Arrows Of Change (Book 1) (2 page)

“So, that be the wizard from that new country, eh?” Riana
balanced easily on her tree limb, leaning forward slightly for a better angle
through all the leaves.

“No’ much to him. Looks like a strong breeze would snap him
in half,” her da commented.

Riana gave a “heh” of agreement. Truly, the wizard didn’t
have much girth to him. He was tall, thin, with platinum-blond hair and pale
skin, and looked to be a handful of years older than her. He’d blend right into
a winter setting. The way he felled one massive tree after the next with merely
a spoken word and a gesture of his hand stated plainly he wasn’t the pushover
he appeared to be. But then, with a reputation like his, she hadn’t expected
differently.

“Do ye think he be willing to take us all the way to
Estole?” she asked hesitantly.

Broden let out a soft sigh. “I hope so.”

Her da had talked several times about leaving Cloud’s Rest,
but they’d never had a viable way to get down the mountain and into the country
before. It was dangerous to just strike blindly ahead, not knowing the lay of
the land or where to find work. Besides, they never had enough money to make
traveling possible. But still…

“Ye sure that going to Estole be a good choice?”

“I know it be a new country, daughter, and no’ a stable
one.” He rubbed at his chin before offering a shrug. “But to me mind, that
makes it a better choice for us. They will no’ be as picky about who comes in,
as long as we have the skills to fight off Iyshian soldiers. At least, I’d lay
the odds on that.”

Well, he might have a point there. A new country would
likely be desperate for good fighters while they tried to get themselves
established. She and Da might be able to find work readily, considering their
skills. And they truly needed to leave sooner rather than later. Cloud’s Rest
was becoming more dangerous for them than the bandit-infested woods.

That wasn’t to say that Estole would be safer, though.

She looked again at her wizard-employer. Wizard Ashtian
Fallbright was famous, even all the way out here. The king he served, one
Edvard Knolton, had just this year declared his separation from Iysh. The
country of Iysh had been facing civil wars and internal conflicts for the past
two generations, but no one had expected someone to have the guts to split off
from it entirely. The whole world had waited with bated breath to see what
would happen next. Bets were made on how long Edvard Knolton would get by with
his declaration.

The Iyshian king had immediately sent out his troops to
subdue the rebel. Only, it hadn’t worked. Edvard Knolton had won in an
astoundingly short amount of time, decimating the army sent to defeat him. Iysh
sent another—and that army was defeated as well. A third army hadn’t been sent,
although no one was quite sure why. There was speculation of all sorts going
around, though, which ranged from the Iyshian king giving up on the small part
of land Knolton owned, to him not having enough troops to challenge the rebel
again.

Personally, Riana bet it was the lack of troops.

But all the rumors agreed on one thing: Knolton had won largely
because of two very strong wizards that had fought with him. And one of those wizards
was none other than Ashtian Fallbright.

Strange, he didn’t look that intimidating cutting down
trees.

She glanced at her da. “Why be ye on me branch?”

“It be a nice branch.” He grinned but didn’t look at her.

“And how do ye know it can support
both
our weights?”
Broden Ravenscroft was many things, but
light
wasn’t one of them.

Broden shot her a grin. “Now, daughter, I do no’ hear
creaking noises. It be safe enough.”

“The last time ye said that, it creaked right afore we fell.
Six feet. Onto no’ nice ground.”

He just chuckled, a low, rumbling sound.

Riana tossed a hand into the air, giving up. Fine, he could
stay, but she wasn’t risking that again. As it happened, both of them had
nearly broken bones because of that poor decision. With a slight huff, she
strapped her arrows firmly into the belt quiver at her waist before she sprang
off that branch and onto another, her gloved hands easily finding purchase on
the rough bark. With a flex of the shoulders, she swung herself on top of it. Ancient
trees in a virgin forest really did offer the best perches.

They’d been guarding for an hour now, eyes peeled for
trouble. In that time, the wizard had felled nearly three dozen trees, all of
them stacked neatly in piles.

“How much lumber did he say he wanted?” she asked slowly.
Surely that was enough for whatever project the man had in mind. These weren’t
normal trees, after all. One trunk could build three cottages without strain.

