Bone War (2 page)

T
he blue arrow thudded into the man-shaped target just above the painted heart and quivered there as if pleased with itself. A tall elf with a whipcord build nocked a second arrow and took aim, his ivy green eyes hard with concentration beneath sunset red hair. He let fly, and the second arrow hit the target just below the heart. Both shafts cast long shadows across the archery range in the late-evening light.

“Well?” the elf said. His name was Ranadar.

The young man next to him made a sound of admiration. He had rich brown hair with a slight curl, eyes bluer than a clear sky, and a head with only a few memories in it. Except for a few snatches of the distant past, the earliest thing he could recall was walking down a road with only one shoe on three years ago. A lot had happened since then. At least he knew his name was Talfi. Somehow that fact always came back to him.

“Wow,” Talfi said. “I never knew anyone who could arch like that.”

“Arch?”

“If you're an archer, it must mean you arch.” He raised a bow and arrow of his own. “Though now that I think of it, I have ten fingers, and I've never seen them fing.”

“Just try to hit the target, Talfi,” Ranadar said.

Talfi pulled back the arrow and squinted down the shaft. “What do toes do, I wonder?”

“Breathe,” Ranadar said quietly. “You, not your toes. Aim a little above your target and open your fingers to release.”

Talfi loosed the arrow. It went high and left and skittered into the wall of straw bales stacked behind the targets. Cool spring air wafted over the palisade walls, carrying shouted voices, clanks of wares, and smells of fish, spice, and toasted food from the market on the other side. In some forgotten century, there had been a guard outpost on this spot. In recent years, an enterprising merchant had taken it over and charged a fee to citizens who wanted to keep up their skills with a bow or spar with a sword but who couldn't easily get to the outskirts of town. He did a brisk business. Five other sets of people stood in clumps along the range, aiming at targets of their own. A pair of small boys waited on the sidelines until everyone's quivers were empty, then ran out to fetch the spent arrows and bring them back for quarter-knuckle tips.

“You are jerking the bow upward when you loose,” Ranadar said. “A common beginner error.”

“Maybe you should show me again.” Talfi grinned.

Ranadar gave him a look, then put an arm around Talfi to grasp his bow. Talfi leaned into him for just a moment, inhaling the scent of smoke and wood and . . . Ranadar. His heart sped up a little, and the circle of Ranadar's solid arm felt both safe and exciting. Ranadar was a snatch of distant past he remembered. Long ago, they had met in the city of Palana. Talfi had been a slave, and Ranadar had been—still was—a prince. They had carried on a forbidden affair under the noses of Ranadar's parents, the king and queen of Alfhame, who wouldn't have been happy to hear their royal son was making merry with a human slave. In the end, Ranadar's careless arrogance had exposed their secret and forced them apart. Now they were reunited, had been for nearly two years, but sometimes Talfi still couldn't
quite believe it. Most nights he woke up at least once expecting to find himself alone, and it was always a surprise—a thrilling, aching surprise—to find Ranadar, his hair rumpled in sleep, beside him.

Ranadar murmured in Talfi's ear, “Release when you breathe out.”

Ignoring the sidelong stares of the other archers at their targets, Ranadar guided Talfi's aim and, gentle as a kiss, disengaged Talfi's fingers from the string. The arrow thumped into the target's stomach.

“Better,” Ranadar said in a satin whisper that made Talfi shiver. “I find your shaft quite excellent.”

Talfi arched an eyebrow. “Really? Am I getting better?”

“My expert instruction will have you arching in no time,” Ranadar said solemnly. His arm was still around Talfi's shoulders.

“I wonder if I could put three arrows into the heart,” Talfi mused aloud.

Ranadar withdrew his arm with a short laugh.

“What?” Talfi asked.

“You,” Ranadar replied with a shake of his head. “If it's impossible, you have to try it.”

“You think I can't do it?” Talfi said. “What happened to confidence in your
Talashka
?”

