Arrows, page 1
Arrows
By K.L. Noone
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2024 K.L. Noone
ISBN 9781685507619
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
This one’s for everyone who read bits, when I shared pieces of this random wild story, and who fell in love with Van and Milo along with me.
* * * *
Arrows
By K.L. Noone
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 1
“I know he won’t ever look at me,” Van said. It was true: he had no illusions about himself, plain Evander Roche, presently sitting near a small shared cooking-fire by the edge of the archery division camp. The he in question, the glittering golden Sorcerer of Averene, was busy at Queen Ryllis’s side, planning ways to deal with the Penthii border incursion, while dressed up in magic and jeweled hair-pins and entirely justified arrogance; Lorre did not have the time to spare for a single faceless bowman in the Queen’s hastily-assembled army. “I know that.”
“So you don’t look, either.” Milo knocked a boot into his, beside the low heat of the night’s fire. Milo Perrot, over the past few weeks, had rapidly become Van’s best friend: the same age, short and fair and freckled next to Van’s height and shaggy brown hair and brown skin and overall sea-scuffed twenty-eight years. Milo had been the person beside him in the lines, a training partner, a calm harbor, since they’d both volunteered and met each other during recruitment. They’d fit together easily, then and now, sharing a tent for this uneasy wire-taut waiting.
Van glared at him and the present unhelpfulness. Milo appeared to be entirely interested in stew, and did not look back. But added flippantly, around a mouthful of beef, “Or just go ahead and ask; he might turn you into a toad, but hey, at least you’d’ve tried.”
“Not going to happen.” The night crackled and flared: with stars in their black velvet swoop, with long dry grasses, with the fires of the lines, their own and the Penthii army in the distance. Too close, and too far: here at the border, ominous as the flick of fire.
No serious hostilities had happened yet. A few skirmishes, a few warnings.
All of those had occurred more than three days ago: before the Sorcerer had finally shown up, barefoot and beribboned and annoyed. A quivering tightrope peace had existed since then; nobody wanted to find out what mountains Lorre might level in response to hostilities on either side.
Van, standing in the front of a tense and restless line on that grey-bronze morning, on the flat grassy field, had seen the glint of light from Penthii armor. Had breathed the scents of leather, sweat, oiled bowstrings, fear. He’d never drawn an arrow with intent to strike a man, before.
And the air had opened, a clean sweep like a curtain brushed aside. And shimmering antique prettiness had strolled out of light and wind, and looked at them all with the cool haughty elegance of an ancient court portrait, imperious and powerful and breathtaking.
One flick of Lorre’s hand had put an insurmountable barrier across the flat destiny of the field. It lingered there now, translucent and hazy but not opaque, lazily rippling.
Van, gazing at him—the casual power, the mesmerizing paradox of impractical silky robes and haphazard jewels plus pale bare feet and slim hands and bedroom-loose hair, and the beauty, oh Goddess, the beauty—had felt the want like a thunderclap. Like a wave on the shore, back at the harbor village where he’d grown up, crashing in to knock him down.
He said now, sitting beside his closest friend at their shared fire, nowhere near the tents of generals or the strategies of queens and magicians, “As if he’d even know I existed. A legend like that. Out of stories. I’m just me.”
Milo’s head came up. His eyes were blue, though paler than Lorre’s brilliant sapphire, less intense. Just now they seemed brighter, standing out in small cozy firelight. A strand of his hair, also red, had swung down along his face. “Don’t.”
“Don’t ask the world’s greatest living sorcerer if he’d maybe, possibly, ever, want to toss a leg over an innkeeper’s son from Baylight, please? Thanks, I wasn’t going to.” He considered this, threw in, “Toad would be the least of my problems then, I’d imagine.”
“No. Not that. I mean, no, you shouldn’t, because he’s here to stop a war and he’s busy, Van.” Milo balanced stew in one hand, shoved the hair out of his face. His voice sounded almost angry. “I mean, obviously don’t do that. But not because of that. What you said.”
“You brought up the toad enchantments.”
“No. Listen—” Milo stopped, shook his head. “I’m not good at words. You know. Farm boy. Goats and pigs. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Like there’s nothing, nothing, wrong with you. Of course you’d be good enough for him.”
“I’m not—”
“You’d be good enough for anybody,” Milo interrupted, startlingly fierce about it. “So what if he’s magic? You can whistle like a sea-bird and you stood up and volunteered to protect your home. He showed up three days late. Without boots.”
“I’m not sure sorcerers need boots. Or maybe he lost them. Like a storybook tale. The Sorcerer With No Boots.”
“Van—” Milo’s expression did something complicated, too full of emotion, skidding across the freckles; after a second he shoved it all away into determined control. “Of course you shouldn’t interrupt him. Because of him. Not because of you. Understand?”