“I do no’ think he mentioned an amount. Man knows how to
work; I give him that.”

She could see the patches of sweat under his arms and down
his back from here. “But how does he plan to move all of that? He did no’ bring
wagons or any teams to pull them with.”

“Man’s beat two armies we know of. I do no’ doubt he will
win against trees, too.”

Good point.

Riana turned her head in a smooth, slow motion, eyes
drinking in her surroundings, ears searching for anything out of place. Her da
had trained her from the time she was knee-high how to read the moods around
her. The way the branches swayed, the amount of sounds a body should hear while
walking, the scents of the forest and what they meant—it all told a tale. Often,
it wasn’t a noise that told her something was wrong; it was the absence of it
altogether. The animals that lived here hid when there were strangers or
trouble, taking all their chattering along with them.

The forest here was thick, trees so massive they could crush
houses, their branches interweaved to block most of the sunlight, marking the
forest floor with areas of twilight and shadow. The air carried the pungent smell
of earth and vegetation, mixed in with the faint scent of running water. Because
of this, she had to rely more on her nose and ears, rather than her eyes, to
tell her if there was something amiss. Most of the time, this place had a
stillness to it, an aura as if it were more ancient than she could ever guess.
It seemed a little sacrilegious, somehow, to let anyone lumber here.

Even if it’d been her suggestion.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a color not found in
nature, nothing more than a blur of blue. She turned her head sharply, trying
to get a better look, but it was gone. Brows compressing, she flipped an arrow
in her hand and notched it in a smooth motion, but didn’t raise the bow just
yet.

“Daughter?”

“Something moved. Me left, just ahead.”

Broden immediately looked as well. “A few branches be
swaying.”

“Opposite to how the wind be blowing,” she noted grimly. “We’ve
got bandits.”

Broden grunted, holding his peace for a long moment before
offering, “I spy two. They be closing in on our wizard. Down or up, daughter?”

Making a snap decision she said, “Down.” She couldn’t get
any angle up here; too many leaves and branches and tree trunks blocked her
line of sight. Maneuvering bow and arrow to her left hand, she hopped lightly
from her perch, fell to the one below it in a crouch, then sprinted down its
length three strides before taking another flying leap, this time using a
branch closer to the ground as a springboard to halt her fall. She landed with
catlike grace on the moss-covered ground, barely settling before taking off in
a fast sprint toward Fallbright.

The man had stopped working, eyes following her as she moved
toward him. Of course he’d noticed, the way she’d noisily and hastily descended
to the forest floor. She paid scant attention to him, her eyes darting about,
trying to spy the bandits her da had seen from above and any others that might
be closing in. She swore softly as two of them dashed between the trees. They
were closer than she’d thought.

“What—” Fallbright started to ask, his tenor voice harsher
than usual.

“Do no’ move,” she ordered sharply. Skidding to a halt, she
snapped the bow back up, drawing the line taut this time, fletching to her ear.
Breathe in, hold, sight the target, release. The arrow whizzed past
Fallbright’s head, barely two inches from his cheek. The bandit’s guttural
scream sounded as her arrow found its mark unerringly. Before the first one had
been fully released, she was yanking the tie around her quiver free and
reaching for four arrows to hold in her hand.

The wizard froze, eyes glued to her, as she downed the
second bandit in the time it took for him to finish his sentence “—is wrong?”

“Bandits,” she supplied shortly.

Fallbright’s hands were already weaving in the air, leaving
behind trails of light in strange patterns. He fell into a fighter’s stance,
which looked odd, as he held no weapon. “Stand at my back,” he ordered tersely.
“But stay two feet away; don’t come within my shield.”

As Riana had no inclination to be in front of whatever
magical fury he unleashed, she promptly obeyed, leaving enough distance between
them to do as commanded.

From above, she could hear the whistle of arrows being
released, one after another. Her da must have a better vantage point up there
than she’d had. Then again, he
had
stolen her spot.

