To try and take my mind off of the building pain in my arms and shoulders, I did a bit of math in my head. In an hour, Cyrsan would return. I could hold out for that hour, I was strong enough for that.

How long would it take Bren to reach the guys? Probably not much less than an hour. There was no way he could take a horse – getting out of the village would be hard enough. So, he would run, and Bren was a decent runner. Maybe forty-five minutes if he really pushed himself? The guys had horses, but they would not be able to ride until they got out of the crags. Bringing the horses down from the cave would, in fact, make things go slower rather than quicker. Once they were onto the slopes, they could ride and that would make the return journey faster from there on. Half an hour?

So, if everything went as quickly as possible; if Bren got out of the village quickly – or at all – if he was able to run the whole way; if he explained to the guys quickly; if the horses did not slow them down too much at the start and galloped their hardest at the end, then it would take an hour and a quarter. That was a lot of ifs. And for me, that quarter of an hour with Cyrsan might seem like an eternity.

And then what would happen? The guys could hardly just attack, they were still outnumbered twenty-five to one. What could they even do? I wished that I had been telling the truth when I said they had rode away. At least then they would be safe. More likely, they would die here, and many more of my village would follow them.

And me?

Well, once the guys were dead, what happened to me didn’t really matter.

Perhaps I should never have brought the guys here at all. But it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. If only the rest of the village had seen in them what I saw. But I couldn’t blame them for that. Certainly not when I saw them looking up at me from the fringes of the square with their dead, despondent eyes. They knew that a similar fate awaited them in time.

The seconds ticked slowly by into long, drawn-out minutes, as I contemplated my fate and the sharp pain in my arms gave way to an agonized ache.

Realistically, Bren wouldn’t make that journey in forty-five minutes. Perhaps he could do it in less than an hour, but not by much. If I was honest with myself, then the guys would be starting out for Stenheim just as Cyrsan was starting to torture me. If they were quick, then they might have gotten about halfway here before I cracked. Which still gave the bandits plenty of time to get out to meet them on the open slopes.

The guys would not have a chance.

I do not know how long I hung there, the inevitability of death and defeat weighing down my mind even as I tried to see some shred of hope, if not for myself, then at least for the village, for my family, and for the men I had taken to my heart.

I suppose that it must have been impossible, but it was my strong impression at the time that I heard a noise, like a sharp wind approaching fast. There cannot have been time and yet, I do remember hearing the approach of that arrow, slicing through the air for long seconds before it cut straight through the rope that held me and I dropped to the ground, my legs crumpling beneath me, the relief of being free tempered by the return of sensation to my numbed limbs, allowing me to feel the pain afresh.

The bandit guards who stood about me whirled around to see what had happened, and two were felled by arrows in quick succession, before they realized they were under attack.

“Find cover, you fools!” Cyrsan’s voice rang out. “Bring me that girl!”

Cyrsan might have been a monster, but he was a clever one, he knew that having me as a captive would give him the trump card.

But the pair of bandits who ran to grab me were dead before they hit the ground, arrows in their chests.

“Where the hell is that archer?!”

A thundering of hoofbeats made the bandits forget Kai for a minute. I looked behind me and saw Luca galloping through the village as fast as his horse would go, bearing down on me. He reached down off the horse and, as I felt his arm close around me and scoop me up into the saddle, I felt a lightness, as if I might actually float away. My men were here and all was right with the world. I didn’t know how they were here, I didn’t know if I was simply hallucinating, but I didn’t care.

“Stop the horse! Don’t let him get away!” Cyrsan continued to issue orders, but there seemed to be a problem. He might be King Cyrsan to his own men, but the other bandit gangs were not accustomed to being shouted at by strangers. In a dire situation, soldiers will follow orders for the good of the unit – bandits are not so generously inclined.

A handful of bandits – mostly Cyrsan’s own – ran out to block Luca’s path through the village, thrusting spears up at him. But Luca had drawn his sword and carved a path through them, with help from Kai’s arrows, which continued to pick off bandits with unerring accuracy.

“Where is that damn archer?!” Cyrsan was practically shrieking now, and I delighted in hearing him lose control.

Luca and I galloped out the far side of the village.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine now.”

“Good girl.” His sword deftly cut the ropes that bound my hands and he let me slip from the saddle to the ground. “Find somewhere safe to hide out here, this is going to get bloody.”

