Page 146 of Silverbow
By the time the wagon rumbled on and they reached the crimson clad guards, the boy had been dragged into the base of one of the towers, but it still wasn’t enough to keep the sound from his ears.
“Papers.”
At least no one would look twice at the hands that trembled as they handed over folded scraps of parchment. He couldn’t admonish the Silverbow for the way she nearly dropped hers; not when his own fingers felt clumsy. Aiden stared at the knots of rank on the crimson coat before him, finding anything to keep his eye from wandering toward the fire wielder who still stood at the tower door, chuckling with his companion about new recruits.
Aiden loosed a long breath when the guard waved them through. They stepped into the shadow of the city wall, the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves rebounding off the stone arching over their heads. Ahead, the outer portcullis yawned like fangs, and beyond, the shanties of the Foreshore leaned. He’d never been so happy to be riding toward that forlorn place and away from those blasted black coats.
“Drop!”
The order that echoed from their backs made him blink before the meaning struck him.
“NO!” He bellowed.
The word reverberated around them as he wheeled toward the line of crimson at their backs. Surprise flitted across the leashed fire wielder’s face as Aiden let the damper on his gift go up in smoke and he threw a shower of sparks back toward the street. They hissed and crackled in outrage. People screamed and ducked out of the way as they erupted like little stars. His call for aid was all he could manage before the chains rattled and the outer portcullis dropped with a heavythud,trapping them in Misthol. But even that didn’t drown out the sharptwangof a crossbow.
He felt the familiar sparks dancing on his skin that told him another fire wielder was working Solignis’s gift nearby, but Aiden didn’t look at him or the crimson coats that lowered pikes as they filed across the gate, cutting them off from the city. The only thing he could stare at was the bowman’s mark.
Liam
No. No. No. No. No.
Liam gaped at Enya swaying in her saddle, rocked by the impact of the bolt. She wore the broadhead like a lady might wear a broach, and a crimson apron was spilling down across the stark white of her shirt. Her face was frozen in a mask of shock, but when her lips parted, all that came forth was a weak cough that sent a spray of crimson from her lips.
A ball of fire bloomed in Linus’s hands and swelled as it raced toward the onslaught of crimson coats, sending them scattering for cover. Liam stared at the flame conjured from nowhere.He’s a bloody fire wielder.Fresh screams rose up as it bowled into the men who were too slow, sizzling flesh and exploding in a deafeningbang.
Holy gods.
“Catch her!” Linus barked, a second fireball already forming in his hands.
His words shook Liam from his stunned stupor. He leapt off Arawelo and ran to her as she slumped forward. He reached up, trying to hold her in her saddle, if only because he didn’t know how to get her down without jostling the shaft that garishly protruded from her back. Warm, wet blood seeped beneath his fingers.
Liam had never uttered a prayer before, not a proper one to all five gods. He wasn’t even sure he knew any real prayers, but he found himself begging any who would listen to spare her and then he turned to begging her.
“Enya,” he pleaded, watching her eyes flutter closed. “Enya, stay with me.” He frantically cast a look around as a wall of flame sprang up across the open gate. The heat of it seared his face. Linus conjured another fireball, this one aimed at the men who appeared with crossbows on the other side of the outer portcullis. “What do we do?”
“Hold on, stable boy,” Linus shouted. “We hold on.”
“Hold on, En,” he whispered, as if that might be enough. He tried to blink away the tears that threatened to blind him as more booms and rumblings filled the street. The stones seemed to tremble beneath his boots and bits of mortar fell from the wall above their heads. “Gods damn it, Enya. I didn’t come all this way just to let you die.”
“She’s not going to die,” Linus snapped. “Because if she dies, Oryn bloody Brydove will peel my skin off in strips and mount my head on the dullest spike he can find.”
Liam didn’t know who Oryn bloody Brydove was or why he should care, but his throat grew too tight to speak. His hands shook in their desperation to hold her up, even as the blood kept weeping from around the bolt with each beat of her heart. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Bloody hell,” Linus cursed, dodging a rock the size of a fist that whizzed toward his head. “A little help in here, if you bloody well please!”
Liam was too slow to dodge the rock that connected with his ribs in a sharpcrack. He grunted, but he didn’t let his grip on Enya’s thigh or shoulder falter. An unnatural wind ripped through the archway, and for a moment, the heat from Linus’s wall of fire faded, smothered, as a black warhorse charged through a gap in the flames.
“About bloody time!” Linus shouted, hurling fireball after fireball through the portcullis at both the red and black cloaks that had formed up. An arrow whizzed through a gap in the bars and struck something Liam couldn’t see with a harmlessthunkbefore falling to the paving stones near his feet.
Adar wore a look of cold fury that twisted into something visceral as he took in the bolt through Enya’s chest.The bloody cowards shot her in the back.The demi-elf reined his mount next to her and extended a hand to her arm. Liam saw nothing, but he seemed todosomething, because the rush of blood slowed, then stopped. Still, Enya slumped.
“Get back on your horse,” Adar growled. Liam blinked at him. “I’ve got her, boy. Now get back on your bloody horse unless you intend to stay in Misthol, and hand me her reins.”
Liam didn’t remove his hands until Adar’s own eased her upright in her saddle and when they came away, she stayed there, as if some invisible hand held her in place. Slowly, he took his own from her torso, sticky with her blood, and she didn’t shift.Bloody wielders.With trembling steps, he mounted a dancing, wild eyed Arawelo.
Hooves clattered on the paving stones and the other two demi-elves leapt through the flames. Liam tried not to look at the crimson that coated the swords they each carried. He didn’t miss the shock that painted Andril’s face, but Elred’s Eagle surveyed them with cool calculation.
The world suddenly went quiet. For a moment, Liam wondered if the last bang had taken his hearing, or perhaps some unseen blow had killed him before he realized, but Cle’s hooves echoed off the stones as the gelding pranced. The feelof Linus’s fire had died away too and Liam gasped as he watched stones, arrows, and more flame pelt what looked like a transparent dome around them.