“Nothing.” Ranadar smirked in a way that stirred memories, old memories of harsh words and casual cruelty and hard chains. Talfi stiffened. It wasn't Ranadar's fault that the Fae, his people, had enslaved humans for hundreds of years after the Sundering. Ranadar hadn't even been born when that practice began, and he had been raised to believe that humans and other Kin—orcs and merfolk—were little more than beasts. “But my
Talashka
just asked me twenty minutes ago to teach him archery for the first time. You could not possibly put three arrows into the heart.”

Talfi ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “Let's make it interesting. If I make it, you owe me a favor for each arrow. No matter what it is.”

“And if you fail?” Ranadar said. “Because you will.”

“Then I owe you three, my uppity elf.”

Ranadar stepped back and sketched a small bow. “I look forward to collecting, my
Talashka
.”

Talfi fitted another arrow to the bow. He shot Ranadar a sideways glance. The elf, too damn handsome to be fair, damn it, watched with a confident expression. The smug, lovable bastard. Talfi sighed, breathed out, and sent an arrow down the range. It thunked into the exact center of the heart. With smooth precision, he snatched two more arrows from the quiver at his feet and loosed them. Each pierced the heart between Ranadar's original arrows. Ranadar's mouth actually fell open.

“Fing!” Talfi said.

Ranadar made a small sound, then shut his mouth with an audible clop. He coughed, and his face reddened. “You were holding out on me.”

“Guilty.” Talfi laughed. “You should see your face. I swear you look like you swallowed a squid testicle.”

“Do you often see people who swallow squid testicles?”

Talfi was not to be deterred. “You owe me! Three favors.”

“You misled me!” Ranadar protested. “You already knew how to arch.”

“Aw.” Talfi patted Ranadar on the cheek. “I like that you're already using my words. It shows you're paying attention.”

“Hmm.” Ranadar took up his bow and flipped the fetching boy a copper knuckle. “So, my
Talashka
, what will you demand of me?”

“I don't know yet,” Talfi said airily.

Ranadar slid closer. His eyes, an intense green deeper than any forest ivy, took on a heavy look that made Talfi's knees weaken, just a little. “Do you plan to lord it over me for days?”

“Weeks,” he managed.

“And when you do collect?” Ranadar ran the back of a finger down Talfi's cheek. He couldn't help shivering. Even
after more than two years, Ranadar could still do that to him, and he was glad.

“As soon as I think of what I want,” Talfi said. Archly.

“And will you—”

“Do the both of you intend to put on a show for the entire town,” interrupted a new voice, “or just for me?”

Talfi broke off and glanced guiltily away. A woman was leaning against the palisade wall, arms crossed. Her auburn hair, caught in a long braid, contrasted sharply with her faintly greenish complexion and golden eyes. The muscles of a warrior coiled beneath her riding leathers and heavy boots, though her only visible weapon was a small knife sheathed at her belt.

“Kalessa,” Ranadar said. “Are we done for the day?”

“I would say you were just beginning.” She nodded at the other archers who were handing their borrowed arrows back to the old man who ran the range and unstringing their bows, all while pretending to ignore the two young men—
regi
men—who were carrying on beneath their noses. “It is near dark, and the range wishes to close. Shall we?”

“Sure, sure.” Talfi unstrung his own bow, not bothering to hide the easy skill this time. Ranadar gave him a sour look. “It's your own fault, you know.”

“My . . . ?”

“By now you should know I have all sorts of hidden skills.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“It will make paying you back all the more interesting.”

“We need to leave,” Kalessa said. “Now.” With that, she turned her back and strode stiffly toward the wooden gate. Talfi and Ranadar blinked after her.

“What did you do?” Ranadar gathered up his and Talfi's bows and hurried after her.

“Me?” Talfi said. “Why does it have to be me?”

“It is always you.”

“It doesn't take much to piss off an orc,” Talfi muttered as they exited. “It might have been that too many stars came out. Or too few. Or—”

“Shh! She will hear.”

