A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (41 page)

“Archers. Take your practice shots.”

Even before Raif slid his first arrow from the case, Tanjo Ten Arrow was already firing. The burned man was a blur of movement, pulling the decorated arrows from his sash one by one and firing them high into the air. As Raif nocked his first arrow the count began:

“One!” chanted the crowd.

“Two!”

“Three!”

By the time the crowd called “Four!” Raif knew how Tanjo Ten Arrow had won his name. He meant to send all ten arrows into the air before the first one landed. And he was going to do it, too. Raif had never seen anyone shoot so fast. Tanjo’s arms dropped and pulled, dropped and pulled, with the speed and efficiency of a war engine. The arrows cut air, whistling softly as they shot toward the target. Tanjo had taken the headwind into account, and angled his arrows slightly northwest of the first beehive, letting the strong southern current correct their flights. The updraft from the Rift aided him, for he had chosen a moment when the thermals were rising and they buoyed each arrow, keeping it in the air for precious seconds longer.

“Eight!”

“Nine!”

“Ten!”

Thunk.
The first arrow hit the beehive as the tenth cleared the riser. The crowd erupted into a frenzy of cheering and stamping their feet.
Thunk, thunk, thunk
. . . it went on as each of the remaining arrows pierced wood.

Tanjo Ten Arrow stood very still, his bow edge resting against the rimrock, his burned head held high and his gaze upon the target. He heard the appreciation of the crowd but in no way responded to it. The only sign that he had pushed his body hard was the fierce flaring of his nostrils as he expelled air.

Raif watched as the last of the arrows struck the wooden beehive. None of them had hit the bull’s-eye or even the inner circle, but that wasn’t really the point. Undermining your opponent’s confidence was. No bowman could watch such a display of shooting and remain unaffected. There was true skill here. Tanjo Ten Arrow had been touched by a god.

Perhaps that was why he’d been burned.

As the crowd quieted and Yustaffa heaped ever more fantastic praises upon Tanjo Ten Arrow’s head, Raif drew the yew longbow. Pain in his little finger stabbed sharply as he braced the bow with his damaged left hand and pulled the string to his cheek with his right. It didn’t matter. It was as if he had never stopped firing arrows at all, so quickly did the discipline of eye and hand return to him. How long had it been? Half a winter ago? Yet it felt like no time at all. The muscles in his shoulders felt stiff, but it was a good stiffness, a reminder that they were the source of the bow’s power and though they hadn’t been used in many months they hadn’t forgotten their role.

Then everything fell away. Raif’s eye fixed on the target, the red bull’s-eye as big as an apple a hundred paces to the west. It was the heart. All archery targets were the heart. They might be circles or crosses or even cabbages lined up on a fence: to a bowman they were always the heart.

Raif did not attempt to
call
the target to him. It was dead wood and there was nothing but fresh air and then a second target a hundred paces behind it; there was no life or heart to respond to his call. Instead he forced his mind to focus on the target, sending an invisible thread from the hole in his eye to dead center of the bull. A fisherman casting a line. The circle came into sharp relief, and when the redness filled his vision he released the string.

The soft
thwang
of the recoil was all he heard for a moment. Unlike Tanjo Ten Arrow, he hadn’t made a large adjustment for the wind. His arrow traveled close to the ground where the worst of the headwind couldn’t catch it. The thermals were another matter, and lacking the ability to judge them he had simply waited until there was a break in the updraft.

Besides, he told himself stubbornly, this was just a practice shot: it didn’t really matter either way.

Thunk.
The arrow hit. Speckled hawk-feathers blew wildly as the arrow-shaft vibrated. The iron head had sunk deep into the pitch-soaked pine of the beehive . . . incredibly, miraculously, grazing the edge of the bull.

Maimed Men jeered. Yustaffa started up again, fluting praises to the lone Orrlsman, Raif Twelve Kill. Raif would have liked to punch him. Far beyond the target lane, two women began to turn the iron spit that suspended the whole hog above the cook fire. Raif smelled the fatty, meaty aroma of roasting pork as he accepted the hostility of the crowd. Like Tanjo Ten Arrow before him, he willed himself not to react. He didn’t want to betray his own amazement at his practice shot. Let them think he placed arrows like that every day.

