As the other citizens approached, Arvid looked up at the house roof. Nothing. Back along the wall. Nothing … Wait … a crossbow’s prod, just above the wall, swiveling to bear on him; he leapt aside as a bolt zipped past and shattered on the building behind him.

Now the others were near, yelling; the bow disappeared. He charged the gate, saw the man with the crossbow running toward Regar and two more holding struggling children, dragging them toward the back of the stoneyard. Regar’s son was doing his best to kick the thief where it would hurt.

Arvid leaped for the wall to one side of the gap, pulled himself up, and jumped down onto the stacked blocks of stone. He took a moment to throw the serrated disk at the man with the crossbow; the man jerked aside and then ran to help the other two. Arvid followed, just as Regar’s son landed a hard heel in a soft and vulnerable spot. That thief yelped and loosened his grip. The boy wriggled free, grabbed a stone fragment from the ground, and tried to attack the thief.

Now the others were in the entrance, tangling with one another in their hurry. Arvid ignored that but for a quick glance to be sure no one was attacking his back. Could he save the children?

Call on me.

Not now!

NOW.

Something blurred his sight, a flat peasant face, broad and lined, yellowed gray hair. He wanted to argue with the voice—surely it knew about the children—but the face was there, in his way.

“Gird,” he muttered. “DO something!”

The face disappeared. Regar’s son’s rock connected solidly with one thief’s eye; the man yowled, dropped his dagger, and put both hands to his face. The boy hit him again, with a larger rock, and he went down. Meanwhile the third thief had taken one of the girls from the man who had struggled with both.

Arvid reached one of them, applied the necessary grip and force, and peeled the girl out of his grip. “Run,” he said to the girl, as he evaded a knife slash with the man’s other arm and tried to position himself to force the man down. But they knew the same tricks; they had the same training, the same weapons.

“I’ll kill her!” the last man warned, holding a knife to the throat of his captive. Arvid, fully engaged with his opponent, could do nothing. DO something, he thought at Gird. He heard more people coming—the thud and scrape of boots, the sound of blows, cries of anger and pain. Then a cudgel as thick as his upper arm came down past his nose on the thief’s head, and the man sagged. Before Arvid could shift his own blade, someone else had cut the man’s throat.