"Steady as she goes," she said. "Let's get ahead of her."

Annike frowned. "Shell just turn again and tack south," she objected. "We could keep that up all day, or until a patrol galley comes by. Or another merchantman; if they ran south together they'd be too much for us."

Rilla smiled, tapping fingers against her belt, shrugged her shoulders against the weight of the leather battlejacket. "Dark's no good, clear sky and full moon. But if they turn south, they'll have to tack. Port or starboard, and I'd say starboard, running south: notice now she's been hugging the western bank? Afraid of shoals."

Annike looked north, then over to the western bank. She grinned, hard and sore. "And if they tack to the east, we run 'em north and try again?"

The Zingas Vryka drove straight up the channel center, crowding her enemy toward the western bank. The Kettle Belly plodded north, the springsteel pivoting to cover the faster craft.Rilla put the glass to her eye, legs flexing automatically against the steady rocking of the deck to keep the image clear in sights. The ships ran parallel for a moment at half a chiliois distance, and details sprang out at her. Twoscore and ten crew, at the least: Zaki, dark-clad and short; big, fair Aenir; a Rand warrior in fantastically-colored enameled armor leaning on a long-hilted curved sword. She could even see faces, scarred and hard; professionals, apart from the common river rats handling the sails.

And the marines, stolid professionals, each with another fire-bolt in the trough and a torch to hand. Five or six of those would fly into deck and sails if she tried to run in, the Zingas Vryka would be a singed bitch indeed. Many of the figures on deck were metal-armored fighters with no trade but war. Not an economical way to guard a cargo of blackrock and hides, obviously something special here.

Time enough to tally her cargo later, she thought. They were pulling ahead now, well below their best speed but still lunging past the Kettle Belly as if it were standing still. Cold spray wet her lips; the wind behind them blew strands of hair loose from her steel cap, long dark threads coding forward about her face.

"Come about to port, helm," she said. "Annike, keep her so; sheet close, sails one point out as we make southing."

The ship slowed and rocked as they turned, keeping their left flank to the Kettle Belly a chdiois downstream.

"A point to port of south, helm," Rilla said. She heard the crewfolk grunt as they bent into the wheel, the jerk through the hull as the rudder bit and kept the Zingas Vryka pointing almost in to the wind.

" 'Ware boom!" Annike's voice as the poles snapped across the deck to take the wind blowing in from the starboard bow. The rear edges fluttered wildly, almost luffing; she was too close-hauled, pointing too near the wind to make speed. The banks slid by as they began to gather way, not more than six knots but almost directly south, tending only a little to the east."Captain, if the wind veers well take it bow-on," Annike called from the main deck. "I'll not answer for the tackle if we do, with all set!"

"Steady as she goes," Rilla replied, eye and spyglass trained on the Kettle Belly. The merchantman was six hundred meters from the western shore; would she... ah.

"She's turning to port!" Rilla called. "All steady!" She could feel the enemy captain's thinking: a short tack to the west bank, then another right out to midstream, right across the wind, easiest for his single-sail square rig. That would give him the most maneuvering room; he'd be trying to outguess her, imagining she intended to crowd him to the bank until he had no choice but to anchor his bow to the shore and wait.

"I might have tried that, too," she said happily. The Vryka continued her course, her motion a short plunging like a horse run on a tight rein. Details came blinding-sharp, the scudding mares-tail clouds, a fish jumping off their bows, a loon's mournful call, the bat shapes of a pair of feral flittercats flapping around a treetop nest. Come on. Come on. The Kettle Belly, dangerously close to shore and still three-quarters of a chiliois ahead. The crew's tension, audible on some level far below ear-hearing, like the straining of a green stick bent almost double across the knee. My crew are probably all wondering "What fish-stinking thing is she doing?" Show them... come on... turn!

"He's coming about," she whispered. Quickly, too, for a ship in that condition. Sail canting, poled out from the deck. Turning, coasting, gathering way directly east, the bluff bows battering sunlit bursts of spray into the air, the round hull pitching as it cut across the direction of the waves. And- A long yell from the Zingas Vryka's crew, long and gleeful.

