The White Road

CHAPTER 30 The Cottage by the Sea

BY LATE AFTERNOON they’d struck the highroad and Alec’s belly was complaining loudly again.

Micum pointed forward to a familiar headland as they stopped by a spring. “I believe the cove is just beyond there.” It was no more than a mile on.

“Good.” Seregil yawned widely.

“Don’t start that,” said Micum, then succumbed to one of his own. “We don’t have that much farther to go.”

“I just hope Rhal is actually—” Suddenly Seregil went very still, head cocked slightly. “Do you hear that?”

The soft breeze carried the distant sound of riders—more than a few and coming on at a gallop.

“They couldn’t have tracked us through the city,” said Rieser. “Someone must have seen us at the gate. Micum Cavish is a hard man to mistake in this land.”

“Too true,” said Seregil. “Rieser, you ride with me for now, and give Alec’s horse a rest.”

Alec went to Micum’s horse and laced his fingers into a stirrup. Micum’s limp was more pronounced now, and a stiff leg could mean a bad fall.

Micum set his foot there and Alec boosted him up onto his horse’s back.

“Can you ride hard?” Alec whispered to him, not wanting the others to hear.

“Of course I can,” Micum scoffed softly, but his smile was tight.

Seregil mounted his own sweating horse. The Hâzad jumped lightly up behind him and gripped the back of Seregil’s shirt.

“We don’t know for certain it’s them,” Alec pointed out as they forced their tired horses into a last gallop. “It could be the man we stole the horses from.”

“It could be slave takers,” said Micum.

“I’d rather not wait around to see!” Seregil replied, taking the lead.

Whoever it was, they couldn’t be too far behind if Alec could hear them over the surf. Sure enough, when he looked back over his shoulder, he caught the glint of afternoon light on metal. “Damn!” Whoever it was behind them, their horses must be fresher, for they were steadily gaining. There were too many to be the horse breeder and his men, unless he’d raised the countryside against them.

“They’re gaining!” shouted Micum, though it hardly needed pointing out.

Their pursuers were close enough now that Alec could make out the pale ovals of faces, but not features yet. Still out of bowshot, hopefully. He didn’t fancy getting shot in the back again. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

And still the riders gained on them.

“We’re not going to make the cove!” Micum shouted.

“No, but we can make it there.” Seregil pointed to a nearby cottage above the ledges, one of the abandoned ones they’d passed when they’d first arrived here.

It wasn’t the best of redoubts. The roof thatching was rotting away on one end, and several shutters were hanging on by a hinge. The remains of a fishing net hung sun-rotted over a drying frame. But there was nothing better in sight.

“Rieser, take the horses around to the back and tie them up somehow,” Seregil ordered.

The door was blocked on the inside, but Seregil and Alec climbed in through one of the windows that flanked it and lifted the warped bar from the rusty staples. A table still stood at the center of the room, and there was one broken bench and an overturned sideboard. A rotting pallet lay in one corner close to the stone chimney.

They let the others in and barred the door again, then set about using the broken furniture to block the windows with broken shutters as best they could. The shutters still on their hinges were warped by the salt air and wouldn’t withstand much of an assault, but they’d be enough to shield them from archers, if it came to that.

“Look what I found,” said Rieser, brandishing a rusty axe.

“Good man!” exclaimed Micum.

Rieser nearly smiled.

Seregil looked around, taking stock. “So, one bow—”

Alec settled the quiver strap over his shoulder.

“I hope you’re as good as he says you are,” Rieser told him.

“He is,” said Seregil. Micum had one of the front windows half open now. “How many, Micum?”

“I’d say twenty at least.”

“Closer to twenty-five,” said Rieser.

“Damn, I don’t like those odds, not the way we’re armed,” Seregil said.

“What about this ship you keep talking about?” asked Rieser. “Can’t one of us go for help?”

Seregil exchanged a look with the others. “It’s not that far. Half an hour round trip, at most.”

“Longer, getting out to the ship to gather the men and get them organized,” Micum pointed out.

“You’re the fastest runner, Seregil,” said Alec. “And the least likely to be seen.”

He was right, of course, and there was no time to quibble.

“Give me the knife,” said Seregil.

Micum handed it to him. “No lollygagging, you.”

“Luck in the shadows,” added Alec.

“And to the rest of you.” Seregil gave him a quick kiss and ducked out the back window.

Seregil could have taken one of the horses, but that would have called too much attention, and at this distance he couldn’t outrun the riders. He could hear them more clearly now, and could tell by their shouts that they were making for the cottage. Crouching as low as he could, he kept the house between them until he reached a shallow gully that took him toward the headland and down over the lip of a rise. Out of sight of the cottage at last, he fixed his eye on the distant beach and ran for all their lives.

As he rounded the base of the small headland, however, he found the cove aglow with late-afternoon light, and quite empty.

“No!” He sank to his knees in the dry bladder wrack at the tide line and stared incredulously out across the empty water. Had they gotten the day wrong? Worse yet, had something happened to the Lady?

