Shadow's Edge - Brent Weeks [56]
It wasn’t being weaponless that made him feel vulnerable. A wetboy was a weapon. He felt vulnerable because of his oath. No killing, no violence. What did that leave him with?
Whoever it was, they were standing in the shadows of the alley beside the shop. Kylar had no doubt they were waiting for him to walk to the front door, which was only steps away from the alley. With his Talent, he could get into the door and lock it—and give away his abilities. Or he could run away—and leave Uly unprotected.
Seriously. Before there had been a woman in his life, things had been so simple.
Kylar walked toward the door. The man was disheveled and wearing rags, with the bloodshot eyes and missing teeth of a riot weed addict. The knives the Ladeshian held seemed serviceable enough, though. He leapt out of the alley. Kylar expected the man to demand money, but he didn’t.
Instead, he attacked instantly, screaming insanity. It sounded like he was saying, “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” Kylar simply moved and the addict went sprawling. Kylar leaned against the wall, puzzled. The man picked himself up and charged. Kylar waited. Waited. Then he moved abruptly. The addict smashed into the wall.
After kicking away the bleeding man’s daggers, Kylar rolled him over with a foot.
“Don’t kill me yet,” the man said, spluttering through the blood streaming from his nose. “Please, immortal. Don’t kill me yet.”
“I brought you a present,” Gwinvere said.
Agon looked up from the paper he was writing. It was a list of the strengths and weaknesses of their tactical situation in the Warrens. So far, it was a depressing list. He got up from the table and followed Gwinvere into the next room of her house, trying not to think about how good she smelled. It made his heart ache.
Her dining room table was covered with a cloth that had ten lumps beneath it.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Gwinvere asked.
Agon raised an eyebrow at her; she laughed. He pulled the cover cloth off and gasped.
On the table were ten unstrung short bows. They were adorned with simple, almost crude scrimshaw of men and animals, mostly horses.
“Gwinvere, you shouldn’t have.”
“That’s what my accountants tell me.”
He picked one up and tried to bend it.
“Careful,” she said. “The man who… procured these bows said you need to warm them by a fire for half an hour before you string them. Otherwise they’ll break.”
“They really are Ymmuri bows,” Agon said. “I’ve never even seen one before.” The bows were one of the marvels of the world. No one but the Ymmuri knew the secret of their construction, though Agon could plainly see that somehow they used not only wood but also horn and glue from melted horse hooves. They could punch an arrow through heavy armor at two hundred paces, a feat only Alitaeran longbows could match. And these bows were short enough to be used from horseback. Agon had heard stories of the lightly armored horse lords riding circles around heavily armored companies, outside the range of traditional archers, shooting the entire company to pieces. Every time lancers charged, the light Ymmuri on their little ponies fled, shooting arrows the whole way. No one had yet figured out how to counter such an attack. Thank the gods no one had ever united the Ymmuri, or they would overrun all of Midcyru.
The bows would be perfect for Agon’s wytch hunters. He caressed the one in his hand.
“You know the way to a man’s heart, Gwinvere,” he said, delighted as a child with a new toy.
She smiled and for a golden moment he smiled too. Gwinvere was beautiful, so smart, so capable, so formidable, and now as she looked in his eyes, somehow fragile, rocked by the death of Durzo, the man she’d loved for fifteen years. Gwinvere was deep and mysterious, and though he’d thought himself too old to be stirred