Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 106 (March 2019) by John Joseph Adams

Author:John Joseph Adams [John Joseph Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Joseph Adams
Published: 2019-04-20T16:15:17+00:00

6

Amber had never seen a warrior like the man who called himself Vrath. He was terrible, monstrous, awful. The nerve of the man, to storm into her father’s city and abduct her sisters and her away while every suitor who desired them watched helplessly! What audacity! And the way he had spoken to her father—she had seen her father’s face change when he announced his name and dynasty. She knew of the Krushan Empire and the Krushan race too. In a sense, they were the mother race of all who lived upon the subcontinent. And their nation was one of the most powerful, widest, and richest. Had their name been called during the recitation of suitors participating, she would have felt a thrill of excitement at being desired as the wife of such a great House. But to be abducted like this was humiliating and degrading! She had prayed for Shalva, her beloved, to come and slaughter this impudent bearded giant and cut off his head . . . or worse.

But then she had seen the way he caught the javelin. She had never witnessed anything so miraculous. She had seen a man catch a javelin once, but that had been on an open field, where the man had been able to watch for the javelin’s approach and adjust his body to catch it. This Vrath fellow had been driving a chariot team of eight horses, looking ahead, and he had simply stuck out his hand and caught the javelin as it fell. How was such a thing even possible? How could he have seen and judged its approach so perfectly, and how much strength did it take to stop a flung javelin like that? She could hardly imagine. It was a godlike feat, the kind written about it in the fables one read in the puranas and itihasas. Something that Indra once did, or Varuna or Vayu.

Now, she watched with wide eyes as he shot a single arrow upwards, this time not even glancing back to judge the trajectory, wind speed and direction or any of the myriad factors involved in a precise bow shot.

What impudence! How could anyone possibly aim an arrow without seeing? By sound alone? What if he misjudged? There were so many factors to consider, it was not remotely possible that he could hit his mark. Even if he didn’t care whether or not he struck true—even if he was simply shooting blindly to dissuade the pursuer—what about the arrows shot by Shalva that were now falling towards him, only an instant away from killing him?

Yes, arrows. Plural. For Shalva had loosed his legendary astra, the Hailstorm. A single thick arrow that split open during flight to divide into numerous smaller darts, each deadly enough to punch through armor and deal a serious injury, if not a mortal blow. It took great strength to simply loose such an arrow, and a special bow that required three men’s strength to bend and string. Once shot, Shalva had claimed, it never failed.

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