“I think fate is commanding us to do something foolish.” I dismounted.
“It’s not fate!” Leddie snapped as she dismounted too. “You’re doing this just because you goddamn want to!”
“Well, come on and make sure I do it right.” I didn’t even glance at her as I said it. I didn’t mind helping some people who were weeping, but I mostly wanted to kill the bastards guarding them.
Leddie paused, hissing. “I’ll stay in the back.”
Whistler stamped his foot. “Oh, shut up! Stop complaining. You caused your own damn problems, so stop whimpering about it.”
Leddie reached for her sword, and Whistler jumped back.
“Stop!” I shouted. One of the men guarding the structure turned toward us. “Shit!”
Halla had stepped between Whistler and Leddie. “I do not care if you kill each other, but go somewhere else to do it.”
“Harik’s flopping tits! You’re worse than my sisters fighting over a new shawl!” I strode out into the square, not much caring who was following. The guards saw me coming and swung around to face me. I saw six of them now.
“Stop there!” said a heavily scarred man.
“Yes, sir, I’m stopping,” I said without slowing down. “I’m bringing supplies. You can inspect them.”
“No, stop there!” The man raised his sword, and his friends did too.
I held up my empty hands and kept walking. “Yes, I am stopping. You can’t inspect the supplies from that far off, though. Here, let me show you.” By then, I was thirty feet away from him.
“Don’t take another step!” The man shouted, but he didn’t close with me. He was waiting until I was near enough to kill with no strain, which was perfect.
A pale fellow to the man’s right pointed with his sword. “Hey! That’s Leddie!”
All the men gaped at Leddie.
“Damn it to Krak’s dick!” Leddie shouted. She drew her sword and charged the man who’d spoken. At the same time, I drew my sword, bounded forward, and slashed the scarred man’s throat while he was still squinting at Leddie.
The scarred man fell right away, but the fellow next to him was a skilled fighter. He almost cut me on the first pass. I riposted, he blocked, and I disengaged. I hoped he would think I was overmatched and in retreat. He fulfilled that hope by rushing me hard. I drew him off balance and stabbed him in the chest.
Whistler was overpowering a swordsman with a furious string of cuts. I knocked Whistler aside and killed that man two seconds later. He died looking confused.
Then the fighting was done. To my left, Leddie had disabled a man, and to my right, Halla had killed the last two with brutal, bloody cuts from her spear. Whistler ran to the structure and started unlatching the door. Leddie killed the disabled man before I could reach him.
“Those will be Memweck’s warriors in there,” Leddie said.
“What does that mean?” Bea scowled.
“Memweck is training his soldiers and shield men. He likes to start them young.”
I peered in as Bea pushed past me. Nine children sat on the ground inside, most of them wailing. None seemed to be over ten years old. “Leddie, how many of these warriors has he stolen?”
“About two hundred, I guess.”
Whistler swore an oath so repugnant that when my father heard me say it, he punched me in the eye.
Halla murmured something and shook her head.
From inside the cage, Bea said, “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.”
Leddie shrugged. “The last I knew, about a hundred and fifty were still alive. That training’s worse than disembowelment from what I hear.”
Bea charged out of the cage toward Leddie, screaming, “Is he alive?” She grabbed at Leddie, who sidestepped and threw her to the ground.
Leddie held one arm up and shook it. “Gah! I think you got snot from one of those little rodents on my wrist. All the infants were alive last time I was there. You can’t exactly make babies have a knife fight, can you? Think about it!”
“Watch out!” Whistler shouted.
That was as non-specific as warnings get, but it might have saved my life. I leaped toward the cage. I figured if somebody thought the kids were valuable, then they wouldn’t drop a boulder on top of them or shoot a volley of arrows at them.
A phenomenal boom shook the wooden cage behind me as I came to my feet. Whistler had thrown himself backward and was sitting on the ground against the cage wall, his head down.
Ten armed men stood across the square, about sixty feet away. A wide trench had opened in front of the cage, just a few feet away from me. A sheet of flame erupted out of it and then disappeared. Whistler flinched away. Halla had been teetering on the edge, and the fire set her left leg and arm ablaze.
Leddie stood on the other side of the trench from me, using one hand to pull Bea away from the trench by her hair. Then Leddie dropped Bea and charged the ten men straightaway.
I expected Halla to fall down and roll, but she didn’t do that at all. Instead, she ran four steps toward our attackers and hurled her spear. Once it left her hand, she threw herself onto the paving stones, rolling to put out the flames.
At least two sorcerers were attempting to kill us, but they had begun shabbily, so none of us was dead yet. One of them was a Breaker, who could make things not exist. He had made the trench. The other was a Burner, who could set nonliving things afire. He had set the air in the trench alight in a brief but furiously hot blaze. He probably would have enjoyed burning all our clothes and weapons, but the chance of accidentally burning the children was high.
As I sprinted around the trench, Halla’s spear bore down on one of the men. She had aimed for the Burner, who was our most dangerous enemy. The two sorcerers reacted, but
