“Alright,” Justan said pulling Ma’am off of his shoulder. He reached for an arrow and looked down the range at the various masks. “What do you need me to do?”
“First, before you fire anything, you should tell me what you know about Jharro weapons,” Beltry said. “Oh, and I will need to know what you would like me to call you. ‘Jhonate’s betrothed’ works but it seems like an awkward title for a warrior like yourself.”
“Please, call me Sir Edge,” Justan said, inclining his head towards the man. “Any friend of Jhonate’s is deserving of my respect.” This was only his second day among the Roo-Tan and he was already finding this name/respect thing tiresome. He was going to have to ask Sir Hilt how he got around it. “Besides, the Bowl of Souls gave me this name. I don’t think it’s within my rights to decide who can and who can’t use it.”
“Very well. Sir Edge,” Beltry said, nodding in approval. “Jhexin said that you have only recently communed with your tree. How recently is that?”
“It was a couple of weeks ago,” Justan said, feeling awkward admitting it. “But that’s just because Jhonate hadn’t told me anything about that ‘communing with the tree’ thing until then. I’ve actually been using the bow for over two years now.”
“That’s interesting,” Beltry said. “I’ve never met someone who’s gone about it that way. Though I suppose I should have known by all the carvings on your bow. This is going to either make things much easier for you or make them very hard. It depends on what bad habits you’ve developed.”
“What about the carvings on my bow?” Justan asked. He looked down at the detailed shallow designs that covered Ma’am’s surface.
“Those are maker’s marks,” Beltry explained. “When the elves first pull the wood from the Jharro tree, the wood is without purpose. They carve those designs to tell the weapon what it is going to be. This way the Jharro weapons keep their form until their users are ready. The longer you use your weapon, and the more that the weapon becomes in tune with you, the more of those markings fade.”
Justan ran his fingers along his bow, feeling the textures of the carvings. “That’s too bad. I like the designs.” It made sense though, now that he thought about it. Jhonate’s staff had very few carvings in it and Yntri Yni’s bow had none that he had been able to see. He looked at Beltry’s walking staff and saw only two shallow curving designs carved into it.
“So is that a mark of prestige among your people?” he asked, grumbling inwardly at yet another detail that Jhonate had failed to mention. “The less markings, the better you know the tree?”
“It doesn’t mean as much as all that,” Beltry said with a shrug. “We’re humans, not elves. With a few rare exceptions, the trees pay only minor attention to us. The amount of carvings on your bow tells me something about your relationship with your weapon, but that hasn’t got anything to do with how well you know your tree.”
Beltry could see that Justan wasn’t entirely grasping the concept. He lifted the walking staff in front of him. “Each weapon has a personality of its own. The more time you spend using your Jharro weapon and getting to know its personality, the more it gets to know you and what you need from it. That’s when the markings fade.
“So, yes, you can look at a Roo-Tan warrior’s weapon and see how well it knows him, but that doesn’t tell you his skill level. You, for instance,” Beltry said. He lifted his staff and bent it, then pulled a bowstring from a pouch at his side and strung it in one fluid motion. The shape of the staff changed as Beltry did so, until it looked quite similar to Justan’s bow. He pulled an arrow from the quiver that hung at his belt. “You could be a far better archer than me.” He drew the arrow back and fired, his eyes never leaving Justan’s. He smiled as he heard it strike the mask on the target closest to them. “But I doubt it.”
Justan smiled back at him. “Nice shot.” He notched an arrow on his own bow and pulled it back. “I might not be able to make the shot you just did without looking, but . . .” Justan sighted in on the target furthest away. He led his breath, letting the world around him blur. He released the arrow and then looked back at Beltry knowing that it would strike true. “I could be more accurate.” He heard a distant thwack as the arrow pierced the mask. “Left nostril.”
“No way,” Beltry laughed. He lifted his bow to his eyes and a small hole opened up in the center of the wood. He peered through the hole at the distant target. “Ha! You were off by a muskrat hair. You struck it between the nostrils.”
