Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [81]
Remo grew rather quiet.
The appearance of this fascinating new device brought Hawthorn back, bouncing in curiosity. Whit, trailing amiably, said, “Oh, yeah, give us a show, Dag!”
“This rig’s no good for teaching you, mind. It takes a different stance and style than your bow, and besides, I’m full of old bad habits you likely shouldn’t be allowed to watch.”
Whit grinned. “Do as I say, not as I do?”
“There is that,” Dag agreed.
Hawthorn pulled one of Dag’s heavy, steel-tipped arrows from the quiver. “Hey, these are lots fancier than the ones we were using! I bet these’d work better!”
“Nothing wrong with the ones you were using. They all had the same maker.” Dag winked at Fawn. “Here, give yours to me—put that one back, now…”
Hawthorn said Ow, and Fawn pried the arrow out of his bloodstained grip, saying, “Give that over before you poke your eye out. Those are Dag’s good arrows. He doesn’t waste them on target practice.”
“Well, what does he use ’em for?”
Dag prudently let that one go by unanswered, and swapped for Whit’s quiver. He strolled up to a distance from the target about equal to Whit’s longest range, hitched his shoulders, and spent a leisurely few minutes putting the dozen flint-tipped arrows into the general vicinity of the two circles. It felt good enough. “Nope, Hawthorn, they all work just fine. See? You can go collect those.” Hawthorn scampered off.
“My style isn’t pretty enough for contest bow-work,” Dag remarked to Whit. “I argue with the purists about that. I claim a patroller is going to have to shoot from all sorts of strange positions, and that it doesn’t pay to get too fussy. They claim—well, maybe I won’t repeat what they claim.”
His muscles felt reasonably warm and loose, now. Fawn was watching him. Humming unmusically under his breath, Dag took up his quiver, clamped it awkwardly under his left arm, and removed about half its contents to give to her for safekeeping, leaving twelve of the heavy arrows more loosely packed. He shrugged the quiver up over his shoulder and walked back to the shooting spot. Made an estimate of the range to the straw bale, turned, and added another dozen paces to it. Stretched, emptied his mind, turned back.
The first arrow went its way with a notably louder twang; Whit’s head snapped around from the gangplank where he’d been talking to Berry. The second followed before the first hit the target, then the third. One after another, Dag reached, set, pulled, released. The extra range hadn’t been just swagger; he needed all that distance to get that lovely streaming effect of two and three arrows in the air at a time.
Twelve shots in less than a minute. It’s been a while since you did that, old patroller!
He lowered his stubby bow and studied the results. Well, they had all ended up somewhere within the outer circle. Not a tidy heart-shot, but that straw bale sure wasn’t getting away. He rather regretted not being able to spell out D + F in quivering feather shafts. He could imagine them spelling a trailing sort of argh! maybe, if he squinted a lot, which was almost as good.
Fawn came up beside him, peering in fascination. “Was that the pure flight? My stars, it did look like something!”
“Almost,” Dag said in satisfaction. “Right workmanlike, leastways. You can go fetch those, Whit.”
Whit trotted off. Dag sensibly decided to quit while he was ahead. He did off his equipment and turned the makeshift range back over to Whit. Hawthorn was ruthlessly set aside when Berry, watching from a seat on the gangplank, barely hinted that she might like to try her hand. Dag gave himself over to an indolent seat on the log and a cozy cuddle with his wife. It was getting chilly; he’d favor going in soon.
Fawn nudged him and pointed, grinning. Remo was now standing up talking to Whit, earnestly demonstrating some fine point of gripping a bow. Dag replied with a finger laid to the side of his nose and a lift of his eyebrows. His lips twitched up. When next it came time to collect Berry’s misses, Remo waved Dag back and went with Whit.
A loud thump from the boat turned both