Too late now, since he was on the arena floor, running as fast as his legs could carry him. He was already short of breath, because it turned out—surprise!—that playing at being a mercenary was more physically taxing than clearing glassware off tables. He cast a glance toward Freecloud, facedown on the stone, but then Tom’s gaze went up and up, and he found himself looking into the abysmal black eye of the cyclops.
He felt his knees threaten to buckle. He slowed his pace without meaning to, because every instinct was screaming at him to turn and run the other way. The creature was bleating at him, but Tom could barely hear it over the noise coming off the canyon walls and the rasp of his own ragged breath.
Having decided that the boy with the bow presented no threat whatsoever, the cyclops took another step toward Freecloud. One more, and it could crush the druin with a stomp of its foot.
Now or never, Tom told himself. He skidded to a halt, chose an arrow at random, and let the quiver fall at his feet. The sun was in his eyes, so he had to squint to see. On his first attempt to draw the bow he barely bent it at all. With a newfound respect for Lady Jain’s upper-arm strength he tried again, gritting his teeth, knuckles whitening as he pulled the fletching to the edge of his jaw. He aimed the point of his arrow at the only target he could think of, because when you fought something with one huge eye in the middle of its head, choosing something to shoot at was sort of a no-brainer.
Beyond his centre of focus he saw Rose gain the giant’s shoulder. She extended an arm—the bracer on her wrist glowing bright—and one of her swords sprang into her waiting hand.
Tom took a breath, trying in vain to keep his hands from trembling. The muscles in his arms were on fire. He could feel the arrow straining against his grip, like a trained falcon awaiting the command to kill.
He let it fly.
Tom awoke with the roar of the arena echoing in his ears, rising and falling like a sailor’s memory of the sea in a storm. His head was throbbing, and his jaw ached as if he’d taken a punch from someone a great deal stronger than himself. He was lying on a cot in a large lantern-lit tent, the ceiling of which was lost to shadow. He could make out the sound of music and harsh laughter beyond the canvas walls. From nearby came the slow rasp of quiet breathing.
Still alive, then, thought Tom, whose last memory was of fainting the moment after he’d loosed the arrow.
“Your brother was here.”
Easing his head to the right, Tom saw Rose seated beside another cot upon which Freecloud was laid out, unconscious or asleep. Her hair was drawn back from her face, tied into a haphazard knot at the back of her head. It might have made her look younger, except her eyes were as hard and cold as a mountain in winter. They were, Tom decided, the sort of eyes that held a knife to your throat as they rifled through the pockets of your subconscious.
“Where is here?” Tom asked, propping himself on one elbow. His head grumbled a warning that doing so had been a bad idea.
Rose placed a hand on Freecloud’s forehead, frowning at whatever it was she felt. “Remember those big tents we passed on the way to the arena?”
“We’re in the Fighter’s Camp?”
She nodded yes.
And so Tom found himself in yet another place he’d never imagined being before today. From what little he’d heard, Fighter’s Camp was sort of an after-party for mercenaries only, though select members of Ardburg’s nobility were invited, and pretty much anyone clever enough to slip past the loose cordon of sentries was permitted as well. It was said the guards could be bribed with booze, sex, or silver, though paying with actual currency was generally frowned upon.
Tom looked to Freecloud. There was a series of small cuts marring one side of the druin’s face, which Rose was gently patting with a dampened cloth. His chest was rising and falling with the slow cadence of deep slumber.
“Is he okay?” Tom asked.
Rose took a long breath before answering. “He will be,” she said quietly. Her eyes roved to Tom and she chewed a moment on her bottom lip. She appeared to be weighing her next words carefully. “What you did today was …”
“Stupid,” Tom finished for her.
“Very,” she agreed.
“Reckless,” he added.
“Wildly so, yes.”
“I’m a fool.”
“No argument there,” said Rose. She raised a hand to forestall further bouts of self-recrimination, then placed the other hand on Freecloud’s chest. “But what you did was very brave.”
Tom’s face boiled like a kettle. He swallowed, if only to keep the steam from spewing out his ears. “My mother—”
“Is going to kill us both,” said Rose.
“I won’t tell her,” Tom blurted.
Rose laughed. A grin like spearing sunlight broke across her face. “You won’t need to. I’d wager all of Ardburg is talking about the boy with the bow. These things get around, believe me.”
“Did I kill it?” Tom asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “The cyclops?”
He nodded.
“No, you didn’t. I cut its throat.”
Tom didn’t know whether to be disappointed or greatly relieved. “So my arrow missed, then?”
Rose shrugged. “That depends on what you were aiming for.” She stood, grimacing, and Tom saw a strip of bloody cloth binding her right thigh.
Tom bolted upright. He felt the heat leach from his face. “I shot you,” he breathed.
“You shot me,” she confirmed. “Did a piss-poor job of it, though. I’ve had slivers that bled more when I pulled them out.”
“I shot you,” Tom repeated dumbly.
Rose resumed her seat. “Yeah, well, good luck convincing anyone of that. According to some half a hundred thousand witnesses you killed a cyclops with a single arrow.”
Tom was still in shock. “I shot Bloody Rose …”
Rose looked at him seriously. “Say it one more time and I’ll return the favour.”
“Sorry,” he said. The pain in his head was receding, crowded out by awe and disbelief. Tom swung his legs over the side of his cot. His boots were on the ground beside the bed, along with Jain’s longbow. A single arrow lay atop it, and he had no doubt at all as to whose blood stained its iron tip red.
Tom sat in silence while Rose soaked her cloth in a basin of water, then continued mopping the druin’s brow. At last he summoned the courage to ask whether or not he was fired, but only got so far as drawing the breath to say it.
“I almost killed him today,” said Rose without taking her eyes off Freecloud. She licked her lips, and Tom noticed for the first time that they were stained a bluish-black on the inside. “I should have been more careful. We could have fought that thing together and brought it down, no problem. But I charged ahead, tried to take it on my own. I put all of us in danger.”
“You were fearless …” Tom began.
“That wasn’t fearlessness,” she snapped, looking up. Her eyes were narrowed, accusing, though Tom had the sense her ire was directed inward. “That was fear.”
Tom was about to ask, perhaps unwisely, what she meant by that, but then Freecloud stirred in his sleep. He murmured a string of sibilant words in a language Tom didn’t recognize before slipping back under.
Rose stroked one of his twitching ears with gentle fingers. “You should head outside,” she said to Tom. “Find Cura and Brune—they’ll look after you. Be a shame to spend your first Fighter’s Camp in bed.” She glanced up again, the ghost of a grin haunting her lips. “In bed alone, anyway. And say good-bye to your brother,” she added. “He’s going north tomorrow, along with everyone else.”
“But not us,” said Tom.
Rose looked away. “No. We’ve got a contract in Conthas and a few other errands to take care of down south. We’re leaving first thing in the morning. You can sleep on the argosy.”
Guess I’m not fired, Tom thought. He pulled on his boots and threw his heavy cloak across his shoulders. After a moment’s consideration he picked up Jain’s bow, deciding he’d better return it, even if doing so felt like returning to a dragon’s lair because you’d lost an earring while stealing its hoard.
He was almost to the exit when Rose spoke up behind him.