“I want to help!”

“By the gods, do you never learn?” Luca wheeled his horse about and charged back the way he had come.

Of course, he was right. I had nearly gotten myself killed last time I tried to help.

On the other hand, if I hadn’t tried, then the guys would have attacked Stenheim unaware of the numbers they were facing. As it was, Bren had clearly gotten away and told them – though how he had done it in the time I was not sure. I had probably saved their lives.

That was apparently all the justification I needed to start running back towards the village as fast as my legs would carry me. I could barely lift my arms, and my shoulders were a solid mass of pain, but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing everything I could. Regardless of how stupid it was. You can’t keep a disobedient girl down.

As I re-entered the village, I expected to find utter chaos, but it was, instead, eerily quiet. Bandits hurried through the streets, looking about them for the mercenaries, occasionally kicking down doors to search houses, but they were strangely silent as they did it. It was as if they were scared. There were only four men standing against them and yet, they acted as if they had already lost. It occurred to me that if it had been a hundred against fifty, then the hundred would have been confident. But a hundred against four? That felt like the four knew something you didn’t. There was an unease about the bandits that was making the loose truce between the gangs even less secure; fights had started to break out between the bandits themselves as tensions boiled over.

I stole back towards the square, moving carefully, trying not to be seen, but I didn’t seem to matter anymore; they were only interested in the guys. Reaching the square, I peered out from behind a corner and couldn’t quite believe what I saw. At one side of the square stood Cyrsan and the other bandit chiefs, each with his own heavily armed entourage. Opposite them, strolling towards them with his spear in hand, was Taka. He stopped.

“Good morning.”

I almost screamed as an arrow zipped towards him. Taka knocked it out of the air with his spear. Seconds later, there was the sound of another arrow and a cry from the direction from which the first arrow had come.

“Thanks, Kai,” called Taka. “And if there are any other archers out there, I would advise you to take note of that.”

Kai would be taking down anyone who aimed for Taka.

“Your archer will run out of arrows soon,” commented Cyrsan.

“Bet your life?” asked Taka.

Cyrsan smiled nastily. “I’ve been here before, you know. I know how this goes. You have nothing but a veneer of confidence and you’ll use it to bluff. You’ll tell me to surrender now and I can walk away unharmed.”

Taka shook his head. “If I let you walk away, then when we leave there is nothing to stop you coming back. No. I’m afraid you die today. All of you. It really is the only way to be sure.”

“You think you can kill all of us.”

Taka looked about the square, as if doing a rough calculation in his head. “Yes.”

“You think the villagers will pick up weapons and come to your aid.”

“Dear gods, no.” Taka shook his head again. “These people couldn’t defend themselves against a strong wind. On the other hand, I couldn’t tell you how to make cheese out of milk. Always seems like a miracle to me – where does the milk go? Everybody has their area of skill. This is mine. Not necessarily more or less important than making cheese, but very useful right now. Whereas, cheese is probably less so. No, I don’t expect the villagers to help. I hope they don’t. They’d be shit at it and we’d be wasting time trying to stop them getting killed when we ought to be killing you.”

“You’re a very confident man,” said Cyrsan. “A man like you should be standing where I am.”

Taka laughed. “I wouldn’t be in your shoes for all the money in the world. And that’s saying something, because I love money. But you’re standing alongside people who live their lives by a credo of violence, and who you led into this situation. Some of their men are already dead and I guarantee more are going to follow. And for what? A party in a dead-end town? Let’s say you’re right, and by some miracle you win this afternoon. What then? You think your fellow chiefs are going to forgive and forget. Like I said ‘King’ Cyrsan, one way or another, you die today. If we don’t kill you, then one of your allies is going to.”

Cyrsan was trying to act as confident as Taka, and given that weight of numbers was on his side, he ought to have been good at it. But he looked very uneasy now as he recognized the truth in Taka’s words.

“So, if you will accept nothing less than our deaths,” Cyrsan struggled to regain the upper hand, “what do you want? Why are we talking now?”

“I’m creating a distraction to give my men some time,” explained Taka, as mild and easy going as ever.

Cyrsan gritted his teeth, his frustration at being the one in the position of power and yet, somehow on the back foot, becoming more and more obvious. “If you and your men don’t get out now, then I shall order my men to start killing the people of Stenheim.”

