Sarnak Tirocierto

Before his bones showed, Sarnak was a hunter from the southern marshes. He had a yew bow his grandfather had carved, and a lord who paid him for deer and never once thanked him.

They started calling him Tirocierto the night he shot down a hawk in flight, in the dark and in the mist. He said there was no merit in it. The hawk made noise beating its wings, and mist hides many things, but not noise.

Soon the warlords began paying him for a different kind of prey. Sarnak never asked why. He only asked how many, and how far.

His last contract was a name: Veylor Nightflame. He waited three days at the top of a bell tower. Without moving, without eating, barely breathing. When he finally had the shot, he let it go.

The arrow went in exactly where he wanted. What nobody had told him is that this does not kill Veylor.

Veylor climbed the bell tower, pulled the arrow out of their chest and handed it back. Veylor told him it was the best shot they had taken in a long time, and that it would be a shame to waste a hand that steady on a body that tires, that trembles and that breathes.

The next morning, Sarnak no longer breathed.

Now his hand does not tremble because he has no pulse. He does not blink because he has no eyelids. He does not breathe, so nothing moves the string between aiming and loosing. In the mist, where the living get lost, he just listens.

He is the best archer Veylor has ever found, in life or in death. He has never missed a shot.

The only one that killed no one is the one that gave him the most.