Justan looked back at the target, focusing in with the enhanced vision given to him by his bond with Deathclaw, and his smile slipped slightly. “That’s too bad. I would have looked so much better if I had been right.”
It was a good shot, Deathclaw commented from a vantage point in a tree somewhere ahead of them.
“Don’t feel embarrassed,” Beltry said. He actually looked impressed. “That mask is over a hundred yards away. Quite a feat. That was a shot I couldn’t have made without looking.”
“Ah, but could you have made it while looking?” Justan asked.
Beltry chuckled. “We can have a contest another time. This is an evaluation. I want you to fire again. Sight in on a closer target, but shoot it in the same place. I want to be sure of something.”
“Alright.” Justan drew back another arrow.
He picked a mask that was about fifty yards away and sighted in onto the target, aiming for the tiny dot just off of the center of the mask that was the left nostril. He let the world blur again and released. This time he watched the arrow streak through the air and bury itself right where he wanted. The impact caused a crack to sprout horizontally along the mask and the bottom half of it fell away. He shouted and pumped his fist.
“Very good.” Beltry folded his arms. “So this is what I see from you already. Your bow is tight. It’s set for power. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It suits you. With your musculature you can handle a pull like that.”
“Hmm.” Justan supposed the man was right. The bow was a hard pull. It hadn’t always been that way. Thinking about it, he supposed that it had started feeling tighter sometime after the dragon hair string had been destroyed. Perhaps it had been compensating for that lack of power. Had he been willing Ma’am to change without knowing it?
“Still, that is a setting that’s rather limiting,” Beltry continued. “What do you do if you don’t want to fire at great distance? What if you are hunting and the target is closer?”
“Then I just don’t pull back as far,” Justan said.
Beltry shook his head. “Now you are speaking as if it were a regular bow. The first thing you need to learn is how to adjust the tension in the bow as you need it. That’s something a Jharro bow can do that no regular bow can. You can change the power of your shot while it is pulled back to your ear.
Justan frowned in thought, thinking of the implications.
Beltry added, “I was trained in the bow by Yntri Yni’s grandson, Kyrn Yni. He can actually change the power of the shot while firing. I was training with him once and he sighted in on a bear that had entered the grove. He had his string pulled back and I could see his bow changing, tightening for maximum power. It would have been a killing blow for sure. Then, at the moment of release, he noticed that this bear had a little cub with her. Killing her would have perhaps doomed the cub as well. In that tiny fraction of a second after letting go of the string, he caused his bow to go limp. The arrow only traveled maybe twenty feet.”
Justan’s eyebrows rose at the thought of such a feat. He wasn’t sure how often an ability like that would come in handy, but to have that kind of control was impressive. “Let me guess. He had no carvings on his bow at all.”
“Well, when you’re nearly a thousand years old, you have a lot of time to get to know your weapon. Then again, most of the elves know theirs that well. We humans are another story. We have difficulty understanding the wood. As far as I know, only two humans have weapons without any marks and I’ve only seen a
handful of humans reduce their carvings down to one.”
Xedrion bin Leeths was one of them. Justan had seen his weapon up close the other day. He nodded at Beltry’s bow. “You have two.”
Beltry smiled. “And I’m young to have come this far. But we should be focusing on teaching you to remove some of yours. The camp will be leaving soon. Fire some more arrows. Try to will your bow to become more flexible. See if you can fire some soft shots.”
Justan did so. He emptied his quiver before it was time to leave, but he was only making slow progress. Ma’am was stubborn.
* * *
On a tree not far away from the two men, was something that didn’t belong. A tiny multifaceted eye had sprouted from one of its branches. In truth, though it was nearly impossible to see it, this branch did not actually belong to the tree. Nor did the two branches under it. They belonged to the body of an assassin.
Vahn watched the men firing their bows and pondered the possibilities. There were so many delicious ways he could kill the target. His client hadn’t specified the manner of the assassination, but what form of death should he mete out?
