Page 113 of The Shadow Path
How many archers?
I am following orders. So should you.
It went against everything in Carys’s being to act as an automaton commanded by someone else, but she could see very little, and she had to trust Cadell’s eyes and the eyes of every dragon in the air that night.
Turning. Cadell wheeled around, throwing Carys back against the wall of the coracle.Position three. One hundred and ten degrees.
Carys fought her way into position and braced her legs as the coracle rocked and rolled with the wind. She kept her back parallel to the center post and leaned her shoulder on the wall of the coracle.
Just then a shower of arrows hit the wall of the coracle where Carys was leaning, and the tip of one pierced just far enough through the wood to jab into her arm.
“Shit!”
Silent!
“Fuck that! They can’t hear me down there, and why the hell aren’t we just razing this entire field with fire, Cadell?”
There are wild fae in the trees, Nêrys. There are unicorns in the valley. Should we kill all of them to retrieve the small ones? That is what Demelza would like to do.
Carys closed her eyes and leaned against the center post, positioning herself again.
In position.
Fire in three… two… now.
Carys let loose with another volley of rapid-fire arrows from her quiver. She had two more quivers waiting in the coracle, ready to go. The arrows that Anwyn had given to her were massive things—long, thick, and designed to pierce fae armor. She felt clumsy with them, but she hoped that anything she could do would help.
Anything?
The archers have run back to Maen Llia.The dragon began to descend.Demelza has heard her daughter’s voice. There was a shot of joy through her bond with Cadell.I can hear her too.
There was a fierce scream and another rumbling roar before Carys saw the night light up with fire.
She ran to the other side of the coracle, peering out the arrowslit to see a dragon strafing the valley below them with a river of fire.
It was eerily silent as a squad of dragons descended, Carys and Cadell among them.
What’s happening?
Demelza knows where the children are. We are landing. Brace and arm yourself.
Carys grabbed her bow, nocked an arrow, then steadied herself against the back wall of the coracle as they descended. Moments later, the round-bottomed coracle scraped along the ground before Cadell let go, rocking the unit forward and back until the door burst open and braced the coracle on the ground.
Carys aimed her arrow at the foggy night, waiting for the signal to come out of the vessel and wary of anything that might come through the narrow door.
“Carys!” She heard Dylan’s voice, but she waited. The fae could imitate voices. It was only when the young man marched toward the coracle and Carys could see his face that she lowered her arrow and stood.
“What’s happening?”
There were screams in the distance and the crackling sound of burning wood.
“Demelza has found the fort, but she can’t break the wards,” Dylan said. “We’re blocked.”
Carys searched the landscape, but the night was fully descended. “Are there woods here? Have you tried calling an ellyllon?”
Dylan’s eyes went wide. “They’re fae.”
“They’re Cymric!” Carys shouted. “We don’t have sorcerers or mages, do we?”
