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to gape at the broad-headed arrow that had transfixed the first one's throat.
    The short-bow volley fell wide, arrows hissing into the grass like snakes. "Randi, they're shooting at us," Goldie panted. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
    They were almost upon the horseman, who still hadn't freed his weapon from his victim. Ignoring her mare, Zaranda screamed, "Look me in the eye before you die, you scum!"
    The horseman was quick on the uptake. He let go his trapped lance immediately, and was drawing his broadsword even as he turned. He saw Zaranda charging not twenty feet away, bared yellow teeth, and flung his sword high for a downward stroke.
    Zaranda dug her heels into Goldie's flanks, urging her into a final surge of speed. As the mare dashed past the larger horse, Zaranda slashed forehand beneath the upraised arm. Her magic-imbued blade sliced almost effortlessly through stained leather, meat, and bone with a humming, crackling sound.
    The raider fell, his final expression one of bewilderment. "I hate that sour-milk smell," Goldie complained as Zaranda reined her in, almost in the burning cottage's yard. "Why did you have to get a magic sword imbued with lightning? It's not as if it actually throws bolts or anything… Uh-oh."
    The last remark was elicited by the fact that, in spite of being well and truly on fire, the cot was disgorging marauders, half a dozen of them, casting away loot bundled into pillowcases in order to draw their blades. They were dirty, unkempt, and unshaven, dressed in rags and tag ends of armor, and their weapons were in as dire need of cleaning as their teeth. The armaments looked serviceable enough, despite their lamentable condition.
    Three more horsemen came drumming out from around the far side of the burning house. One of them had two wing-fluttering hens, one black, one white-and-black checked, tied by the feet to the pommel of his saddle. He brandished a sword, as did one of his mounted fellows. The third swung the spiked, fist-sized ball of an aspergillum-style morningstar on its chain about his helmeted head.
    Zaranda winced; they were devilish things to defend against.
    The riders showed cunning. Rather than rushing straight at the mounted interloper, they spurred their horses wide, hoping to pin her against the house and the semicircle of footmen. Zaranda just had time to wheel Goldie about and dart for safety.
    But that was never her style.
    "Head down, babe," she murmured to her mare, and nudged her hard with her heels.
    "You don't want me-"
    "Go!"
    The golden palomino mare put her head down and lunged forward-straight for the doorway of the flaming cottage. Zaranda laid her magic saber about her, looping left and right so that the blade formed wings that shimmered silver gossamer in the morning sun. Utterly astonished by her mad forward rush, the footmen broke to either side. She felt Crackletongue's enchanted steel bite flesh gratifyingly as she passed.
    Then she laid her body forward along Goldie's arched neck, and the mare lunged into the building, trailing a despairing cry of "Za- ran -daaa!" Smoke drooled upward over the lintel of the doorframe, caressing Zaranda's nose and eyes with stinging fingers. Then they were inside, hooves thumping on earth packed hard and soaked with beasts' blood in classic Tethyrian country fashion, dried into a smooth hard maroon surface like glazed tile and covered with rush straw. Flames ran like dancing rat spirals up the ornately carved posts that upheld the roof, and wound about the roof beams a handspan above Zaranda's unarmored back. She felt their heat, heard their lustful crackle, felt embers fall on the back of her neck, smelled her own hair start to burn.
    As she hoped, there was a kitchen door. They burst through into the relative cool of open. Woman and mare released the breath they had been holding and filled their lungs with blessed clean air. Zaranda let go the reins, which she held only from long equestrian habit, to bat away the