Soul Seeker

15: Target Practice

The next night, to Ciara's relief, they stayed the night at an inn on the edge of a small village. Finally, an evening they could spend apart from each other, with walls between them. She was intensely aware that she had not tried to kill Fell since the first attempt, and told herself she was waiting for their guard to drop.

Not that she was doing a very good job of ensuring that would happen.

After a while, her familiar restlessness came slinking back. She left her cramped room and wandered through the village.

The wind had turned bitter, but it seared her throat and chased away her restlessness. Everyone else had shut themselves in their homes, and golden light honeycombed the cracks between doors and frames. Near the trees, she found an outdoor fire in a clearing fringed with spruces, burning so fiercely the wind could not extinguish it. She drew close and revelled in the heat rolling off it while cold nipped at her back. Golden flame twisted and danced with red, throwing brilliant sparks up into the dark blue sky where spruce heads clawed up to the emerging stars.

Rough red circles of ochre had been daubed on the tree trunks at varying heights, while a few wooden pallets leaned against rocks or had been jammed between branches. The clearing was a place meant for target practice, and it looked like someone had just finished using it. They had left the fire to burn out in the storm.

As Ciara turned to survey the targets, her foot knocked a bucket containing throwing axes. Some fool had left weapons out.

Ciara picked two axes, noting with delight how the ends of the slightly curved wooden hilts fit perfectly in her hands. She turned to a target, placing one foot forward in a square-on stance, and rested the backs of the blades on her shoulders. Keeping her elbows high, she stepped forward and threw, releasing all her tension at once.

The axes bit the outside rings of separate targets. She was already reaching for more. She lost herself in the habit of swinging, relaxing into a rhythm. Eventually her axes spun, crossed mid-air, and hit two separate bull's eyes with satisfying thuds.

Ciara punched the air with delight. She was glad she was alone.

Time passed in a blur of throwing, hitting bull's eye after bull's eye as her aim improved and her eyes adjusted to the flickering light. Soon her arms ached, but her heart was pumping and her head was clear.

"Having fun?"

She spun around to see Fell leaning against a tree trunk. One half of his face was lit with orange, while blue shadow cloaked the other.

The axes slid from her nerveless hands.

"I..."

"You don't need the step when you throw," he told her. "Staying where you are is more efficient and you don't want to accidentally step into something. Like a sword."

She gaped at him. "I need the momentum."

"Maybe you did when you were starting out, but you are more than strong enough to use just your arms. Have you ever tried underarm? Or throwing backwards?"

"I... don't think I've ever heard you talk so much."

His eyebrows lowered.

"What? It's true."

"You can get more power if you throw with both hands," he said, and picked up an axe. He moved like lightning and the axe spun over her head. She turned as there was a mighty crack and two halves of a target dropped from a tree. Before she had fully faced him again, he had two more in his hands and he threw them backwards without looking. Both axe heads hit the centre of their intended targets.