And then I realize why my eyes are stinging.
The wind is cold.Unnaturallycold.
It’s been terribly hot for days. The forge has been near unbearable in the humidity. But I draw a shaking breath and it tastes like winter.
I remember the last time this happened, the way ice formed on Tycho’s armor, crystals gathering along every bit of steel.
I sit deep in the saddle and Teddy responds immediately, slowing to a walk, then a halt. My heart is beating so hard I’m practically vibrating. I can’t sit here long. Niall and Brinley can’t be too far behind me, and if they catch me, they’ll drag me off this horse and break a dozen bones.
But I stare up, peering between the trees, looking for something. Anything.
And then I see my breath. Goose bumps spring up along my arms. A shadow crosses the sky overhead. Then another.
A wild screech splits the night, but I’m hidden by the trees. The scravers fly past, toward the stream.
Sephran. Molly. Leo.All the soldiers.
And a good number of them are drunk.
Clouds above. I jerk the bow over my shoulder and put the reins in one hand, then do my best to turn Teddy around. Maybe he can feel my panic, or maybe he suddenly realized that I don’t want to plod along anymore, because he leaps into a canter so readily that I nearly lose my seat. I clutch at his mane with the reins, my other hand already slick on the bow. I’m not a good enough rider for this, so I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do, but I remember whatonescraver did to me and Tycho.
“Scravers!” I’m shouting. I can’t remember one single word in Emberish just now, but this one needs no translation. “Sephran! Molly! Scravers!” I drive my heel against Teddy’s side, and he grunts, cantering faster.
We burst out of the trees and into wide open grass—and nearly ride straight into Niall and Brinley. They’re still on foot, because they were clearly too drunk—or too stupid—to realize they could have chased me on horseback. But they’ve found their bows, and they’ve made it across the clearing.
I scramble to stay on Teddy as he tries to avoid running right into them. Niall’s face is bleeding from where I struck him with the arrow, a long welt ending in a stripe of blood.
I’ve only been gone for a minute, and I hear other soldiers still calling after them.
“Scravers!” I yell at them both, pointing at the sky. “Scravers! Scravers coming!” They speak Emberish. They need to warn everyone.
But they ignore me. Brinley is fumbling to nock an arrow on the string.
Niall already has one nocked, and he lifts the bow to aim at me. “I’ll show you how these are meant to be used,” he snarls.
My heart freezes. He’s got a clear shot.
But ice crystals crawl down the length of his bow, glinting in the light, freezing his arrow right to the wood. He holds, frowning. “What the—”
A scraver dives out of the sky to tackle him to the ground. Blood sprays in an arc.
Brinley screams, drops his bow, and runs.
Teddy truly is the steadiest horse of all time, because he doesn’t shy from the screeching creature that’s raking claws across Niall’s chest.
I don’t think. I just drop the reins, nock an arrow, and shoot, pinning arrows in my palm the way Tycho taught me. The first arrow makes the scraver’s body jerk, but the second one makes it go still, collapsing on Niall.
The soldier is breathing heavily, whimpering. He’s lucky to be wearing armor, and it only got his shoulder before finding leather and steel.
“Help—help me—” he’s gasping.
Another screech sounds overhead. Then a second. Soldiers are shouting from across the clearing. I hear a woman scream.
Molly.I think of her friendly smile, the way she was the first person to be kind in the Shield House.
I draw up my reins and cluck to Teddy, and he trots forward with little urging. We reach the stream in seconds. Half a dozen scravers have attacked, and it’s so many. Was it like this when they attacked the regiment in the fields? I only saw the ones that attacked me and Tycho. But I remember fighting at the king’s side in Briarlock, how the scravers descended from the air to assist us in battle, how we would’ve lost without their help.
This is like the opposite.