Another shout from Kettle Belly, of dismay; she jerked, like a man stumbling as he stubs his toe; her rear mainstay snapped with a deep, musical sound of pain that carried clearly through the shouting from near a hundred throats. The freighter's stubby mainmast leaned forward and hung with a crunch of parting wood, leaning drunkenly in a billowing tangle of heavy cloth.Another jerk, and she was dead in the water with that heavy finality that any sailor knows and dreads; the motion seemed slow, but the mast leaned further with popping sounds and she could see every figure on deck lurch, almost fall; a tiny stick-man screamed once and seemed to leap from the crows-nest in a curve ending in a foaming splash ahead of the Kettle Belly's bow.

He bobbed up downstream and swam dazedly for shore.

"Didn't know that shoal was there, did you, Lady-forsaken bastard, did you?" Rilla shouted as she shook her fist in the other ship's direction. "Helm, come about, ten points to starboard, sheet sails out five." Another gesture toward the slayers of her crew. "Caught you fast and hurt you bad, mudfoot!"

The Zingas Vryka spun as agilely as her namesake, to starboard; there was the usual weightless pause as the bow came about, then an almost solid click as the wheel spun again and she settled into the groove her captain had chosen; straight west, across the river, toward the sandbank that held the Kettle Belly fast. Blocks squealed in protest and shed blue smoke as the deck crew paid out the sheets on the Lady's sails to put full speed on her. Rilla swung the spyglass to her eye, squinted. There was blood on the other ship's deck, and figures that lay still or writhed; the dragging sail hid most of the deck, but she could see others staggering about, stunned. The mast was swinging, a band of splinters where it joined the deck and only the standing rigging keeping it half-upright.

A splash off the Kettle Belly's stern: her captain was throwing an anchor, to try and warp her free and swing the undamaged war-engine on her sterncastle into use. Possible, with enough hands on the cable and enough time. Which Rilla did not plan to grant; the water was boiling beneath the Zingas Vrykas bow, and the lupine figurehead would be dipping its fangs.

"How close can you take us?" Annike called, an anxious eye on the bellying curves of the sails. The Zingas Vryka carried far more canvas than the Kettle Belly, and had a deeper keel; a grounding at speed would be even more disastrous for her.

"Right up to her," Rilla called exultantly. "That bank shelvessteep to the main channel, the current carved it out, it's only shallow on the landward side!" Her mouth was dry and she could feel the blood pounding in throat and ears, the ships closing with terrifying speed, feeling the sandbank curling up toward the vulnerable knife-keel of her ship. Temuchin was up in the bows, she could hear him: "Everybody grab a line!" He took the hands of a Moryavska and placed them on the rigging. "Careful with those spears, everything's going to go flying, ready with the bows, get those grapnels up; two volleys then over the rail. Back, you pi-dog." A hand slapping a nose, and a sound halfway between a snarl and a whine.

"Stand by to let go sails," Rilla said; Annike relayed it with her megaphone and the deck crew braced. This would not be a controlled lowering, and that much weight of canvas could be dangerous. The Kettle Belly was suddenly there, and she could see figures madly hacking at the rigging with axes, trying to drop the main yard, to give the sterncastle a clear view of the bows. A line parted, another, the sail dragged one side into the river- "Now!" Rilla yelled, grabbed the sterncastle-rail with both hands-I can see the damn spring but it's not cleared- The Vryka's sails boomed down in loose folds and Rilla could feel the loss of way, a silent coasting from the hull, like the top arch of a leap.

The archers in the bow loosed, once, twice, arrows a stinging hiss like vipers flung at the merchantman, and they stepped back, braking themselves; shafts snapped into wood, punched into sagging canvas and hung from the folds, sprouted from arms, bellies, thighs. There was a high, musical tink sound as some struck metal and punched through; at that range even the best armor was vulnerable. Not much fire came in return, too few of Kettle Belly's crew were on their feet and free to come forward. A few hand darts slanted over the narrowing meters between the ships, thrummed in the Vryka's rail, went crack into a shield, and then one into bone and lung with a crunching impact. A crewman looked down at the thick black shaftstanding in his breastbone, touched it with a wondering finger, coughed blood, dropped.

