Zshurii's Song (Snippet 10)

A story fragment from the Eastsong Cycle

(Read Zshurii’s Song, Snippet 9)

Zshurii held her bow to the side of Cactus’s neck and worked the bowstring repeatedly. “Let this be the only weapon I need today,” she asked the Wright with silent-moving lips.

In drills, she was handy enough with a scimitar, certainly better than with her bow. Only her small stature had landed her in the horse archers.

Yet she’d come to like the bow; it kept valuable distance between her and her enemy. The thought of slaying folk who might have been her neighbors was bad enough. Such notions could be ignored in the tumult of combat. Up close, at scimitar’s length, there would be no ignoring the reality. There would be no hiding from the men left torn and discarded, life-sized dolls of flesh and bone, like she’d seen after the battle of the wagons. She shuddered.