Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 9 of 66

Rebecka crouched behind the last planter with nine arrows and a treeline she could not see through. The raiders had pulled back into the pines. She knew they were massing again. She could not see where. When they came, they would come at Ninka's wall, and the first spear would land before she could nock. Marcus knelt beside her. He watched the trees over the top of a glowing herb bed. "They're forming up. I can hear them." "I need eyes past the pines," Rebecka said. "Or they hit the wall before I loose." Marcus reached to his belt. He unclipped a small compass and pressed it into her palm. The face was pale gold. A red needle sat still under the glass. "My father's," he said. "It points at what's hidden. Ask it a true question. It'll answer." "You never told me you had this." "I'm telling you now." She held the compass flat. She thought of the raider line. She thought of the shape of a war party in the dark. "Show me where they mass." The red needle swung. It stopped hard, pointing past the north corner of the yard, into the pines left of the ridge trail. Not the wall behind her. Not Ninka's wall. The far side. "They moved," she said. "They're setting up north." Marcus's jaw set. "A feint. They want you watching this wall." She turned the compass slowly. The needle held on the north pines. Then it twitched, split, and settled on two points at once, one north, one east. "Two groups," she said. "Small one east. Bigger one north." A gray tabby slid out from under the planter and pressed against her boot. Its collar pulsed pale blue. It stared at the north pines and its ears flattened. The cat had heard them before Marcus had. "Take the north," Marcus said. "I hold the east with the cat." Rebecka ran along the fence to the north corner. The compass burned warm in her fist. She stopped behind the woodpile and lifted her bow. The bowstring lit. The bow pulsed once against her palm, then again, then a dozen times in a soft, quick rhythm. It was reading them through the trees. It marked each raider in the dark like beads on a wire. She drew, sighted where the compass held, and loosed. The arrow hummed into the pines. A man screamed. She nocked again. Loosed. Nocked. Loosed. Four arrows. Four screams. The line broke before it ever left the trees. Shouts. Boots crashing back through brush. The east group heard, and ran too. Rebecka lowered the bow. Five arrows left. The compass needle drifted, searching, then went still, pointing north again — farther out this time. Deeper. Marcus reached her. "They're regrouping." "They're not done," she said. She closed her hand around the compass. "But now I can see them coming."