Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,108
even changing expression! He spun back to the woman, only to find her with another black arrow drawn and aimed at Bellimar, though this one she did not release. Amric knotted his fist on the reins and prepared to charge, but she swung the bow toward him.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “I will feather the first to move toward me.”
“Nasty piece of work, this,” Bellimar was saying, rolling the missile between bony fingers. “I think it might well have fulfilled its purpose. How did you come by it, my dear?”
The huntress did not respond, except to level the bow at the old man once more. Amric studied her eyes, her expression twisted with hatred, her slender frame shaking with suppressed rage. Seldom had he seen such naked animosity.
Anger of his own flared within him.
“You have a strange way of repaying a courtesy, woman,” he snapped.
“And you, man, can be judged by the vile company you keep,” she retorted with a sneer. “You travel with an ancient evil: Bellimar the Black, destroyer of nations, the Vampire King himself. I have to assume that every one of you is either under his control or just as dark-hearted as he.”
Amric lifted an eyebrow. “You believe this old man to be the conquering sorcerer by the same name from untold centuries ago?”
The woman said nothing, the tip of her arrow tracking Bellimar even as her mare shifted back and forth with nervous steps. Amric opened his mouth to try again, but the old man interrupted with a sigh.
“Your words will not smooth this one over, swordsman. She speaks the truth.”
Amric stiffened and turned to stare at him. Bellimar did not spare him a glance, however. His tight-lipped smile parted to bare gleaming teeth at the huntress.
“Greetings, Thalya,” Bellimar said. “You are a long way from home.”
CHAPTER 15
Thalya crouched within the sloping entrance of the cave, relaxed as a coiled spring.
Her back was to the stone wall, and one sun-browned hand was knotted in her black mare’s dangling reins. Her other hand guided the tip of her broad-bladed hunting knife through the dirt caking the floor, making idle patterns which her eye did not follow. Instead her narrowed gaze pierced deeper into the cave, past the roiling haze of smoke that clung to the ceiling on its way to the night sky, to fix upon the men gathered below around a feeble campfire.
Her target sat among them, staring into the tiny remaining flicker of flame amid a bed of glowing embers, looking like nothing more than an ordinary, tired, silver-haired old man. She wondered if he was as vulnerable at the moment as he appeared, and she considered the bow and single black arrow that were meticulously positioned at her side. No, she admonished herself; he was merely goading her to make another attempt just as he was affecting the sad and weary expression he wore like a jester’s painted mask. Moreover, he had kept the arrow he caught outside, and that left her with but one remaining that was capable of slaying the fiend. Another wasted shot would be her undoing, leaving her without the means to fulfill her mission as well as putting her at the mercy of the monster. She would have to bide her time, then. When she struck again, she would ensure he could not avoid it.
Thalya forced her eyes from Bellimar and let them rove over the others, disembodied faces floating in the gloom above the banked fire. She had to admit, these were not the dark, soulless men with which she had expected the fiend to surround himself. They seemed stricken by her words and awaiting an explanation, but she reminded herself that evil came in many packages, often wrapped in layer upon layer of deception.
Syth, one of her rescuers, turned to gaze up at her. He was a strange, scruffy fellow somehow wrapped in his own perpetual gust of wind, and unless she had lost her skill at reading such things, there was desire in his eyes when he looked upon her.
“Lass, are you certain you will not join us?” he called. “I can give you a hand down the slope, if you are still unsteady on your feet from your earlier ordeal.”
“I have a fine view from here,” she returned. She held up the hunting knife. “And I will be removing any hand––or other appendage––directed my way.”
Syth let out a guffaw and settled back with a broad grin of admiration.