The Vryka lost more way; grapnels flashed, swung out in looping casts. One snagged in the tangled rigging, another crunched into timber; there was a splintery groan as the cleats took up the strain and strong hands heaved at the ropes, the current pulling them around. The hull touched sand, a brief grating and Rilla felt a cold hand seize her heart; then the sharp reinforced prow was slicing into the steep outer face of the sandbank, a jarring thud and enormous hissing that ran through the hull and snapped her forward against her hands' grip on the rail. Above her, the mainstays hummed as the tons' weight of inertia flexed the masts forward, strong supple wood bending and the thigh-thick cables sounding a note that ran up the scale until her teeth ached with waiting for it to end in a disastrous snapping.

No break; instead a grinding crash as the two bows met, the smooth surface of the Zingas Vryka meeting the rough, lapstrake oak planks of the Kettle Belly, a sharp jolt throwing anyone standing forward and to port. The two ships pivoted, tied nose to nose, shifted on the sand and stopped as the greater weight and solid hull-grounding of the merchantman held both against the river's thrusting. Current heaped the water high against them, waves breaking over the starboard rail of the Vryka as it dipped against the ropes that bound it to its prey.

The ruined mast and rigging of the Kettle Belly leaned again, groaning, felling and tangling against the forward mainstay of the Zingas Vryka.

"Grey Wolff Grey Wolf!" her followers shouted, pouring forward. Rilla let go, snatched dartcaster and twofeng, leaped the quarterdeck railing and landed with a boom on the main deck, started forward with the helmscrew behind her. The mercenaries were already hacking at the grapnel lines, crowding to the rail of Kettle Belly and trading thrusts with spear and twofang and boarding-pike with the Zingas Vryka crew below; they were outnumbered now, but they had the advantage of height and better armor, and the springsteel could fire over their heads to wreck the privateer if they held their line for longenough.

Inu howled, a stunning sound, unbelievable even from an animal as large as a saddle horse; the snarl that followed ratcheted upward into an open-jawed bellow, and the hull of the Lady rocked as he leaped. Even the grounded merchantman moved as he landed, soaring over the points that tentatively probed for him. A long boarding-pike thrust as he landed, crouching as the momentum of nine hundred pounds pushed him to the deck. He seized the ashwood shaft between his jaws, bit; it splintered, and he threw the piece that held the spearhead over the side. An axe-wielder charged, double-bitted weapon swinging; Inu's head darted out, snake-swift, closed jaws on his waist. The dog braced his forefeet and flipped his head, a rat-killing gesture, and the armored man went over his back, struck a railing, and dropped into the water.

Rilla could see the top of Inu's head behind the line of points, heard his bellowing roar over the flat thuds and unmusical, scrap-metal sounds of combat; then the enemy line was breaking, as the Kettle Belly's fighters turned to guard their backs. A man's voice on the other ship was calling retreat, calling for archers to kill the monster, but another shout of "

Grey Wolf echoed across river and marsh, and her followers were over the bows and swarming up. Shyll's blond head was beside the dog, helmetless and laughing as he whirled and thrust with dagger and smallsword; Moshulu's great hammer boomed on a shield. It broke, and the arm beneath it; the Moryavska heaved the huge weapon aloft, swept it down on a helmet that crumpled with a clamor of yielding steel, stepped over a body leaking brains and brayed a warcry.

Above her head, sailors were fighting in the tangled rigging, knives and hatchets and bare feet cat-agile on the ropes. Rilla sprinted, vaulted from her ship's rail, touched the Kettle Belly's and came down with the dartcaster up. Pick target- jolt of wood in my palm. Cast. Cast. Drop the caster-duck! The foredeck of the Kettle Belly was jammed with naZak. I can't even see my own crew- The Zak had the advantage in the tight space, the decklurching randomly as Inu moved. Splashes marked people falling into the river. Twofang block side, slash across helm, SWING!