Two men on the fringes of the crowd were watching him intently. Raif turned his head slightly and exchanged gazes with Stillborn. The great, thick-necked Maimed Man nodded enthusiastically, his eyebrows up and working. Briefly, Raif wondered what had possessed Stillborn to befriend him. True, he had stolen Raif’s kill, his sword and his named arrow, yet Raif still thought of him as a friend. He was the only man here who wanted to see him win.

Traggis Mole did not.

The Robber Chief was the second man watching Raif intently. He hadn’t seemed to move all the time Raif had stood on the rimrock, yet something behind his eyes had changed. He had not liked Raif’s shot, but there was more. Out of a crowd of perhaps eight hundred, he was the only one who saw it for what it was. A lucky hit.
Do it again, Orrlsman
, his eyes seemed to say.
I dare you.

Raif swallowed, then looked away. The crowd had grown quiet again as Tanjo Ten Arrow prepared for his first official shot. The same boy who’d wheeled the handcart was kneeling in front of the beehive, tugging the practice arrows from the face of the target. Pitch oozed from the holes.

“You have killed wolf.”

Raif’s head turned at the sound of Tanjo Ten Arrow’s voice. The burned man spoke in low tones, fired as expertly as his arrows. The words were for Raif’s ears alone. And they were not a question.

Fixing his gaze on the targets once more, Raif asked, “What makes you say such a thing?”

Tanjo slid an arrow from his bowcase and nocked it. “Your eyes. The wolf is in them.”

Raif thought of the great ice wolf, Pack Leader, spitted on a willow staff that had sundered its heart. He closed his eyes for a moment, reliving that final, desperate blow. Ash’s life had depended upon it.

“Kill a wolf, and the gods look up.” Tanjo Ten Arrow released the string, sending a lacquered arrow high into the air. Snow-goose feathers caught glacial winds blowing south from the Want, and used them to bend the flight of the arrow as surely as if they were still attached to the bird.
Thunk.
The arrow landed in the bull, a fraction short of dead center. “Kill a wolf with a blow to the heart, and the gods make play with your fate.”

Raif kept his face still.
Words, just words.
The burned man was trying to throw his concentration. He took several deep breaths, then slid his own arrow from its case. As he fitted the string into the arrow’s nock, he remembered something Yustaffa had said. Not dropping his gaze from the bull, he murmured, “How about a wager, Tanjo? Just you and me?”

Tanjo Ten Arrow was silent. Raif could not see him, but he felt the burned man’s interest. After a moment, Tanjo said, “Name what you would have.”

“Your bow.”

Two words, and Raif knew he had spoken them too quickly and given away exactly how deeply he desired the Sull bow. At his side, Tanjo Ten Arrow was very still. Seconds passed. Raif gripped both arrow and string and pulled the yew longbow to full draw. Only when he reached full tension did Tanjo speak. Raif was prepared for it and held his draw. Let the burned man try to distract him. Let him try.

“What do you offer in return?” Tanjo Ten Arrow spoke Common with the solemn precision of someone who had learned it as a second tongue, and it was hard for Raif to gauge the level of his interest.

Dancing ice.
That was what Angus had called it when his horse had carried Ash to safety over the frozen waters of the Black Spill. Raif felt he was doing the same here, negotiating with Tanjo Ten Arrow. It was a dance, and timing was everything. The negotiation must be completed before he released his first shot, while Tanjo’s arrow was the only one in the bull. The burned man would not risk wagering his bow if he thought there was a chance he could lose it.

“The Orrl cloak.” Raif made a brief motion with his head, indicating the cleared area behind him where the iridescent blue-white cloak lay fanned out upon the rimrock. It was a worthy prize, a treasure for any man who hunted in snow and ice. But for a bowman, nothing was more precious than his bow.

It was hard to hold the draw while he waited to hear Tanjo’s response. Raif’s shoulder muscles began to quiver and his thumb and bowfinger whitened as the pressure drove blood out. Tanjo saw this, and Raif swore the burned man counted to a hundred before declaring, “Done.”

Raif released the string.

The arrow shot from the plate, delivering a recoil that sent the bow snapping against his bandaged finger. Wincing, he did not see where his arrow landed. The pain was so fierce he hardly cared.

The crowd told him what his eyes did not. The women hissed, and the men muttered in dissatisfaction. Yustaffa issued a throaty sigh, enjoying himself immensely. Raif’s arrow was in the bull.
This
was starting to get interesting.

