Luck in the Shadows

made the left— handed sign Alec had seen him use on the blind man's dog a few days earlier, with nearly the same effect. Both curs halted for a moment, then trotted forward to lick Seregil's hand, tails whipping happily. He scratched their ears, murmuring to them
    in a friendly tone.
    Micum shook his head. "What I wouldn't give to be able to do that! He's got a drysian's own touch with animals. Must come from his—"
    "Come on, we haven't got all night," Seregil interrupted impatiently, and Alec thought he saw him make some sign to Micum, though he couldn't make out what it was.
    The stable shutters were down, so they decided to risk a light. Micum reluctantly cracked his lightstone into two pieces, handing half to Seregil.
    By the light of the remaining half, he and Alec located the small tack room and began pulling down saddles and gear.
    Seregil soon emerged from the rich, sour darkness of the stalls leading three glossy horses, the dogs still padding contentedly at his heels.
    Snowflakes were spiraling down again as they led their mounts away from the farm. When Seregil judged they were out of earshot, they mounted and set off at a gallop over the fields, trusting the new snow to cover their tracks.
    By sunup they'd covered the miles of open hill country between Wolde and the Folcwine Forest. They came within sight of Stook at the forest's northern border but avoided the town, heading instead down the highroad through the forest.
    New snow lay deep on the road and weighed heavily on the boughs of the trees that flanked it. The sky overhead was a stolid, even grey.
    Seregil and Micum rode slightly ahead of Alec, deep in conversation. Studying their profiles, Alec wondered at how his old life sometimes seemed years gone already, and with it the simple hunter he'd been.
    Lost in his own thoughts, it took a few seconds for him to make the connection between the searing pain that suddenly burned across the top of his left thigh, and the arrow protruding from his horse's side just in front of the girth strap. The animal screamed and threw him, then bolted down the road.
    The snow cushioned his fall. Dumbfounded, he reached down and felt the shallow gash in his leg. The wound was minor, but the suddenness of it all seemed to numb him momentarily. It wasn't until he'd struggled up to check his bow that he truly understood what was happening. As if time had paused and was now resuming its normal course, the air around him was instantly filled with an angry hail of arrows.
    "Alec, get down!" Seregil shouted from somewhere nearby.
    Clutching his bow and quiver, Alec dropped and scrambled on his belly to the nearest trees. Rolling into their shelter, he peeked cautiously around a tree trunk, realizing too late that he was on the opposite side of the road from Micum. Four archers stood in the road less than two hundred feet away, sending out a volley of arrows. Alec also caught a glimpse of others working their way through the trees in his direction.
    The archers kept up their steady attack; arrows sang in the air, nipping off a hail of twigs around him,
    thudding into the trees he sheltered behind. There was no sign of Seregil except a third track snaking off through the snow into the trees beyond Micum.
    Left more or less on his own, Alec knew what his next step had to be.
    His heart pounded sickeningly as he fitted an arrow to the string and took aim at a man for the first time in his life. A tall archer standing boldly at the edge of the road presented an easy target, but try as he might, Alec couldn't seem to hold steady.
    Startled by a horse's scream, he released the shaft high and it sped off uselessly into the trees.
    Micum's gelding drove itself into a heap just in front of him, a shaft protruding from its throat. Another arrow slammed into the beast's chest and it gave a final bellowing groan.
    "The bastards know their business, killing the horses," Micum called over to him. "I hope you have a few shafts left—I'm pinned down here!"
    Nocking a second arrow, Alec drew the fletching to his ear and tried again.
    "O Dalna!" he whispered as his bow arm wavered again. "Let me pull true!"
    Damn, he can't do it , Micum thought in alarm, watching Alec's face.
    Before he could decide how to get across to help him, however, a bandit with a sword rushed him from the trees.
    Silently commending Alec to whatever gods he had, Micum turned to meet the attack.
    It was his habit to look into his opponent's eyes as he fought; in