Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 65 of 66

Rebecka finished marking her shooting lines as the last light drained from the yard. The dome hummed above the roof. Ninka rode the clouds somewhere north, and the buyer's six riders would arrive at dawn to a house that held no child. When they found the empty rooms, they would scatter to hunt her. Six riders. Six roads off the ridge. She could hold one. She went into the shed and pulled the tarp off Marcus's crystal battle armor. The sigils along the plates woke under her hand. "You wear this," she said when he came in. "Not me. If they break past me, you're what's between them and the hills where she's flying." Marcus buckled the chestplate. "You need a second bow on the ridge." "I need them not to scatter." She pulled her map onto the workbench and stabbed a finger at the six roads leaving the homestead. "If they leave here separate, I lose four of them into the trees. Ninka's up there. If one gets clear and calls the dragon down on her, the ring won't bring her back in time." Katia set down a cup of tea Rebecka didn't touch. "Then don't let them leave here separate." Rebecka looked at the crystal RV parked behind the barn, still under its cloaking wrap from the refugee run. An idea moved. "They come for a child in a house. If the house runs, they follow the house." Marcus caught it. "Bait." "One target. One road. My road." She rolled the map. "You drive. Katia inside with the shutters down. I ride the roof." At first light the RV pulled out of the yard under its cloak, then dropped the cloak a mile down the west track so the dust plume showed. Rebecka lay flat on the crystal roof with the star-forged quiver across her back. Marcus drove hard enough to look like flight. The riders came over the rise in a tight knot, six as promised. They saw the RV and stayed a knot. No one peeled off. They believed the child was in the box. Rebecka rose to one knee and started shooting. The bow told her when each man was close enough to die and she hated the whisper each time and drew anyway. Four arrows, four riders down before the last two understood the trap. One turned his horse. She put an arrow through his shoulder and the second through his ribs on the next breath. The sixth broke for the tree line. She stood on the moving roof, breathed out, and took him at the edge of the field. Marcus stopped the RV. The dust settled on six bodies on one road. Rebecka lifted the ring and signaled the sky. A dark-winged shape uncoiled from the cloud above them and began its long slide down, Ninka small and safe on its back.