The main avenue squad had formed up at the edge of the first cleared street, with the barricade’s wreckage behind them.

Then Beorn moved to Harr’s position at the front.

"Two men on the north wall of each building we pass," he said to Harr. "Have them watch the doors and the upper windows while the squad moves."

Harr looked at the buildings along the second street. "That narrows the space."

"It does," Beorn said. "Do it anyway."

Harr called out two names and pointed. The two men broke from the squad and took their positions along the facing wall.

Then the bolt came from behind and to the left.

The runner carrying Godric’s update to the side squad was two steps ahead of Beorn when the bolt hit him. The impact drove him sideways into the building wall. The sound was dull and solid, between the shoulder and the spine, somewhere in the upper back on the right side.

He went down the wall to one knee.

His hands found the stone and held there while his body worked out whether it was done moving. The man beside him caught his arm.

Beorn read the shot from where the runner had been standing and where he had landed.

He did not look at the building directly. He looked at the door.

"You two," he said, to the bearded soldier and the man beside him. "That building on the left. Go."

They went without discussion.

He looked back at the squad. "Keep moving. Don’t stop in the street."

The squad moved. He moved with it.

The second street opened in front of them.

He watched it building by building, ground floor to upper floor, observing each for the details of things that were wrong.

The doors on the north face were mostly open.

One door had been barred from inside. It took two soldiers leaning their weight into it to confirm it was not going to move.

"Leave it," Beorn said. "Mark and keep going."

One soldier chalked the frame, the mark they had agreed on before the operation, and the squad continued.

Forty feet further, a door opened from the inside before anyone touched it.

A man somewhere past fifty stood in the door with both hands held out and empty.

He had the look of who had been in the building for days and had been waiting for anyone that wasn’t with Coss.

"Civilian," Beorn said. "Tell him to stay inside until this is finished."

The nearest soldier spoke to him. The man nodded twice and stepped back.

The door closed.

At the second street’s far end, Beorn stopped the squad with one raised hand.

He moved to the corner of the last building and looked around it.

The third street’s barricade was thirty feet out.

A table lay on its side, two merchant crates with their lids removed, a wooden shop dragged into the gap between them.

Three men stood behind it, all looking this direction.

One had a crossbow resting on the crate, aimed at the way in.

Another held a short spear.

The third was watching the upper floors of the buildings across the street rather than the squad.

Above them, on the right wall of the center building, two men stood at upper-floor windows.

No crossbows raised yet, but the defense was good.

From those windows they could cover the whole gap between the second and third streets on a slant.

He stepped back from the corner.

"Harr," he said.

Harr was four feet behind him, watching his face rather than the street.

"Three at the barricade. One crossbow forward on the crate, one spear, one watching our roof height. Two above on the right face of the center building." He looked at Harr directly. "They didn’t take a shot when I was at the corner."

Harr said, "They’re waiting for when we push."

"Yes," Beorn said. "So we don’t push yet."

He turned to Godric. "Left squad. Where are they."

"Runner is out," Godric said.

"Put a man at the far alley mouth to watch for the signal when they arrive."

Godric moved.

Aestrith had stayed one step behind his right shoulder since the squad entered the second street.

She had been watching above the squad’s reach the whole time.

Now she said, "Third floor, center building. The window is open."

He looked.

The third-floor window on the center building’s main face was fully open.

From that window, someone standing back from the frame could see the full width of the high quarter’s interior.

It was an observation position.

He looked at it for two seconds.

"They can see the overall field from there."

Harr looked at the window. "So there’s no surprise left."

"There wasn’t much to begin with," Beorn said.

He looked right, toward where the side squad was. One building blocked the view, so he could not see it.

But he heard it, the specific movement of a formed group standing still in a tight space.

Present. In position.

He listened for the left.

The third street’s defenders had not moved. The crossbow on the crate had not shifted.

The two men at the upper windows were watching the same corner Beorn had looked around.

They were not nervous. They had their ground and they were in it.

Beorn said, low enough that only Harr and Aestrith caught it. "Their plan is to stop us here."

Harr said nothing. He already understood what that meant.

The runner from the left squad came at a walk.

Running in sight of a barricade with a crossbow aimed at open ground was a fast way to lose a man before the assault had even started.

He reached Godric, said four words, and Godric turned.

"Left is in position."

Beorn looked right. He raised his voice to a level that would carry, but not a shout.

"Right squad, near corner, sound off."

A voice came back from the far right, brief and flat. "Here."

He looked at the barricade.

He looked at the two men in the upper windows, who were watching him back.

The crossbowman at the crate had not raised his weapon, but his hand had moved forward onto the stock.

The siege was made.

The address cluster was inside it.

Coss was in there, or he was already gone, and there was no way to know which without going through.

He looked at Harr.