White Road

turned to him with a shocked, slightly chagrined look.
    Rieser shrugged. “You think I haven’t been paying attention?”
    Micum took a peek himself, wanting a look at this mysterious man from Seregil’s past. He didn’t look like much—a thin, trembling man with a coward’s eyes. “Well then, Captain, since you don’t believe me, and I don’t believe you, I’d say we’re at a bit of an impasse.”
    Meanwhile, Rieser and Alec made the rounds of the room, peering out through the shutters.
    “Well?” Micum whispered.
    “We are surrounded,” said Rieser, “but they’re thinly spread, unless there are others still out of sight.”
    He was proven right in less than a breath. The shutters of the single window in the wall to their right cracked and groaned on their hinges and several swordsmen leapt in. Throwing the bench aside, they lunged at Micum and Alec. Micum had the sword at hand so Alec grabbed the rusty axe. Unarmed, Rieser kept behind them, awaiting his chance.
    The house was a small one and didn’t leave a lot of room for swinging weapons around. Aware that more men were in the process of kicking the door in, Micum caught his opponent’s blade with his hilt and lashed out with his left fist, hitting him squarely in the face. The man dropped his sword as he fell to the floor. Rieser darted forward and grabbed it as Micum jumped over the fallen man and took on another who’d come in through the window, ending up back-to-back with Alec. He could hear the crack of splitting wood as the brackets holding the bar across the door began to give way.
    Seregil heard the sound of fighting before he was in sight of the cottage. At least it wasn’t over, which meant his friends weren’t captured yet, or dead.
    It was easier to approach than it had been to leave, nowthat it was dark. Or mostly so; Ulan’s men—he knew them by their tack and coats—had very helpfully lit a few torches, making it a simple enough matter to knock down four men from a distance with the lovely rounded beach stones he’d collected in Quentis’s shirt. Several of the men were Plenimarans—Ulan’s hired dogs were relatively loyal, it seemed. He wondered which one of the bastards had been the one to spot them leaving by the city gate. Seregil sincerely hoped he’d brained him.
    He slipped away in the shadows before anyone could tell where the stones had come from, dashing around to the other side of the house where he found half a dozen men all trying to get in through the same window. There was no sound of his friends inside except the clang and thud of a fight.
    “I think they have enough people in there. Why don’t we stay out here in the fresh night air?” Seregil called to the men, drawing the sailor’s sword. They turned on him like a pack of wolves. Seregil could see chain mail glittering at the necks of their tunics. In a fight like this, you struck to break bones, not cut flesh.
    “Micum! Alec!” Seregil shouted as he held off two swordsmen at once. “Rieser!”
    “All here!” Micum shouted back.
    Two men went down with broken pates, and a third with a shattered arm. The other two rushed Seregil at once, trying to bowl him over. He ducked, throwing one over his back, and vaulted in through the open window.
    With his help, they managed to clear the last of Ulan’s men from the room and prop the broken door back into place.
    “About time you got here!” said Micum. He sounded winded.
    “Did you find it?” asked Rieser, not sounding the least bit tired.
    “Fight now. Talk later,” Seregil gasped, locking blades with another swordsman who’d come through the open window. Alec took on a second man who’d come in at the far endof the room, bringing him down with a blow to the head with the hilt of his sword.
    He doesn’t want to kill them, either
, thought Seregil, swinging his left fist at an unwary swordsman. He misjudged, striking him in the forehead instead of the nose, and felt the long bone in his middle finger snap. The pain gave him strength and he surged forward, taking another man in the face with his sword hilt and kicking him backwards out the window. Micum and Rieser tossed out the last three stragglers and slammed and barred the shutters. Alec wedged the table up against the door.
    Thoroughly winded, Seregil took a drink from the waterskin he’d brought and handed it around. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was exhausted, and he could see that the others were, too. “Rhal was delayed by