“I appreciate your concern,” Vendanj said, another surprising jest from the usually severe man.
The Velle hadn’t taken its eyes from Tahn. “And what about you, with your little bow? Are you going to ask your gods if I should die, and shoot me down?” The expression in the man’s face changed, but only by degrees. More indifferent. Careworn to the bone, beyond feeling.
He knows. He knows the words I speak when I draw.
The Velle dropped its chin. “Ask it.” The words were an invitation, a challenge. And the chill air bristled when the Velle spoke them. Grasses and low sage bent away from the man as though they would flee.
Vendanj held up a hand. “You’ve strolled onto the Sedagin plain, my Quiet friend. A thousand swords and more. Go back the way you came.”
A slow smile touched the Velle’s face. A wan smile lacking warmth or humor. And even that looked unnatural, as though he were unaccustomed to smiling at all. “I don’t take care for myself, Sheason. That is a man’s weakness. And there’ll be no heroes this time.” He raised a hand, and Vendanj let out an explosive exhale, as if his chest were suddenly being pressed by boulders.
In a single motion, Tahn raised his bow and drew an arrow. I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will allows.
The quiet confirmation came. The Velle should die.
Tahn caught a glimpse of a more genuine smile on the Quiet’s lips before he let his arrow fly. An unconcerned flip of the Velle’s wrist, and the arrow careened high and harmless out over the bluff’s edge.
Vendanj dropped to his knees, struggling against some unseen force. Tahn had to disrupt the Velle’s hold on the Sheason somehow. But before he could move, a deep shiver started in his chest as though his body were a low cello string being slowly played. And with the resonance rushed the memory of his failure to shoot the Bar’dyn that had come into his and Wendra’s home, taken her child.
Except it seemed more raw now. Like alcohol poured on a fresh cut.
And that wasn’t all. Other memories stirred. Lies he’d told. Insults he’d offered. Though he couldn’t recall them with exactness. They were half formed, but sharpening.
He was maybe seven. A fight. Friends. Some kind of contest to settle . . .
Tahn began to tremble violently. His teeth ached and felt ready to shatter. His mind burned hot with regret and self-loathing. He dropped face-first beside Vendanj, and curled into a ball against the pain.
Vendanj still wasn’t breathing, but managed to thrust an open palm at the Velle. The Quiet man grimaced, and Vendanj drew a harsh-sounding breath, his face slick with sweat in the moonlight.
Tahn’s own inner ache subsided, and the quaking in his body stopped. Briefly. The Velle dropped to both knees and drove its hands into the hard soil. Blackness flared, and the Quiet man looked suddenly refreshed. This time, it simply stared at Vendanj. The earth between them whipped, low sage tearing away. But Vendanj was prepared, and kept his feet and breath when some force hit him, exploding in a fury of spent energy. The Sheason’s lean face had drawn into a grim expression, and he began shaking his head.
The Velle glanced at Tahn and tremors wracked his body again. With them came his insecurities about childhood years lost to memory. As if they didn’t matter. As if he didn’t matter, except to raise his bow and repeat those godsforsaken words, I draw with the strength . . .
As the Velle caressed him with this deep resonant pain, a shadow flashed behind the other. Light and quick.
A moment later the Velle’s back arched, his eyes wide in surprise. Tahn’s tremors stopped. Vendanj lowered his arms. The Velle fell forward, and standing there was Mira Far, of the Far people. Her pale skin awash in moonlight. Only a Far could have gotten behind a Velle without being noticed. Looking at her, Tahn felt a different kind of tug inside. One that was altogether more appealing.
For the third time that morning, boots over hard earth interrupted the dark morning stillness. A hundred strides behind Mira three Bar’dyn emerged on the trail. At first they only walked. Then, seeing the downed Velle, they broke into a run, a kind of reasoned indifference in their faces. Their massive frames moved with grace, and power, as their feet pounded against the cold earth.
Tahn reached for an arrow. Mira dropped into one of her Latae stances, both swords raised. Vendanj gasped several breaths, still trying to steady himself from his contest with the Velle. “Take the Bar’dyn down,” he said, his voice full of hateful prejudice.
Tahn pulled three successive draws, thinking the old words in an instant and firing at the closest Bar’dyn. The first arrow bounded harmlessly off the creature’s barklike skin. But the next two struck it in the neck. It fell with a heavy crunch on the frost-covered soil.
The remaining two descended on Mira first. She ducked under a savage swipe of a long rounded blade and came up with a thrust into the creature’s groin. Not simply an attack on its tender parts, but a precise cut into the artery that ran alongside them—something she’d taught him during one of their many conversations.
The Bar’dyn shrugged off the blow and rushed onward toward Tahn. In a few moments it would grow sluggish from blood loss, and finally fall. Tahn had only to keep a distance.
The other Quiet pushed ahead faster, closing on Tahn. Mira took chase, but even with her gift of speed wouldn’t reach it before it got to him. Tahn pulled a deep draw. The Bar’dyn raised a forearm to protect its neck, and barreled closer.
“Take it down!” Vendanj began raising a hand, clearly weakened. The Sheason had rendered the Will so often lately. And he’d had little time to recover.
Tahn breathed out, steadied his aim, spoke the words in his mind, and let fly. The arrow
