The Battle for Skandia- Character Reaction

31

"Here, my lord." The book was passed on, and the King began to read.

"POSITION TWO . . . SHOOT!" CALLED WILL, AND THE HUNDRED archers' arms rose to the same angle, drew and released, more or less simultaneously. Gilan raised both eyebrows in surprise. The slithering hiss of the release was magnified a hundred times, and Will and Horace watched in satisfaction as a dark cloud of arrows arced across the intervening space to the target that had suddenly popped up. Halt hid a smile.

Evanlyn was sitting on an old broken cart a few meters behind the line of archers, watching the scene with interest.

They could hear the distinctive soft thudding of arrows striking into the turf around the target, and the harder, clearer smack of those arrows that actually hit it.

Will let out a small sigh. "That wasn't easy, either," he said.

"Shields!" bellowed Horace. Beside each archer, a foot soldier stepped forward with a rectangular wooden shield held on his left arm, positioned to cover both himself and the archer as he reloaded. It had been an idea the warrior apprentice had come up with while he'd been watching an earlier practice shoot. Will smiled over at Horace, who returned it. Will had readily adopted the improvement. With only one hundred archers, he couldn't afford to lose any to the return fire the Temujai were sure to mount once they saw his men in action.

"That doesn't mean run out in the middle of the open and start shooting like a madman," Horace muttered.

"They were killing my men," Will replied. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"Not get yourself killed."

Will glanced quickly around to make sure his men were ready for the next shot. Then he turned back to the practice field, searching for the next target to appear.

There! As the team of men behind him hauled on a set of ropes, another flat board swung up out of the grass. But he had nearly missed the movement, waiting to see if the archers were ready. He felt a slight twinge of panic. Things were moving too fast. Will rolled his eyes and groaned.

"Clear!" he called, wishing his voice wouldn't tend to break when he did this, and the shield bearers stepped clear.

Horace frowned. "I didn't even notice that."

"Half right! Position three . . . shoot!"

Again they heard the slithering hiss. Another cloud of arrows cast its fleeting shadow across the field and riddled the area around the target. Already, another target was rising out of the grass, much closer in this time.

"Shields!" Horace called again and once more the archers were hidden from return fire. As he ordered his men to do this, Horace performed the same action, concealing Will behind one of the large shields.

Horace made a see there gesture, and the Ranger sent him a baleful look.

"Come on, come on," Will muttered, shifting from one foot to the other as he watched the men select new arrows and nock them to the string. Halt raised an eyebrow. The archers sensed his urgency and hurried their reloading. The extra haste made for clumsiness. Three of them dropped the arrows they were about to nock; others fumbled like beginners.

Frustrated, Will realized he'd have to go with the men who were ready. He swung his gaze back to the target. But the men on the ropes were hauling it in, so that it slid toward them on its sled-like runners, matching the speed of an enemy advance. The range had closed too quickly for him to make an instant assessment. In the time that he'd been watching his men, he'd lost his concentration and his sense of the battlefield.