way through me: stomach, chest, and throat. I had known I couldn’t trust the strength of my arm alone to make it through five bowstrings at once. So I had used the only fire that is always with an arcanist, the heat of my blood. Binder’s chills would have me soon. If I didn’t find a way to get warm, I would lapse into shock, then hypothermia, then death.
I fell out of the Heart of Stone and let the pieces of my mind slide back together, reeling a bit in confusion. Chill, wet, and dizzy, I clawed my way back to the top of the ridgeline. The rain felt cold as sleet on my skin.
I saw only one bowman. Unfortunately, he had kept his wits about him, and as soon as my face appeared over the top of the ridge, he drew and let fly in a smooth motion.
A gust of wind saved me. His arrow struck harsh yellow sparks from a stone outcrop not two feet from my head. Rain pelted my face and lightning spidered across the sky. I pushed myself back down out of sight and stabbed the sentry’s body over and over in a delirious rage.
Finally, I struck a buckle and the blade snapped. Panting, I dropped the broken knife. I came back to my senses with the sound of Marten’s forlorn praying in my ears. My limbs felt cold as lead, heavy and awkward.
Worse than that, I could feel the numb sluggishness of hypothermia creeping through me. I realized I wasn’t shivering, and knew it was a bad sign. I was soaking wet with no fire nearby to call my own.
Lightning etched the sky again. I had an idea. I laughed a terrible laugh.
I looked over the top of the ridge and was pleased to see no bowmen. But the leader was barking new orders and I didn’t doubt new bows would be found or strings replaced. Worse, they might simply abandon their shelter and overrun us with sheer numbers. There were easily a dozen men still standing.
Marten still lay praying on the bank. “Tehlu who the fire could not kill, watch over me in fire.”
I kicked at him. “Get up here damn you, or we’re all dead.” He paused in his praying and looked up. I shouted something incomprehensible and leaned over to drag him upward by the scruff of his shirt. I shook him hard and thrust his bow at him with my other hand, not knowing how it had come to be there.
Lightning flashed again and showed me what he saw. My hands and arms were covered with the sentry’s blood. The pelting rain made it streak and run, but hadn’t washed it away. It looked black in the brief, glaring light.
Marten took his bow numbly. “Shoot the tree,” I shouted over the thunder. He looked at me as if I had gone mad. “Shoot it!”
Something in my expression must have convinced him, but his arrows were scattered, and he took up his litany again as he searched the muddy bank for one. “Tehlu who held Encanis to the wheel, watch over me in darkness.”
After a long moment of searching he found an arrow and fumbled to fit it to his string with trembling hands, praying all the while. I turned my attention back to the camp. Their leader had brought them back under control. I could see his mouth shouting orders, but all I could hear was the sound of Marten’s trembling voice:
Suddenly the leader paused and cocked his head. He held himself perfectly still as if listening to something. Marten continued praying:
Their leader looked quickly to the left and right, as if he had heard something that disturbed him. He cocked his head again. “He can hear you!” I shouted madly at Marten. “Shoot! He’s getting them ready to do something!”
Marten took aim at the tree in the center of the camp. Wind buffeted him as he continued to pray.
Their leader turned his head as if to search the sky for something. Something about the motion seemed terribly familiar, but my thoughts were growing muddy as binder’s chills tightened their grip. The bandit leader turned and bounded for the tent, disappearing inside. “Shoot the tree!” I screamed.
He let the arrow fly, and I saw it wedge firmly into the trunk of the massive oak that loomed in the center of the bandit’s camp. I scrabbled in the mud for one of Marten’s scattered arrows and began to laugh at what I was going to attempt. It might do nothing. It might kill me. The slippage alone . . . But it didn’t matter. I was dead already unless I found a way to get warm and dry. I would go into shock soon. Perhaps I was already there.
My hand closed on an arrow. I broke my mind six ways and shouted my bindings as I drove it deep into the sodden ground. “As above, so below!” I shouted, making a joke only someone from the University could hope to understand.
A second passed. The wind faded.
There was a whiteness. A brightness. A noise. I was falling.
Then nothing.
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
Taborlin the Great
I woke. I was warm and dry. It was dark.
I heard a familiar voice questioning. Marten’s voice, “It was all him. He did it.”
Questioning.
“I won’t never say, Den. I swear to God I won’t. I don’t want to think of it. Get him to tell you if you want.”
Questioning.
“You’d know if you’d seen. Then you wouldn’t want to know no more. Don’t cross him. I’ve seen him angry. That’s all I’ll say. Don’t cross him.”
Questioning.
“Leave off, Den. He was killing them one by one. Then he went a little crazy. He . . . No. All I’ll say is this. I think he called the lighting down. Like God himself.”
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
Mercenaries All
