The second arrow took Darius in the shoulder.
I saw it punch through his flesh, saw the shaft quiver as it embedded itself in the muscle. He staggered but didn't fall. The arrowhead had pierced clean through, the tip protruding from the front of his shoulder, slick with blood. His hand clamped over the wound, but the blood poured through his fingers like water through a sieve.
The third arrow buried itself in the mud where Lina had been standing a heartbeat earlier. I yanked her down and covered her with my body as more shafts hissed past, their feathers brushing my hair, their tips striking the earth around us like deadly rain.
"Go!" Darius snarled. Blood ran from the new wound in a thick sheet, dark and glossy in the torchlight. "Now!"
I didn't argue this time.
I hauled Lina up and