Her eyes searched for movement, instincts rattling.
There
.
Years of experience let her sense the direction the wind was flowing, judge the
speed of her target, and know where to aim. She took in a breath as she notched
the arrow between two gloved fingers, then held it to keep her aim steady.
Release. Her target tripped and hit the ground with a gurgle.

Riana’s attention only stayed on him long enough to assure
he was down before she searched for any other threats. She swung an arrow free
from the three she still clutched and up to the right of the bow. Notch, pull,
release.

Again.

The once still air clamored with the
thwang
of
bowstrings, the whistling of arrows, the meaty
thunks
of the injured,
and the strange humming sounds of Fallbright’s magical attacks. It sounded like
a swarm of angry hummingbirds. That was the closest she could come to
describing the way the magic slashed through the air. It looked pretty, though,
from the glimpses she got of it. The air around him glowed like he was standing
in a cloud of fireflies.

She pivoted in place, drawing and releasing her longbow in
an almost hypnotic rhythm. At all times, Riana kept the wizard at her back,
making sure that no one could sneak up on him. He, in turn, guarded hers as
faithfully as her da would have. Well, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he was a
good fighter and a decent partner in a skirmish.

In minutes, they all stopped attacking and waited with bated
breath. Nothing. Had they taken all of them out?

From her position in the middle of the clearing, whole
armies could be hiding behind the trees and she wouldn’t see them. She called
to her da, “I will guard him if ye want to poke about!”

A low, mournful whistle sounded in the air, signaling his
agreement.

Fallbright turned to her with an admiring look. “Your
eyesight is excellent. I would not have noticed them until it was far too
late.”

“I be used to this terrain,” she denied, although her cheeks
flushed at the praise. “But thank ye.”

“At first I was uncertain about hiring you and your father
as escorts—I don’t have much experience working with archers, you see—but I’m
now very glad I did. You just proved to be worth every deneres I’m paying you. You
were right earlier about me being a good target for thieves.”

“No’ just that,” she responded in amusement. “Wizard
Fallbright, do ye no’ know how famous ye be? Even up here, we know ye.”

He blinked, those clear blue eyes surprised. “Truly? Well,
that’s certainly food for thought. So, they had ransom on their minds?”

“Belike.”

Fallbright shook his head, mouth quirked wryly. “They’d have
been sorely disappointed, then. New kingdoms are rather short on money, I’m
afraid. Besides, Edvard and Ashlynn don’t take kindly to things like that. If
they’d tried to ransom me, they’d have just as likely been massacred for their
trouble.”

To her right, Broden strode out of the woods and into the
clearing. Fallbright immediately whirled in that direction, hand raised,
prepared to shoot off another spell, but he halted straightaway when he saw who
it was.

Broden lifted a hand and drawled, “I’d rather no’ be
attacked by me employer, if it be all the same to ye.”

“My apologies,” Fallbright responded, lowering his hand.
“After being in two battles, it’s become automatic for me to raise shields and
attack…first….” He suddenly went taut, head snapping around to stare at Riana
in wonderment.

She blinked up at him, not understanding why he was wearing
that expression. “Eh?”

“I…had my shield up.”

Wasn’t that just common sense? To put up a shield when you
sensed danger? He’d snapped it up so quickly that she’d barely realized what he
was doing before it was gone again. “And?” she prompted after he stumbled into
slack-jawed silence.

“No, you don’t understand,” he denied, hand slashing through
the air. “Urgh, how to explain?” This was muttered more to himself. “How much
do you know about wizards?”

“No’ a great deal,” Riana admitted frankly. “We never had
cause to work with them. I think me village called them in about fifteen years
ago for some sort of help in finding a cure to an epidemic, but I do no’
remember much of it.” Considering she’d been just shy of five at the time, that
was understandable.

Fallbright leaned in closer, eyes and voice becoming
intense. “Then, the basics. As formidable as magic is, we have many weaknesses
too. We can’t do multiple spells at the same time—not spells of different types,
at least. For instance, I can’t use a fire-based spell with a water-based spell
because they’ll cancel each other out. So always I have to choose which spell I
want to use, then figure out what I can partner it with, otherwise I risk
destroying my own efforts.”