She was getting faster. But I was closer. Forty paces, maybe.
The headwind seemed to push harder now, buffeting me as I ran. She pulled the string more quickly this time, the bow aimed straightat my heart. If I dodged one more time, I could make it. She wouldn’t be able to draw fast enough before I was on her.
She loosed. The shaft blurred, disappeared into the night sky, became nothing but a whistle in my ears. I flung myself left.
A gust of wind pushed back against me. It slowed my fall just a hair?—
Rhiannon’s arrow slammed into my left shoulder. The impact threw me backward into the grass. My head struck earth; air rushed out of my chest.
Stars blossomed in front of my eyes, white wisps moving through my vision that weren’t the stars in the sky. And pain?—
Pain, pain, pain.
Pain lanced through my skull. Pain speared through my chest. Pain expanded like an explosion in my shoulder.
She got you. She fucking got you.
Get up. Get up.
I jerked to stand, the movement as instinctive as a deer, but the arrow held me fast. My left shoulder felt like it was being torn in two.Don’t panic. Don’t fucking panic.Even as the pain raced through me, some part of my mind stayed rational. The herb; it must have been the herb.
The arrow’s fletching floated in my periphery, the shaft leading straight into my body. The arrowhead had gone through my already injured shoulder and into the ground. That was what pinned me.
Creak—Rhiannon’s bow bending again. I couldn’t see her, but the sound was enough. She was preparing her last shot. The kill shot.
Think. Improvise.
I scrabbled at my belt with my right hand, found the grip of my sword, wrenched it from the sheath. With a guttural yell, I swung the blade, hacked through the arrow’s shaft right above my shoulder.
The blade bit. Wood splintered.
I thrust my shoulder up. The broken shaft slid through my flesh, white fire lancing down my arm, but I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I was dead.
When my shoulder slid far enough, I felt it come free. I rolled away from the spot where I’d lain and onto my chest, breath hissing through my teeth. The pain was a throbbing, living thing inside me.
Another arrowthwickedinto the grass on my right. It landed right where my head had been.
In a few seconds, the next arrow would find its mark.
Rhiannon had me. Here, belly-down in the grass.
Behind my closed eyes, my mother’s face flashed. I heard the words she’d spoken to me the day she’d died.Never sit down.
Then, new words:Not on your stomach, Eury. Not like this.
I rolled again, opening my eyes as I landed on my back with the sword still in my grip. My gaze shifted, and I saw her. Rhiannon stalked toward me, the bow raised with an arrow nocked. Twenty paces away.
“Stay down, girl,” Rhiannon said. “I’ll make this quick.”
The words stung. This was exactly how I didn’t want to die. On my back, staring up at my killer?—
Then it came to me, sudden and obvious and total.
With gritted teeth, I forced myself to an elbow. Rhiannon came into full view, her next arrow pointed at me.
But she didn’t let it fly. Not while I was rising to face her.
With slow movements, I forced myself up to my feet. I staggered to standing, my left arm dangling at my side. In my right hand I still held my sword.
