I had no inclination to fall under the spell of the dead man’s stare. Turning to Rory, I bowed. “Nice throws.”
“That depends,” Bolt said, walking up to us from where he’d landed. “How close did you come to your target?”
Instead of being insulted, Rory went to the body and retrieved his weapons. “I might be a quarter of an inch off on the strike to the heart.”
Bolt nodded. “As soon as I can get you up to speed with the sword, I’ll be ready to retire.” He sighed. “Again.”
Chapter 61
“Move!” Rory blurred into motion a split-second before I heard the sound of air whistling through fletching. Bolt crashed into me, knocking me aside just before he hissed in pain. Arrows whistled through the air and hit the ground near us, too many to dodge.
“Run, you fools!” Gael’s scream came from the distance.
A score or more archers lined the hills on both sides of us. Gael fired arrows from the right, drawing and releasing so quickly her hands blurred. But there were too many targets.
“Into the woods!” Bolt yelled. With a snarl he broke the arrow sticking through his thigh and ripped it free. Rory grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the protection of the trees as he pulled his sword. He and Bolt swatted arrows from the air as they ran.
The soldiers charged, firing in volleys as they came. I stumbled, felt a door open in my mind. I tried to close it, but the memories came for me. In the space of time between heartbeats, I realized it was my own door that was opening.
“No,” I begged. “Not now.”
An arrow from their volley flew by me close enough to hear the air whistling through the fletching. I lifted my shield out of reflex and took the impact of a second arrow on it a moment later, like the blow of a fist. Twelve men copied me, mercenaries from the southern continent whose commander lay facedown in the mud. . . .
I blinked. A shaft of sunlight had cleared the hills to land on my face.
“Kreppa,” Rory snarled as he dragged me along by my arm. “Have you forgotten how to run?”
Arrows hit the dirt around us. Twenty paces away from the meager protection of the trees, Bolt fell behind, favoring his leg. The rain of shafts had thinned but hadn’t stopped. Broadheads tore chunks of bark from the trees.
“Stay here and hold them off as long as you can,” Bolt told Rory. Pain put a crease across his brow and his voice rasped with each step. “Then fall back to camp. I’ll be waiting.”
“No—” But I never got any further. A blow I never saw coming took me across the chin and the world spun.
“I don’t have time for arguments, Dura,” Bolt said. Despite the limp and the blood running down his leg, he hauled me along like an undersized sack of turnips. When we got to camp, he shoved me toward the largest tree. “Get behind it and stay there until they’re all dead.”
He hobbled to his belongings and gathered the short bow and quiver. Marking his path with curses and blood, he hid behind the tree next to me.
Moments later Rory came crashing through the brush, pursued by a flight of arrows. Twice, I saw him turn and twist in midair, dodging shafts I could barely see, swatting at them with the flat of his hand to send them falling to the ground. A moment later, a dozen soldiers broke into the small clearing. Bolt moved out from behind the trunk of his tree and loosed six arrows within the space of a heartbeat. Six soldiers fell.
He nocked again, holding three more between the fingers of his draw hand, but he never fired. The rest of the soldiers toppled forward, shot from behind. Gael came charging into the clearing with her sword drawn. Her eyes blazed darker than I’d ever seen them, searching.
“Are you insane?” she screamed. Her gaze swept across the three of us. “You didn’t think to put someone on the heights to watch for a trap?”
“Rory checked,” Bolt said. “There weren’t any.”
“And how long does it take to move men into position?” she snarled. “The three of you would be dead if I hadn’t climbed the hillside.”
“The sun was coming up,” I said. “Their vaults should have been closed.”
She lifted her hands as if she wanted to throttle me. “Of course,” she snapped. “They were counting on you to think that. Every one of those men kept shooting at you after the sun rose. Don’t you think an ordinary man can kill you? Idiot. A man doesn’t have to have a vault to be evil.”
The world tilted under my feet. “We’re not safe anywhere.”
Gael drew breath, but I waved her off. “Yell at me later,” I said. “We have to tend to Bolt and get out of here. They saw us before the sun rose. If we’re not a long way away by the time the sun sets, they’ll track us down again.”
“How?” Rory asked.
“It’s what Laewan did at Bas-solas, except stronger. Cesla sees through the eyes of his servants when their vaults are open. He’s throwing a net around the entire area. We have to move.”
Bolt limped over, a thick stream of blood covering the bottom half of his left leg. “I’m going to need help with this.” His eyes took on an unfocused look.
“Oh, Aer,” Gael breathed. “You’re bleeding to death.”
“I sure hope not,” Bolt said, his face white. Then his eyes rolled up and he fell forward.
Rory darted over to catch him and lay him gently on the ground. “He’s heavy.”
I’d watched men bleed out before, but I’d also seen battlefield surgeons save those they got to quickly enough. I pulled my dagger and slit his breeches, exposing the wound. Already the flow pulsed more weakly. Turning him, I pointed to the inside of his thigh. “Press here,” I told Gael. Then I remembered she
