but once Talon was settled he puffed out his chest proudly and let loose a squeaking caw.
A few minutes later, Hyden was walking towards the tournament grounds with Little Condlin a few paces behind him, while Talon was flapping and struggling to maintain his balance beside his ear.
The archer from Westland looked angry and distracted, like he hadn’t slept in a while. He was sharply attired though, in a crisp white doublet, sporting the golden lion of his kingdom on the front and back of it. From fifty yards away, he put three arrows into the Wizard’s Eye and two just outside it in the King’s Ring. Loud boos and jeers came from the crowd gathered behind Hyden, but they were quickly drowned out by the cheers that erupted from the other side of the shooting lanes.
Hyden saw that the bleacher scaffolds from last night’s Brawl had been rebuilt along the length of the archery tournament grounds. They weren’t nearly as tall now. Hyden guessed that it was more because the field was long and narrow, than for any sort of safety concern. Unlike the night before, where crowds had been happy to be mingled hodgepodge together, today, the kingdom folk were segregated into factions bearing their kingdom’s colors, and sitting separate from the other kingdom folk who were in attendance.
The Redwolf soldiers of Wildermont were present in abundance, and had wisely seated the Seawardsmen on one side of the range, and the Westlanders on the other. This left them facing each other, which created an opening for some colorful gestures and crude threats to be thrown across the field, but the arrangement otherwise kept them from getting too close to each other. Hyden also noticed that there were plenty of Valleyans and Dakaneese in attendance. They had chosen to sit on the same side as the Seawardsmen, but stayed amongst themselves just the same.
“A true representation of the politics of fools,” the elven contender said, from a few feet away.
His two companions chuckled beside him and directed their wild, yellow eyes at Hyden.
“See,” The elf continued, as he pointed toward the people who were booing from behind them. Hyden looked, and saw his clansmen, and the womenfolk, filing in and taking seats together, yet separate from the people of the kingdoms.
“The weaker kingdoms fight among themselves enough to warrant the slight separation between them, yet they all take the same side against the west.” The elven archer looked directly into Hyden’s eyes then. “The rest of the pathetic humans just hide in the mountains.”
Talon let out a loud shriek from Hyden’s shoulder. The sound drew the feral gaze of all six yellow elven eyes to him.
“And some people are so afraid, that they only crawl out of the forest once a year to the one place where we humans are sworn not to fight,” Hyden returned hotly.
He wanted to say more, but held his tongue and fought down his anger. If the elf had been trying to unsettle him, the trick had worked.
The elves kept their eyes on Talon, but Hyden’s sharp words caused all three of them to narrow their brows, and the elves were colored with rage. The elven archer gave Hyden the slightest of looks, then pulled his bow from its leather case and began to string it.
The crowd around the tournament field quieted as the Valleyan archer took the line. He looked resplendent, in his ringed leather armor, sporting the yellow and red checked Valleyan shield patch on his breast, and a similar shield shaped symbol of his kingdom’s honor guard on his shoulder in shining silver. It had been rumored, and in fact was true, that the man’s mother had been born in Dakahn, so a sort of alliance had formed within the crowd. The part of the story where the Valleyan horse trader had bought the Dakaneese woman from a slaver, for an old mare and some sacks of meal, had been conveniently left out.
Hyden watched with respectful understanding as the young man took several deep breaths and squeezed his eyes shut for a quick prayer. No doubt someone had piled up a wagonload of pressure on his shoulders too. The myriad distractions that seemed to come from everywhere were probably weighing on him. Only the glittery haired, alien looking elf seemed oblivious to the tension that was humming through the air.
The Valleyan man took his time and shot well. He repeated the Westland archer’s results, to the boos of the greater kingdom’s overwhelming numbers.
