Labala sensed Slaver magic the closer they came to the river mouth, spells intended to detect anyone hostile. He cast subtle counterspells to make the wizards careless, confident that no one would dare approach them.

They'd made a final camp half a day above Cimmar, and Gareth and his officers moved close to the city, planning the attack.

Cimmar was about the size of Noorat, on the eastern bank of the Mozaffar, built close to the waterfront, with walls keeping back the jungle's dangers.

When they first arrived, there had been only one ship anchored in the roadstead, barely enough for the men, let alone the gold they stubbornly carried and the loot they hoped to take.

But a day later, three more of the great treasure ships sailed in, and Gareth wondered if the fleet was assembling for its annual passage down coast to Linyati.

He liked the plan they eventually came up with. It was very simple: the pirates would seize the ships offshore, while Iset, his soldiers, and the remaining Kashi would attack the city from the north, the river-mouth side. Gareth thought the Linyati would least expect an attack from that direction.

The force was moved into final attack position and took up hides on the final day.

"Let's not do anything stupid," Cosyra said.

"I'm never guilty of that."

"I mean, like getting killed."

"Not in the plan at all," Gareth said.

Cosyra chose her words carefully. "So don't get angry when the fighting starts."

Gareth started to do just that, remembering the debt he still owed for the deaths of his parents, his village, Knoll N'b'ry, others, then realized what she meant.

"Sorry," he said. "I'll be cuke as a coolcumber."

Cosyra grinned and kissed him. "Stay calm, and let them lose their heads," she said.

"My romantic lover," Gareth said, and kissed her back.

At dusk, the soldiers moved out, around the city walls, and at full dark the gunners put out in their boats.

The pirates kept looking worriedly at the city walls as they closed. But Gareth had learned from Iset that men looking out from a well-lit place into darkness weren't likely to spot much, especially not craft as small as those the pirates rode.

Gareth's canoe closed on the first ship, the rowers never making a splash, and the bow oarsman grabbed the anchor chain. Gareth slipped past him and, dagger between his teeth, went up the rusting, slimy links. He stopped at the top, his head below the ship's railing. Slowly he peered over, saw no one on the foredeck, and slid over the rail, Cosyra behind him.

Other pirates followed, boarding soundlessly. Then, knives ready, they spread down across the ship's deck.

There were two men on watch on the quarterdeck. Knives thudded home in their backs, and they gasped, their dead forms eased to the deck.

Gareth loaded his pistol in case there was a Runner aboard, went through a hatch into the officers' quarters, the rest of his murderers behind him.

But there was no monster, only sleeping men, who never woke. Next were the crewmen, asleep in their hammocks along the lower gundeck. The pirates sheathed their knives, went in with cutlasses. Three men woke, hearing their mates gurgle into death, then joined them. There'd been only one outcry, and that muffled, before the ship was theirs.

Tehidy and Gareth made a quick investigation of the guns. There was nothing unusual about them, nor about the powder, fuses, and shot in the magazines. Tehidy made the interesting discovery that the Linyati ship carried explosive shot. He grinned at Gareth.

"This'll help out when the excitement starts."

Gareth nodded. "First broadside, though, should be solid," he said.

"Don't tell a farmer which end of a seed goes down," Tehidy sneered, and gunners began loading the cannon.

Other sailors, helped by the Kashi in the boats, were lowering the ship's second, emergency anchor off the stern.

A dozen men were left aboard this ship, commanded by Froln, and the raiders moved on to the second, which was also taken in silent blood, as was the third. On them as well, the guns were loaded and run out and a second anchor dropped off the ships' sterns. Dihr was put in command of the second ship, Galf the third.

Someone got careless, or was becoming sick of the butchery, and missed the anchor watch aboard the last ship. He cried out, seeing steel glint against the thin moon, and went down. But his outcry was enough to alert a Slaver on the quarterdeck. He had a musket aimed and fired it at the first pirate up the ladder.

The shot brought the ship's officers alert. It was too late for them, but the sailors aboard had time to roll out of their hammocks and grab weapons.

The pirates were outnumbered about two to one, and belowdecks was a slashing, shouting brawl before the last Slaver went down, weltering in his blood.

Gareth saw a hooded lantern ashore flickering a question at their ship.

"Load the guns," he shouted, as the men tossed the bodies of the Slavers overboard.

Again, the lantern flashed.

"I can hit it with two shots," Nomios shouted from the main deck.

"Stand by, then," Gareth shouted, turned to Cosyra. "Signal the others. We're ready."

Cosyra unwrapped a torch, whispered the spell Labala had taught her, and the torch seared into life.

"Damn! There went my eyebrows," she said, and began waving the torch back and forth.

Gareth jumped as a gun on the deck below him barked, then the others volleyed.

The other ships fired, and Gareth saw cannonballs slam into the buildings on the shore.

Men on the capstans set to work, wearing the ships about, until the guns on the other side bore, and these, too, sent a broadside into the city.

Next they loaded with explosive shells, the master gunner lighting the fuse on each ball before it was gingerly rammed down the barrel.

It was easy to mark these shots when they hit a" smoke and fire boiled up, and often the fire took hold.

Gareth could hear screams and shouts from Cimmar, and then they grew suddenly louder. This could only mean Iset had attacked the eastern wall.

Moments later, he saw a cloud of fire lift over the wall a" more of Labala's fire magic, carried by the wind.

Cimmar was alive, the streets swarming with Linyati as the soldiers swept through. Now it was harder to find an open target, as fire built and smoke boiled high.

"All right," Gareth called. "Cease firing!"

There was a final bang, then silence.