As the cart boy ran forward to measure and retrieve the arrows, Raif glanced at Tanjo Ten Arrow. The man showed only his profile to Raif, his gaze cast far in the distance. Burned skin twitched once, then was still.

When the cart boy was finished with the measuring stick he signaled to Yustaffa.

“Raif Twelve Kill has it!” pronounced the fat man, his face reddening with excitement. “He wins first shot by a margin of—what, boy?”

The boy held the measuring stick above his head. Made of a hollow reed and seared with marks at short intervals, the stick resembled a flute. Grubby fingers marked the spot. “Two notches.”

Raif did not expect what happened next. Tanjo Ten Arrow turned to him and bowed so low that the tail of his topknot touched rimrock. When he straightened his spine Raif saw he was smiling. Like a shark. “And now we will see who the true master is.”

Raif could prevent his muscles from reacting, but he had no power over the blood leaving his face. He’d been so pleased at foiling Yustaffa’s attempt to trick him that he’d not realized he was being tricked by someone else. Tanjo Ten Arrow’s first shot had been a fake.

Tanjo seemed well satisfied. In a single, elegant sweep he slid an arrow from his bow case and fitted it to his bow. Barely waiting for the cart boy to clear the target, Tanjo let his arrow fly.
Thunk.
Dead center of the bull.

Oh gods.
Raif barely registered the cheering of the crowd. At the far edge of his vision he saw Traggis Mole move. A small motion, executed with enough speed to defy the eye, delivered his right hand to the hilt of his knife.
I won’t see the blow that kills me.

Raif nocked his second arrow. He felt his concentration alight like a fly upon the bow. The slightest thing would send it elsewhere. Best be done with the shot quickly, while the bull was in his sights and before his arms began to shake.

The moment his fingers released the string he knew he’d made a mistake. The bow recoiled dully, the twine flapping loosely against the riser. A puff of wind on the underside of his chin told him the updrafts were rising, and his arrow was lofted into the path of the southern headwinds. Raif dropped his gaze. Turbulence was making the arrow-shaft wobble, and he didn’t need to see it complete its flight to know it was going wide.

Thunk.
Cheering erupted for Tanjo Ten Arrow.

Raif stared at the rimrock beneath his feet, waiting to hear the sound of the cart boy pulling arrows from the beehive. The next shot would be the final one at this target. Winning the first round was not vital in winning the contest, but Raif had watched enough archery contests to know that once you started losing it was hard to stop. He breathed hard, trying to settle his thoughts. At his side he was aware of Tanjo Ten Arrow scratching an imagined defect from his bow with fingernails as long as waxed beans.

The third arrow Tanjo fired entered the hole made by his second. Pitch sprayed into the air, spattering rimrock and trickling down the target like cold syrup. Raif set his sights on the white snow-goose feathers protruding from the center of the bull. The updrafts rose and dropped, and then Raif released the string.

The shot was good, and the arrow landed within the bull, but it was wide of dead center where Tanjo’s arrow stood upright like a needle on a sundial. Maimed Men cheered as Yustaffa pronounced the burned man the winner of the first round. A handful of small children rushed into the archery lane to help wheel off the first beehive, clearing the way to the second target. The second beehive was set at a distance of two hundred paces, the bull nothing more than a dot in Raif’s sights.

Clay pots of beer and trays piled high with greasy oatcakes and whole roast onions were distributed amongst the crowd during the lull. Women around the hog fire rolled up their sleeves and loosened the strings on their bodices as the heat from the flames made them sweat. The hog was black now, its outer skin cracked and flaking. When one of the women pierced its belly with a pitchfork a fountain of juices spurted forth. Raif looked away. The festivities left him cold. He was anxious to begin the second round, and every extra minute he had to wait was torture. Nervously, he ran a hand down the yew longbow. At a hundred paces an archer could shoot straight. At two hundred paces he needed height. There’d be no avoiding the headwind this time.

“Archers. Take your practice shots.”

Raif was ready with his arrow, and he didn’t wait to see if Tanjo was about to launch another ten-shot spectacle. Quickly, he fired an exploratory arrow high into the air. The wind caught it and gently curved its flight southward, sending the head into the far edge of the beehive, a good two hands wide of the bull. Raif exhaled in relief.
At least I didn’t miss.