He could wait until the men went to retrieve their arrows. It would be easy to drop onto this Sir Edge as they passed underneath him. He could pierce the man’s body with a dozen spikes before any of them knew what happened. It was an honorable way to kill. A good way, in line with nightbeast history.
Yes, that would be simple, and quick, but Vahn could no longer be satisfied with simple. He had begun his assignment eager to get it over with quickly. He had stalked his target, feeling him out, looking for the right opportunities. Then he had sent out his basilisk brethren in the traditional manner. Well, perhaps not exactly traditional. He had been so eager to get the contract over with that he had sent them in pairs.
That hadn’t worked. Now he wanted to savor the kill. He wanted to drive the man mad with fear. This was why he had sent Sir Edge that letter of introduction. He wanted to see the exhaustion and hopelessness in Sir Edge’s eyes as he tore out his heart.
Vahn enjoyed killing. He had assassinated hundreds of targets in his lifetime, but if he had given into his urges, he would have murdered thousands more. Oh it was tempting. He thought about it every time he passed a man on the road, every time he saw a dwarf working his field, or even saw a bird tweeting innocently in a tree. He enjoyed the idea that for that brief moment, he held their little lives in his hands.
This was the soul of a nightbeast, the desire to kill. But killing indiscriminately was not allowed. Nightbeasts and their basilisk brethren were small in number. If they went around murdering every living thing they saw, the ire of nations would be raised against them. They would be hunted down and wiped out.
Thus, his kind had long ago developed a code. They were not to kill unless it was part of their contract to do so. Killing someone that was protecting the target was also allowed, but was considered distasteful. A truly expert nightbeast assassin should be able to find a way to kill their target without being detected at all. Such collateral damage was acceptable only if the target’s protector was directly in the way.
Yntri Yni had been one of these casualties. Vahn still felt a sickness in the pit of him because of it. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to kill the elf. Vahn wanted to kill everybody. Ending the life of a creature that had survived even longer than him had given the primal nightbeast within Vahn great pleasure. But the moment the deed had been done, Vahn had regretted it.
Technically the murder had been allowable. Yntri had been a thorn in the nightbeast’s side from the moment Vahn had sent the first pair of basilisks. The old elf had proved himself adept at spotting a flesh changer and had taught Sir Edge and the rest of his groups many techniques to help sniff them out. The elf’s presence had taken away the element of surprise that was a basilisk’s greatest tool. The end result had been that Vahn’s entire clutch of basilisks had been destroyed.
Still, killing the elf had been bad form. Yntri hadn’t been directly in Vahn’s way at the moment of his death. The truth was that Vahn had been shaken by the elf’s abilities. He had been cozying up to the ancient elf to prove to himself that he was the more clever of the two. His plan had been to convince the wily ancient to take him to this Sir Edge and introduce him. Then, once he had pierced the target’s heart in front of the elf, Yntri Yni would have known who was superior.
But Vahn’s plan had fallen apart. Somehow, Sir Edge had spotted him. The human had pointed directly at him and yelled, ‘nightbeast’. Vahn had made a split decision. He had killed the elf and then he had made sure that the human knew the murder was his fault.
Now the ancient elf was no more. There was a part of Vahn that mourned that fact. This part of him had spent decades among the intelligent species of the known lands, focused on getting to know them. This part of him had developed friendships among the races. It had sublimated his inner desire to kill so that he could learn enough about them to avoid detection. This part of Vahn knew that Yntri’s death had been a waste.
This feeling inside Vahn led the nightbeast to hunger for Sir Edge’s death even more. Yes, Yntri’s life wouldn’t have ended for nothing. Surely it had increased Sir Edge’s guilt and fear after all.
Sir Edge and the other man finished their shooting and walked under the tree where Vahn clung, just as he had known they would. But he didn’t attack. Though the primal nightbeast within him cried out for blood, Vahn forced himself to hold back. This was a contract to savor.
