The shaft caught the leader high in the torso, piercing his black armor and sinking a hand’s length into his chest. The impact was enough to stop his charge and send him sprawling back into the street.
If the watchman was surprised, he showed no sign of it, instantly stepping forward to finish his foe. His attack was intercepted on the way down by a pair of dark blades, both of which shattered beneath his huge sword.
Arietta struggled to find another target, but with the melee now acting as a shield, she risked hitting the watchman if she loosed another arrow. Then a shade broke to the left, and Arietta let fly, hoping to drive him back before he could slip past the watchman onto the bridge. The warrior saw it coming and swirled a hand through the air, raising a shield of murk between himself and the approaching arrow.
The arrow sank into the darkness and briefly vanished. An instant later, the shade stumbled out from behind his shield, both hands falling away from the arrow now buried in his heart.
Arietta drew back her bowstring, looking for her next target. But the watchman had begun a strategic retreat, pivoting back and forth across the bridge, using his huge sword to hold two shades at bay while the red-haired woman and her companion fled. Arietta could not find the fifth shade, and she could not find a clear shot at the two on the bridge.
Then she saw the leader, still lying on High Bridge Road, struggling to pull her first arrow from his chest.
Impossible.
Arietta’s arrows were a gift from King Foril, created by one of Cormyr’s most powerful War Wizards, Glathra Barcantle herself. They were, in effect, a royal apology. Arietta and her father had been riding with the king’s hunting party when a wounded boar had charged her. Arietta had planted half a dozen shafts in the poor creature before it finally unhorsed her. Afterward, it had emerged that King Foril himself had fired the arrow that enraged the beast. To make amends, the king had asked Glathra to create an entire quiver of arrows that would stop anything Arietta struck.
Anything except Shadovar warriors, it seemed.
She loosed again.
The shade looked in her direction and raised a hand. In the next instant, she watched her arrow sinking into a small shadowy shield, but instead of passing through, the arrow simply vanished.
Hoping that three arrows might succeed where two had failed, Arietta nocked again and set her aim on the shade’s chest-then felt her blood go cold as Odelia’s scream erupted in the sitting room behind her.
Arietta dropped low and spun around. Her lady-in-waiting was swaying on her feet, her face frozen in a shocked expression, her body cleaved from collar to breastbone by the gore-dripping blade of a thick black sword. The Shadovar who held the blade was still hanging from a shadowy corner of the ceiling, like a descending spider.
Arietta started to aim, but the warrior was already pointing four fingers on his free hand in her direction. She loosed anyway, then flung her bow at him and dived for the floor, rolling forward and snatching an arrow from her quiver. She saw her chairs and fireplace flash past to her right, then cold bands of shadow angling toward the patch of floor she’d just left, slicing through everything they touched. She came up on her knees just as the shade dropped to the ground in front of her, his dark sword rising to strike. She plunged the arrow up into his abdomen.
The shaft went vertical as the arrowhead drove up toward his heart. The warrior screamed in anguish and dropped his sword, reaching down to clutch at the arrow with both hands, struggling to pull it free. Arietta kept pushing, hard, and sent him stumbling backward-straight into the swinging sword of a charging guard in a white tabard. The shade’s head bounced off the wall, and Arietta barely had time to spin out of the way before it landed on the floor beside her.
“My lady!” A big hand reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Are you-”
“I’m fine.”
She jerked her arm free, then turned to find the shade’s decapitated corpse sprawled over Odelia’s motionless form.
“Sorry, my lady,” the guard said, no doubt noting the horror in her eyes. “They say you have to remove their heads.”
Arietta nodded, then pointed at the shade. “Could you remove that, please?”
The guard bent down and quickly pulled the shade aside, revealing a gore-filled cleft in Odelia’s chest that left no doubt about her fate. Heart breaking, Arietta uttered a quick prayer and knelt down to close the girl’s eyes.
The second guard-a lanky fellow named Mannus-stepped through door and began to scan the room.
“Was that the only one?” he asked, gesturing at the dead shade. “How did he get in?”
Arietta pointed toward her still-open balcony. “I’m not sure, but they’re out on High Bridge Road.” She paused, suddenly angry at Mannus, then rose. “Where were you?”
Mannus’s face colored with guilt, but instead of apologizing or explaining, he motioned the second guard to the balcony.
“Secure those doors, Suther.” He turned back to Arietta. “Did he come across the balcony?”
“No,” Arietta replied, “and I was standing right there.”
“Maybe you couldn’t see him,” Mannus said. “I’ve heard some of them can walk between shadows.”
“Apparently, you heard correctly,” Arietta said bitterly. She retrieved her bow from the floor, then turned to confront the guard. “This should not have happened, Mannus. I sent Odelia to alert the house and go to the Bridge Gate. Why was she still here?”
Without waiting for his reply, she turned on her heel and headed to her bedchamber.
Mannus trailed after her, but stopped at the door. “My apologies, Highness,” he said. “We thought Odelia’s warning was a trick. Your father-”
“A trick?”
“Your father warned us to be wary,” Mannus continued. “He would have our heads if you fooled us and slipped away.”
Struggling to bring her temper under control, Arietta stepped toward her bed. There was no time to sit and calm herself, but she was still careful to inhale deeply and exhale completely, telling herself that nothing could be accomplished by rage, that nothing would bring Odelia back.
The tactic failed miserably. By the time she had retrieved her sword scabbard from its hook beside her pillows, she was more furious than ever-at the Shadovar, at Mannus and Suther, and most of all, at her father. It was his order the two guards had been following, and now Odelia was gone. Her father would answer for that-even more surely than his guards.
Arietta turned to find Mannus blocking her path, eyeing the jewel-encrusted scabbard in her hand. His expression suggested he thought it ridiculous for her to even own such a weapon, much less wield it. She used the tip of her bow to push the guard backward, then proceeded to herd him across the sitting room.
“Do you really find me that ridiculous, Mannus?” she demanded. “Do you really think me so foolish as to sound a false alarm at a time like this?”
“It wasn’t our fault,” Suther protested. “My pardon for saying so, but you’re a very headstrong wo-”
“Headstrong?” Arietta whirled on the man, bringing the flat of her scabbard up under his chin. “Is it ‘headstrong’ to think that my father’s place-that our place-is with the people? War is upon us, you idiot!”
Suther appeared too confused and flustered to answer.
Mannus came to Suther’s rescue, gently pulling him out of the way. “It’s not our place to decide such things,” he said. “But the grand duke-”
“You’re right, Mannus.” Arietta secured her scabbard on her hip, opposite her quiver, then added, “It is not your place to decide anything. And I order you to come with me.”
Still holding her bow, Arietta hurried from her chambers into the central tower, the Turret of Heavens, and began to descend the long flight of stairs that spiraled down the outer wall. The turret was open all the way to the Golden Hall on the ground floor, and looking over the balustrade, Arietta could see a steady stream of servants carrying armfuls of linens.