Arrows of Promise (Kingmakers Book 2) by Honor Raconteur

arrows into her hand. Ash put his finger briefly on each shaft, the
spell giving off a muted glow. With the last one in place, she nocked an arrow
and carefully fired. Then she held her breath, waiting.
    Nothing from the camp stirred. Were they that dead to the
world, that the sound of an arrow whistling past didn’t alarm them?
    “Sounds like the wind in the branches,” Ash assured her.
“Fire.”
    She didn’t think so at all, but if he said so…twirling
another arrow into place, she aimed and fired. All four arrows formed a rough
half-circle around the spring. It looked like her estimation of eight was
dead-on. Lifting out four more, she waited for Ash to place the markers on
them, then repeated the process for the other half. When the last arrow was in
place, Ash lost no time in activating the ward. Of course, wards glowed, and rather
brightly at that.
    “Hey,” one of the bandit watchmen said to the other on duty,
“what is that? That glowing over there?”
    “How much did you drink?” the other responded.
    Ash and Riana didn’t wait to see how that conversation
played out. Eventually one of them would get curious enough to go see. They
wanted to be well out of the area and back behind their own ward when that
happened. Moving as quickly as they could, without making a lot of racket in
the process, they hightailed it toward the settlement.
    When they got there, the ward was down, with Ashlynn
bouncing impatiently on the tips of her toes, waiting for them. They sprinted
the rest of the distance, sliding into place behind her. Ashlynn snapped the
wards into place with record speed.
    Only after they were up did she turn to them, giddy as a
child with new toys. “That was fun.”
    “Aye, it be that,” Broden agreed, also grinning. “Reminds me
of the old days.”
    “You two are incorrigible—” Ash broke off when yelling
started from the bandit camps. “That was quick.”
    Riana shrugged, not surprised. “Glowing wards in the dead o’
night bound to get a man’s attention. Da, how much time do ye give it before
they come at us?”
    “A day, at most.” Broden inclined his head back toward their
tents. “Get some sleep while ye can. The morning will belike be busy.”

    Broden was up with the birds but even then Thorne was still
up in the tree before he could get there. Climbing the hickory, he sat on the
same branch as the lad and peered intently in the direction of the bandit
camps. “No smoke this morning.”
    “Not a wisp of it,” Thorne agreed, gaze firmly ahead. “I’ve
been seeing a lot of movement, too. Even hearing some shouting, when the wind’s
strong enough to carry the sounds this way. Your trick of shutting down their
water access has them real riled up, sir.”
    “The question be, lad, whether they be riled enough to move
yet.” The fact that they were not stopping to try and cook something for
breakfast suggested they would move soon, though. It would be hard to cook
without water, but not impossible, at least not with one meal. Trying to cook a
day’s worth of meals without water, that was the tricky part.
    The ward was still up, granting them safety, but that would not
be the case for much longer. Ash and Ashlynn would be up soon, and after they
had had breakfast, they would take the ward down, as they always did. Broden
had every intention of having people in place when that happened. “Lad. If ye
see them coming, drop out of this tree and go toward the inn. Once we know, find
yerself a good place up high and snipe those that come at us.”
    “You don’t want me on the ground, sir?”
    Not ever, but Broden would not say that and bruise his
self-confidence. “Ye be one of the few archers here,” he explained, “and ye be
a good shot. Sniping be a good place to put ye.”
    Thorne nodded seriously. “I’ll do my best, sir. Wound or
kill?”
    “Lad, in the heat of a fight, ye do no’ usually have that
luxury. Protect yer own, that be your only priority.”
    “Yes,