Once again, he was back to the question of how to do it. If he had a mouth in his current form, he would have drooled over the challenge before him. Yes, in honor of Yntri Yni, Vahn would kill the man with flair.
Chapter Seven
The enormous beast leapt at Fist, driving him off of the boulder and into the midst of the mindless hungry mob below. It landed on top of him and glared at Fist with pained eyes. Then something hard stabbed him in the shoulder.
“Fist, wake up!”
The ogre stifled a shout as his eyes flew open. His roommate Jezzer peered back at him. The old cadet was standing next to Fist’s bed, poking the ogre with one stiff finger. Fist blinked at his friend, feeling disoriented, the dream still heavy in his mind. “What?”
“Are you alright?” Jezzer asked, concern etched in his features. “You look frightened.”
“I . . . I’m fine,” Fist said, though he was sweating profusely. “I was dreaming is all.”
It was that same dream again. The one where he had fought his way through a horde of faceless enemies, slaying them right and left before finding out that they were people he knew. Only this time one of them had been his father. Fist had been forced to kill Crag in order to save Squirrel, but when he climbed to the top of that boulder it wasn’t Squirrel he had saved. It was that wild beast again.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” Jezzer said. “I was up early again this morning and I headed to the library as usual. Wizardess Sherl stopped me in the hallway and told me to come and fetch you.”
“Oh.” Fist threw back his blanket and sat up. A tiny pile of seeds fell out of his belly button, some of them spilling onto the floor. “Squirrel!”
There was a chittering snicker from Squirrel’s pouch.
“Your navel this time?” Jezzer said shaking his head with a slight grin. “Last time he got me I didn’t find out until the end of the day. I took off my right boot and out poured a handful of watermelon seeds. I had been wondering why my toes hurt.”
“Squirrel!” Fist said in admonishment. “He does this to you too?”
“Every once in a while. But I take it all in jest,” Jezzer replied, humor sparkling in his eyes. He leaned in closer to Fist and whispered conspiratorially, “Antyni and I have a plan to teach him a lesson. It should be ready later today.”
“Really?” Fist asked. He’d had no idea just how bad Squirrel’s pranks had been getting. He liked the idea of teaching the sneaky animal a lesson. “But why is Antyni involved?”
“Shh!” Jezzer said, eying Squirrel’s pouch. “He’ll hear you. She has her reasons. It has something to do with the other squirrels on the grounds.”
“What are you going to do?” Fist replied in a whisper of his own, though he wasn’t very good at whispering quietly. He could tell by the expression of the old man’s face that he was still too loud.
“Oh, it’s good,” Jezzer replied. Squirrel’s head peeked out of his pouch and he peered at them suspiciously. The old cadet looked away innocently and whispered into Fist’s ear, “We’ve had some seeds soaking in pepperbean wine for weeks. Antyni is drying them and says she has a way to make the heat odorless. All we have to do is sneak them into his pouch.”
I would know, Squirrel chided, exiting his pouch completely. He was wearing a green vest this morning. He had put it on inside-out and the seams were sticking up. He began shelling a nut with practiced clips of his teeth.
“Sorry, Jezzer. He heard you through the bond,” Fist said. Jezzer’s face fell. “It was a good one, though. Next time you probably shouldn’t tell me.”
The old man sighed. “Drat.”
Fist frowned at his bonded. “I should make you eat spicy seeds anyway. Why are you being mean to Jezzer? Be nice to my friends.”
I’m nice! Squirrel protested. Then he saw himself through Fist’s eyes and shook his head. He took his vest off and began turning it right side out.
“No you’re not.” Fist said with a grunt. He stood and brushed the seeds off of his belly and moved to his wardrobe. “Now pick up those seeds.”
Squirrel pulled his vest back on and looked at the seeds which were scattered across the floor. He sent Fist a mental frown. You spilled it!
“Pick it up! You know what you did.”
Chattering irritably, Squirrel did as the ogre asked, jumping to the floor and picking up the seeds one-by-one, tucking them into his cheek pouches.
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