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summoned the village physician to her bedside. We are in no position to entertain visitors this afternoon. Perhaps you might return tomorrow. Or maybe Anomer could accompany you to your own accommodation?’
    ‘Ah, then our arrival is indeed providential, for my companion here is a physician. A good one, undoubtedly superior to any hedge-doctor that might have washed up on the coarse sand of this village. Open your door and let him attend her.’
    Noetos began to sweat, and wished he could wipe away the betraying sheen that had sprung up on his brow. ‘My lords, I thank you for your offer. But our physician is well versed in the needs of my wife, and brings with him the unguent she needs—’
    ‘What she needs, if she wishes to retain any semblance of good health,’ the second Recruiter said, his mellifluous voice all the more intimidating because of its mildness, ‘is for her foolish husband to open the door to this house. Do it now.’ He drew his sword a few inches out of its scabbard, and its sharp edge glittered in the harsh Fossan sunlight.
    In answer Noetos slammed the door shut and drew down the bar. Beside him Anomer drove a wedge under the jamb. ‘Have your mother and sister escaped?’ Noetos asked him.
    ‘Two more Recruiters wait outside the back door. I listened to them talk: they tracked Arathé by the sword she took from them, and know she is here. We cannot get past them.’
    ‘Yet we must. We must. I have my family back, son. I would not lose you now.’
    The Recruiters did not try to force open the front door by strength. What they were doing became clear as a shimmer of blue fire spread over the wooden surface of the door. Noetos sprang back: it was cold to the touch. He’d never seen magic before, aside from the battlefield, and that only in the distance. Illusion, he’d been told. This, however, looked disturbingly real.
    The door began to splinter.
    ‘Go back to the others!’ Noetos cried, then grabbed a chair, stood on it and stretched up towards the translucent cupola that served to let light into their living room. Feeling around the joint where the glass dome met the stone ceiling, he found his old scabbard, then his sword, along with a few cockroach husks. Ignoring the latter, he belted the scabbard around his waist, where it hung comfortably, as it had always done. Years since he’d worn it, years since he’d used anything but training blades with Arathé and Anomer. Once learned, never forgotten. He hoped.
    Sudden shouts erupted behind him, somewhere down the end of the hallway that led to the kitchen and bedrooms. Fear gripped his heart then, and he leaped down from the chair just in time to watch his front door collapse in a sheet of flame that washed outwards, then vanished. Behind the magic flame the two Recruiters, swords drawn, strode into his house. The might of Andratan.
    It was nearly twenty years since Noetos had fought in the Neherian war. He’d been a teenager when he last drew a killing sword, fighting beside his father. He slew Neherians, took wounds, but the fields of battle lost their lustre well before the time he found himself sitting on a rocky Neherian field, his father’s head in his lap, sightless eyes staring into his own.
    Twenty years, but it seemed his arm remembered the sword all too well. He threw himself backwards across the room to the hallway, then took a position at the entrance. Behind him the sounds of fighting continued, blade on blade. Anomer must have retrieved his short sword from his bedroom, or perhaps he’d picked up his sister’s blade. Good. If it has gone on this long, Anomer must have secured some kind of advantage.
    Within seconds the Recruiters were upon him. There was no cry, no challenge, no quarter. Just blows swifter than he could imagine, heavier than anything the Neherians had brought to bear on him. His arm remembered the sword, but he had never been accounted a good defensive swordsman. His years of training had not prepared