A large Valleyan man wearing ringed leather armor, probably the archer’s father, bolted across the field hurling curses and insults at the whole of the Westlanders’ bleachers. Before the Redwolf soldiers could get to him, a pair of green and gold clad men, rushed out to rebuke the man’s words, and a fight erupted. There was an explosion of screaming and yelling between the two sides across the archery field, and Hyden was a little concerned that the whole place would turn into a battleground. Finally, the skirmish ended when the three men involved in the actual fight were put in chains and marched slowly across the field for all to see. Needless to say, the crowd settled down. The place was at a near hush when the combatants were placed in a wagon cage, near where the targets were, and hauled away.
As soon as the Wildermont soldiers motioned for the event to continue, the elf stole away all of the kingdom men’s hope for victory. He loosed five arrows at his target in rapid succession, as smoothly and calmly as if he were merely sipping wine from a cup. All five arrows appeared to be sprouting from the Wizard’s Eye, but Hyden could see plainly when he looked down at the target that only four were completely in the center mark. He would have to match the score or the event was over. Either way, the crowd had been silenced completely. Neither of the kingdom men could win now. It took a few minutes for this to sink into the minds of the spectators, and when it did, they all seemed to lose interest, and started to filter away from the stands.
Hyden took his place at the line, and then urged Talon from his shoulder onto his finger. He traded Little Condlin the bird for his bow with, and then took a deep breath.
It occurred to him that it was more of a distraction to see all those people leaving from out of the corner of his eye, than it would have been if they stayed and had made some noise. He forced it all out of his mind, took another deep breath, and sought out a place inside him that was both calm and serene. From there, he began to focus.
His eyes seemed to zoom in on the Wizard’s Eye, and before he knew it, he had loosed an arrow. Seeing the shaft sprouting out of the dead center of the target helped keep the world around him at bay. In a daze-like state of concentration, that had him seeing the coin sized Wizard’s Eye as if it were the size of an apple, he pulled back on another arrow and let it fly. Twice more his arrows struck the Wizard’s Eye true. As he put his fourth arrow to the bow string, he distantly wondered what Shaella and her company were doing at that very moment. It took a moment for him to find the space in the target’s center for the fourth arrow, but he saw it between the first three, just a tiny triangle of black that grew in his eyes, like a rabbit did from the sky. He loosed the arrow at it, and knew before the arrow had even struck the target that he had hit his mark. He reached for his fifth arrow, if he could fit it into the crowded Wizard’s Eye somehow, he could end the tournament right here, but, it would be next to impossible to make that happen. Already the target’s center was full.
Somewhere, outside the world of his focus, he heard the trio of the elves gasping and grumbling. He let the satisfaction that the sound gave him fade, and studied the Wizard’s Eye. Even if he put his fifth arrow in the center, it would force the edge of one of his previous shafts out into the King’s Ring. It was worth a try though, so he raised his bow, drew back on it, and took aim at the center of the target yet again. A flicker of movement, that he thought was far beyond the target, caught his eye, and then disappeared again. Maybe it was an insect up close that had distracted him. He wasn’t sure. No, he could still see it. It was moving through the air, too uniformly to be a bug. Finally, he realized that it was an arrow arcing towards them from a great distance. A glance at where it would’ve been loosed from, revealed a small group of mounted men. A banner wavered in the light breeze among them. It was a white rectangle, with a black sword emblazoned on it horizontally. It was the Blacksword of Highwander, Willa the Witch Queen’s men.
Hyden almost loosed his arrow astray when he saw the face of a woman that greatly resembled Shaella peeking out from under a hood amongst them. Was it her? He looked again, but they were too far away for him to tell.
The arrow was coming down towards him now, and it was fast. Hyden could tell that it would miss him, but it would be close. He followed its trajectory with his eyes. It was coming down right at the elven archer. There was no time left to think. He turned swiftly and loosed his arrow at the incoming missile. It was a one in a million shot, but, he somehow found his mark only a few feet before the shaft pierced through the elf.
All three of the elves shrieked in startled pain, as they were showered with wooden splinters. Thinking instinctually that Hyden had attacked, one of them drew out a dagger and charged.
“HOLD!” the elven archer screamed out, so loudly that it startled Hyden out of the strange, trance-like state
