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I ignored him, focusing on the five men up to bat, so to speak. Oxriel drew his arm back along with the other four, then let his arrow go.
I gasped, then jumped up without even noticing I’d done it. Oxriel’s arrow hadn’t hit the centre – it hadn’t even hit the target well enough to tear the hide at all – but it had skimmed the very top edge.
All three of us humans in the second row, plus Valeria somewhere behind, went absolutely bananas. Oxriel turned that boyish grin our way once more, though there was an edge of cockiness to it now that made me chuckle and shake my head at him. As Oxriel moved away from his place, he handed his bow to Dalk. I couldn’t hear it from here, but it looked like Oxriel said something. Whatever it was, Dalk didn’t seem to enjoy the comment. He hissed at Oxriel, snatching the bow like he planned to bop Oxriel over the head with it.
He didn’t, though it looked like he really, really wanted to. Dalk took a short, heaving sort of breath, then stepped into place in the final group of archers.
Dalk was up against four Deep Sky men, and I felt oddly nervous for him. He didn’t have Zoren’s nearly zen, steady sort of focus. Nor did he have Oxriel’s jaunty optimism. No, he had anger and muscles and a whole bunch of blades. So many blades, in fact, that he could not hold and draw back the bow properly. As the other four men got into position and prepared to nock their arrows, Dalk had to pause and begin stripping out of his many straps and belt, leaving the leather and the black glint of his weapons in a pile by his clawed feet.
My breath caught when he straightened, completely bare except for his loincloth. Had I ever seen him without weapons criss-crossed over his back and chest? I was fairly certain I hadn’t. Because I would have remembered a view like this. The view of the rippling, broad expanse of his back, the hard taper down to his waist, the muscles casting shadows of their own in the rising morning light.
Two of the Deep Sky men took their shots, one hitting the centre and the other hitting very close. The third Deep Sky man and Dalk nocked their arrows at the same time. For someone who didn’t actually know much about archery, Dalk cut one hell of a fine form standing there with his arm drawn back like that.
“Go Dalk!”
I said it kind of quietly, almost furtively, like I was embarrassed or something. Which made me feel a little guilty, considering how loud I’d cheered for Oxriel a moment ago.
But I was pretty sure that Dalk heard me. A new tension entered the place between his shoulder blades, his muscles bunching as he pulled the arrow back with one fearsome sweep...
And promptly snapped the bow string.
The Deep Sky man beside him let his arrow go. It hit its target dead-on while Dalk’s fell useless to the stone directly in front of his feet.
Dalk was very quiet and very still. He looked down at his bow like it had betrayed him in some deeply unforgiveable way. Then, he wrapped a hard fist around each end of the wooden curve of the weapon. His biceps and forearm muscles bunched beneath his hide as he brought the bow down at the precise moment he yanked his knee up. Flesh and bone connected with wood, and a snapping sound rang out as the massive bow was broken like it had been nothing more than a dry twig.
“Oh, Dalk,” I sighed, resting the poster of him in my lap. I doubted he would have been allowed another turn – I was pretty sure that tearing the bow string and dropping the arrow counted the same way taking an actual shot did – but he didn’t have to go and break the bow afterwards, did he?
I leaned back on the bench, sending what I hoped was a subtle glance Gahn Thaleo’s way behind the backs of Tilly, Zaria, and Nasrin. Since he was so damn big, I could see him this way, at least in profile. He didn’t look angry, which I supposed was a good thing, though you could never quite tell what a good thing was with Thaleo. He didn’t look surprised either. He watched impassively and then without warning ordered Warrek to collect the targets and then bring out the braxilk for the next round of the vaklok.
While Warrek took down the targets, climbing the stone incline to reach them one by one, Dalk was busy doing... something. I watched him with my eyebrows pinched in confusion as he shoved the broken pieces of his bow together and bound them with the snapped string. Then, he hoisted the thing up in one fist, cocked his arm, and hurled it as hard as he could.
I yelped, my stomach lurching almost painfully as I saw the broken bow, now almost spear-like, slice through the air.
It hit the target in the very centre of the centre.
And it almost took poor Warrek’s hand off in the process. He’d just reached Dalk’s target after taking down the others, and only just snatched his indigo-coloured hand away in time to keep it from getting skewered.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Now that I was certain I wasn’t about to see some poor, innocent man get an amputation he definitely hadn’t asked for, I let out a shaky breath and swivelled my gaze back to Dalk. He was already looking at me, as if wanting to check that I’d seen what he’d just done. I tried to give him a severe look, though I had to admit I was actually pretty impressed he’d hit the target merely by throwing his makeshift projectile. Hurling something one-armed like that didn’t have nearly the same force as using the tension in a well-made bow. And he hadn’t even thrown something properly balanced and aerodynamic! It was all curved and lumpy and broken, strung hastily – and furiously – together with very little thought or planning. If anything, he should have picked up the arrow and thrown that instead of the lopsided bow he’d snapped and then reconstructed in a fit of rage.
And yet, he’d still hit the target. Dead fucking centre.
Dalk’s ears and tail twitched in unison, and I realized that, like an idiot, I was smiling. I swallowed hard and clamped my lips between my teeth. It probably wasn’t the best idea to encourage Dalk in his various destructive tendencies, even if it did give me an odd thrill, low in my belly, to see him pick up the pieces of the thing he’d broken and force them by sheer fucking will into some semblance of a victory.
Not that the victory actually counted. It wasn’t a spear-throwing match, and I knew he’d failed in the eyes of the Deep Sky people.
But he hadn’t really failed to me.
I kept my face serious, but even so, I raised the poster with his likeness on it off of my lap, giving it a little, papery rattle between my hands.
His ears and tail stayed still this time. But his sight stars spasmed like I’d physically touched him. After a strangely long and tense moment, he finally broke eye contact with what looked like quite a bit of effort, bending to retrieve his weapons and straps from the ground where he’d deposited them earlier.
Warrek was finished taking down the targets now. He cast Dalk a narrow-eyed glance as he carried the targets somewhere out of sight. A few minutes later, he returned, leading five braxilk behind him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fiona
