I'll need all the arm room I can get.”
He waited, bow in hand, arrow nocked against the cord.
Not much of a bow, he thought. Nothing you would want to try against a willow at three hundred paces. But these things outside aren't willow wands. It will last for a shot or two… I hope it lasts for a shot or two.
The port clanged open as Caroline shoved the lever over. Smoke billowed in the opening and in the smoke he saw the bulk of the ones who waited.
He brought the bow up and the wood bent with the sudden surge of hate and triumph that coursed in his being… the hate and fear of fire, the hate of things that wait to do a man to death, the fury of a human being backed into a corner by a thing that is not human.
The arrow made a whispering sound and was a silver streak that spurted through the smoke. The bow bent again and there was another whisper, the whisper of cord and wood and the creak of human muscles.
On the ground outside, two dark shapes were threshing in the smoke.
It was just like shooting rabbits.
Chapter Fifteen
"Very ingenious," said the voice. "You won fair and square. You did much better than I thought you would.”