The end of her twofang burred through the air with the sound of a banner cracking in the wind, slashing groin height. The Aenir leaped back, jolted into the fight behind him; knocked off balance, he almost fell onto her point.

Another CHIINNNG from the stern and a crescent-head javelin, points forward, tore through the Kettle Belly's sail and rigging, plunged into the tangled fight in the bow. The inner edge of the sickle-moon head was razor sharp and half a meter across; it cut one sailor in half. Blood splashed as if a bucket had been dumped and the decks were greasy with it. Someone had died, someone else was screaming in an impossibly high shriek that went on and on.

Damn you, damn whatever you're protecting. Rilla skidded on the oily, salt-and-iron stinking deck, caught herself from going over the rail into the river.

Inu was tossing whoever smelled wrong into the water, like a puppy throwing bones, but his growls were loud enough to resonate in the wood of the ship. The fighting was breaking up into knots where sailors and mercenaries tumbled and fought through the rope-littered deck, and the wounded lay and shrieked or crawled into the scuppers to tend their hurts, or sat staring incredulously at the stump of a hand... Halfway down the hull, the sail hung, folds tumbling to the planking except where an intact line hung the right corner man-height from the deck.

Another javelin from the steelspring through the sail; this one tumbled a Kettle Belly sailor in pieces from the rigging and plunged through to slice a ratline on the Lady. Faces turned as the merchantman's crew cried protests at the blindsided firing that endangered them as much as their foes. Splashes followed, as sailors threw aside their weapons and went eel-swift over the side; Habiku did not pay enough for them to stay and be shot in the back.

The mercenaries were truer to their salt, or perhaps simply more heavily armed and less easy in the water. They broke, but in order, retreating past the sail and setting their weapons tohacking it down from behind; a rearguard held the gap between canvas and rail. The Zingas Vrykas folk gathered, made a rush, were cast back panting and holding their wounds; except for one who crawled under the jabbing spearpoints, sank down, lay still.

Her crew stood, growling, as Rilla came up. A brief silence had fallen; she could hear the wind, the heavy breathing of exhaustion, Inu's claws on the deck, a metallic chinking from behind the curtain of sail that had to be some further devilment with the steelspring. The mercenaries were shrinking their rearguard, shuffling backward through the gap until only the Rand stood holding it. He swung the long, curved blade around his head, visibly relieved to have room to use it properly. Not a tall man, though taller than any Zak, blocky-shouldered, armored from head to toe in steel enameled with violent patterns of yellow, green, blue, purple. The helm's triangular visor covered most of his saffron-yellow face, concealed his slanted black eyes; the mouth below it was expressionless.

A dart snapped forward, rang harmlessly against a curved steel shoulder-guard. Another flicked toward his face: the long sword whipped around fast enough to blur, and the hardwood clanged off the metal of the blade. Two crew ran in, four hands, four knives flickering; there was a series of movements too fast to follow; a knife grated over the Rand's thigh, his sword took both the wielder's arms off at the elbow, and in a turn-and-strike of the same movement he kicked the other Zak under the chin with an iron-toed boot. The woman flew backward and landed with her head at an impossible angle.

"Back!" Rilla shouted. "Shyll, Inu, Moshulu, you three.

Quickly!" There were heavy ripping sounds, and blades appeared through the sail, ripping at the canvas. A steelspring bolt snapped through, aimed low this time, chopped through the deck; she heard it cut through the hull planking below.

Inu paced forward, doubly masked with steel and leather and blood, snarling endlessly; his head was held low, no more than waist-height, and he came at the Rand in a slinking, side-crabbing rush. Moshulu followed, at a trot that made the deck boom; Shyll ran at his greathound's hindquarters, long hairand headband bobbing, strands clinging to the sweat-dampness of his arms.