“I wasn’t serious,” Van protested, astonished at the forcefulness. “I only thought, you know, in a story. A daydream. You saw him too. How could you not feel it, seeing someone like that, and you just…” He wasn’t sure how to explain. “Imagining. All the imagining. Like a gut-punch. But not like I’d ever expect it to happen.”
Milo did not say anything. In fact, did not even look at him.
Van tried, “I know better, you know.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” Milo put down his unfinished stew. “Just stop thinking about it, all right? Think about the morning. Orders, when we get them. The next day. Getting through it.”
“Are you all right? You sound—”
“Fine. Tired. Going to bed.”
“Milo—”
“You can finish that, if you want. Not wasting food.” Milo vanished into the night and the tent-flap, letting it swing behind him. Silence followed.
Van looked at the tent, looked at half-eaten stew, wondered what he’d said or done or got so wrong. They were friends; he hadn’t thought Milo would take offense at idle speculation about a magician’s attractiveness.
But maybe that wasn’t the problem at all. Maybe the problem was exactly what Milo had said: getting through this. The strain of waiting. The orders, whatever they might be. A fight, a show of strength, a dismissal. A crackle of magic, laced through the air like ready bowstrings.
He understood, because he felt it too: the exhaustion of not knowing, of balancing on the edge, an army summoned and not yet used. Arrows in a quiver.
The stars hung cold fire overhead. Quiet conversations, chatter, laughter bounced around the camp: everyone coping with the night in their own ways, as best they could. The largest tents—the Queen’s, and General Freye’s, and the striped cerulean fantasia that Lorre had conjured up—sat a little removed, tucked against one of the low hill-rises, lamplit. Inside, the fates of countries, boundaries, lives were no doubt being debated and decided.
Van, only one small cog in that vast turning clockwork, sighed and finished his own stew, and Milo’s, even though he wasn’t terribly hungry; he was practical, though, and Milo had been right about not wasting anything.
He scrubbed the bowls, after; and he ducked into the tent with as little noise as possible, trying to be kind. The tent wasn’t large, and their bed-rolls lay close; Van settled in, feeling as though he was balancing on tiptoes.
After a second Milo, clearly not asleep, said, “Sorry.”
“About what? I know you’re thinking about tomorrow. We all are.”
“Tomorrow. Right. Anyway, sorry.”
“No need for that. And, hey. I’m here. For you. The way you are for me. Together, right? No matter what.”
Milo wasn’t facing him; Van couldn’t see his eyes. But his voice sounded affectionate, if ragged. “No matter what. You and me. Get some sleep, Van.”
“Well. You too.”
Milo made a grumbling sort of sound, but that was fine, that felt almost normal, the two of them talking. Van shut his eyes, and waited for morning.
Chapter 2
The morning dawned in shades of ice-thin color: low grey skies, dull gold grasses, washed-out hues. Even the oat-cakes and sausages seemed tired, frying in their pans. Van ate a bite, nodded hello to fellow bowmen and women in the archers’ division, and wondered how long this stalemate could last.
He also wondered what the magician was doing. Obviously open war hadn’t happened yet. But nobody’d gone home, either. The long spears were visible, stuck into the ground like a pointed warning, outside the Penthii camp across the plain. Lorre’s barrier fluttered and twinkled in non-existent wind, for all the world like a sparkle-dusted bridal veil.
A few more of the division had joined him and Milo, this morning; talk turned, as expected, to yesterday’s arrival and the advantages or disadvantages of magicians. Deceptively petite and pretty Claudette, who could string a longbow faster than any of them, said, “Yes, but what’s he actually done?”
“Well,” rumbled her tent-mate Thom, “nobody’s fighting, so there’s that…” Thom’s brother was over in the cavalry, as his father and grandfather had previously been: Averene as a unified kingdom had only existed for a few uneasy decades, and even now some of the baronies held out fiercely for independence. Thom’s family had seen some of those skirmishes with Valpres, and Van knew he had certain opinions about the worthy causes, or not, of said fighting.
“I thought magicians were supposed to wave their hands and change the world.”
“He did,” Van said. “Haven’t you noticed the shield?”
“Anyway,” Milo said, “it’s probably more complicated than that. A solution people can live with, after he leaves.”
Impressively mustachioed young Robert and his current lover Thayil strolled by, as usual embodying more commitment to fashion than actual archery practice; Van had heard, in the way of training-ground gossip, that they’d only volunteered because Robert’s father had wanted to impress the young Queen with family loyalty and talent. Van wasn’t certain that this was, in reality, working.
Robert paused at their small gathering to say, about Lorre, “And of course he’s going to leave; not as if magic’s reliable, is it?” and Thayil nodded.
“He’s here to help,” Van protested.
“Magicians.” Robert shuffled the moustaches. “Especially this one. Unnatural. Not human. Like the Church says.”
