This story is part of the Wanderer series.
Riding on horseback on a small dirt path, deep within the tundra forest, the young Karin turned to her older brother and smiled mildly.
“Would you join me in my practice today, eldest brother?” She had, strapped around her shoulder, a quiver, and strapped onto her belt, a leather case with a composite bow.
He glanced back at his sister. He had an errand to run for the emperor. Though he always carried out his uncle’s assignments with haste, he could sense, beneath her composure, a faint hint of pride in her voice.
Returning her smile, he went straight to the point. “What is it that you have to show me?”
“Come. I will show you,” she simply teased.
Reining their horses off the path, down an off-beaten trail, they arrive shortly at a clearing, alcoved by the steep cliffs sheltering it from the western winds. There were several trees around this clearing that had markings at various heights. They had, painted on them, two black rings with a circle in the middle. They were targets.
Hovering closer to the edge of the clearing on horseback, her brother simply said nothing as she pulled her bow out of its case and drew an arrow. Though this little practice area was familiar to him, he noticed a freshly split tree that wasn’t there before. It looked as if it had been struck by lightning.
Slowing her horse to a trot, she drew her bow and fired at one of the targets, striking it dead on. She did this again, and again, skipping over every other target, until she had scored four targets with perfect marks. After which, she lowered her bow. She slotted her bow back in its case as she steered her horse to turn around and trot back to the start.
Takeshi, ever observant, grinned as she approached. “Surely, you did not bring me here to watch you shoot targets on horseback.”
“No.”
Turning her horse back towards the clearing, she repeated her slow trot, except this time, she raised an empty left hand and held out three fingers. Palm facing forward, pressing her index and middle finger tightly together, and pointing her thumb out at a forty-degree angle, an azure ball of energy formed in the nook between these fingers.
He raised his eyebrows. It did not surprise him to see her conjure her power, but he wondered how she would use it to strike a small target from such a distance.
Then, she raised her draw arm and pinched the same three fingers around the ball of energy. She drew her hand back in a familiar motion, pulling the energy back with her fingers to produce a long bolt of energy. Karin aimed for a few moments, then released her fingers around the bolt, letting it fly.
Her brother was caught off guard by the high speed this bolt of relatively soft and malleable energy flew. The bolt struck the tree and maintained its integrity, like a glowing arrow stuck in a tree.
Karin did this again, and again, and on the last target, she quickly switched to her right hand, pointing it high and drawing a bolt of energy, letting it brew in her hands a moment longer than the rest. Her figure began to glow with an azure outline as she resonated her energy, the bolt clearly packing in more power this time, but remaining as compact as before. Once she did let go, it flew at an astonishing speed, striking through the last target in the eye and bursting on impact. The small section of the trunk was engulfed in a compact explosion of blue energy, throwing splinters in every direction. Severed, the top of the tree creaked as it toppled, crashing through other branches before it impacted the snowy ground below. Though, as the target was high up the tree, it did not produce such an impact to rumble the forest floor.
She followed through with her eyes. Then, lowering her arms, she repeated her motion before and returned to where she started.
“Well?”
Her brother smiled again, with a bigger grin this time. “I’m not disappointed.”
Karin smiled as she twirled her horse’s steps in a playful motion. “I am happy to hear.”
“Our archers have sought ways to bind their energy into their arrows for decades,” Takeshi continued. “It looks like you circumvented the problem by forming your own arrows.”
“It wasn’t trivial,” she warned. “Don’t expect your men to replicate the task in a few weeks, or even a few moons, for that matter.”
“I suspected it was not,” he concurred. “How are you propelling the arrow at such a speed without a bow shaft?”
She brought her hands up to chest height to produce another ball of energy and stretched it into a bolt in front of her. “When I form the arrow, I separate it into two separate parts: a hollow tube and a core.”
After concentrating for a moment, she pulled her arms apart diagonally, pulling out a thinner bolt of energy from the existing bolt.
“First I stabilize the core’s structure,” she continued. “Similar to turning water to ice.”
That she would come up with this technique made sense, given her affinity was with water energy.
“Then, I use the sheathing outer tube to accelerate the core forward using rapid convections all around it.”
The larger piece softly grew a little brighter. She slid her fingers down the slim shaft to hold the energy bolt by both ends of the tube, pointing the arrow to the sky.
“Once I deem it fast enough, I let go, and the core shoots forward.”
Letting her fingers go on the front end of the tube, the energy bolt popped out, flying in a slow parabola before it wedged itself into the ground.
“So, it is essentially closer to a blowgun,” he concluded.
“Yes, you could say that,” she agreed, letting the remaining bolt in her hand dissipate. “There’s a little more to the technique, where I direct the convection in such a way that it spins the arrow, which helps to stabilize it as it flies.”
She drew another bolt of energy, but let it dissipate immediately, as if she was playing around with it. “Another nice little touch I like to add is to merge the sheathe with the arrow right after it shoots out. Otherwise it’s wasted energy, right?”
“Right.”
“Although, do it too early and you will take energy out of your shot. Or disrupt its trajectory. It is also better to synchronize the convections so they merge back with the arrow at the same time, and not disrupt its balance.”
Her brother was certainly impressed with the complexity of this magical technique. “How are you able to grip the arrow if it is spinning?”
“I hold it back with my bow arm, not the draw arm.”
“Ah. Then, the strain is all on the arm.”
“For certain it is more strenuous,” she admitted. “And of course you are not going to achieve the penetrating power of a proper bow, even if you resonate for longer.”
“So, I suspect that’s not the purpose of this ability.”
“Correct. It makes up for its lack of power through energy.” She motioned to the three energy bolts she first shot, which were still impaled in their targets. “It is more effective to let them explode rather than stay intact, like I did with my first three shots.”
“Is that why you switched hands?” he asked. “I imagine it is easier to use your right arm to form more explosive shots.”
Karin simply brimmed. “No, that was for show.”