Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 8 of 66

Rebecka stood in the broken yard with the halo humming behind her. Marcus watched the gate. The raiders came out of the treeline at dusk, more than before, and one of them walked ahead of the others with no weapon in his hands. He wore a gray hood and held his palm out flat, like a man feeling for heat. "Reader," Marcus said. He kept his voice low. "He's tracking the shield." Rebecka lifted the bow. The bowstring lit along its length. The bow whispered the man's makeup into her hand: bone, blood, and a thread of something that hummed like her arrows. A mage. It marked his location in a soft pulse against her palm. He was not yet close enough to die. The bow did not warn her. She was glad of that, and she hated that she was glad. The hooded man kept walking. He pointed at the dome, then past it, then straight at the house. His finger moved like a needle finding north. He was pointing at Ninka. Rebecka felt her stomach drop. If he could feel Ninka through the shield, the raiders would drive every spear at that one wall. "Take the shot," Marcus said. "He's out of range." "Then move." She ran along the broken fence, low, keeping the outbuildings between herself and the raider line. The glowing garden beds along the homestead wall lit her boots as she passed. She stopped behind the last planter and drew. The bow pulsed once. In range. It did not tell her he would die. It told her he could. She let the arrow go. The humming arrow found the hooded man's throat. He dropped without a sound. The raiders behind him shouted and lifted shields. An arrow answered from their line and cracked against the planter beside her head. Marcus was already moving. He threw a potion at the gate. Blue smoke bloomed and held the first two raiders back, coughing. Rebecka nocked again and put an arrow through the shoulder of a man climbing the fence. He fell inside the yard. The bow marked the rest for her, one after another, cool pulses against her palm. Then the raiders pulled back. They dragged the hooded body with them. In a breath, the treeline was empty again. Rebecka lowered the bow. Her hands shook. Marcus reached her. "You got the reader." "They know he found her before he died," she said. "They know exactly which wall to hit now." Behind them, the halo flickered. Once. Twice. Then it steadied, brighter than before, as if Ninka had heard and pushed harder. Rebecka turned and looked at the small dome over her house. Her ten-year-old daughter was holding a wall the raiders now had a map to. She counted her arrows. Nine left.