He couldn’t reach the man on the ground with his sword, but one of the foot travelers could. Four to three now. One of the men knocked the brigand trying to climb out of the ditch back into it.

The remaining two brigands reined their horses around and, kicking vigorously, rode at speed into the woods. Arcolin listened to their receding hoofbeats. His own mount was breathing hard, finally, sweat showing on its neck. He looked around. The man whose arm he’d severed sprawled on the ground, unconscious or dead—his horse had slowed to a stop some distance away and was now snatching nervously at grass on the verge of the path.

Arcolin rode over to the ditch, where the last brigand was trying to catch his horse. The horse moved faster in the muddy ditch bottom than the man, and finally scrambled out on the near side; the man managed to grab its tail for help up the slope, then pulled himself into the saddle from the off side, as Arcolin rode toward him. The man smacked his horse with the flat of his sword, and kicked; the horse threw a tremendous buck, then another and another, and the man flew off, landing with a loud thump. Arcolin was off his horse and had run him through before the man caught his breath. Then he saw the leg bent at the wrong angle and realized the man would have been no danger.

“We owe you thanks, sir.” One of the travelers came toward him, staff still in a defensive position. “It would have gone hard with us—”

“You use your staves well,” Arcolin said. “Are you Girdish?”

The man beamed. “Yes, sir. All of us, and the children, too. And Tamis there—” He nodded at one of the others. “He was in the Foss militia two more years than I was.” He paused. “You’re one of Phelan’s captains, aren’t you? I saw a Phelani cohort pass by a while ago. Haven’t see one for the past few years; wondered if they were ever coming back.”

“Yes, I’m Captain Arcolin,” Arcolin said.

“So the Red Fox is back, is he?”

“No, not Phelan himself,” Arcolin said. “When you get to Valdaire, some of the rumors are true—he’s king of Lyonya now. I’m leading the Company.”

“Liss is hurt bad,” one of the other men said, coming up. “She won’t be able to walk.”

Arcolin led his horse closer. The woman on the ground had a lump on her head, but the worse injury was to her leg, trampled during the fight. The younger woman knelt behind her, supporting her shoulders to give her a sip of water.

“There’s a caravan headed east a ways behind me,” Arcolin said. “If we get you over onto the road, they may be able to help.”

His horse jerked up its head and looked back eastward. Arcolin looked along the road and saw a horseman approaching at speed, carrying a maroon and white pennant. Closer yet, he saw it was Sergeant Devlin, on one of the spare horses.