We Leave Together, стр. 67
The first volley of arrows struck the horses of the first cart. The animal on the hill side screamed. It tried to jump from beneath the yoke, but only managed to push the other horse to the ground.
The arrows of the next volley seemed to descend from the clouds in slow motion. The guards had gazed with open eyes at the raiders. The merchant had maintained his seat and tugged at his reins as if his horses had stumbled in holes.
The second volley struck the driver of the second cart—poor boy—with two arrows through, one in the face and the other in the arm. He died. (We found him dead in the woods and buried him before we found Jona lying in a bluff. There were others dead from these raiders, and what we didn’t bury, the forest took just fine on its own.)
By now, the merchant had come to his senses enough to smack the reigns. One horse tried to run, but the other was jumping and tearing at his yoke, unable to use her front legs at all with arrows in them. The cart flipped, killing her, and the yoke broke free for the horse that had jumped. He bolted, blood down his sides.
One of the guards had decided to run up the hill after the source of the arrows. Djoss jumped behind the second cart, a shield over his head made of the top of a crate. Rachel had poked her head out from the third cart, looking to see what was happening. She jumped out of the cart, and gasped for air, looking around for Djoss.
The third volley struck one guard in the ankle, crippling him.
The merchant, by now had found his legs beneath him, and a spare pickaxe from his cart. He hid behind the toppled cart. He probably screamed something, but we don’t see words in the mud.
The fourth volley landed hard across the third cart. The horses were hit, as well, and both of them died very quickly. The man driving this cart made a break for it, away from the hill. A single arrow chased after him, and missed.
Now, the raiders jumped out from behind their hiding places on the hill. They were armed in light leathers, and long pikes. They quickly formed themselves into a line. They charged down the hill at the carts.
Raiders do not traditionally operate with military precision.
Djoss and Rachel ran to each other. Rachel conjured powerful fires and startled the raiders. Djoss deflected one pike with his crate top, and smacked another with his hard fist. Rachel tossed strong winds over the raiders. They fell back, and found themselves buried beneath a wall of ice.
The merchant jumped out swinging his sword. The pikemen stabbed him in both legs. He fell to the ground, and bled out, dead in a few minutes, to be buried with his own son by the roadside.
Rachel ran to Djoss, pulled water vapor from the air, and froze it in a ring of ice.
The raiders watched, amazed. They chipped at the ring with their pikes, hesitating against Senta spells they hadn’t seen in times of war. Senta are not warriors this far south.
Djoss frowned at Rachel. He probably told her to kill the raiders. She probably told him she wouldn’t kill anyone.
The raiders did not expect much in the way of magic, but they had their answer. When the ice was chipped back, they swore they’d kill Djoss if Rachel didn’t come peacefully with anyone else that had, by now, surrendered.
The raiders slaughtered the horses for meat, pulled anything edible from the carts, and anything they happened to want, and then they pushed the carts off the road, and set fire to them. A few ran off into the woods to look for men that had escaped the volleys of arrows.
The raiders numbered at least thirty-two hard-scrabble soldiers. An absurd number for any legitimate raiding party, and the violence made no sense when most would easily just take what they wanted from the carts that were outnumbered and let the people pass on.
The raiders kept their base outside the tower. When the prisoners arrived, they were kept on a rope chain, tied hand and belt and foot, all together.
Rachel had been blindfolded, like everyone else, so she couldn’t aim her powers at anyone. She sat sullenly in the mud, waiting for something to happen, bound to the beginning of the rope, against the tower.
CHAPTER 21
“Believe it or not,” said Jona, “I saved your life.”
Calipari said nothing. He couldn’t. His mouth was filled with cloth, and wrapped with rope to hold it in like a horse’s bridle.
Jona pulled a bottle of brandy out from a bag the raiders had given him. It was horrible brandy, more rancid water than heat. Jona drank it in little, wincing sips. When he had to relieve himself, he went up top to the signal fire. He’d have to leave it dry, but he wanted to dampen it with the brandy that had passed through him like a flood. He had to piss as best he could in hiding in case someone’s blindfold was loose.
He paused when he saw the prisoners bent on their knees in the sun. Wounded bodies wrapped in bandages and ragged clothes and numb faces waited with naked dread beneath the blindfolds torn from dead men’s clothes.
Jona was thinking about Sabachthani’s promise. She said everyone would live. That’s what she had said. As soon as this passed, he wouldn’t have to kill again if he didn’t want to. But, here he was on the brink of killing again. He looked out at all the people who had survived the killing that had come because of him.
He saw a familiar body at the edge of a chain of prisoners.
Jona looked closer and closer, and the pain swept over him.
The figure of Djoss slept in the sun, tied to a man’s corpse. Djoss leaned over the dead body like a pillow.
The breath flew