Halberd guy was two steps closer. The guy on the ground had gotten a knee under him, and his hand had found his axe.

But the third guy had frozen.

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In just that few moments the smoke in the hall had started getting dense. I coughed as I stepped through the doorway. My eyes were starting to sting. I took two steps toward the window when suddenly a burning mass dropped to the floor in front of me. I glanced up—flames, big yellow ones now, were spreading and growing through the thatch even in the brief moment I watched. Not just here, but in two or three other spots as well.

Tossing the iron bar toward the window, I ran the few steps to my chair and grabbed it with both hands. Bits of burning straw were falling around me, like some surreal snowfall. I manhandled the heavy chair over to the window.

“Ah!”

I slapped at a searing pain in my neck. Bits of thatch were landing on me now. I patted out two or three little flames on my sleeves, then grabbed my bar.

Not five feet away a flaming cascade suddenly plummeted to the floor, an inverse geyser of fire and collapsing thatch. A wave of scalding air washed over me.

“Oh crap oh crap oh crap.”

I clambered onto the chair and shoved my bar between the staves. I hadn’t realized how hot and smokey the air had become, but here by the window I was breathing pure sweet coolness. I wrenched my bar, the force pushing one stave out as it pried another inward. It was tough, but they were giving. I was going to get out of there.

Then suddenly there was pain. I dropped my bar, pulling my hand back and tumbling backward onto the floor. Blood was running down my hand. Up at the window, the tines of a pitchfork jabbed through staves, then withdrew.

“What the fuck?” I bellowed. “What the holy fuck!”

The floor rushes around me were burning now. Here and there, in patches, but they’d all be ablaze soon. More thatch was tumbling down, little firebombs of liquid heat. It was all tindery stuff—the walls were stone, for the most part, and aside from the rafters and sparse furnishings there wasn’t much solid fuel. It would only take a few minutes for this fire to run its course, but for those few minutes it would be hotter than a pizza oven in here.

And I’d be a charred corpse.