Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale - Colin McComb

The intruder is one of the King’s Chosen. His name is Pelagir. He’s carrying a child. If the child
comes to harm, it’ll be your head. The Council of Knights has asked that we shoot to wound
Pelagir, not to kill him. Recovery of the child is of primary importance.”
It meant a kidnapping, then, from a family high up the social ladder. Maybe the highest.
The Council wanted vengeance, and it was going to be terrible. We’d pay if we stood in the way
of their punishment. And if we had to die to get the child, it wasn’t sacrifice enough.
We slung our yew bows onto the pegs in the walls and took the dull bronze crossbows
from the racks in their place—plain arrows wouldn’t do against one of the King’s Chosen. There
was no way we could fire an arrow that would hit him unless we managed a distraction, and that
was unlikely. True, the crossbows were unreliable. Sometimes they exploded when they fired,
sometimes they didn’t fire at all, and they required yearly maintenance by Verthain, the wizard of
the forest. But against a knight, the eldritch bolts they fired were the best option we had. These
crossbows had no strings to tangle in the brushes and branches. The forks summoned and focused
energy from within the worked metal of the weapon, launching the quarrel only when we
squeezed the crossbow’s stock. If they were more trustworthy, we’d use them all the time. As it
was, we used the yew bows except in emergencies. If worse slipped to worst, we had our knives,
though of course they’d be useless against a knight.
We left the stilt lodge without saying anything else and fanned out through the woods to
the west. If we ran across the knight, we’d be dead unless we had backup, but we couldn’t travel
too closely together, or he’d be warned of our coming. Against any ordinary person, these
precautions would have been unnecessary. We’d use these tactics against one of the vicious
things that sometimes wandered into the forest from the blasted hills, and the cautions would keep
us safe. Against one of the King’s Chosen, they might not be enough.
I grew afraid then—afraid of losing the forest, afraid of losing my life. My heart knocked
in my chest, and my legs weakened as I trotted through the massive trunks. But my only choices
were to pursue the knight and the child, or to break my oath and lose my life. In the end, I had no
choice at all. I would die in the service of the forest I swore to protect.
That didn’t diminish my fear in the slightest.
I slipped through the underbrush, the crossbow fastened tight against my back. I ducked
hanging branches and leaped over fallen trees. I launched myself over moss-laden rocks, grasping
vines that hung from the high branches. I called out in birdsong as I ran and heard trills from the
other foresters. We spread farther and farther apart as the hours wore on, and still we came across
no sign of Pelagir.
Colin McComb Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale
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