The Rand did not brace himself. Instead he waited, flat-footed but not heavy, knees bent and one toe behind the other, almost a standing version of a sprinter's crouch. The sword raised, point at Inu's throat-height, poised not in quivering tension but lightly, relaxed.

The greathound lunged, jaws darting down for a grip on the Rand's leg, jaws strong enough to crumple the thin metal of plate armor. The boot met his nose instead, with a thump that ran back through the dog's massive body to quiver his feathered tail; Inu hesitated an instant, then drove in again, snarling as the curved sword squealed off the metal spikes of his collar. It bit through, he yelped as it gashed the ruff above his spine and the heavy muscles of his neck.

Rilla heard Shyll yell, "Inu, DOWN!" The dog dropped flat, completely vulnerable; the Rand ignored the foreign shout, assuming the first hit had been enough to stun, lifted his sword for the killing blow. Light broke off the edge, still slicing-sharp after the battering it had taken; the Rand warrior stepped forward with easy confidence, ignoring the big Moryavska with his hammer. He was beyond the reach even of long arms and a long haft, and besides, so heavy a weapon would be slow.

Moshulu threw. The forging hammer flashed across the gap in an instant that stretched; even then the Rand was dodging. It took him in the upper chest with a clang that struck like a gong in the temples of his home city. He was flung back with a dent the depth of a fist in his armor. He stumbled back two, three steps, arms wide in spasm; not even a sword-pledged Rand could ignore the first pain of cracked ribs, and his gasp of pain levered them into metal bent too close to let him draw full breath.

The curved sword wavered, then froze as Inu sprang up and seized his right arm at the elbow; clung grimly with flattened ears as the armored fist of the left pounded on the whalebone-backed leather of the dog's helm. That stopped as Moshulu stepped near and caught the man in a bear-hug; Shyll was on Inu's other side, smallsword poised as he danced aboutfor an opening.

Inu released the Rand's arm; the armor had not been pierced, but the limb hung limp and blood ran from the dangling fingers of the gauntlet as the sword clattered to the deck. Moshulu hoisted him up, grinning in the depths of his russet-brown beard; that turned to a roar of pain as the warrior snapped his helmetted head forward into the Moryavska's face, drove a steel-capped knee toward his groin. Moshulu took the knee on his thigh, spat blood and teeth, squeezed with a bull-bellow of effort. Metal squealed, bending, and at last the Rand was making a sound, desparate grunts to match his thrashing. The Moryavska roared again, raised the man over his head and slammed him down on the railing; it broke with a splintering crash and the body fell from his hands and into the shallow water of the sandbank to be slowly nudged away from the ships, barely submerged and face-down. One or two bubbles broke the surface, then nothing. Moshulu dropped to his knees, panting, dazed, watching thin runnels of blood drift downstream as the crew of the Zingas Vryka charged past him, cheering.

"Hold! HOLD! Lady take it! Stop right there!" Rilla shouted through her curled hands. "Truce!"

Silence fell as she stepped to the gap where the Rand had stood. She looked backward; barely half her crew were still on their feet, there must be ten dead at least, as many again too badly hurt to stand and fight. "Fight," she muttered softly to herself. "This is a massacre and it has to stop, right now." To her own: "Annike-no, Piashk, light me a torch. Everyone else hold your places." There was quiet at last, quiet enough to hear the water gurgle and the snick and flare of a sulphur match. She took the torch and shouted around the gap. "Will you give truce?"

"Had enough?" a voice gibed.

Then another, the Captain's voice that had called for archers earlier: "Truce; oath by the Lady and the Lord's shadow." A Zald accent, F'talezonian Middle Quarter; that oath would be kept, at least in public. She stepped through to the rear section of thedeck. The mercenaries held their ground; about ten left, battered, bleeding, leaning on their weapons or making half-hearted efforts to cut away the tangle of rigging. The Captain and second mate standing among them, both Zak...

