Veyla Shadewhisper's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Veyla held still behind the trunk. The alpha perched high on the broken Silvershade, wings folded, eyes sweeping the leaves. Her poisoned spear glowed green in her hand, useless. The creature sat far past any throw. One bad cast and the toxin would drip into the soil, wasted. She needed a way to strike from here, and she had none. A soft click reached her ear. Not the alpha. Behind her. Veyla turned her head slow. A small hunter crouched in the brush, no taller than Veyla's shoulder. Bright rune marks glowed pale blue across her scalp. She held a carved blowgun across her lap, a frostelk-skin bag hanging from its center. Sivara Frostwhisper. Veyla knew her only by name, a Frostbark hunter who dropped bucks with darts while others still lifted their spears. She was tracking her own prey. Now her dark eyes fixed on the alpha instead. "Too high for a spear," Sivara whispered. Flat. A fact. "I know." Veyla's jaw tightened. "I have one throw. I can't waste it." Sivara looked at the green glow on Veyla's spear tip. She knew a killing dose when she saw one. "Then don't throw." She unrolled her dart bag. Inside lay slender darts, tips dark with Venara sap. "My range beats yours. Give me the poison." Veyla's stomach dropped. "It kills on contact. One scratch and you're dead." "So I won't scratch myself." Sivara held out a bare dart, steady. No fear in her hand. "Coat it. Slow. One pass." Veyla knelt beside her. She drew her scraping tool. Her trainer had lost two fingers to a bad dose, and she had watched it happen. She pressed the tool to her spear tip and lifted a thread of green toxin. One pass. She laid it along the dart, cold and even, the way she coated everything. Sivara did not flinch. She held the dart by its far end and slid it into the blowgun. The alpha shifted. Its dragging foot scraped bark. Sivara raised the blowgun to her lips. She breathed once, then blew. The dart hissed up through the leaves. It struck the alpha in the throat, below the jaw. The creature screamed and burst from the perch. Wings hammered the air. It climbed, then wobbled. The green toxin was already working. It crashed through branches and vanished over the ridge, dragging its bad foot behind it. "Hit," Sivara said. She lowered the blowgun. "But not down. It flew." Veyla stood. Her spear still glowed full and wet in her hand. She had not thrown it. The poison had reached the alpha another way, and the target lived, wounded, fleeing into ground she did not know. "Then we follow," Veyla said. "Both of us." Sivara was already moving toward the ridge.