"Men of the watch, take your posts," Gareth called. "The rest of us, back in the boats and ashore!"

a a a There were two dozen or more dead Linyati on the rocky beach, sprawled around boats. They'd been launching an attack on Gareth's ships, which he'd not seen, and some keen-eyed or lucky gunner had cut them down.

Cimmar was chaos. Linyati ran here, there, sometimes attacked when they saw a pirate, sometimes ran away, sometimes dashed past, as if they hadn't noticed.

Even Runners were taken by the hysteria, charging any human they saw, whether one or ten.

Somewhere in the night's bloodiness, Gareth found Labala, who told him the attack on the wall had been expensive. Iset had been killed, as had almost half of his soldiery. The Kashi had fought well, but, as always with new troops, suffered heavy casualties. Riet of the Sa'ib was among them.

But Cimmar was crumbling, as the fires tore at it from one side and the pirates from the other.

a a a The treasure room was huge, and the high-piled gold and jewels winked and beckoned to the pirates standing in the open door.

But that wasn't what held Gareth and the others' attention.

One entire wall was taken up with a great relief map of what must be the entire world, including lands completely unknown to any Sarosian. Gareth looked at lands he knew and realized the map was far more accurate, even in its small scale, than any chart he had.

The base material used for the map's land was gold, the oceans were what looked like sheets cut from an enormous aquamarine. But that gem was always tiny, Gareth knew; he couldn't imagine one huge enough to be shaved for this enormous map.

Other gems were set here and there for other cities.

Gareth looked at Saros, saw Ticao, and Lyrawise across the Narrow Seas. Over there, on the peninsula connecting the continents of Linyati and Kashi, was a gleam for the treasure city of Noorat that they'd sacked.

But that wasn't what caught and held his and the other mariners' attention.

The map was alive.

An unknown island to the south-southeast of Linyati glowed with red light. Then the red flashed in three places on Linyati's south coast and spread around the continent's shores, a fever-blotch. It spread until all of Linyati glowed, spread through Kashi.

This was the Linyati's chart of their conquests, terrifying in the speed of its spread.

Even more horrible were the splotches that touched on other, unknown continents a" even a bit of red in Juterbog.

Here was where the Linyati must have come to dream and boast, and think of the days when all the world would be red.

Gareth wondered on those first three marks where the Linyati must have appeared. Appeared, he realized, was the most appropriate word, not were born. But where had they come from? Another world like the one they'd come to? The haunts of demons? Or is this where the gods or devils had brought them to life?

He shook his head.

All he knew for sure was this chart showed clearly the intent of the Linyati. They intended to occupy the entire world, and Gareth sensed there would be no place for man once they did, not even as slaves. The Runners would merely create more and more Linyati to mindlessly do their bidding.

In that smouldering ruin he knew to the bottom of his guts: It must be either Man or Linyati.

Blind rage came, and he seized a gold statue in one hand: a statue of a monster he had never seen, hoped existed only in Linyati fever dreams.

He threw it with all his strength against the chart, destroying its prediction, and the map shattered, golden fragments coming down with spinning gems and bits of aquamarine.

The weariness fell away, and Gareth was ready to go out into the flaming streets, ready to kill on, denying the Linyati menace.

He walked out of the palace as the pirates shouted to form a loading party before they lost the gold to the fires.

Cosyra was waiting. She started to say something, saw his expression, remained silent.

Gareth felt heat sear him as the flames from the fired city roared closer, knew the building would be engulfed before long. He glanced at the flames, brighter than the rising sun.

"I think," he said to Cosyra, "that perhaps, this night, we've struck a match that will shine all the way to Saros and the king's throne."

"There," she agreed, "and to Linyati."

"Let it bring them awake," Gareth said fiercely. "Let them know us for their desperate enemies and sharpen their swords and magic. Because when they come, we'll be ready."

Twenty-seven.

There were three coastal guard ships driving down on the wallowing treasure ships.

Gareth watched them through his glass, grinning at their obvious confusion: Ships, obviously Linyati in design, but flying Sarosian colors. Not quite Sarosian, but with a skull and crossed cutlasses below the device.

A signal ran to the masthead of the lead guard vessel: WHAT SHIP? WHAT NATION?.

"Make a signal back," Gareth said. "Sir Gareth, Lord Newgrange of Saros. With gold for the king."

"Aye, sir," Nomios said with a grin, picking banners from the flag bag, attaching them to the halyard and sending it aloft into the snapping breeze.

The passage had taken two slow months, sailing within days from the ruins that had been Cimmar. The surviving Kashi swore they'd not rebuild and occupy the city, but leave the rubble as a signal to the Linyati to never more venture up the Mozaffar. But in case the Slavers were slow learners, the Kashi would maintain guard posts a day's travel upriver, ready to ambush any slaving ships that chanced the passage.

And so, with tears for the dead and promises to meet again in the future, Gareth's four ships had set sail for the north.

The Linyati ships were pigs at best, but they held an enormous amount of cargo. The four were filled to the gunwales with the Slavers' treasure.

They'd sighted Saros's most southerly reach just at dawn, and as they closed on the homeland, there'd been a lively discussion on the quarterdeck.

"I think," Thom Tehidy said, "I'm going to buy a title to go with my new prominence. Perhaps marry Myan. And maybe we should rename Newgrange N'b'ry, if you see fit, Gareth."

There was a sad silence for a moment.

"I'm going to continue my studies," Labala said. "But this time, the wizards'll come to me. If I decide they're pompous asses, I'll double their fees and pitch them in the river."

"I," the helmsman said, unbidden, "am going to throw the world's biggest drunk."

"Which, m'boy," Nomios put in, "will eat up, oh, the hundredth part of your single share. What'll you do with the rest?"

The helmsman pondered for a minute, trying to figure what could be done with money beyond his avarice, then brightened: "After that, I'll throw the world's second biggest drunk."