Blade Archer ~ Twenty-Three

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It seemed like hours that Kael waited, with arms folded and scowl set, for a target in the main range to open up. The archers and blade archers there, all full members of the queen’s army, paid him little mind. It was not uncommon to see trainees in the main range, though rarely to do anything more than gawk.

Kael half-watched as blades and arrows thudded into the targets at the end of the range, their spreads clearly separating the archers in First Company from those in Twenty-First. One, he mused, was so accurate with his bow that he had to be in the Queen’s Own. He thought briefly of how his class mates, training together so diligently only fifty paces away, would react if they knew. He could use that as his excuse, when he was inevitably asked why he had skipped training.

He took a shuddering breath as the real reason resurfaced in his thoughts. His brother’s face, aged a decade by fear and anguish, crumpled again in his memory. The desperate words of apology echoed even more painfully than they had last night, making Kael wonder if maybe they hadn’t been the mindless words of comfort he had heard.

The realisation shuddered through him again that his family had been targeted. In amongst all the babbled and almost inaudible apologies, Ynuk had mumbled, It’s all my fault.

Kael swallowed, the bile bitter at the back of his throat. Whatever had happened, Ynuk knew why. Someone had attacked everyone Ynuk held dear, and only Kael had had the skills to defend himself. He hissed a curse between his teeth, wishing he’d thrown his dagger at his assailant as he’d planned.

‘Kiddo, you hear me?’

The anger burning through Kael’s mind must have shown on his face. The blade archery master hesitated for half an instant as he approached, but his habitual daring smile returned easily enough, always carrying that warning that Kael had best smile, too. He didn’t.

‘You going to stand around here sulking all day?’ Master Banok asked, his voice deep and commanding but never quite sure how to deal with such an errant student as the southerner. Kael half-doubted the man had ever even served with the Own as all his other masters had. He certainly didn’t ooze confidence and bravado like the rest of them. ‘Or would you rather pelt pointy things at something?’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to do,’ Kael muttered. ‘And I can do it much better without all them flat wrists staring at me, neither.’

‘Flat wrists?’ The master chuckled deep in his chest, then folded his arms and rested his back against the wall beside Kael. ‘Why not tell me what’s—’

‘Because there’s nothing wrong,’ Kael snapped, glaring at him with prickling eyes before turning back to the targets. ‘Me life’s none of yer Aeia-damned business.’

Master Banok didn’t leave, but neither did he press for information. Kael could see he hoped the silence would grow too uncomfortable, the burden too heavy, so that Kael would have to tell his story. Kael would do no such thing. Leave the blade archery master to make his own assumptions. Whatever he came up with would bear no resemblance to the truth.

The master sighed heavily when he realised Kael wasn’t going to budge. ‘We’re all on the same side, kiddo, though your classmates may not realise it yet. You need an ear, someone will be there to listen.’ He clapped the young trainee on the shoulder. ‘In the meantime, there’s training to be done. Come on.’

Kael gritted his teeth and followed, hanging behind where he could wipe his eyes without Master Banok seeing. He couldn’t allow for his image to slip in front of the other boys, not when it had taken so much to build it up.

If the boys noticed anything, though, they were wise enough not to mention it within earshot. He made sure not to make eye contact with any of them while his eyes were still raw and stinging. Twice he felt the lump rise in his throat when one of the boys mentioned his own mother, and when another spun in a triumphant circle when he hit middle red, just as Elara did in the Charging Nira.

He trudged through the day, trying to listen to the masters to distract him, but all he could do was script his inevitable confrontation with Ynuk. The more his anger brewed, the more he blamed his brother. He saw Ynuk’s face on all his training partners for the day, and his own face twisted in rage. The swings he made with the eight-foot-long staff of his palu at the end of the day were wild and uncoordinated, vicious with built-up anger before he finally threw the wooden shaft at the wall with a clatter and stormed from the barracks.

As soon as he reached the door to leave the palace, though, the lump of fear caught again in his throat. Leaving the palace meant going to an empty house. Worse, a house with, probably, his mother’s body still curled up inside. It wasn’t home anymore.

