Arrows by K.L. Noone

Author:K.L. Noone [Noone, K.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2024-05-24T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 5

The sun pounded like an avalanche. The long dry grass hissed warnings in the breeze. Van’s mouth had gone dry, despite earlier tea; he swallowed, felt the weight of his quiver, swallowed again. Milo, beside him, was still pale under the starburst freckles.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, in the lines as they’d been ordered. They waited.

The Penthii Chief Minister had come forward. With an army at her back. Van could see the outlines of pikes, spears, sharpness. Lorre’s veil danced, blurring shapes into indistinct opals.

“They can’t come through,” Milo said softly, maybe for Van, maybe for himself. “They can’t.”

“They want to.” Van stopped. “They need to. Lorre said it was about water, down there in the desert—”

“And he gave them a river. Shouldn’t they leave?”

“Would you feel threatened,” Van said slowly, “if you woke up to find a new river running right past you, a new canyon…because your enemy did that, in the night…would you take it badly, do you think…”

One of the blurry shapes made a gesture. Lorre’s barrier burst with iridescent light like a wound; but it absorbed the hit, scar gradually fading.

The Queen of Averene, General Freye, and the Sorcerer came past, hurrying but not too badly. The Queen was saying, “If we simply talk to them—”

“Now that we’ve made them angry, you mean?” said the General. She was glancing at every person they passed: evaluating her army. Preparing for a fight.

“If I were them I’d be happy about the water,” Lorre said. “We solved their problem. They’re being ungrateful.”

Lorre today had dressed up in myriad shades of purple: mauve, indigo, raspberry, blackberry, lavender, other variations Van couldn’t name. The robes definitely couldn’t’ve belonged to any traditional historian or scholar, given that fitted waist, that plunging tantalizing neckline: a tease, a mockery of tradition, a promise.

He’d piled the golden hair atop his head in a fantastical heap, studded with pins of raw gold and black-and-white sea-pearls. His feet were naked, and he’d pushed the sleeves of the robe-layers up. The folds made his wrists more slender, vulnerable.

“Not everyone thinks the way you do,” Queen Ryllis said. Lorre now looked genuinely perplexed, and protested, “But I know the world best.”

The world in question lurched abruptly. Grasses shuddering. A crack forming. Under Lorre’s shield.

Van couldn’t breathe.

“They can go under,” General Freye said aloud, unnecessarily, but she was making a point. “Lorre, you said they couldn’t—”

“I forgot about tunnels momentarily. I can fix that.”

“They have magicians.” Queen Ryllis’s jaw was tense. “Did you know that?”

“They don’t have magicians,” Lorre snapped. “They have three humans with some talent for guessing how to hum very specific tunes in the dark.”

“What?”

“Most of you are tone-deaf, so these three are better than that, at least.”

“Lorre—”

“Now I’m irritated,” Lorre said, “and I don’t like people hurting my grass. Time to be done with this, I think.”

His hand came up, a slim swoop of elegant fingers. The shield dropped. No more barricade between forces.

The wind ebbed. But the world wasn’t motionless. The earth began to put itself back together, along the newly opened fault-line.

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