Chapter 71. A Brass Fork Between the Shoulder Blades Was the Puppeteer’s Whole Trick

Chapter 71: 71. A Brass Fork Between the Shoulder Blades Was the Puppeteer’s Whole Trick

I went hunting.

I’d told myself that I wouldn’t use Aether, and I stuck to it.

I moved low and quiet across the rocks, with my sword held close to my body and my breathing slow. The pain in my ribs was a steady throb, but it didn’t matter.

All of my attention was on the monsters.

I was looking for a pattern, and I found it quickly, because Laura had already described it. Every animal on the bank paused before it changed direction, just for a moment, as if listening for a whisper.

The wolves did it. The boar had done it.

And the bear thrashed about in the river every few seconds, with a little shudder, like a dog that hears a whistle, while Laura darted around its flanks.

It wasn’t instinct... It was a leash.

I thought back to the bandits in Blackthorn Forest, to the signal man with his long brass rod. I’d thrown a rock at that thing, and it had broken, and the whole bandit line had stumbled.

A tool like that had to have a receiver somewhere... something small and hidden that picked up the signal and passed it along to the animal.

I slid along the edge of the shore, using the boulders as cover, until I was right behind the bear.

It was a stupendous beast.

Up close, it smelled like wet fur and old blood, and its back was a mountain of muscle under a coat of matted brown hair.

The crystal collar lit the water around it with a fierce blue glow. It lunged at Laura, and as it turned, I caught a glimpse of something between its shoulder blades, half buried in the fur.

It was a small, shining object, no bigger than my hand. It was made of brass, in the shape of a little two-pronged fork, and it had been strapped to the animal’s spine with a loop of leather.

In the center, where the prongs met, a shard of blue crystal was embedded in the metal. It was humming softly, and the prongs vibrated so quickly that they seemed to blur.

’There you are,’ I thought.

I waited until the bear’s next lunge. When the bear swung at Laura, I rushed forward, dropped under its raised paw, and slashed upward with the kingsteel, using only the edge of the blade and no Aether.

The leather strap parted with a snap. The little fork slid off the bear’s back and fell into the water with a quiet plink.

I stepped down on it with my boot, and I felt the brass bend and crack and the crystal shatter.

The bear froze.

It stood absolutely still, with one paw lifted, and a long, shivering moan rolled out of its throat.

Then it blinked.

It looked at Laura. And it looked at the water.

Then... It looked at the dead boar and the dead wolves, and it seemed to realize, all at once, that it was standing in a river in the middle of the night with a furious woman and no idea how it had gotten there.

It let out a panicked roar, turned around, and thrashed its way back to the shore.

A second later... it was gone, crashing off into the trees like a man who has just remembered he left the stove on.

I stood there, panting... with my hand pressed to my ribs.

"Laura!" I shouted. "Between the shoulder blades!"

"There’s a brass fork on every one! Break the fork and the leash breaks with it!"

She’d already sheathed her sword and was racing along the shore toward the next wolf. "Understood!"

I bent over to catch my breath, and a sharp stab went through my side. I hissed through my teeth.

It was a deep, grinding ache, and I felt it all the way down to my hip.

’Don’t complain,’ I told myself. ’You’re alive.’

I made a fist and thumped it gently against my ribs, like knocking on a door. Be grateful.’

I made a fist and thumped it gently against my ribs, like knocking on a door.

’Behave,’ I thought, at my own body. ’Just for a little longer.’

The road wrapped around the foot of the hill like a gray rope, and the black-armored soldiers came marching up it in two perfect lines.

I’d climbed onto a boulder for a better view, and I counted twelve of them before I lost track.

They wore the same dark plate I’d seen at Elarion, plain and unmarked except for a pale ring on the left shoulder, and every one of them carried a tall rectangular shield and a short, heavy sword.

They didn’t shout. And they didn’t run.

They moved in step, shield to shield, with the grim, steady rhythm of men who had done this a hundred times and expected to do it a hundred more.

Sharon was waiting for them in the middle of the road.

She stood alone, with her enormous sword resting on her good shoulder and her feet planted wide, and as the soldiers closed in, she tilted her head from one side to the other until her neck gave a loud crack.

"I haven’t had a bath in four days," she told them, in a voice that carried all the way to my boulder. "I’m out of tea!"

"I haven’t had a decent night of sleep since Elarion! And you people shot at my favorite student’s boyfriend!" She lifted the sword. "So if you’ll forgive me, I’m not in a mood to negotiate!!!"

The front rank lowered their shields and charged.

I’d watched Sharon fight twice already, once on the training field and once in Elarion’s burning streets, and I’d thought I understood what she could do.

I hadn’t.

Those were fights where she was holding back, even a little. But this... was something else.

She hit the first shield with her shoulder like a battering ram, and the soldier behind it flew backward into the man behind him, and the pair of them went down in a clanging heap.

Her sword came around in a flat, whistling arc that cut through a spear shaft, a shield rim, and the armored waist of the man holding them both. The two halves of him didn’t land in the same place.

"That’s one!" she bellowed.

The soldiers didn’t panic. That was the frightening part.

Anyone else would have broken after that, but these men simply closed the gap, stepped over their fallen comrade, and pressed in again.

They’d done this before. The two lines folded around her in a tight U, shields up, swords low, aiming for her legs and flanks, and I saw at once how well it was designed.

They weren’t trying to kill her. They were trying to slow her down, to pin her in place, and to make every inch of ground cost her something.

She laughed.

It was a huge, joyous laugh, the laugh of a woman who has finally been given a reason to use her whole body.

She spun on one heel, and her sword swept out in a great circle. Three men went flying in three different directions.

A fourth tried to stab her in the back, and she caught his wrist, lifted him bodily off the ground, and threw him at a fifth.

But there were too many.

For every man she threw, two more stepped in, and the U closed up again behind her. I watched them hold her to the road, an immovable object being slowly surrounded by an irresistible swarm, and I felt... a sudden chill.

’They’re not even trying to get past her.’

I’d been so busy admiring the choreography that I hadn’t noticed...

Not one of those soldiers had made a move toward the hill. And not one had tried to flank her, or slip through the gap, or reach the wagon.

Their whole purpose was to hold her where she stood, and they were doing it very... very well.

’They’re a distraction,’ I thought. ’Just like the monsters.’

’Just like the arrows.’

’Everything we’ve seen tonight is a cheap trick to keep us looking in the wrong direction.’