It wasn’t the first day of the month, but after a day of food poisoning, Zanna needed a swim in the holy waters. She wore a dark grey linen robe, as she did most times she bathed out here, and spoke quietly with Pralla Maga-sha as they swayed across the gentle waves together. The old woman was quiet today, but a slightly stronger wind made up for it.
The other priestesses used long poles, sinking down into the mud, to guide them along the surface. They paused twice to ask for Zanna’s opinion, and to attempt a divination of whether these particular waves held the magic element, the healing liquid that they sought. As usual, Zanna opted to near the lake’s center, to avoid the public eye should it be watching from the shore. She inhaled as Pralla spoke, but the air barely smelled of the incense burning in lavish silver bowls at the skiff’s corners.
“They have elected a new High Priest in Varravar,” the old sorceress murmured. “Last week.”
Zanna nodded. “Do you think that I wanted the former priest die of his illness?”
Pralla chuckled. Her old voice cracked, and her humour floated across the waves. “No, no, my Queen,” she said. “You’ve made it clear to the whole court how you feel about people dying on account of you.”
“The Priests of Varravar are as criminal as the gangs they tolerate governing their city,” Zanna said. She felt itchy, but couldn’t determine if it was Pralla’s words getting under her skin or if it was the swollen flesh of her food poisoning and poorly rested body. “I did not kill the High Priest; I just did not want an alliance forming such as that.”
“Mhm.” Pralla gazed across the waves and smiled.
Zanna looked the other way, and frowned. There was another boat drifting across the waves, hidden around a corner of tall golden reeds. There were four or five aboard. “No one else should be out here,” she muttered. There were guards on all the walls around the lake, much further from view, and heavy defence on the docks.
“Wait, another craft?” Pralla asked. The other boat was only fifteen or twenty feet away and a man was standing at it’s stern with—
Something struck Zanna in the shoulder and she heard the chair she’d been sitting on clatter across the deck. As she lifted her head, she realized she was on the wooden boards of the skiff, and her chair had been broken. Pralla was scrambling out of the way, as an arrow bit the wood a few feet from Zanna’s face.
The Queen lurched to her feet, and groped her shoulder, finding a long wooden shaft there. As soon as she touched the arrow, pain ripped through her arm and she nearly fell over again. Another shaft felled one of the priestesses with a screech, and the water surface was splashed with blood, and with a body.
An arrow snapped in midair instead of striking Pralla Maga-sha. She could block the attacks, or snap the attacking boat asunder.
“Help me!” Zanna called, reaching for the magician. Something hit her leg hard, and she glanced down to find another arrow pinning her hamstring to the wood. She was in shock, she realized, for the pain was that of forceful impact, not splattered ligament.
The Great Priestess did nothing, simply cowered on her half of the boat while arrows flew down. Had she known? Or was it the men from Tal’lashar, one of her lords, or that smirking sergeant of the Crimson Highway?
There was no time to consider her usurpers. Zanna knew what her one chance of survival was—the Eye of Maga. She scrunched her stomach and stretched along the length of her leg. Now she was feeling the pain of the wound, as her muscles shifted around the wound. Another shaft appeared near her hand, but she needed that angle. Her other hand grabbed the shaft and yanked. With a wordless screech, she rent it from the deck boards and blood splattered against her skin.
Freed from her slouch, she gauged the distance to the side of the raft and started to roll. Another arrow, the worst one, punctured a hole in her ribs, and she coughed. But she didn’t cease rolling. The angle of the raft broke the shaft and dug the arrowhead deeper into her organs. With a scream, she rolled again, and splashed down into lake water. Her mouth filled with water and her eyes saw more shafts splashing down like a halo of knives.
But then the sunlight was blocked by the reeds as well, and she sank down into the muddy lake bottom. The healing waters would find her. Blood trailed her descent, the whole way down to her fate.