The Wise Man's Fear

then at least to make escape possible. But I had no fire, no link. I was clever enough to make do without one of those, but without both I was nearly helpless.

Rain began to pour down more heavily. Thunder grumbled. It was only a matter of time before the bandits figured out there were only two of them and rushed over the ridge to make short work of our companions. If the three of us drew their attention we would be overrun just as quickly.

There was a concert of gentle hums, and a flight of arrows leapt over the eastern ridge. Marten stopped swearing and held his breath. He looked at me. “What are we going to do?” he said urgently. There was a questioning shout from the camp, and when no answer was forthcoming another flight of arrows hummed over the eastern ridge, finding the range of their target.

“What are we going to do?” Marten repeated. “What if they’re hurt?”

What if they’re dead? I closed my eyes and slid down below the ridgeline, trying to gain a moment of clear thought. My foot bumped something soft and solid. The dead sentry. A dark thought occurred. I drew a deep breath and threw myself into the Heart of Stone. Deep. Deeper than I had ever been before. All fear left me, all hesitation.

I took hold of the body by its wrist and began to drag it up toward the lip of the ridge. He was a heavy man, but I hardly noticed. “Marten, may I use your dead?” I asked absently. The words were in a pleasant baritone, the calmest voice I had ever heard.

Without waiting for an answer, I looked over the ridgeline toward the camp. I saw one of the men behind the wall bending his bow for another shot. I drew my long, slender knife of good Ramston steel and fixed the image of the bowman in my mind. I set my teeth and stabbed the dead sentry in the kidney. The knife went in slowly, as if I were stabbing heavy clay instead of flesh.

A scream rose above the sound of the thunder. The man fell, his bow flying wildly out of his hands. Another mercenary stooped to look at his companion. I refocused and stabbed the sentry in his other kidney, using both hands this time. There was a second scream, shriller than the first. More a keen than a scream, I thought in an odd separate corner of my mind.

“Don’t shoot yet,” I cautioned Marten calmly, not looking away from the camp. “They still don’t know where we are.” I drew the knife out, refocused, and drove it coolly into the sentry’s eye. A man stood upright behind the wooden wall, blood pouring down his face from underneath his clutching hands. Two of his comrades rose, trying to get him back below the wooden parapet. My knife rose and fell and one of them toppled to the ground even as his hands rose to his own bleeding face.

“Holy God,” Marten choked. “Dear holy God.”

I set the knife against the sentry’s throat and surveyed the camp. Their military efficiency was falling apart as they began to panic. One of the wounded men continued to scream, high and piercing over the grumbling thunder.

I saw one of the bowmen searching the ridgeline with hard eyes. I drew the knife across the sentry’s throat, but nothing seemed to happen. Then the bowman looked puzzled and raised his hand to touch his own throat. It came away lightly smeared with blood. His eyes grew wide and he began to shout. Dropping his bow he ran to the other side of the low wall, then back, trying to escape but not knowing where to run.

Then he regained his composure and began desperately searching the ridgeline all around the camp. He showed no signs of falling. I frowned, set the knife against the dead sentry’s neck again and leaned against it hard. My arms trembled, but the knife began to move again, slowly, as if I were trying to cut a block of ice. The bowman’s hands flew to his neck and blood poured over them. He staggered, stumbled, and fell into one of the fires. He thrashed wildly, scattering burning coals everywhere, adding to the confusion.

I was deciding where to strike next when lightning lit the sky, showing me a clear, stark picture of the body. The rain had mingled with the blood, and it was everywhere. My hands were dark with it.

Unwilling to maim his hands, I rolled him over onto his stomach and struggled to remove his boots. Then I refocused myself and sawed through the thick tendons above the ankles and behind the knees. It crippled two more men. But the knife was moving more and more slowly, and my arms ached with the strain of it. The corpse was an excellent link, but the only energy I had was the strength of my body. Under these conditions, it felt more like I was cutting wood than flesh.

It had been scarcely more than a minute or two since the camp had been alerted. I spat water and took a moment’s rest for my trembling arms and exhausted mind. I eyed the camp below, watching the confusion and panic build.

A man emerged from the large tent at the base of the tree. He was dressed differently than the others, wearing a hauberk of bright chainmail that came nearly to his knees with a coif covering his head. He stepped into the chaos with a fearless grace, taking everything in at a glance. He snapped orders I couldn’t hear over the sound of rain and thunder. His men calmed, settled back into their positions, and took up their bows and swords.

As I watched him stride across the encampment I was reminded of . . . something. He stood in plain view, not bothering to crouch behind one of the protective walls. He gestured to his men, and something in that motion was terribly familiar. . . .

“Kvothe,” Marten hissed. I looked up to see the tracker with his bow drawn tight to his ear. “I’ve got the shot on their boss.”

“Take it.”

His bow hummed and the man sprouted an arrow from his upper thigh, piercing the chain mail, the leg itself, and the armor behind it. From the corner of my eye I saw Marten draw another arrow and put it to the string in a fluid motion, but before he could shoot it, I saw their leader bend. Not a deep bending at the waist as if he were doubling over in pain. He bent at the neck to look down at the arrow that had pierced his leg.

After a second’s scrutiny he grasped the arrow in a fist and snapped off the fletching. Then he reached behind himself and pulled the arrow from his leg. I froze as he looked straight toward us and pointed to our position with the hand that held the broken arrow. He spoke a brief word of command to his men, tossed the arrow into the fire, and stalked gracefully to the other side of the camp.

“Great Tehlu overroll me with your wings,” Marten said, his hand falling away from his bowstring. “Protect me from demons and creatures that walk in the night.”

Only the fact that I was deep in the Heart of Stone kept me from a similar reaction. I turned back to the camp in time to see a small forest of bows being bent in our direction. I ducked my head and aimed a kick at the stupefied tracker, knocking him over as the arrows hummed past. He tumbled over, his quiver of arrows scattering down the muddy bank.

“Tempi?” I called.

“Here,” he replied from off to my left. “Aesh. No arrow.”

More arrows sang overhead, a few of them sticking into trees. Soon they would get the range and start arcing the arrows overhead so they fell on us from above. A thought came to me as calmly as a bubble rising to the surface of a pond. “Tempi, bring me this man’s bow.”

“Ia.”

I heard Marten muttering something, his voice low, urgent, and indistinct. At first I thought he’d been shot, then I realized he was praying. “Tehlu shelter me from iron and anger,” he murmured softly. “Tehlu keep me safe from demons in the night.”

Tempi pushed the bow into my hand. I took a deep breath and broke my mind into two pieces, then three, then four. In each piece of my mind I held the bowstring. I forced myself to relax and broke my mind again, five. I tried again and failed. Tired, wet and cold, I had reached my limit. I heard bowstrings thrum again and arrows hit the ground around us like a heavy rain. I felt a tug on the outside of my arm near my shoulder as one of the arrows grazed me before burying itself in the dirt. There was a stinging, then a burning pain.

I pushed the pain away and set my teeth. Five would have to be enough. I drew my knife lightly across the back of my own arm, just enough to draw a little blood, then mouthed the proper bindings and drew the blade across the bowstring, hard.

The string held for a terrifying moment, then parted. The bow jerked in my hand, jolting my wounded arm before it flew out of my grasp. Cries of pain and dismay came over the ridge, letting me know I’d been at least partly successful. Hopefully all five strings had been severed, leaving us with only one or two bowmen to deal with.

But as soon as the bow flung itself out of my grasp, I felt the cold leech into me. Not just my arms, but all the