The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,100
come and what weapons they'd carry, she could plan her attack better. However, all she knew for certain was where they'd land the boats and the time they'd arrive, and she didn't trust Chamtivos to tell the truth regarding the latter.
She checked her small cache of hastily made weaponry. Half dead, with only an eating knife and materials Anhuset had scavenged, Serovek had done an admirable job of arming her and himself with weapons that would be useful in this environment, even against opponents with swords and bows. Archers presented the greatest threat, and Karulin had warned Anhuset there were four among Chamtivos's group who were exceptional. They'd be her first targets to neutralize. She just had to get close enough to them without getting shot full of arrows.
Gods forbid one of them find Serovek. The bramble barrier she'd erected provided some camouflage for him, as did the island's topography. He was an exceptional fighter, especially on horseback, but these were different circumstances with unique challenges, including the injuries he'd sustained from a brutal beating. Anhuset hoped Serovek was as good with that sling as he boasted.
She ran a claw lightly along her lower lip, the memory of the kiss she'd shared with him still making her skin tingle. If they both emerged from this ordeal alive and mostly in one piece, she planned to scratch the itch he'd incited and swive him for days—once he healed, of course. She'd once told him he wouldn't survive her. An empty threat now. She hadn't carried him up a hill to save him only to kill him in her bed. The memory of his teasing her made her smile for a moment. Her humor fled as images of Serovek's battered features replaced the finer memories of his humor and his kiss, and by the time she spotted the pair of boats skimming across the lake at dawn, her fury had turned the blood in her veins to ice.
From her hidden perch atop a steep embankment, she watched the two boats come ashore, a half dozen men in each, with Chamtivos at the prow of one. They disembarked, allowing Anhuset to take stock of their numbers and the weapons they carried. Karulin wasn't among their party. Anhuset was glad for it. He'd betrayed Chamtivos by giving her the knife and decried the warlord's actions regarding the hunt. Anhuset had hoped she wouldn't have to fight him, but she'd been prepared to do so if forced.
She was too far away to hear their words or see their expressions, but their demeanor told her much. The coming hunt excited them.
Anhuset's eyes narrowed. She had never been, and would never be, a prey animal, and forest fighting was a defender's game. “Today is a good day for all of you to die,” she said softly.
The party split into two groups of six men each. Four archers were among them, two in each group. Anhuset wondered if these four were the ones Karulin had warned her about. The rest, including Chamtivos, carried swords, spears, and knives. And one carried a sling.
One group began a hike into the treeline on the side of the island where Serovek waited. The second one traveled farther down the beach in the opposite direction. They were the ones Anhuset followed and would deal with first, starting with the archers and the slinger.
She'd had neither the time nor stamina to build real traps, but she made the appearances of some. Leaves mounded a certain way over half buried tree limbs hastily cut and sharpened, their exposed ends made to resemble hints of pit traps with their lethal spikes that swallowed and impaled their victims. The hunters might investigate them further and discover they were bluffs, but by then the damage was done. They'd be cautious after that. And slower.
The six who tracked her and whom she tracked in return, didn't split off in different directions but hiked through the trees in a short column, with one archer leading and the second one acting as rear guard. They stayed together, no more than six paces apart at any time.
Anhuset targeted the rear guard archer first, hurling one of the spikes at him from behind the barrier of a broad oak. The spike took him in the shoulder, spinning him so that he dropped the bow he held and fell with a pained yelp, clutching the injured spot.
She darted behind the tree again, only to reappear on the other side just as the front archer