there and twenty archers trained by Myrdal defending Stronghold, Tobin had the feeling she would run out of targets long before she ran out of red-and-white arrows.
It began when a helmeted Merida rode up the canyon toward the tunnel’s mouth. He reined in and lifted a hand in a pompous gesture that made Tobin want to giggle. The desire increased as he shouted in a ringing voice that had undoubtedly procured him this mission:
“Usurpers of Stronghold! Surrender to us now, and live! You cannot hope to survive against us, and there is no hope from north or south! Open the gates to the rightful rulers of the Desert!”
Because she was listening for it, Tobin heard the soft hiss of an arrow and was able to follow its flight. It sank into the man’s saddle a finger’s breadth from his thigh, and trembled there delicately. To his credit, he did not flinch. But he did ride back down with something akin to haste.
There followed a short wait while the sun climbed the eastern sky over the Long Sand and the shadows shifted, grew sharper. Tobin began to wish for the cool sea breezes of Radzyn. The sound of horses up the road made her forget the sweat that stuck her tunic to her skin, and she readied herself to draw her bowstring.
Unhappily, the Merida were not the fools Maeta had hoped. Not only the soldiers but their mounts were well protected by leather harness studded with bronze. Donning it had caused the delay. Tobin reflected sourly that this was unquestionably where Rohan’s gold had gone, and the artisans of Cunaxa had been hard at work to their great profit. She promised herself the Merida would not profit today.
She counted six rows of six each, horses riding shoulder-to-shoulder from one wall of the canyon to the other. When the first went down, close quarters would confuse and hamper the rest. Yet the signal for the first flight did not come, and Tobin began to fret. The riders were within range. She could almost discern eye-color behind the helmets with their long nose-pieces and cheek-guards.
At last a long, thin wail split the heat, a horn made of dragon bone, the ascending notes startling the horses below. Arrows spewed from the canyon and the gatehouse. It was all as Maeta had planned—the high shrieks of pain from the horses as they bucked and reared to escape the arrows pricking their flesh, the shouts and curses from the riders as steel found its way between and through leather. Tobin nocked, pulled and let fly with cool regularity, and twenty others just like her did the same.
Eight down, nine, ten—she saw why Maeta had waited until the last row of horses was in range, for the injured at the back pushed the others forward, and fallen horses would block part of the road if the Merida decided to retreat.
But they did not retreat, and all at once a tan-clad body fell screaming from Stronghold’s gatehouse and thudded to the hard-packed sand below. Above and opposite Tobin were a dozen archers, perched precariously on a ledge rising above the canyon. She had no time to wonder how they had gotten there, for she heard the hissing of an arrow and the clink of its steel head in the rock at her shoulder. She changed her stance and let fly, hearing Maeta shout orders that all on Tobin’s side of the gate do the same. The others were not in position to respond to this new attack.
Another of Stronghold’s archers was lost, plummeting down like a fallen dragon with an arrow in her chest. The riders assaulted the first gates, opened one of them, gained access to the long tunnel. Maeta commanded a regrouping above the outer courtyard, where they would be out of range of Merida bows and could pick off the horsemen when they breached the inner gates.
Tobin plucked up her second quiver with a muffled curse that was half-annoyance, half-pain. An arrow had scored her thigh though she only noticed it now that she had to move. Struggling to climb down from her niche, she stumbled into the gatehouse, still cursing.
She followed the others through a narrow passage to the crenellations above the inner gates. The archers arranged themselves, grim-faced now, the atmosphere of easy victory gone. Old Myrdal was down in the courtyard yelling at servants who had armed themselves with sword, spear, and shield—anything not taken to Remagev with Ostvel and the rest