They emerged from the palisade at the edge of the market square of Balsia, the largest city on the South Sea. “Market square” was something of a misnomer, since the market actually started at a square but extended down dozens of blocks and side streets like a squirming octopus. Despite—or because of—the setting sun, more and more people were moving into the market. Talfi loved the market at this time of day. Thousands of voices rose in a colorful quilt of shouts and haggles and cries as people bought and sold everything from fish to flowers, from silver to saffron, from sugar to shovels. Anything he could think of, and many things he couldn't, came up for sale here, and something astonishing was always tugging at the corner of his eye. And lately it had just gotten better. Stalls that only two years ago had closed themselves up after dark now set out torches or lanterns and kept on selling while right beside them stalls that were shuttered for the day opened for business.

The difference was the Stane.

More than a thousand years ago, the Stane—dwarfs, trolls, and giants—had ruled the world with mostly benevolent intent. They had forged strong bonds with the Kin—orcs, humans, and merfolk—and they had brushed away the Fae—fairies, elves, and sprites. But over time, the Stane had grown corrupt in their power, stealing magic from the Kin and manipulating the Fae. Eventually, the downtrodden Fae had taken up arms against the Stane, and both sides called down terrible magics that sundered the continent itself and killed countless thousands. The Stane were banished to Glumenhame under the Iron Mountains, and the kindly Fae worked hard to restore the world. Folk said that Ashkame, the Great Tree of Life, had tipped, turned upside
down, so that the Stane were at the bottom and the Fae were at the top, with the Kin always in the middle.

But in time, the Fae had also become corrupt, and the downtrodden Stane had risen up against them. Once again, their battle had nearly destroyed the world, but Talfi and his friends had put a stop to it. Barely. The Fae were pushed back into their own kingdom, and the Stane were released from their underground prison, once again able to walk in open air. But only at night—sunlight caused the Stane enormous pain.

That had happened not even three years ago. Until then, the city-state of Balsia had been a human country. But after the Stane emerged from under the mountain, Balsia's ruler, the young Prince Karsten, had started letting trolls and dwarfs into Balsia. At first they had been useful workers with strong backs, but the dwarfs were cunning craftsmen and many trolls were skilled merchants, and they had quickly woven themselves into the fabric of Balsian society.

But because of the sunlight pain, the incoming Stane did their work indoors or underground. Or at night.

Twilight at the market square was before the humans closed up and after the Stane opened, and it fascinated Talfi no end. Who would ever have thought Kin and Stane would work side by side? Short, twisted dwarfs with beards down to their knees sold intricately carved toys that sang and dolls that danced, silver teapots that kept water hot, and even full-fledged golems of stone and clay alongside human woolmongers, weavers, and apothecaries. Nine-foot-tall trolls with jutting lower jaws, swarthy skin, and night black hair trudged barefoot across the cobblestones with great baskets on their shoulders, their rumbling voices mingling with the higher-pitched ones of human men and women who also browsed the stalls, buying, gossiping, and arguing at the tops of their lungs in the lengthening shadows and flickering torches.

Not all humans were satisfied with the new arrangement. Even as Talfi watched, some merchants closed up
their stalls or packed up their pushcarts in a tight-faced huff and left when the trolls and dwarfs opened for business. More than one gave Ranadar a wide berth as well until he remembered himself and pulled up the hood on his scarlet cloak to hide his pointed ears and cast his exotic features into shadow. Elves weren't well liked in Balsia, either—an elf's lingering touch was addictive, and turned humans into happy, willing slaves. Talfi was grateful to the Nine that he was immune to this effect. It would have cast his entire relationship with Ranadar into doubt.

“Where's Kalessa got to?” he asked over the noise. “She shouldn't be too far ahead of us.”

Ranadar wore the tight look that often came over his face at the market—a great many merchants sold objects made with iron, and iron was as bad for the Fae as sunlight for the Stane.

“I do not see—there.” He pointed. Kalessa was staring at them from a nearby butcher's stall, arms crossed. They threaded their way through the crowd to her.

“She still looks unhappy,” Ranadar observed. “We need to defuse her before she explodes.”

“We could just point her at someone we don't like,” Talfi said.

“Are you shopping?” Kalessa said tartly. “Stopping to admire the view? Collect your favors?”

Talfi blinked at her. “We were looking for you, actually. We wouldn't have looked so hard if we'd known our heads would get bitten off.”