Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [46]
For the first time in days, I felt calm.
“I can do this,” I said to Bao. “If I fail on the morrow, we can escape into the twilight. I can hold it long enough.”
He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me. “Yes, you can.”
SIXTEEN
Pull!”
I eased the bowstring back—gently, gently. The sturdy yew-wood bow my uncle Mabon had made for me bent obligingly. The fletching of the arrow I had nocked tickled my earlobe—vulture feathers, from one of the arrows borrowed from the members of Batu’s tribe.
I eyed the distant target, gauging my angle. I did my best to ignore the fact that my heart was hammering inside my chest.
“Loose!”
I loosed the bowstring.
A puff of errant wind blew as my arrow arced into the sky—mine, and six others. Against all odds, I had shot well enough to reach the penultimate round.
Now, I sucked in my breath.
Six arrows thudded into six leather targets stuffed with wool. I winced, seeing I had missed the crudely painted red circle on mine. I had misjudged the wind and the angle.
Two had pierced the circle, one dead-center, the other slightly off. Three others had missed by a wider margin than I had.
The watching crowd of Tatars murmured. The judges conferred.
“You, and you.” An officious fellow serving as the judges’ liaison pointed at the two men who had shot best. When he came to me, his mouth tightened. “And you. Now, you will shoot one by one. Ten paces!”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Ah, gods! If it hadn’t been for the sense of calm I’d found yesterday, I was quite sure my nerves would have undone me. The riding archery contest had taken place earlier. I’d watched the competitors shoot from the saddle at a row of dangling rings while they raced at a flat-out gallop. They were incredibly accurate, and I resigned myself to the fact that there was no way I could truly compete against the best of the best here.
But so long as I had the knowledge that Bao and I could escape into the twilight, that I could hold it long enough to keep us both safe, it didn’t matter.
As a result, I had shot fearlessly and well in the early rounds of the standing archery contest. Over a hundred men took part, shooting in groups of a dozen at a time. For each group to partake, half passed on to the next round and half were eliminated. With each successive round, we retreated ten paces from the targets.
Again and again, I found myself placing within the top half of my group. It wasn’t until the number of competitors had dwindled to a mere dozen that I’d begun to wonder if I could win, and my anxiety returned in full force.
That was also when my opponents began to grumble and mutter about magic, and the officious liaison had come to inspect my bow.
Was it charmed? I truly had no idea. Mayhap my uncle Mabon had whispered some arcane charm into the very wood and sinew. I did not know the extent of the small gifts of magic the Maghuin Dhonn possessed. Mayhap there was some secret in the way he had seasoned the wood. Mayhap the secret lay in the powerful resilience of the wood itself, or the sinews or the glue.
Whatever the truth, Bao was right. It didn’t look remarkable and there was nothing for the official to find. After testing my bow for himself and finding that it shot no more true than the archer’s skill, he shrugged and handed it back to me.
Now…
Now there were only three of us, and I had begun to sweat. Oh aye, if I lost, there was still the twilight. But now that victory was actually within reach, I could not help but think how much better it would be if the Great Khan were forced to grant my boon, and let Bao and me go freely.
The steppe was a vast expanse of open land to traverse. I had no doubt that there were skilled trackers among the Khan’s men. Even having discovered that I could ward Bao as easily as myself, it could be a long, long time to hold the twilight. And there would be no room for error.
The first of my remaining two opponents stepped up to the mark. He nocked an arrow and drew with the unique Tatar grip,