commotion was about. Two dozen were what Pallas Davolier had ordered north to stifle any more incidents and they all stared now at the fire wielder writhing on the ground. For some, a collaring was a terrible reminder of the day they had become recruits. For others, the ones more warped to the king’s will, it was something like entertainment.
Wielder Manov pounded Elling on the back again. “Recruit Coblegh, for your service to the crown, I raise you to Third Officer. Tomorrow you will choose a link to hold.”
Elling gave a tight nod, unable to profess his gratitude to the wielder for such a promotion without sicking up on his boots. Tomorrow, he would have to don one of those wretched links and dole out pain and punishment to one of the recruits that had been his friend. Elling stood listening to the man scream and silently hoped tomorrow might not come.
The familiar prickle of someone wielding made his head whip to the south only a moment before an icy gale ripped up the street. Elling staggered back under the force of it, driven against the front of the baker’s shop. The ground trembled and the earth erupted beneath him. In the next blink, he lay looking up at the sky, motes of dust and dirt drifting across it. Briefly, Elling thought he might get hiswish, but when the silence that followed the bang cleared his ears, he could hear others screaming and Wielder Manov was bellowing orders.
Ears still ringing, Elling dragged himself unsteadily to his feet. Rare as it was, he was the only spirit wielder in this company and the only one who could see all of the threads that were wielded their way. Shock made him stagger back when he saw they were not threads at all, but ropes thicker than tree trunks spun together with so much speed and intricacy they made Elling’s head spin. The two men on horseback galloping toward them were not wielders at all. They weregods.
The man with the golden topknot stepped out from a side street, slashing through the now feeble looking flows of earth, air, and fire Elling’s comrades wielded. He wondered how it was he hadn’t felt the spirit wielder as he watched him sever flow after flow in awe, snapping the incomplete cords back on their wielders with devastating consequences.
The fireball Recruit Kaye tried to wield exploded in his face. Fireproof as he was, his black coat caught fire and the ends of his hair singed. Jorah was not so lucky. The earth he spun out snapped back, and the ground beneath his own feet exploded, sending him flying into a wall where he crumpled in a heap.
The captured fire wielder lay limp, face drained of color, but he had stopped thrashing, stopped trying to fight the collar, and fat tears were sucked into the dry dirt. Elling was not surprised to see the silver haired demi-elf he’d spotted with Enya Ryerson, but he scanned the space behind him, looking for the girl, glad to find she wasn’t there.
“Shield them, Coblegh!” Wielder Manov barked.
A half-mad laugh escaped Elling’s lips.Shield them?Elling knew he could not bottle up godsong that was already being sung, not when when his own gift was a whisper beside their roars. The shield he had placed on the fire wielder had stretched his ability and he suspected he had only been successful because the man had some strange kind of mask over his gift. But the collar compelled him to obey, so he spun out the fine web for a shield. He flung it carelessly, and it snapped down on Recruit Whorhal. The flows of air he spun together winked out, and the young southerner fled for the inn.
Wielder Manov kept screaming for him to shield. Elling spun another and slammed it between Manov and his own earth gift. The man with the golden topknot gave him a bewildered look as he slammed his own shield down on Wielder Durmham.
“Shield them, Coblegh!” Manov retreated a step toward the alley.
“They are too strong, Wielder Manov,” he answered levelly.
Another gust of air screamed down the street. Elling was forced to retreat as it battered him, pushing him back against a rough stone wall. It held him as if he were bound, pressing on his chest with the weight of a horse. He blinked away the tears that burned his eyes and forced them open to watch.
All of the recruits and wielders had been swept aside like rubbish, held back by the force of the impossible wind. The demi-elves dismounted and strode up the center of the street, their clothes unruffled. The earth wielder drew one of the blades from over his shoulder. Elling did not blink at the graceful arc that sent Wielder Manov’s head rolling in the dirt, but the other four recruits who had been linked to him started screaming at the pain that surged through the collar at his death.
The fire wielder’s eyes rolled in his head.
The spirit wielder knelt over him, and Elling watched him slip a fine silver thread along the length of the collar. It glowed where it found a seam and with a flourish, the collar popped open and fell to the dirt.
The fire wielder had to be pulled to his feet, his arm slung over the shoulders of the earth wielder who half carried him back toward where his horse still stood in front of the inn. Wind still roaring in his ears, Elling watched words pass between the other two men. His heart skipped a beat when the golden haired spirit wielder pointed squarely at him.
The air wielder stalked over, murderous rage etched on his face. When he stepped into the gust that battered Elling, it died around him, but he did not move. He did not reach for his gift.
“You shielded your own men. Why?”
