Arrow on the String: Solomon Sorrows Book 1 by Dan Fish (no david read aloud TXT) 📕

relax, Solomon. I don’t like her. I’ve said so from the start. She’s manipulative. She keeps secrets. She killed Bex.”

“We don’t know that.”

Mig snorted, started pacing. “You might not, but I do. She killed Bex, and she tried to steal you away from me.”

It was a tricky thing, arguing with Mig. Her temper spread like brushfire. She’d started out angry at Sorrows but had since moved on to Jace. Mig pushed back her hood, tossed her hair. Gestured, pointed at Sorrows.

“Does she have any idea what a pain in the split you’ve been?”

Sorrows shrugged, shook his head, said nothing.

“After all we’ve been through together, and with you gone for the past year. Then she just shows up outside your door and expects to have you?”

Sorrows said nothing.

“I’m going to kill her. I’m going to tear her apart, piece by piece.”

“You don’t mean that. You just need time to cool—”

Mig vanished. Sorrows waited, shivered. Started counting.

At a hundred, he shook his head, turned, grabbed the table behind him. He pulled it close as he rolled onto his knees. It was old, cracked, light. He picked it up and threw it against the wall. The wood was dry, weak. It shattered, splintered, fell in fragments onto the floor. He waited, kept counting.

At two hundred, he stood, hunched beneath the low ceiling. He tossed the cushions onto the broken table. Fumbled for a flint in his cloak.

“Gods shun it, Mig,” he said to no one.

He knew she’d left. Knew she’d gone to look for Jace. But knew she wouldn’t try anything, despite her anger. At most, she’d yell, accuse, confront. The problem wasn’t Mig. It was Jace. For two reasons.

The first reason was Bex. She lay in pieces on the floor. Not a pleasant sight, though Sorrows had seen the Cursed do worse. Still, without knowing what had happened, Bex hinted at a side of Ivra Jace she’d kept hidden from Sorrows. And that was not an easy thing to do. Not normally. Someone who knew what you liked. And if Jace was keeping secrets, then Mig was in danger.

The second reason was elves. Sorrows hated elves. Had seen them do too much. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Jace. Her smell, her laugh, her eyes like deep water. Even now, after his argument with Mig and their relationship left tenuous at best, he thought of Jace. Even now, cold and alone in a hut in the Quarry, he wanted to find her, to be with her. It was unlike him. Unexpected. He hated unexpected. He sighed, glanced at his bow.

“This day is not going well, Julia.”

He considered it for a moment. Thought of seeing Julia again. Then thought better of it.

He lit a fire, grabbed his bow, and left.

✽✽✽

A HUDDLED FIGURE is a common enough sight in the Quarry. One dressed in black doesn’t stand out any more than one dressed in rags. Generally, Sorrows didn’t acknowledge people he passed on the street. It was a kindness he hoped they would then extend to him. Mutual disinterest. A basic concept. Sorrows wore his hood up and kept his eyes hidden. That improved the odds of not being bothered. His bow was strapped to his back. That also helped. He was an arm’s length taller than nearly everyone in the Quarry. That made a significant difference.

So when a figure broke free from the shadows ahead, rags billowing in the wind, Sorrows kept his eyes down, kept his feet moving. A lone figure wasn’t a threat. Wasn’t unexpected. When a second figure stepped out of an alleyway and joined the first, Sorrows started shifting to the side, taking one step to the left on every second step forward. He still wasn’t worried. They were small. Goblin, judging by their height and by what appeared to be slender bodies beneath their rags. It wasn’t until a third figure joined the first two and the three drifted in front of Sorrows that he lifted his gaze and showed them the man beneath the hood. He pulled the recurve from his back and let them see how that man could string a bow without looking, without breaking stride. He let them see how fast an arrow could move from quivered to nocked. And if they knew anything about reading human emotion, he let them see a face that said they were either on the wrong side of the road or had picked the wrong man on the wrong day.

They, in turn, stopped ten paces before reaching him and offered a more familiar type of greeting. No interpretation of complex emotions required. Each pulled an arm’s length of bright steel from around its waist. Each dropped into a wide stance. Each held the blade loose, pointed low and patient, watchful. Sorrows stopped, shrugged. Ten paces was better for an arrow than a blade. But they’d know that. Their shoulders were turned, offering a smaller target. They were trained, prepared. They’d know better than to pull up short of a bow. Which meant they were a distraction. He spun to his left, drawing his arrow as he turned.

“Easy, Gray Walker,” a fourth figure said. “I only want to talk, yes?”

Her voice was like birdsong carried on winter gale. It was musical and cold, and it lifted the hair on his arms. Her face was hidden behind layers of cloth and shadowed by a hood. The hood was stitched into a patchwork cloak of leather and wool that concealed her shape, fell to her feet. She lifted a hand hidden in the folds of sleeves too long for her arms. Gestured for Sorrows to follow. The three other figures brought their steel, shuffling through the snow into positions behind him and to either side.

Sorrows glanced over his shoulder. He was surrounded. He’d have time to loose one arrow before the blades fell upon him. He turned to the speaker.

“What if I don’t feel like talking?”

“Ashra said you might need convincing, but she insisted we be patient. She suggested a