“Lord Seregil?” One of Rhal’s crewmen—Quentis, Seregil thought—emerged from a patch of bushes, brushing twigs and dead leaves from his jerkin. “Where’s the rest of ’em? The captain set me to watch for you—”

“Where’s the ship?” Seregil gasped, pushing himself to his feet and noting that Quentis was wearing a sword.

“It’s the tide, my lord.” The man hooked a thumb at the water, and Seregil cursed himself for a fool. The tide was out. “It’ll be another hour before there’s draft enough to float the Lady through the shoals.”

“An hour? We don’t have an hour!” The sun was sinking toward the western horizon. Squinting into the glare, he looked for some sign of the ship, but there was none that he could see. “Bilairy’s Balls, man, the others are trapped. Besieged!”

“What are we going to do, my lord?”

Seregil walked down to the waterline and washed the dust from his face and neck, trying to collect his thoughts. Quentis appeared at his elbow with a waterskin. Seregil rinsed his mouth, then took a sparing sip and slung the skin over his shoulder; you couldn’t run on a bellyful. “Do you have a boat?”

“Yes, hidden over there.”

“Good. I need your sword.” He glanced down at the smooth, egg-shaped rocks he was kneeling on. “And your shirt.”

“I’m coming with you!”

“No, you’re going to row out and signal the ship any way you can. You saw the direction I came from? If we don’t come back, have Rhal send a force up the road to a little cottage over that rise, on the seaward side of the road. He can make up his mind what needs to be done once he gets there.”

Quentis watched unhappily as Seregil buckled on the sword. “What are you going to do, my lord?”

“Whatever I can.”

“How many do you make it now?” Alec asked, leaning against the barred door.

“Closer to thirty, and there are archers among them,” said Micum, peering out. Their pursuers had reined in on the road. Some dismounted and came running forward with swords drawn. They made easy targets.

“All right, then.” Alec threw open one shutter at the other window and set an arrow to his bowstring. He took down three before the rest retreated, and two more still on horseback. A moment later, an arrow sang past his cheek and embedded itself in the wall behind him. Others followed, and Alec stepped back into cover. Picking up a fallen shaft, he looked at it closely.

“What do you make of it?” Micum asked.

“’Faie made, I’d say. That’s a relief of sorts,” Alec replied. “If we are captured, I’d rather it be by Ulan.” The head was chipped, but he sent it speeding back the way it had come anyway. His range was longer than they’d guessed. Another man fell. “That’s six, but not a kill.”

Micum grinned over at Rieser. “How does it feel, fighting beside a Tírfaie?”

Reiser hardly spared him a glance. “Necessary. They’re flanking us.”

He was probably right. There were more missing out there than Micum could account for by the dead. The archers were apparently well supplied, for they continued for quite a while. Alec finished the last of his arrows and those he could salvage, then slammed the shutter closed and barred it again. In the midst of it all they heard a commotion in back of the house.

“There go the horses,” said Micum, checking through the shutters.

“Now what?” Rieser asked.

“Attack or parley, I expect,” said Micum.

“Yes, here comes a man holding up a white scarf,” Alec told them. “It’s a parley.”

A moment later a man called out to them, “You in the house. We outnumber you and have no desire to kill you. Surrender now.”

“Who are you and why should we?” Micum called back.

“My name is Urien, captain of Ulan í Sathil’s personal guard. I speak for Ulan í Sathil of Virésse.”

“What does this Ulan fellow want with us?” Micum drawled back, stalling for time, trying to estimate if Seregil could possibly be on the way back yet. Most likely not. “We’re just humble travelers making our way, until you lot put Bilairy’s wind up our ass.”

“If that is so, then you should have no fear of showing yourselves.”

“No fear?” Micum scoffed. “With more arrows around us than sprills on a hedgehog’s back? Oh, no! You’ll kill us first and make certain of us afterward.”

“If you are innocent, then why did you run?”

“Where I’m from, the only men who ride around in gangs are bandits and soldiers, and they can both be trouble to travelers. As you have only just proven, I might add. It’s an outrage! And what, may I ask are Aurënfaie doing gadding about the Plenimaran countryside?”

“That’s no concern of yours, if you are what you say you are,” Urien retorted, sounding a little amused now. “You have some things that belong to the khirnari and he wants them back. Three books and a boy with blue eyes. Give those over and you’re free to go.”

“Books!” Micum feigned disbelief. “Who in their right mind busts into the house of a—what do you call it—Keer-nair-ey, and steals books? Don’t tell me you mistook us for scholars, too? And boys?”

Darkness was falling and torches were being lit.

“Send out Seregil the Bôkthersan!” a different, slightly higher voice called out.

“No one here by that name,” Micum called back. “Really, this is getting damned tiresome.”

“I know that voice,” Alec whispered, looking out through the shutters to be sure. “That’s Ilar!”

“The traitor who fancies your lover?” asked Rieser.

Alec 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, now that 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 end of 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 the tide. He should be sailing in about now.”

“If we run, they’ll cut us down,” Rieser whispered back, “but we’ve thinned them out. I count only eleven men left.”

“Are you ready to stop this?” someone called.

