The White Road - Lynn Flewelling [144]
Whoever it was, they couldn't be too far behind if Alec could hear them over the surf. Sure enough, when he looked back over his shoulder, he caught the glint of afternoon light on metal. "Damn!" Whoever it was behind them, their horses must be fresher, for they were steadily gaining. There were too many to be the horse breeder and his men, unless he'd raised the countryside against them.
"They're gaining!" shouted Micum, though it hardly needed pointing out.
Their pursuers were close enough now that Alec could make out the pale ovals of faces, but not features yet. Still out of bowshot, hopefully. He didn't fancy getting shot in the back again. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
And still the riders gained on them.
"We're not going to make the cove!" Micum shouted.
"No, but we can make it there." Seregil pointed to a nearby cottage above the ledges, one of the abandoned ones they'd passed when they'd first arrived here.
It wasn't the best of redoubts. The roof thatching was rotting away on one end, and several shutters were hanging on by a hinge. The remains of a fishing net hung sun-rotted over a drying frame. But there was nothing better in sight.
"Rieser, take the horses around to the back and tie them up somehow," Seregil ordered.
The door was blocked on the inside, but Seregil and Alec climbed in through one of the windows that flanked it and lifted the warped bar from the rusty staples. A table still stood at the center of the room, and there was one broken bench and an overturned sideboard. A rotting pallet lay in one corner close to the stone chimney.
They let the others in and barred the door again, then set about using the broken furniture to block the windows with broken shutters as best they could. The shutters still on their hinges were warped by the salt air and wouldn't withstand much of an assault, but they'd be enough to shield them from archers, if it came to that.
"Look what I found," said Rieser, brandishing a rusty axe.
"Good man!" exclaimed Micum.
Rieser nearly smiled.
Seregil looked around, taking stock. "So, one bow--"
Alec settled the quiver strap over his shoulder.
"I hope you're as good as he says you are," Rieser told him.
"He is," said Seregil. Micum had one of the front windows half open now. "How many, Micum?"
"I'd say twenty at least."
"Closer to twenty-five," said Rieser.
"Damn, I don't like those odds, not the way we're armed," Seregil said.
"What about this ship you keep talking about?" asked Rieser. "Can't one of us go for help?"
Seregil exchanged a look with the others. "It's not that far. Half an hour round trip, at most."
"Longer, getting out to the ship to gather the men and get them organized," Micum pointed out.
"You're the fastest runner, Seregil," said Alec. "And the least likely to be seen."
He was right, of course, and there was no time to quibble.
"Give me the knife," said Seregil.
Micum handed it to him. "No lollygagging, you."
"Luck in the shadows," added Alec.
"And to the rest of you." Seregil gave him a quick kiss and ducked out the back window.
Seregil could have taken one of the horses, but that would have called too much attention, and at this distance he couldn't outrun the riders. He could hear them more clearly now, and could tell by their shouts that they were making for the cottage. Crouching as low as he could, he kept the house between them until he reached a shallow gully that took him toward the headland and down over the lip of a rise. Out of sight of the cottage at last, he fixed his eye on the distant beach and ran for all their lives.
As he rounded the base of the small headland, however, he found the cove aglow with late-afternoon light, and quite empty.
"No!" He sank to his knees in the dry bladder wrack at the tide line and stared incredulously out across the empty water. Had they gotten the day wrong? Worse yet, had something happened to the Lady?
"Lord Seregil?" One of Rhal's crewmen--Quentis, Seregil thought--emerged from a patch of bushes, brushing twigs and