He could ask Ronanen for refuge, but that would mean explaining why he couldn’t go to his own house, and he couldn’t worry her. Not yet, not while he was still in danger himself. Last night’s assassin had come off second best, but whoever it was who had sent him would be better prepared a second time around.

Kael had nowhere to go. He gripped the hilt of his rusty dagger, trying to gain some courage from it, but his palm was sweaty. Ynuk was likely to be the least safe place in the city for him. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t go to Ronanen.

He stared up at the solid red outer walls of the palace. They were his last refuge, now. Even shaken as he was, the irony didn’t escape him.

He drummed his fingers against his dagger hilt, chewing his bottom lip as he stared at the walls in consideration. He knew he couldn’t hide here, but the desire to curl up in the back corner behind the stables, safe and protected from the real world, was strong.

Kael swore at himself. ‘Where are ye from?’ he growled. He headed back to the trainees’ archery range, empty now as the sun painted the palace deep orange. Furtively watching any sign of movement outside of the range, he rolled up two dagger belts and shoved them under his shirt. He looked down at the fingers of his right hand as he walked again to the door out of the palace. This was the last, he promised himself. Besides, he needed them. He knew someone had painted a target on his back. Now, he needed to find out who.

After safely passing the guards at the back door without raising suspicion, he slung the two blade belts over his shoulders. He’d grown so accustomed to the full paraphernalia of a blade archer now that he felt lost without the familiar belts around his thighs and the extra weight of a dozen more daggers around his hips. He danced his fingers lightly over the blades he was carrying, settling his left hand over his dagger hilt.

He was ready, so ready that he almost hoped his would-be assailant would hurry up and slink out of the shadows so he could dispatch with him and stop worrying. No such luck came, though. Locals eyed his blade belts cautiously, but none looked likely to draw any blades of their own. He was so distracted by the shadows cast in the grey evening moonlight that he hardly realised how close he was to Ynuk’s house until he was at the front door. Only then did the fear creep back on him.

Without bothering to announce himself, without letting the fear make him turn back, he waved the dusty red canvas flap of Ynuk’s door aside.

Ynuk’s house had just the one room, the same as Kael’s, but it was more solidly built. The walls weren’t crumbling as much, the floor not dipping so much in the middle of the room. It was empty but for a dark stain at the back.

Kael gripped his fingers around three needle blades in his belt as he stepped cautiously back outside.

‘Up here.’

Kael jumped at the voice, spine tingling as he pulled his needles in preparation to strike. Ynuk looked down from the roof above him, a dark outline against the stars, then his head disappeared back behind the roofline.

Kael swallowed and replaced his needles, still watchful as his heart settled back down. He wiped his hands on his pants and climbed the ladder to Ynuk’s roof.

His brother sat on the edge, one knee up where he rested his chin against it, hands clutching his shin.

Kael stood on the top rung, gripping the ladder and unable to approach any further. ‘What has ye done?’ he snarled. ‘Why’re ye saying sorry? Why is this all yer fault?’

Ynuk continued staring out over the city. He drew in a deep breath, then beckoned Kael over with a nod of his head. ‘Ye deserves to know,’ he murmured, his voice cracked and raw. This was not the same brother who Kael had spoken for at a hrai-dani a year and a half ago. He wasn’t the same brother he had played dagger toss with, laughed and drank with at the Charging Nira. This wasn’t the brother who had taught him to pick pockets, to slip the Talons and to memorise the streets north of the Main Road as well as he knew the south.

Kael’s fingers were numb as he finally managed to pull himself up onto the roof and cross the last few steps to where Ynuk sat. He crouched down awkwardly beside him, hanging his feet over the edge. As much as Ynuk seemed to have aged, Kael felt he had regressed. Even with the blade belts over his shoulders, and the knowledge of how to use them, he felt ten years old again, looking to his big brother for safety.

‘Go on, then,’ he croaked, trying to sound the young man of eighteen he was, but his throat was dry.

Ynuk took another deep breath and dropped his knee, his hands clasped awkwardly in his lap. ‘Remember Pa’s death?’ Kael’s skin prickled with cold sweat. ‘I always knew it was no accident.’