They had their fingers about each other’s throats and were fighting for control of the soldier’s shortsword. The other soldiers, astonishingly, seemed to be already dead. Or stunned, perhaps, since I could see no blood or wounds. The black man joined the last remaining fight, lending his considerable strength to wrenching the officer’s sword from his hand. The officer glared furiously as his strength gave out; then the kid freed himself, hit him once, very hard, in the face, and watched him crumple to the floor.

I struggled to my feet, struck again by how light-headed and unsteady I felt. By the time I was upright the three soldiers weren’t, and my barbaric saviors were busy binding the innkeeper’s hands and gagging his mouth with a pillowcase. The girl was standing over the officer who had gone down the hardest with a broadsword pointed at his neck. Something in her eyes was as scary as the sword point. It was time for me to get the hell out.

The pale man with the piercing green eyes was nursing his wrist, but the group was calm, businesslike despite their earnest speed and horrifying efficiency, as if this wasn’t the first time they’d dealt with Empire soldiers. I looked at the girl, half expecting to see her break down or scream hysterically, but she was as cool as the rest of them.

I coughed and muttered, “I’m dead. I may as well hang myself right now. ‘Put him in the box,’ they said, Your Worship. That’s it. I’m dead.” With a miserable whine of despair I looked at the bodies and added, with what I thought to be unmistakable sarcasm, “Great. Thanks a lot. I don’t know who the devil you people are but you just did me a real favor.”

The pale man looked at me with his homicidal green eyes and shrugged as if I had praised them.

“It was nothing,” he said. “They were looking for you, not us. They were off their guard, their weapons were sheathed, two of them had their backs to us, and we had one extra pair of hands.”