And then he stopped thinking about lust or sin or confession, because an arrow had just appeared in one of the swordsmen’s right eye.
FORTY-TWO
SHANE WAS SO surprised that he sat there gaping as the swordsman toppled over. Then he looked over his shoulder, halfway convinced that one of the others had pulled a bow out of thin air.
“What is it?” hissed Wren. “What’s going on?”
“There’s an archer somewhere!”
“Are they on our side?”
“I have no idea!”
He looked back, in time to see the remaining three running straight for their position. They must think the arrow came from us, too. Crap.
“Here they come,” he said, drawing Lord Nallan’s sword. Wren set her back against the stone, axe in hand.
Shane waited until the first one was almost upon them, then rushed to meet him. He hated to lose cover, but it was more important to keep the fighting as far from the noncombatants as possible.
Dreaming God willing, the crossbowman couldn’t get a clear shot through her comrade.
The black tide rose at once, and a good thing, too. His opponent had a shield. So did his opponent’s friend, who arrived a second later. Shane blocked a strike and stepped out of the way of another, but even with the preternatural speed of the battle tide on him, it was all he could do to keep ahead of their blows.
…and dodge and duck under that one and cut for the legs and…
They fought as a pair, too. If he had been capable of conscious thought, he would have cursed. The Sail operatives back in the fortress had fought like a bunch of individual fighters. These two had clearly been working together for a long time.
…block that—no, duck, it’s a feint!—and step around the side and cut…
He managed to slice one across the forearm, but he took a blow from a shield in return that made his collarbone creak. If Wren had been beside him, they could have made short work of the pair, but Wren was holding off the third swordsman, who had a lot of reach on her and kept trying to draw her away from the rocks and leave her charges exposed.
It occurred to Shane, in a distant fashion, that he might be about to die.
Then he saw it.
Five feet away, half-hidden in the grass, was a hole. A hole with a line of stones in it that might simply be stones, but which glinted in the afternoon light.
The tide rose higher. He blocked a strike from the swordsman on the left, saw the shield rising to bash him in the chest, and instead of trying to get out of the way, he charged directly into it.
He weighed more than his attacker, who gave ground, startled. Shane kept shoving, bearing his opponent’s sword down, their faces so close over the top of the shield that he could see the whites around the man’s eyes.
Then his opponent did what anyone would do in that situation, and put a foot back to brace himself against the ground. Probably he was thinking that his partner would swing in, any second now.
Pressed against the shield, Shane might as well have been laid out on a cutting board waiting for the knife.
Except that the man’s foot hit a hole and went in.
He let out a cry and fell backward. Shane dropped low, feeling a sword strike go so close over his head that it ruffled his hair, then scrambled back gracelessly. He had no idea where the crossbowman was any longer, and all he could do was keep moving.
The swordsman let out a shout of pain, tried to get up, and failed. Shane felt a rush of bitter satisfaction. Distracted by the cry, his partner was just a hair too slow getting his shield up, and Shane smashed the pommel of his sword between the man’s eyes and watched him drop like a stone.
He made it back to the rocks a fraction of a second before a crossbow bolt slammed into the ground precisely where he’d been standing.
Wren’s opponent was missing large chunks of his thighs where his femoral artery had previously been located, but was no longer in a position to be concerned about this. Shane shook off the remains of the battle tide, just in time to hear the trapped swordsman’s shouts cut off abruptly.
Did the ground-wight…？ He peered cautiously around the rocks and saw another arrow protruding from the man’s neck. Ah. I see. I don’t know if they’re friendly, but they seem to have helped us quite a—
An arrow shattered against the rock an inch from his head.
Or not. Shit.
He looked around wildly, and saw, for the first time, three figures standing in the field, on the opposite side from the road. Two of them carried bows. As he watched, one notched an arrow and drew back the string.
“Don’t shoot!” Marguerite shouted. “Don’t shoot! We mean you no harm!”
The archer paused. The one who didn’t have a bow said something, though Shane couldn’t hear what it was.
On the other side of the rocks, he heard a voice say, “I surrender.” He risked a glance around and saw the remaining Sail operative setting their crossbow on the ground and stepping back, hands in the
air.
Marguerite elbowed him in the side. “Put your weapons down!” she hissed.
“There’s only two archers,” said Wren in an undertone. “We could—”
“You could get turned into a pair of pincushions is what you could do!”
They lowered their weapons.
“This is a misunderstanding!” Marguerite called. “We were attacked, not attacking! We don’t mean you any harm!”
The trio approached, though the archers didn’t lower their bows. Given the precision with which they’d shot, Shane was pretty sure they wouldn’t miss a second time.
The closer they are, the quicker they have to move if we dodge. A few more yards, and it might be worth trying…
Their leader was a barrel-chested older man with a lined face and an unsheathed sword. “You’re trespassing,” he growled.
“We are terribly sorry,” said Marguerite. “We didn’t mean to. We were attacked and so we were trying to get away—”
“I am surrendering!” called the Sail operative again.
Neither of the archers have swords, so if Wren and I move together, and I grab the shield from the one Wren killed…
The leader rocked on the balls of his feet, then put two fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly.
Five more people stood up from the grass. They must have been lying almost prone, given how little cover there was. All five of them carried bows.
“And what about you? Do you surrender?” the man asked, looking over Wren and Shane.
Dreaming God have mercy. “Yes,” said Shane. “We do now.”
THEY WERE NOT TREATED CRUELLY. Their hands were bound in front of them, and their weapons were taken, but that was all. At least two archers kept arrows on strings the entire time, and Shane had no doubt that they would use them.
“This is really a misunderstanding,” said Marguerite.
“You can tell that to Wisdom,” said the leader. “There’s no point in telling it to me.”
Shane glanced back toward the road, hoping for witnesses, but the only movement was an unsettling jiggling of the corpse in the ground-wight’s maw. It had gotten most of his leg down and showed no signs of stopping. Shane repressed a shudder. Perhaps there was a reason this road was so empty.
He glanced at Marguerite, who shrugged helplessly.