Arithon s'Ffalenn slid back from the precipice. He took up the strung bow of black-lacquered horn set waiting against a rock, then chose the first of three marked arrows arrayed in a row in the dirt. The red streamers affixed to its head flicked over his shoulder as he knelt and nocked the first. Slight, thin tempered, dwarfed by the bowl of the Vastmark sky, he made a drab figure against its surfeit of color as he drew and took aim.
The hammered look of anguish his features showed then gave even his war captain pause.
Then the bowstring sang into release. The arrow arced up, poised, tipped into irrevocable descent. Ribbons unfurled behind in a snapping tail of bloody scarlet.
Men tucked in concealment in the crevices of the cliffs saw the flagged shaft's passage. It plunged seaward like the fall of an evil portent, harbinger of an unnatural steel rain, and sure death for the troops below.
Excerpt from "Warhost of Vastmark", HarperCollins paperback edition. Copyright Janny Wurts.