“He looks human,” Claudette said, sighing. “And pretty.”
“Does he look human, though?” Robert took the mug of tea right out of Thom’s hands and drank some. “Looking like that. Walking out of the air. He must be eighty years old, too. Unnatural, I said. Not right.”
“That isn’t fair,” Van said. If Lorre was in fact eighty years old, no one would ever guess: he looked perhaps twenty, a glorious spectacular twenty. “He can’t help being himself.”
Milo glanced at him.
“Maybe we shouldn’t trust him.” Robert handed back the tea. “He’s not one of us.”
“No,” Milo said slowly, country-farm accent warm over the words, “but Van’s right, he’s here to stop a war. And he can’t help how he’s made. And anyway if you think about it, he can’t be unnatural; if you believe the Goddess made everybody, all of us, then She made him too, right?”
Given their not-quite-argument of the night before, this defense made something warm bloom inside Van’s chest; he wanted to reach out, to touch Milo, except he was holding tea and a sausage in a bun.
“I heard he turned himself into a lion once,” Robert said. “He can shapeshift. He could be any of you. Or me.”
“Why would he want to?”
A pause happened while everyone considered Thom’s question. Van finished the sausage.
“I’m just saying,” Robert said. “He could be.”
“If you really think—”
Orders arrived, in the form of shouts down the line: the general wanted to see everyone, an inspection, equipped and ready. A flurry of motion happened: everyone finishing tea, diving into tents, collecting quivers and arrows and short swords. Milo was looking for a hair-tie; Van picked it up and handed it over.
“Thanks.”
“It was on my side. Want help with that buckle?”
“Got it, thanks—”
They ducked back out, into brittle bone-dry sun. They formed a line. Van noticed a scuff on his left boot; too late to do anything about that now.
The weight of the quiver lurked at his back. He’d always been good with a bow, a fishing-line, anything requiring aim. He wasn’t as flamboyant at trick shots as Claudette, but he was the most consistent of their small group, at least when aiming at targets.
He did not know whether he could shoot a man. In self-defense, maybe. Up close, in the moment. Life or death. But from a distance, at someone else’s order—
He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
Beside him, Milo shifted, leaned closer. Let the back of his hand brush Van’s.
Rustles ran through the ranks: the command approaching. Van swallowed, and tried to look like a professional soldier.
General Freye had iron hair and matching shoulders; she was, Van knew, a veteran of the unification wars. She was not alone; Queen Ryllis, tall and coltish and serious, dressed in unremarkable battlefield leathers, was nodding at each comment as if taking mental notes. And the third person in the group…
…was the Sorcerer of Averene. Wearing floaty fluffy periwinkle blue robes, hideously impractical, even see-through in spots. Still barefoot, because apparently sorcerers did not believe in the existence of footwear. Hair long and straight and unbound, today: falling over his shoulder in a waterfall of light. He made the morning and the world even duller, because nothing could compare.
He was saying, as they came up, “—well, if it’s mostly about the river and the water supply, I can certainly handle that; how large a new river would you like?”
“You can’t simply make a river,” General Freye argued.
“I think you’ll find I can.”
“The changes to the land—to the farms—and you’d be taking water from our people, to give to Penth—”
“Isn’t the point of all this that they need it?”
“I’d like to talk to their Chief Minister. Face to face.” Queen Ryllis ran a hand through the brown frizz of her hair. “I don’t like making decisions with an army at our front door. On our land. It’s intimidation.”
“I can move them,” Lorre said. “Where would you like them?”
“That’d count as an act of war. Especially if you act first.”
“Does it count as an act of war if their presence annoys me?”
“Yes!”
“The army,” General Freye said stiffly, “will defend the border. As is their job. Yours is to find a solution that protects Averene.”
Lorre’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I’m on your side?”
But you are, Van wanted to protest. Aren’t you? You’re here to save people. You’re magic.
He said nothing, in front of his queen and his general and the world’s greatest magician.
“Our archers,” General Freye said, “are the best in the Middle Lands. Our longbows give us more than an advantage. They are deadly. And not reliant upon mysterious spells and enchantments.”
Van, unsure that he personally was deadly, tried not to meet anyone’s gaze.
Lorre pulled a swirl of white-hot light out of the air and began playing with it: a ribbon, a ripple, twining around his fingers.
“Our army,” Queen Ryllis said, gifting them all with a brilliant smile, “is our strength. Because you all have chosen to be here. You came when called. You want to defend our home, our land. And that makes you all heroes, already.”
Her voice was quiet, but the words carried. She was only twenty-three, younger than Van, but she stood like a queen, and spoke like a queen, and Van knew that she meant each word.
Everyone else knew it too, from the susurration of breaths, the straightening of shoulders. Their queen, their commander.
