The lock sprung open in her hand and Mia kicked the door aside, tumbled out in the blazing light. She rolled beneath the wagon as the other women realized their cage was open, falling over themselves in their bid to escape.
Mia could see a half-dozen raiders circling the caravan. They were clad in dark leather and desert colors, a mix of sexes and skin tones. Cesare was dead, punctured with black-feathered arrows. Mia saw no sign of Luka, but Dogger was crouched behind the aft wagon, Dustwalker’s corpse beside him. Teardrinker’s camel had taken an arrow to the throat, and the captain was hunkered behind its body, crossbow in hand.
“Stinking whoresons!” she roared. “Do you know who I am?”
The riders only jeered in response. Riding in that incessant circle, driving the escaping women back toward the wagons, and the captives in the other cages into a frothing panic.
“Diversion,” Mia realized.
“… from what…?”
Dogger ducked out from cover, loosing a quick shot with his crossbow. From somewhere among the rocks, a black-feathered arrow flashed, striking him in the chest. Dogger fell, scarlet bubbles bursting on his lips.
“From that sharpshooter up there,” Mia muttered.
The girl reached out to the shadows beneath the wagon, gathering them up like a seamstress pulling thread. It was so bright out here, so different from the belly of the Quiet Mountain. But ever so slowly, she stitched the shadows together, weaving them into a cloak. And beneath it, she became little more than a smudge, like a greasy fingerprint on a portrait of the world.
Of course, she could barely see a bloody thing. She’d always thought it cruel that the Goddess of Night would give her the gift to remain unseen but make her almost blind while doing it. Still, blind was better than butchered.
Mia crept closer to the wheel, moving by feel, preparing to dash from cover.
“… try not to get shot…”
“That’s excellent advice, Mister Kindly. My thanks.”
“… moral support, as i said…”
Then she was moving. Crouched low, hands out before her, away from the wagons and toward the outcropping ahead. All the world was a blur, coffee black and milky white. The dark shape of a horse and rider loomed out of the nothingness, clipped her hard as it rode by. She staggered, wobbling blind until she hit a low outcropping of rock with her shins and tumbled into cover with a curse.
“Ow, fuck it.”
“… o, poor child, where does it hurt…?”
The girl pulled herself up with a wince, slapped her rump.
“Kiss it better?”
“… perhaps a bath is in order first…”
The girl was off again, groping her way up the rocky slope, moving by feel and sound alone. She could still hear Teardrinker roaring challenge, but the girl was listening for the telltale hiss of arrows, the whip-snap of a bowstring. And there it came … and there again, Mia circling up and around, quiet as a particularly quiet dormouse who’d just been appointed Master of Quiet at the Iron Collegium.*
Another arrow. Another snap of the bowstring. Mia could hear soft whispering between each shot, wondering if there was more than one shooter up there. She was behind them now, hidden among a tumble of boulders. And throwing aside her shadows, she peered over her cover to find out how many bowmen she’d have to murder.
Turned out, there was none at all.
O, there was an archer, no doubt. But she was no more a bowman than Mia was a swordsman. A woman, clad in gray leathers and mottled brown, her blond hair cropped short. Whenever a shot presented itself, she’d press an arrow to her lips, whisper a prayer, then let fly. Whatever divinity she prayed to seemed to be listening, too—as Luka dashed for one of the camels, the archer put an arrow in his shoulder, another in his shin as he scrambled back into cover.
The rock crushed her head with the first blow, but Mia smashed it twice more into the back of her skull, just to be sure. The archer fell with a bubbling gurgle, fingers twitching. And picking up her bow, Mia drew the string to her lips, took aim, and put a black-feathered arrow into the spine of one of the raiders below.
The woman twisted in her saddle, fell with a bloody cry. A comrade saw her fall, turned to the bluffs above and tumbled back off his horse with an arrow in his throat. Another raider cried warning, “’Ware the rocks! The rocks!” as Mia’s shot took him in the thigh, her second in his belly. A slingblade glittered as it flew out from the cover of the middle wagon, near taking the man’s head off his shoulders.
The raiders were all a confusion now, their sharpshooter gone, and their plan along with her. Teardrinker took a shot with her crossbow, killing a horse and sending its rider to the dirt. Mia killed another rider with two shots to the chest. The last few raiders broke, scooping up their horseless comrade and galloping away as fast as their steeds could take them.
“… fine shooting…”
Mia looked to the shadow sitting atop the archer’s corpse. It was small, wore the shape of a cat, cleaning a semitranslucent paw with a semitranslucent tongue.
“My thanks,” Mia bowed.
“… that was sarcasm…,” Mister Kindly replied. “… you let four of them get away…”
Mia made a face, raised the knuckles at the shadowcat.
“… while we’re still alone, i should probably take this opportunity to point out the insanity of this scheme of yours again…”
“O, aye, Daughters forbid you let a turn pass without riding my arse about it.”
Mia wiped her bloody hand on the dead archer’s britches, slung her quiver of arrows over her shoulder. And bow in hand, she made her way carefully down the slope to the carnage around the ’van.
The women captives were still huddled around their cage. Graccus, Dogger, Dustwalker and Cesare were all dead. Luka was slumped near the middle wagon, arrows in his shoulder and shin. Mia watched him try to get to his feet, settling instead for one knee. His eyes were locked on hers, his second slingblade in hand.
Teardrinker had taken an arrow to the leg somewhere in the fray. Her face was spattered with blood, but she still aimed her crossbow with steady hands right at Mia. The girl stopped forty feet away, raised her bow. It was finely crafted—horn and ash, graven with prayers to the Lady of Storms. It’d put an arrow through an iron breastplate at this range. And Captain Teardrinker was wearing nothing close to iron.
“That father of yours taught you well, girl,” the captain called. “Fine shooting.”
“… pfft…,” whispered her shadow.
Mia kicked the dark pooled around her feet, hissing for silence.
“I’ve no wish to kill you, Captain,” Mia called.
“Well there’s a stroke of fortune. I’ve no wish to fucking die, either.”
The captain looked at the corpses around her, the wreckage of her crew, the arrow in her leg, down the long road to the Hanging Gardens.
“I suppose we could call this even,” she called. “I was planning on fetching a fine price for you at market, but saving my life seems fair tithe. What say you ride up front with me for the rest of the trip, see us safe to the Gardens? I can cut you in on some of the profit? Twenty percent?”