Zrinchka, she thought, recognizing him from one of Megan's gatherings in the old days; an up-and-coming captain of thirty or so, with a half-interest in his own vessel and the rest belonging to a consortium of small traders. The Kettle Belly was not his usual stamping ground at all. Behind him, the quarterdeck and the springsteel six marines and a HandLeader.

He perched with a leg swinging on one of the leg-struts of his weapon, face calm in contrast to the tension of his troops. Thin, dark River-Quarter face, middle-aged, a professional who followed orders. Probably disgusted to have his machine in civilian hands, she thought. Also thanking the Lady he's under a merchant skipper, not a naval noble who'd order a stand to the knife.

Rilla sniffed, spat to clear her mouth, coughed to clear her throat. I'm soaked to the waist in blood. Bile rose thick at the back of her throat, and she choked down the overwhelming urge to vomit. I don't have time to throw up. She had seen death before... but so many, so many.

"Shyll, Temuchin, shields, please." Zrinchka's word she trusted, but one of the naZak mercenaries might risk a throw and his anger, for Habiku's reward. She called over the shield rims, her voice forced to lightness: "Zrinchka, I didn't think you were this hard up. What are you doing aboard this tub?"

The man straightened and shaded his eyes with a hand, the twofang loose in his grip. "Dark Lord's dung, it is Megan Whitlock's patrischana, father's sister's child," he said, and then shrugged. "The Wild Goose was laid up with a cracked strake, and Smoothtongue offered me a one-time charter to run this bucket down to Rand; said he had an important cargo to transport quietly, and I needed to meet my payroll or put my crew on the beach..." Anger creased his face."I lost my bosun and four good hands to this." His eyes went to the torch. "And didn't Whitlock teach you better than to carry an unshielded flame on deck?" His face was pale too; a merchant skipper on the Brezhan could expect to see the odd skirmish, but river pirates were in the trade for profit, not blood-they rarely pushed home an attack against a well-defended vessel.

Rilla forced cheeks that felt stiff and numb to grin. "You pushed into a private quarrel, Zrinchka," she said. More formally: "Honorable Captain, we have the option of casting off.

Unfortunately I don't believe that choice is open to you. Though I hesitate to burn one of my own ships, I will if I deem it necessary." She moved her hand toward the dangling, shredded canvas. "You can swim to shore before she goes up, of course. I wouldn't bet on being able to take much with you. Surrender and you can take your personal gear, and I'll leave you enough supplies to walk it upriver to the nearest settlement."

Zrinchka bit his lip, held up a hand for time, turned to speak to the marine NCO on the quarterdeck. Rilla could hear their voices murmuring; she could also see the mercenaries look at each other out of the corners of their eyes. The blood-rush of combat was fading, limbs and wounds stiffening; they fought for money and their reputations, coin was of little use to a corpse and nobody could fairly say they had not done an honorable day's work, with half their number dead.

"-not enough for my life!" Rilla heard the merchant captain say.

"All very well for you, Teik," the bandy-legged little marine was saying, crouched to bring his head within talking distance of Zrinchka. "Is the one what has to answer to the Teik Captain back at the fort for this buggering load of scrap." A thumb jerked over his shoulder toward the low-slung spider shape of the steelspring. "Much as my balls is-"

The ragged edges of sail flapped in a sudden gust of breeze.

She could catch only a word or two: "orders." "papers." Behind her, she heard Shyll whisper to Inu, and a basso growl rumbled out; the mercenaries looked at each other again, openly, and one of the marines made an averting sign against evil. At lastZrinchka grabbed a folded document from the sergeant, scribbled angrily and turned.

"We accept your terms, pirate!" he snapped. "On one condition."

"Which is?" Weariness crashed down on Rilla like a blanket of resilient air, and she fought not to stagger.

Zrmchka's voice was grim. "That until we're gone, you keep that Dark Lord damned dog away from us!" Weapons clattered to the planks, and Zrinchka drove his twofang to stand, humming to match his frustration.

