White Road

have time to find it, just in case we end up having to use the tunnel. Alec?”
    “I think it was—” He scanned the horizon. “Northish.”
    “Northish?” Rieser looked less than impressed.
    “Don’t worry. He has a fine sense of direction,” said Seregil, but as soon as Rieser looked away Seregil raised a brow at Alec.
Northish?
    They continued up the road, blending their horses’ tracks with those of all the riders who’d been along this way since the last rain. As always, Alec’s sense of direction stood them well. Within the hour he spotted a little horse farm with an apple orchard and an onion field. “That’s it.”
    “Smoke is coming out of the chimney. Someone’s home,” noted Micum.
    “Last time we were here, there weren’t any dogs,” said Alec.
    “Well, just in case.” Seregil held out his left hand to Rieser, the fingers curled against his palm except for the first and last. “I know you have a bit of magic, at least. Do you know how to do the dog charm?”
    Rieser mimicked the hand gesture.
“Soora thasáli
, you mean? Of course. What do we do now?”
    Micum gazed off at the house. “I’d say we should have a look while we have the chance, just to see what’s what.”
    The farmstead was just as Seregil and Alec remembered—a small, well-kept place with a large corral, a barn, and a good-sized stable.
    Micum approached first, with the others well behind him, but this time a snarling dog appeared from the open barn door and ran at him. Micum had to rein in his piebald before she could buck.
    “Hello in the house,” he called out over the barking.
    A man in a leather apron came from the barn, wiping his hands on a grimy cloth. “Brute, come!” The dog retreated grudgingly, still growling as he went to sit by his master’s feet. “What do you want?”
    “Water for our horses, and to see if you have any you’d part with,” Micum replied. “Do you have any to sell?”
    The man brightened at that. “I do, sir, if you’ve got gold to pay for them.”
    “I do.”
    “Well, then. Have your slaves water your mounts while we look over the herd. Are they safe to leave on their own?”
    “Oh, yes. No worries there.” Micum turned to the others and curtly ordered them to see to the horses.
    Seregil and the others bowed and led the string over to a long trough beside the corral. They stayed there, hooded and silent, while Micum and the man headed up into the meadow beyond the house.
    “Yhakobin’s widow must be selling off her herd for capital,” murmured Seregil.
    “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this in broad daylight?” Rieser asked.
    “Micum is finding out how many people live here, so we know what to expect if we come back tonight. This place is part of Yhakobin’s estate.”
    “Where is the tunnel?”
    Seregil pointed to the stable. “It comes up in there.”
    Micum and farmer returned and went into the house together. Micum came out again after a time, smiling and smelling of beer and sausage. He’d brought them some of the latter in a napkin. A woman and a young girl with dark braids stood by the open doorway, smiling as they watched the men go back to the stable.
    “Oh hell, a child!” Seregil muttered under his breath.
    Micum?
Alec signed.
    Seregil gave him a slight nod. The girl looked to be the same age as Micum’s youngest daughter, Illia.
    “If the time comes, I will kill them,” Rieser whispered.
    “Because they’re only Tír?” hissed Alec.
    “We’re not killing anyone unless it’s absolutely necessary, and leave out the girl and the woman,” Seregil told him. “We’re not murderers.”
    “And yet you kill?”
    “Only when necessary. This lot shouldn’t be any problem. I haven’t seen anyone else around.”
    “There was a drunken stable hand the night we escaped,” Alec reminded him.
    “Let’s hope he hasn’t improved his habits.”
    Micum struck a deal for three fine Aurënfaie horses and parted on the best of terms with the master of the house. Alec tied the new ones into the string they already had, and they set off the way they’d come.
    “Well?” asked Seregil when they were out of sight of the house.
    “It’s just the family you saw, a hired man, and a stable boy,” Micum told them. “There’s a front room as you go in, with a kitchen on the left and the bedchamber at the back. I assume the hired man sleeps in the front room or the barn.”
    “Good to know. Hopefully it won’t come to needing it,