White Road

heavy curtains of snow that surrounded them.
    “How long to the inn, Micum?” Seregil asked, shaking off the snow that had collected in the folds of his cloak and Sebrahn’s hair.
    “At this rate? We’ll be lucky to make it by nightfall.”
    By afternoon it was falling even more heavily, blotting out both sky and the surrounding landscape.
    Alec, in the lead on foot, suddenly held up a hand to signal a stop. “Do you hear that?”
    Micum reined in. “Hear what?”
    “That strange sound.”
    They sat listening. After a moment, Seregil thought he did hear something in the distance—a deep, dull sound with a pulsing rhythm.
    “What is it?” asked Alec.
    “Damned if I know.”
    “I don’t hear anything,” said Micum.
    “Well, whatever it is, it’s too far away to be our problem,” Seregil said, setting off again.
    He couldn’t hear it now, and soon it was the least of their worries as the snow came down harder than ever and the whole world went white—so white and blank that it hurt the eyes. Sound took on an eerie, muffled quality, as if his ears were just a little numb or lightly packed with wool, everything deadened by the soft hiss of snow on snow. The hair on the back of his neck started to prickle, the way it did in a dark room when he was certain there was someone hiding just behind him.
    The rhekaro stirred restlessly, looking around as if he felt it, too.
    Seregil tightened his arm around Sebrahn’s waist and called out, “Wait!”
    Alec turned and called back, “What’s wrong?”
    “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. Sebrahn, keep still!” The rhekaro was pushing at Seregil’s arm now.
    “That’s the way he acts where there’s someone who needs healing nearby.”
    “We don’t have time to—” Micum began, then reined in with a grunt of surprise.
    No one heard them coming, not even Seregil. The white-cloaked figures on white horses were suddenly just there in the road ahead of them, no more than twenty paces from where Alec stood. Their wolfskin hoods were up, and a maskof some sort covered the upper parts of their faces. Seregil couldn’t see how many there were, just the hint of other shapes moving among the curtains of snow.
    “Alec!”
    “I see them!” There was no time to get to his bow, tied on behind his saddle. Mounting his horse, he drew his sword.
    Sharp whistles came from all sides, which meant their would-be attackers were signaling to each other.
    They were being surrounded.
    Tightening his one-armed hold on Sebrahn, who was fighting to get away now, he gestured toward the men blocking their way, signaling
break for it!
    They kicked their horses into a gallop and ran straight at them. As Seregil closed with one, he saw that the mask was shaped like the face of a red bird, with black painted eyes surrounding narrow horizontal slits. The man who swung his sword at Seregil’s head had a mask like a wolf.
    With his arms full of rhekaro, he barely managed to duck the blade and keep his one-handed grip on the reins.
    They must have caught their attackers by surprise, because they were able to get through. With Micum in the lead now, they kicked their horses into a hard gallop, hoping to lose them in the snow before any of the horses broke a leg in a hidden ditch or rabbit hole.
    “Bandits?” Alec said, looking back over his shoulder. He was riding so close that Seregil could have reached out and touched him, but his voice was so muffled Seregil could barely make out what he said. That eerie quiet had settled over them again, making the hair on the back of his neck prickle again.
    As they pelted along, trying to keep Micum in sight, Seregil caught motion from the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look there was nothing there.
    It happened again to his right, just past Alec, and this time he saw one of the masked riders pacing them. This one wore a fox mask. His horse’s hooves didn’t make a sound, but Seregil heard his whistle, and the answering ones behind them. Micum reined his horse away from the ones they could see, and Seregil and Alec followed hard on his horse’s heels.
    We’re going to break our damn necks
, Seregil thought. And Sebrahn was still struggling!
    The whistles started up again, all around them, sounding so close Seregil wondered why he couldn’t see any of them.
    Suddenly Alec lurched forward in the saddle, an arrow protruding from his left shoulder. Micum slowed and grabbed the fallen reins.
    “Damn!” Seregil reined