Seregil went to the side of one of the front windows and looked cautiously out. A man with the look of a captain sat on horseback beside a hooded man. Almost a dozen men were still in front of the house, nearly all of them archers. As he watched, two more staggered out of the shadows, clutching their heads.

That’s what I get for being merciful, Seregil thought—though he had rather assumed he’d killed them with his rock throwing.

Just then the mounted man next to Ulan pushed his hood back.

Seregil laughed. “Ilar! I didn’t expect to see you again.” Even from here he could see the dark, swollen bruise on his jaw.

Alec stepped in beside him, and for an instant Seregil was afraid he was going to charge out after him. Instead, he regarded the other man coldly. “You’re worse than a stray cat at supper time. Always turning up when you’re least wanted.”

Seregil studied Ilar’s face and the way he sat his horse. The library had been dark; now he had a better look at him, though, and it simply confirmed his impression. This was not the gloating man who’d made Seregil wash his feet and taunted him with fleeting glimpses of Alec during their captivity. Nor was this the same man who’d tried to seduce him once again during their escape. Even at this distance, Seregil could see fear in his face, and his stoop-shouldered, cringing posture. As their eyes met, however, he also saw the hunger in him. Ilar was Ulan’s creature now; no doubt certain promises had been made, which almost certainly did not involve letting Alec or him go.

“Well now, where are we?” he asked, leaning on the window frame.

“Surrender, and I assure you, none of you will be killed,” their leader replied.

“Those are your terms? Not very enticing.”

“You’re as foolish as your friends. Very well. The khirnari only wants Alec. You have his solemn word that he will be well treated. The rest of you can go.”

“Even worse!”

Micum, who’d been standing just behind Seregil, disappeared for a moment.

“Well treated?” Alec laughed hoarsely. “Then he’s either lying or he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s an abomination. How in Aura’s name can you support this, Captain Urien?”

When Micum returned his face was dark with fury. “Rieser is gone, and so are the books. All of them.”

Seregil kept his expression neutral and his attention on the captain.

“I was ordered to catch a thief and return what was stolen,” Urien told him. “These are the terms I was given. Whatever my khirnari asks of me, I know it is for the sake of Virésse.”

“Even if it means he becomes no better than a necromancer?”

“He’s lying to confuse you!” Ilar told him angrily. “Remember your honor, Captain. And the khirnari said to bring Seregil, as well. He’s one of the chief thieves. The others can be killed.”

Just then they heard a low whistle from behind the house.

Micum went to the window and looked out between the shutters. “Well I’ll be damned,” he whispered. “Rieser’s back, and he’s brought horses!”

“Captain, please grant me a few moments with my companions. They may take a bit of—convincing,” Seregil said.

“Take all the time you like,” Urien replied.

Seregil closed the shutters and went with the others to the back window. Outside two men lay on the ground, dead or senseless, and Rieser stood over them with four saddled horses and the bag of books slung from one of the pommels.

One by one they climbed out and took a horse, then began leading them away in the direction of the cove. They hadn’t gotten more than a hundred feet, however, when someone shouted, “There they go! They’re escaping!”

Seregil gave Micum a quick leg up onto his horse, then leapt into the saddle on his own and followed the others as they galloped for the cove, their starlight shadows coursing like pursuing dra’gorgos beneath them.

They had a head start and the element of surprise, but Urien and his remaining men were hard on their heels.

Rounding the headland for the second time that day, Seregil let out a victory cry at the sight of the ocean lapping at the high tide line and the Green Lady riding at anchor. Longboats were skimming in across the glassy surface of the cove, lanterns casting long spears of light toward the beach.

“Keep going!” Micum yelled as his horse lunged into the water.

Alec was close behind. “Look out! Archers!” he cried as he slid off his horse into the water, still clutching the pommel.

Seregil, for once in his life, was too slow. Something seared across his back like a hot whip, and then something heavy struck him in the side, knocking him off his horse into the water. His ankle caught in the stirrup and suddenly he was being dragged as the horse churned on, an arrow grinding between his ribs and water going up his nose. He wondered vaguely if he’d bleed to death or drown first. And oddest of all, someone was screaming something about him. It was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman, with his head bobbing in and out of the water, but they sounded hysterical.

Then a hand was gripping his arm so hard it hurt and another was pulling his caught foot free of the stirrup.

“Hold on,” Alec said against his ear. “The boats are coming. They’re almost here.”

Seregil coughed up salt water and gagged out, “Rieser—” He had the books.

“Micum went back for him.”

Back?

Arrows were still coming down in the water around them, but now others were whizzing back the other way from the boats.

Then rough hands and strong arms were hoisting them both up into a boat, and the arrow was catching on everything until a ham-fisted sailor snapped it off and Seregil allowed himself to scream just that once.

The voice calling his name was still carrying across the water. “Seregil! Seregil, don’t leave me here! Please! Come back. Take me with you! You know what they’ll do to me!”

Propped up against Alec’s chest, Seregil saw Ilar pacing back and forth at the water’s edge, wringing his hands and wailing. And that was the last thing Seregil remembered before he fainted.