I Swore to Kill the Prince I Guard novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Mere

Evander saw the archer on the far shore as he ran out of the door.

A dark shape in the pines, a quarter mile off across the mere, was running.

Evander didn't think.

He took the steps in one jump, went down the bank, and ran out onto the ice.

The mere had been frozen for six weeks, and it rang under his boots.

The wind slashed his bare chest.

He had a knife in his belt and nothing else.

The archer was fast.

But he ran through snow, and Evander ran on a lake the storm had swept clean.

Evander was bigger and angrier.

He caught the man in the middle of the mere.

He hit him from behind, and they went down skidding.

The bow flew away.

The man rolled and came up with a short knife.

Evander seized his wrist and twisted until the knife spun off across the ice.

He pinned him on his back with a knee on his chest.

The archer was young, thin and unshaven, a hired man in a hunter's coat.

His breath smoked.

He looked up at Evander and began to laugh.

"The stag," he said.

"I told him you'd know it."

"Who?"

"A gentleman in a grey hood, in Highmere.

"He gave me ten crowns and the paper.

"Said Rask would understand.

"Said it was a message to hurry up."

The cold went through Evander deeper than the ice.

"His name."

"He never gave one.

"A soft voice.

"Silver at the edge of his hood."

Evander tightened his fist in the man's coat.

The ice beneath them gave a sharp crack.

They both froze.

Another crack ran across the surface, spreading out from under Evander's knee.

The archer saw it, and Evander saw it, and the man's face changed.

"Don't move," said Evander.

The man moved.

He heaved sideways, and the ice under his shoulders opened, and black water swallowed him to the chest.

Evander got a hand on his collar.

The edge crumbled under Evander's arm.

The archer looked at him, wide-eyed, and the weight of his sodden coat pulled him out of Evander's fingers and under.

The water closed.

It was very quiet.

Evander lay there on the ice in the wind for a long time, with his hand in the hole and nothing in it.

"Evander!"

Piers was running across the mere in his shirt with a rope.

He hauled Evander back from the crack on his belly.

He wrapped his cloak around him and chafed his arms.

"What in God's name," he said.

"The archer's dead," said Evander.

"I saw him go under.

"Who was he?"

"A message," said Evander.

His teeth were chattering so hard he could barely speak.

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