Free Gilead's Craft by Nik Vincent Page A

had killed one old man and three youths. Gilead did not care how his six victims were related, but when he looked down on their bodies, they each wore the same broad, flat face.
    Each of the heads and each of the nocks, whether bone, antler, iron, flint or steel, was singular to Gilead. No one except a huntsman or combatant as experienced as Gilead could hope to tell one steel broadhead from another or a bone nock from its twin. None but a fletcher as experienced as Gilead could hope to match a head to its nock every time.
    There was no human as experienced as Gilead.
    Six killers had hunted two youths, little more than adolescents, wide-eyed and bedraggled, running as fast as they could, as far as they could, all the time holding hands, the girl behind the boy, who encouraged her and never let go of her hand.
    Gilead had waited until the young lovers had passed him, never realising that the elf was there. Then he had made his way down the slope. He had found five bodies, each with a fatal wound to the head, throat or torso. He followed a trail of blood from the injured female to make sure that she did not intend to hunt the young couple alone.
    It took longer to make six new arrow shafts and to fix their heads, nocks and fletching than it had to track and shoot the six hunters, but Gilead was an elf with honour in his heart and time on his hands.
    A very great deal of time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Nik Vincent has more than a dozen titles to her name, mostly children’s fiction, but also educational and reference books, and comics, and she co-wrote Gilead’s Blood and The Hammers of Ulric with her husband, Dan Abnett. She has finally succumbed to the lure of Warhammer 40,000, and hopes to have a long and rewarding career writing about the guys and girls, and villains and daemons that play games with her imagination. Total immersion will do that to you, so, thanks, Dan.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
    Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
    © Games Workshop Limited 2012. All rights reserved.
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    A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
    ISBN 978-0-85787-663-8
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    This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
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