Brille Covella's Arc

Chapter 7 of 13

Brille took the west edge of the camp with Siobhan at her shoulder. The fire was up high behind them, throwing long shadows into the trees. The watch post was a low log by the creek, meant for looking, not fighting. Brille scanned the treeline and tried to slow her breath. The wind shifted, cool against the back of her neck. That was wrong. The breeze had been in her face all evening. "It circled us," Siobhan said, low. Her Celtic lilt made the words soft, but her hand was already on a throwing knife. "Downwind now. Smart brute." Brille turned. Nothing but trunks and dark between them. No cover between her and the trees except the log at her knees. She nocked an arrow. Her hands were steady. That surprised her. A branch cracked. Then the clayhorn came out of the brush at a full run. It was bigger than the tracks had promised. Green-and-black stripes down a thick furred body, a single horn lowered like a spear, old arrow shafts bristling from its shoulders. It came straight for the log. Straight for her. "Eye," Siobhan said, calm as a market price. "Only the eye." Brille drew. Twenty paces. Fifteen. The horn dropped lower. She could see the wet shine of the near eye, yellow, fixed on her. She held her draw one breath longer than she wanted to. Then she loosed. The arrow went in clean. The clayhorn screamed and its front legs folded. Its body kept coming. The horn plowed into the log and shattered it, and the whole weight of the beast slammed past her hip and into the creek bank. Water sprayed up cold across her face. Brille went down on one knee. Her bow was still in her hand. Siobhan was already moving. Two throwing knives in the good eye, one after the other, quick as counting. The clayhorn shuddered in the mud and went still. For a long moment there was only the creek and Brille's own breathing. Then Siobhan crouched by the head and pulled her knives free. She wiped them on the striped fur. "Clean shot," Siobhan said. She looked up. The freckles across her nose caught the firelight. "First try. In the dark. With it coming." "I had to wait," Brille said. Her voice sounded far away. "You did. Most don't." Siobhan stood and put a hand briefly on Brille's shoulder. It was warm and it was gone. "Skin it in the morning. The hide's worth carrying. You earned the cloak off its back." Rhyme was already coming down from the camp with a lantern, Cassian a step behind, lizard steady on his shoulder. Brille stayed on her knee by the ruined log and looked at the thing she had killed. She was still the newest. But she had put the shot where the shot had to go, and Siobhan had said so out loud, in front of the others.