Page 56 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

I could feel the differences though. My muscles didn’t tremble, my body didn’t have to work hard at all. And as a result, there was added power. Power I could feel coursing through me, through the draw of a bigger bow made of harder wood, the wooden stave resisting the pull. I felt it and then I redirected all that power down the arrow and let fly. A small flurry of comments and cries was the only way I knew I’d hit the bullseye, because I didn’t stop to look. I moved like a machine now, one who knew her true purpose. I drew another arrow and another, and another, keeping on moving until each of my arrows was loosed.

“Gods, lass…” one of the men said and that’s when I stopped to take a look at my pattern.

The first arrow was dead centre, somehow I knew that, and the other four? They were neatly arranged around that central shaft.

“Well, remind me never to bet against you with a bow in your hand,” Pep said, her brow wrinkled. She’d gotten most of her arrows in the red centre, but their array was a little haphazard. I smiled then, my face feeling strange, and I clapped her on the shoulder, because I knew absently that that was what you did when competing with a friend, but as soon as I could, I turned to Nordred.

“More,” I said, feeling a need I hadn’t been aware of burning, threatening to swallow me whole.

He just nodded, smiling in recognition of whatever it was, then dragged the apples closer.

“So, what’re the apples for?”Pep asked, sneaking in and grabbing one, then taking a big bite from it.

“Enemies don’t sit still,” I said, Nordred said, and then we both laughed. “After you.”

“Shooting at targets helps refine your aim,” he said, “but it doesn’t help you when dealing with a real enemy. They run, zig zag, stagger or sprint, and you need to be able to shoot them all.”

He grabbed an apple, shining and red, and then tossed it in the air with an indolent flick of his wrist. An arrow was in my hand, nocked and loosed as my eyes followed the apple’s path. A little ooh of appreciation came from the crowd as my arrow slammed into it, dragging it down to the ground. I just watched and waited, feeling a familiar kind of endless patience settling over me.

The reason why I’d been so willing to thwart my father and Linnea was because of this. If mincing around in frocks or working on endless embroidery had given me half the peace of mind that archery did, I would’ve been Linnea’s most diligent student. I just happened to have been born in a world that decided, before I even came into it, that I was to do one thing and never do another. Perhaps that’s why other noblemen never allowed their daughters to touch a weapon.

Because when I did, the feel of the ash stave in my hands, the resistance as I pulled the string and then the unquestionable passage of an arrow through the air, swift as a swallow, I knew I’d never allow anyone else to stop me. So when Nordred tossed, one, two, three apples up in the air at the same time, I was the bow, was the arrow, waiting for the point when the apples would intersect and then cutting through several at the one time.

“Well done, lass.”

My bow swivelled around at that voice, the man in question throwing up his hands when my arrow was aimed at him.

Not now, a small voice said inside me. Not him.

So I let the string go lax, pointing the arrow at the ground, and then I took a deep breath.

“You’re going to be part of their push for the throne,” Pep said in little more than a murmur. “I thought when they took a human for a mate that they’d given up hope of challenging their father, but…”

She peered closer at me, like she was only just seeing me for the first time.

“Can you do more?”

Blackie was broughtinto one of the larger fields that apparently was used for whole unit conditioning. He snorted out his anticipation of what was to come, or maybe just his indication that he’d like one of those apples we’d left wastefully scattered across the training grounds. I pulled myself up into his saddle, not bothering with the stirrups, which were too long for me, anyway. I urged him forward with my knees, knowing I’d need to keep a good grip on him for what I was about to do.

Nordred climbed the fence, what was left of his bushel hauled up and placed on top of the fencepost. I had the smaller bow with me now, the thing feeling too fine and almost fragile in my hands, but it was better suited to the task. I nocked an arrow, and with a quick glance saw that people were beginning to pull themselves up on the fence line as they realised that I was abandoning the reins altogether.

I’d have preferred to do this with Arden. I knew him, knew his quirks and could read tiny changes in his movements by now, but there would come a time when Arden would die, or could be injured or stolen, and I’d be forced to do this with another horse. I’d practised with Blackie before at least, so we knew each other a little. I squeezed my knees, indicating he was to start to trot forward, then when we picked up some speed, circling around the paddock, I pushed him into a canter. A small whistle of wind, that was all the warning I got as Nordred tossed an apple into the air, my body twisting against the curve of the horse’s body as we went around the corner, my arrow flying through the air and sinking into the apple seconds later.

Apple, shoot, apple, shoot, apple, shoot. Even though there was no rhythm to it, I found one in myself. I listened, nocked, aimed and shot, over and over, in increasingly strange positions, my whole body having to work to keep me upright on the horse’s back, even when some of the men took turns throwing the fruit, sometimes sending them wobbling through the air at odd angles. Finally, as I listened and listened, my bow at the ready and there were no more, Blackie trotted over to Nordred as if summoned, nickering when his master held out an apple sans arrow for the horse to crunch on.

“More, Nordred,” I said, staring into his eyes, unable to hear, to pay attention to anything else anyone had to say, because only he knew. He’d always been there, always anticipating what I needed and providing it the best he could within the constraints of the keep. Well, there were none of those constraints here now. It was just a girl and her teacher, and I told him exactly what I needed.

Someone took Blackie away, a commanding officer arriving to take a look at what we were up to and directing some of his men to the fields to retrieve all the apples and the arrows. I should’ve done it. I had many a time before, bringing the spoiled apples to the ale house mistress to turn into cider. She said the flinty aftertaste of the steel arrowheads enhanced the flavour. But I couldn’t, not right now. I set the bow back against the rack, it feeling light, too light, when I did.

“This way,” Nordred said, putting a hand on my shoulder and steering me over to where some soldiers were practising swordplay.

“Um… I might sit this one out,” Pep said with a nervous laugh, pulling herself up onto the fence. She pulled a knife out from the sheath on her thigh and tossed it in the air, catching the hilt expertly. “I’m more a close combat kind of fighter.”

Nordred nodded absently, retrieving a practice blade for me and putting it into my hand. My almost child-like acceptance of the action might have appeared at odds with my usual insistence on doing things for myself. But when I sank deep, when I got right into the spirit of what he was teaching me, practical things like that didn’t seem to matter. Men chuckled as I gripped the wooden sword, stopping what they were doing and leaning on the hilts of theirs with the points stabbed into the ground.

“Your little bird is a dab hand with the bow, but she’s never going to hold her own here,” one man said to Nordred.

He didn’t pay the man any attention, retrieving his own sword and whipping it through the air, the sound setting my teeth on edge. Something was ratcheting tighter inside me, rising up. If I let it have its head, it’d swallow me whole, have me flailing around like a mad thing, losing control and making a mess of everything. I had to channel it where I wanted it to go. My weight shifted onto the balls of my feet as I saw Nordred take up position opposite to me. He raised his sword to his lips, the only indicator he ever gave me that hell was about to rain down on me. I did the same, nodding to my teacher, and then we moved.

---