The runner who had taken the bolt between shoulder and spine died while the bearded soldier cleared the building.

Godric reported it in a single sentence and kept moving. The bearded soldier came back through the road without being called and took position four feet behind Beorn’s right side.

The third street barricade had not changed.

Beorn checked the upper windows on the right face of the center building. Two men stood there, neither raising their crossbows, both watching the corner where the main avenue squad waited.

"Right squad," he said to Godric. "I need two men at the side street corner, where they can reach the upper windows without crossing open ground."

He looked at the windows again. They were too distant for pistols, "Use crossbows to pin those windows before we do anything else."

Godric turned, and the order moved.

The bolt from the uncleared building came thirty seconds later. Not from the third street, but from behind.

The compliance mark on the east building from first street, the one where Aestrith had seen the window close, had held a crossbowman back while the militia focused on the siege ahead.

The shot came at a shallow downward line and struck the soldier two positions behind Beorn through the back of the left shoulder, the point driving in below the scapula and stopping in the chest cavity behind the ribs.

The soldier went sideways and down onto the cobblestones, one arm thrown out uselessly, the other already pressed to the wound on reflex alone.

Beorn did not look at him.

He looked at the window that had fired, then at the first-floor line of descent, then at the building’s door.

"Harr. Two men. That building behind us, east side. Ground floor first, then the upper floor."

Harr had two men moving before he repeated the order.

The right squad’s two crossbows found their position at the side street corner, leaning around the stone face to get a line on the upper windows.

The first bolt caught the left window man through the neck as he leaned forward to track the militia’s position. He grabbed the sill with both hands.

The grip failed, and his own fall dragged him down against the frame until the frame stopped him. He slumped across the lower ledge, arms hanging outward.

The second man on the right window was already pulling back when the next bolt came through the opening and struck his shoulder, the point driving through the deltoid and into the joint.

He dropped away from the window and did not come back.

"Left building," Beorn said to the two soldiers he had assigned to the side alley push. "Ground floor, side alley entrance. Go."

He watched them move.

They ran through the narrow alley between the second street’s end building and the left side of the third street. The first soldier reached the left building’s alley door in four seconds.

The door was wood, not reinforced. He hit it with his shoulder and it gave. He went through.

Inside came the tight, close sound of a crossbow firing at short range.

The bolt went through the first soldier’s forearm between the radius and ulna, and the hand on that side stopped working. His sword fell from his fingers.

He did not retreat. He drove forward with his working shoulder and pinned the crossbowman to the wall.

The second soldier came through and drove his blade into the man’s side, between the fifth and sixth ribs on the left. The man’s body folded, and all three went down together.

From the third floor of the center building, a voice carried into the street. "They have the left building."

Two seconds of silence followed. "Six coming from the south alley."

Beorn looked at the left alley mouth between the barricade building and its neighbor. Six of their men were already coming out of it, spread as wide as the alley allowed, the first three through and moving toward the militia’s left flank at a measured pace.

The other three were still in the alley mouth.

"You, left alley, hold the mouth. Take whoever is closest to you and hold it."

The bearded soldier and three others moved to the left alley mouth at a run.

The first man through was at arm’s reach when the bearded soldier’s pistol fired through his sternum. The man went straight down, legs folding at once.

The second man was already into the militia’s range, a short axe swinging low. It caught one of the soldiers across the thigh.

Not a full strike, the blade angled away from the bone, but the gash opened wide and blood came out in a sheet.

The soldier kept his feet. He drove his sword through the axe man’s midsection at close range, four inches of blade and then the grip against the man’s coat, and both of them slammed into the wall.

The alley behind them had reinforcements.

Three more came through the mouth in quick succession, forcing the militia back one step and then another. Beorn moved left.

He raised the pistol and fired into the nearest man at twelve feet, through the right side of the chest between the ribs and out through the back.

The man went sideways into the alley wall and slid down it. Beorn stepped back at once and began the reload sequence, hands working powder and ball from memory while he watched the fight over the barrel.

The remaining two men saw the pistol reload and pulled back into the alley. They did not come out again.

Godric’s voice carried from behind him. "Left mouth is yours."

Three men still inside the left alley, not advancing. Three down or retreating outside it. The militia’s left flank was already paying for that push.

The forearm-bolt soldier from the left building appeared at the ground-floor window, one arm pinned against his ribs, crossbow resting on the sill with the stock under his good arm.

He could still work the weapon that way. The window was five feet from the barricade’s left crate. He fired.

The bolt passed three inches from the barricade crossbowman’s cheek and buried itself in the crate.

The crossbowman dropped below the top edge at once, his firing position gone, only the crown of his head and one hand left on the stock.

The spear man turned to cover him, and in turning he gave the right squad a full view of his right shoulder. A crossbow bolt came from the far right and struck the shoulder joint, through the outer edge of the joint, the ball of the humerus, and the tendon.

The spear dropped from his arm. He went to one knee with his working hand at the wound, still upright, still behind the crate, but the spear lay on the cobblestones.

From the third floor, "Six at the north alley."

The right alley mouth opened at Beorn’s two o’clock. Six men, a mirror of the left. The first three through were already spreading when Beorn turned to the right squad’s leading soldiers.

"Right alley, push in, don’t hold the position. The side building behind it has a secondary entry."

He shifted his eyes to the alley again. "Don’t let they reach it."

Two right squad soldiers ran into the alley.

The second man coming through swung an axe at the first soldier, and the blade opened his forearm from wrist to elbow along the outer face, skin splitting to muscle in one pulling line.

The soldier kept moving and drove the point of his sword up into the axe man’s armpit on the return, six inches through the soft tissue between raised arm and ribcage. The axe dropped.

Thirty feet into the alley, the crossbowman fired. The bolt went through the first soldier’s side below the left ribs, through the lateral oblique muscle, and out the back.

The soldier went to one knee and stayed there. The second militia soldier fired his pistol past the kneeling man at twenty feet. The crossbowman took the shot through the chest and sat down against the alley wall.

The remaining men in the right alley fell back from the noise and the cost.

One retreated. Two stayed out of sight at the far end.

Beorn finished the reload and looked across the tactical situation of the third street.

Upper windows cleared. Left building held. Left alley mouth held. Right alley pushed.

Barricade crossbowman ducked behind the crate. Spear man kneeling with his working hand at his shoulder.

The watcher at the barricade was the only upright man on that line, and his weapon was not a crossbow.

The left building’s window was five feet from the barricade’s left corner. The right squad had their position on the right. The center squad had the front.

Three directions on a barricade with two men who could no longer fight effectively and a third who was watching without a weapon.

He looked at Harr, who had come back from clearing the building and stood at his left shoulder.

The timing was there.