Not every memory of the Scar had been bad, though. A name and face flared in his mind: Alemdra. But the bright memory of her quickly changed. Old grief became new at the thought of a ridge where they’d run to watch the sunrise, and seen a friend end her days. Devin. Some wounds, he realized, simply couldn’t be healed. No atonement was complete enough.
The Velle yanked at the fetters, gathering the small ones close on each side. The children didn’t yelp or complain, though grimaces of pain rose in a few faces. Mostly, they fought to keep their balance and avoid falling hard on the shale.
Then the Velle reached down and wrapped their fingers around the wrists of the young ones.
The Far king’s legion hadn’t emerged from the city wall. The siege on Naltus hadn’t yet begun. But Tahn knew the attack these Velle were preparing, fueled by the lives of these six children, would be catastrophic. Naltus might be destroyed before a single sword was raised.
Beside him, the Far captain cursed again and crept down to the dolmen to consult with his fellows. What do I do? His grip tightened on his bow. The tales of lone heroes standing against armies were author fancies. Fun to read, but wrong. All wrong. He could get off a few shots at the renderers before any of the Bar’dyn could react. But that wouldn’t be enough to stop them, or save the children.
Each Velle raised a hand toward Naltus. Tahn had to do something. Now.
Without thinking further, he climbed onto the shale plain and stood, setting his feet. He pulled his bow up in a smooth, swift motion as he drew an arrow.
Softly he began, “I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will—”
He stopped, not finishing the words he’d spoken all his life when drawing his bow, words taught to him by his father, to seek the rightness of his draw. The rightness of a kill. His father and Vendanj had meant for him to avoid of wrongfully killing anything, or anyone, because they’d thought one day they might need him to go to Tillinghast, where his chances of surviving were better if he went untainted by a wrong or selfish draw.
For as long as he could remember, he’d uttered the phrase and sensed the quiet confirmation that what he aimed at should die. Or not. Usually it was only an elk to stock a meat cellar. But not always. In his mind he saw the Bar’dyn that had stood over his sister Wendra, holding the child she’d just given birth to. He saw himself drawing his bow at it, feeling his words tell him not to shoot the creature. He’d followed that impression, and it had cankered his relationship with her ever since.
He was done with the old words. The Velle should die. He wanted to kill them. But he also knew he’d never take them all down. Not even with his ability to shoot a part of himself—something he hadn’t learned to control. He’d never be able to stop their rendering of the little ones.
More images. Faces he’d forgotten. Faces of older children—thirteen, fourteen—reposed in stillness. Forever still. Still by their own hands. The despair of the Scar had taken all their hope . . . like Devin, and his failure to save her.
And what of the young ones in these Velle’s hands? The ravages of their childhood? Long nights spent hoping their parents would come and rescue them. The bone-deep despair reserved for those who learn to stop hoping. He also sensed the ends that awaited each of them. The blinding pain that would tear their spirit from their flesh and remake it into a weapon of destruction. And they wouldn’t simply die. Their souls would be spent. If there was a next life, if they had family waiting there, these little ones would never find it. They’d have ceased to be.
Sufferings from his past.
This moment of suffering.
A terrible weight of sorrow and discouragement.
Then a voice in his mind whispered the unthinkable. An awful thing. An irredeemable thing. He fought it. Silently cried out against it. But the dark logic wouldn’t relent. And the Velle were nearly ready.
He took a deep breath, adjusted his aim only slightly. And let fly his awful mercy.
The arrow sailed against the shadows of morning and the charcoal hues of this valley of shale. And the first child dropped to the ground.
Through hot, silent tears, Tahn drew fast again, and again. It took the Quiet a few moments to understand what was happening. And when they finally saw Tahn standing beside the dolmen in the grey light of predawn, they appeared momentarily confused. Bar’dyn jumped in front of the Velle like shields. They still don’t understand.
Like scarecrows—light and yielding—each child fell. Tahn did not miss. Not once.
When it was done, he let out a great, loud cry, the scream ascending the morning air—the only vocal sound on the plain.
Bar’dyn began rushing toward him. Tahn sank to his knees, dropped his bow, and waited for them. He watched the Quiet come as he thought about the wretched thing he’d just done.
It didn’t matter that he knew he’d offered the children a greater mercy. Nor that he’d decided this for himself. In those moments, it didn’t even matter if what he’d done had saved Naltus.
These small ones, surprise on their faces—Or was it hope when they saw me? They thought I was going to save them—before his arrows struck home.
The shale trembled as the Bar’dyn rushed toward him, wearing their calm, reasoning expressions. Already he wondered what he’d do if he had these shots to take again. The bitterness overwhelmed him, and he suddenly yearned for the relief the Bar’dyn would offer him in a swift death. Then strong hands were dragging him backward by the feet, another set of hands retrieving his bow. The Far cast him into the safety of the dolmen. He
