Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(34)
With a hard tug, the ironsmith dragged her backward, and Wren knew she’d need to find a different strategy. She rolled onto her back to look up at him. Hesitantly, she raised her hands. She abhorred the idea of it, but maybe surrender would save her life… or maybe she’d forfeited it when she’d thrown herself at this ironsmith in the first place.
A smile tugged at his mouth, but then Wren saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
Apparently uninterested in her surrender, the distant rider let his arrow fly.
It was as if time slowed, the air bending around the oncoming projectile as it barreled straight for her.
No. Not for her… the trajectory, the angle, it was all wrong. This arrow was meant for him. His back was to the others, and the ironsmith had no idea he was about to be shot. No matter how impressive his armor, there were always gaps—and who would know them better than one of his own?
Though he didn’t see it coming, he did see her expression. He turned, but he was too slow—the arrow too fast.
It thunked into the top of his chest, and the impact sent his body careening back toward the mouth of the chasm Wren had been desperately seeking. The chasm that, as the ironsmith fell, she was pulled inextricably into, the whip still tightly coiled around her leg.
She struggled—but it was pointless. She had only enough time to gasp in surprise as her body slid after him, dragged into the abyss.
TWELVE
There was nothing to grab hold of, nothing to stop their sudden, desperate fall—until there was.
Wren’s heart lurched into her throat, only to slam back down into her stomach as she landed on a hard, rocky surface. The impact rattled her bones, her head ringing, and it took a second for her to understand where she was and who was with her.
The ironsmith had landed first, but his body lay unmoving as she struggled to sit up.
It was dark all around, the smoky gray light from above only just illuminating his prone form, the iron plates glinting dully. Beyond… nothing but emptiness.
They’d landed on a ledge, and Wren didn’t want to know how deep this crevasse went beneath it, how much farther there might be to fall.
Especially as the ironsmith currently teetered near the edge. Wren shuffled nearer to him, afraid any sudden movement might cause the shelf to give way or his body to slide beyond her reach and drag her down with him.
She needed to move him. Fast.
She tugged at the iron coil around her leg, trying to unravel it—but the segments had twisted and locked together. Cursing, she reached for the ironsmith’s arm instead, tugging him toward her.
He made a mumbled protestation—proving he was dazed but not wholly unconscious. Or dead. But he was out of it enough not to realize the danger he was in.
The closer he got, the better Wren could see that the arrow had landed in his breastplate, right below his collarbone—but there wasn’t any blood. Ironsmith armor was stronger than anything they could make in the Dominions, and whatever that rider used to tip his arrow, it wasn’t able to punch all the way through.
The ironsmith would have a wicked bruise, but his heart still beat in his chest, and his blood still pumped through his veins.
As she dragged him toward her and the wall of the crevasse, where she assumed the ledge was more stable, the distant rumble of horse hooves echoed down, and she looked up, realizing how exposed they were. If that archer came to check his work, if he and his companion peered over the edge—which Wren suspected they were about to do—they’d see that she and the ironsmith had survived. Then it would simply be a matter of a couple more well-placed arrows, and they’d finish the job.
But looking over her shoulder, she saw that the wall behind her was steeply angled, providing a substantial recess—and perfect hiding place, if she could get them to it. From above, it would appear as though they’d continued to fall past this stony ledge, down, down, into the dark. The kidnappers would have no choice but to assume the worst—that both Wren and the ironsmith were dead, as they had intended.
Why they had intended it was a mystery she didn’t have time to dwell on. The ironsmith weighed a metric shit-ton, technically speaking, his body lax and his iron armor and weapons like weights strapped to his skin. She only managed to move him at all because the ground sloped inward, allowing gravity to help. It was thanks to his own magic that he was able to move and fight under such heavy materials. The law of ratios was never much of an issue with bonesmiths, but ironsmiths monitored the equation with mathematical precision.
Wren pulled with everything she had, gritting her teeth and using her legs for leverage, despite the searing pain lancing through her ankle, jostling the ironsmith roughly as she dragged his body across the ground.
The pounding hooves stopped, and muffled voices reached them. Panic spiked Wren’s adrenaline. One more good pull, and she was inside the recess. Another, and he joined her.
She was just grabbing him by his breastplate to ensure his entire body was out of sight when his eyes snapped open, and he shoved her away, his metal clanking.
But the voices were clearer now, their words distinguishable, and Wren did not have time for this.
With one hand she took hold of the arrow shaft and pushed, temporarily robbing the ironsmith of breath as she helpfully reminded him of his wound. Then her other hand clapped over his mouth, ensuring that when he could inhale again, he didn’t exhale in a shout.