Taka nodded. “That should be long enough.”

There had been a background murmur growing during the last few exchanges of the conversation, and now it broke out into cries and pointing fingers.

“The camp’s on fire!”

I looked across the houses in the direction of the bandit encampment and saw a plume of black smoke. As I watched, there was a sudden flare of flame and a billowing of more smoke as the fire located something particularly flammable.

Before Cyrsan and his fellow chiefs could issue an order, a new sound overwhelmed the voices and the crackle of the fire. Hoofbeats. The bandit camp had been located near the stables, horses do not like fire, and it seemed that someone had opened the stable door. Horses stampeded into the village square, galloping across in a mad frenzy, finding any way through they could, and trampling anything in their path. The villagers had retreated to their homes when all this began, but the bandits were still on the streets and were now desperate to get off them as horses, made crazy by the fear of fire, threatened to plow them down. The other thing that horses do not like is panicked humans and, right now, they were surrounded by them. They reared up, pawing the air with their front hooves, or lashed out backwards, kicking at any who might be there.

Through this melee strode Taka, quickly but calmly, his composure his shield against the horses. He passed through them as easily as a hot knife through warm butter, as if the horses sensed some aura of authority around him, and had reached the group of bandit chiefs before they had even realized what was happening.

I had wanted Cyrsan’s death to be a big moment. I wanted him to understand that he was a bad guy, and have the opportunity to regret what he had done in underestimating his adversaries. I wanted him to suffer like he had made me suffer. But mercenaries are only interested in the end result – it wasn’t personal. Taka took down the bandit king with a single thrust of his spear and moved on to the next without pause. The weapon spun in his hands as the chiefs and their hangers-on moved to defend themselves even as they tried to avoid being trampled. Taka moved like a man born to fight, his every move perfect and economical. Another man might have gone over the top and used all their strength with every blow, might have paused to enjoy each victory, but Taka did enough; no less, no more. It was all in a day’s work.

I would have liked to watch, but I had problems of my own. I was on the street with the horses, which had now found the street down which I was hiding. One shoved me hard against the wooden wall of a house, knocking the breath from me. I tried to get between them, imitating Taka, but the horses sensed my inner panic. I fell to my knees as another swiped me with its lashing mane. Around me was a sea of writhing legs and stamping hooves, nowhere for me to turn.

Suddenly, I felt a grip on my collar and I was hoisted onto the back of a horse.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” asked Rex, easily strong enough to pick me up one-handed. “Didn’t Luca get you clear?”

“I wanted to help,” I said meekly.

“Help? Why you… Hold that thought.” He had caught sight of a group of bandits hiding down an alley, too narrow for the horses. Looping his steed’s reins to a hitching post, Rex swung to the ground, axe in hand. The bandits launched themselves at him. The first had his head split while Rex dodged the sword of the second, grabbed him by the neck and smacked him into a wall hard enough to splinter the wood. The spear of the third sliced through the flesh of Rex’s arm but he barely seemed to notice, catching hold of the shaft and using it to pull the bandit into the path of his axe. The final two ran. Rex hurled the spear of his last victim and it kebabbed one of the runners in a spurt of gore. The last man dived into a house and I saw Rex follow. A split-second later, the bandit was hurled out and from inside I heard Rex say, “Excuse me, Ma’am,” to the householder before following the bandit out and efficiently breaking his neck.

He returned to the horse. “Where was I?”

“Where’s Kai?” I asked – I hadn’t seen him since this started.

“In the church tower. Traditional for archers. Now, I haven’t got time to look after you. Taka needs me with Luca on the perimeter to make sure these bastards don’t get away. There’s a nice lady in that house down there – get in there and stay put!”

He shoved me off the horse, into the alley, and rode off, beheading a fleeing bandit as he went.

I ran towards the house but then, just beyond the far end of the alley, I saw a dead bandit, lying on the ground with an arrow stuck in his chest. That was how I could help!

I ran on past the house where Rex had told me to hide, and tugged the arrow from the bandit’s corpse. He was far from alone, Kai had been peppering the bandits with arrows from his vantage point in the church tower. He had to be running short of arrows by now. The rampaging horses were now spread out a bit, though still managing to cause a fair amount of chaos, and I was able to weave between them to the dead bodies, grabbing arrows as I went. When I had a fair number, I ran as fast as I could towards the church, through the doors and up the spiral stairs to the tower.

