be.
She saw its making, smith with teeth clenched as he hammered out the head, fletcher with tongue wedged in his cheek as he trimmed the flights.
She saw its ending, shaft rotted and head flaked away to rust among the brambles.
She saw it in the quiver hooked over the foot of the archer’s bed as he kissed his wife Riam goodbye and hoped that her broken toe mended.
She saw its bright point cut through a falling raindrop and scatter it into glittering mist.
She knew with utter certainty where that arrow would be, always. So she flicked her hand out, and when it came to meet her, as she knew it must, it was the easiest thing to push it. Just to nudge it with her finger so it missed Isern as she limped away and spun off harmless into the trees, bouncing once and coming to rest in the undergrowth in its right place, in the only place it could be, where she’d seen it rot away among the brambles.
‘By the dead,’ breathed Rikke, staring at her hand.
There was a bead of blood on the tip of her forefinger. Arrowhead must’ve grazed it. And a quivering shiver went all the way through her. She hadn’t really believed it till this moment, not even when she saw Uffrith burning, just like in her dream. But now there was no denying it.
She had the Long Eye.
It still throbbed, warm in her clammy face. She stared at the archer, his brow knitted up in shock as he stared back, his jaw dropping lower and lower.
A great joyous, wondering giggle bubbled up at the impossible thing she’d done, and Rikke stuck her fist up and screamed, ‘Give my regards to Riam! Hope her toe mends!’ Then she scampered after Isern, caught her under the armpit and helped her on into the dripping trees.
But not before she caught a glimpse of a rope bridge a hundred strides upstream, bouncing and twisting as men hurried across it, sharpened metal gleaming with wet. How many men, she couldn’t tell. Enough, that was the number, and the joy of knowing the arrow was squashed straight out of her.
‘Come on,’ she hissed as they blundered through the clutching, snagging, sodden bushes. Isern fell snarling and Rikke helped her up but she was slow, now, everything heavy with damp, her leg dragging.
‘Go,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll follow.’
‘No,’ said Rikke, hauling her on.
She thought she heard fighting behind them. Men screaming. Dogs whimpering. Scrape and clatter of steel. The trees echoed with it, everywhere and nowhere. Branches whipped at her and Rikke clawed them away, broke through into a boggy clearing. The rain was down to a drizzle, a broken wall of mossy rock ahead, slick with trickling water.
‘Go.’ Isern turned towards the woods, growled in pain as her wounded leg gave and she slid onto her side. ‘Climb!’
‘No,’ said Rikke, ‘I’m not leaving you.’
‘Better one of us live than neither. Go.’
‘No,’ said Rikke. She could hear someone crashing through the trees towards them. Someone big.
‘Get behind me, then.’ Isern pushed Rikke back, but she could only stand leaning on her spear. She’d be fighting no one. Not winning, anyway.
‘I’ve hid behind you long enough.’ Strange thing, but Rikke didn’t feel scared any more. ‘I’m not much of a climber anyway.’ She peeled Isern’s fingers from the shaft of her spear and helped her lean against the rocks. ‘Time for me to take a turn at the front.’
Isern’s bloody leg quivered as she sank back. ‘We’re doomed.’
Rikke gripped the spear tight and lowered it towards the trees, wondering whether to hold on to it or throw it when they came, wishing her Long Eye would open again so she didn’t have to guess.
She thought of Nightfall’s voice above her, while she hid in the stream. Her guts in a box, with some herbs, so her father wouldn’t smell them till it was opened.
‘Come on!’ she screamed, spraying spit. ‘I’m fucking waiting!’
Wet leaves rustled and a man stepped into the clearing. A big man in a weather-stained coat, holding a scarred shield and a sword with a silver letter near the hilt. Even through the grey hair hanging lank across his face, Rikke could see the awful scar, from his forehead through his brow and across his cheek to the corner of his mouth, and in the misshapen socket of his left eye there was no eye at all, but a bright ball of dead metal, gleaming as the sun broke through above.
He raised