There, crouched by the window, was Kai. He spun about as I entered, his arrow pointed at my face.

“No! It’s me. I brought you arrows.”

“What the hell are you doing here? I thought Luca was getting you someplace safe?”

“I brought you arrows,” I tried again, and for a moment Kai did look grateful, he had been getting short. But it turned out that arrows were not all I had brought.

“She went this way. Come on.” Voices came from the stairs and I realized that some of the bandits had followed me, rightly surmising that I might lead them to their attackers. In an instant, Kai was on his feet and at the door to meet them. His short sword clashed with the weapon of the first bandit.

“Get the girl.”

The second pushed past to grab me and I lashed out with my fists to defend myself. Kai stabbed his sword sideways to take out my attacker, but that put him in a bad position with his own bandit, and as he tried to repel the man’s blade, his sword was knocked from his hand. It went skittering across the stone floor to fall from the low tower window.

The bandit grinned and stabbed at Kai. But the archer was too quick; pivoting on one foot, he brought his other around in a roundhouse kick, stunning the bandit. Grabbing the man’s sword arm, Kai delivered a series of sharp punches to his face then kicked him down the stairs. He lay lifeless at the bottom.

Kai turned back to me. “Thank you for the arrows. Now, sit down there. Be quiet and be still.”

Maybe it was time for me to do as I was told. Frankly, I felt that I had been helpful but maybe it was best to quit while I was ahead. And I would have sat out the rest of the battle up there, were it not for something I saw from the window. As Kai picked out his next target and sighted along the arrow, I saw Luca. He was going house to house, looking for bandits who were hiding out. Almost as soon as he opened the door, I saw him backing away, holding his hands up. He was followed out by a bandit with a knife to the throat of a child. I stared, wide-eyed, I knew that Luca would not let the child be harmed, but I did not see what he could do. As I watched, Luca laid down his sword, doing as the hostage-taker commanded. More bandits now emerged from the house and grabbed Luca by the arms. I couldn’t watch any more, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could.

“Keira!” I heard Kai’s irritated shout behind me.

By the time I got outside, Luca had been dragged back indoors by the bandits, aware of Kai’s marksmanship. I raced toward the door. Inside, I saw that the bandits had let the child go and it now stood in a corner, cowering behind its mother, watching helplessly as the bandits worked on Luca. Three of them held him fast while another punched him over and over in the face and gut.

“Not such a big man now, are you?” the bandit sneered.

Luca spit blood into the man’s face.

“You’ll regret that.” The man drew a knife. “How much do you think I’ll have to cut you before you start to scream?”

“Luca!” Nothing I said could do any good, but I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

The bandits turned at my shout. And suddenly Luca came to life. His head, which had sunk to his chest, snapped sharply back, cracking the nose of the bandit behind him. He stamped on the foot of one of his captors, and the man loosened his grip enough that he could wrench an arm free and deliver a punch that would have stopped a bull into the face of the man on his other arm. The man with the knife now flew at Luca, knocking him to the floor.

“Hold him.”

Whichever of the bandits could still move tried to pin Luca down, and with horror I saw the knife going into Luca’s stomach. But in the next moment, Luca reared up with a roar, throwing his attacker over. The knife jabbed up, this time into Luca’s shoulder, but he fought on. Unable to hold back, I grabbed a chair and smashed it over the head of one of the other bandits. Another made a run for the door – torturing a man was fine when he wasn’t fighting back, but this was getting dangerous – I saw him drop dead with an arrow through his neck before he’d gone two paces. Luca had the wrist of the last bandit in his grasp, fighting for control of the knife.

As I watched, I saw the bandit’s face turn to horror as the point twisted toward his throat. Beaten, stabbed and losing blood though he was, Luca was still strong enough to take this man down. The mother in the corner finally hid her child’s eyes as the bandit shrieked.

I rushed forward, hurling the corpse to one side. “Luca!”

The mercenary slumped in my arms, his blood flowing hotly over me.

“Luca?”

Outside, the sounds of battle were ceasing – the bandits had been defeated. But in here, it didn’t feel like a victory.