Rilla sat on the sterncastle of the Kettle Belly watching as they finished swabbing the deck. The marines and the mercenaries stood together on the starboard side, with the dejected look that prisoners always had; Iczak had attended to their hurts after seeing to the Zingas Vryka's folk, but the sheer physical misery of after-combat letdown was on them. Not to mention the pain of financial loss; hired fighters carried much of their profits on their back in equipment, and she was leaving them their clothes only, and one belt-knife each. It would mean long years of lower pay and greater risks, unless they could dun Habiku Smoothtongue for their losses. The marines were more philosophical, since the DragonLord would have to replace their gear.

Near them Shyll tended Inu's cuts. The dog whimpered, shivering as Shyll, frowning, carefully cleaned the wounds. His tail was tucked between his legs and he pressed his head flat to the planks in propitiation, flinching as the needle and catgut closed a long gash on his flank.

"Quiet, Inu. Good boy, good boy." A feeble wave of the tail, and the dog bent his barrel-sized head to lick at the wound. Shyll gently pushed the nose away. "No, Inu. Understand? No." The greathound looked at the teRyadn with melting amber eyes and laid his head down again with a gusty sound halfway between a whimper and a sigh. Shyll finished, straightened, glared at the prisoners with more anger than he had shown during the fight.

Two of the marines were bouncing a pair of dice against thescuppers; they continued their game, but one of the mercenaries rolled his eyes at Inu and fingered his hair earring.

Rilla climbed stiffly to her feet and walked over to them, addressed the marine commander in high Zak.

"Teik." Her bow was exaggeratedly polite, and so was the form of address: the sergeant blinked in surprise and instinctively braced into the regulation rest position. "I'm so sorry to have deprived you of your transportation but I'm sure the short walk to F'trovanemi, no more than two or three days, won't harm you." A pause. "Do you know whose ship this is?"

"Ahhh, Teik Captain, some half-breed Upper Quarter ClawPrince with pull, is all I knows," he said.

Rilla shrugged. "Your officer will know who I mean. Tell him to tell Habiku Smoothtongue-" She paused. "Habiku Muttoneater that I'm still taking back the Sleeping Dragon. It was very kind of him to send me a steelspring for my Zingas Vryka."

The marine's face darkened, but the insult was not directed at him, and anyway, he was too unimportant for the Palace to notice. Word had it that the orders had come under Ramon's seal, but it was the Woyvodaana, the DragonLady, who had given the order. This Habiku might be a favorite of hers, word was also she had an eye for the men, though it was as much as the skin on your back was worth to say so in front of an officer. A sudden thought almost made him smile. Woyvodaana Avritha might still see that someone was punished if the half-Zak riverlord wanted it, but it would be his commander, high-born enough to notice, that would catch it. The siege engine was worth as much as the whole merchant ship, or more. He hesitated, twisted the knitted wool padding-cap between his hands, spoke.

"Teik Captain?" Rilla raised a brow. "Ahh, the old girl there,"

he jabbed a thumb at the springsteel. "You'll take good care of her? Don't leave her wound more'n a day or so, see the gears is kept proper and greased?"Blinking, she nodded.

The Captain's cabin was the usual cubbyhole at the rear of the sterncastle, bearing evidence of a hasty cleaning that was probably Zrinchka's work, and under that a sour stink of old spilled wine. Rilla slumped into a cracked leather chair and looked dully up at Shyll, whose face was still speckled with dried red flakes.

"Shyll, how is everyone?" She made vague motions with her hands. "I thought I'd seen fights, but this... this..."

He limped over and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Inu's fine, if we can keep him from licking off the bandages; not very happy, though, he hurts and his lips are bruised. I left Shenka and Jakov with him."

Rilla felt a surge of anger at his speaking of the dog first, then pushed it down with an effort that left her more exhausted than before. Shyll was a teRyadn, one of the settled not-Ryadn who had failed to bond with a Ri. She put a hand to her forehead.

He'd just never realized that he was too decent a person to bond with one of those things. He was a doglord, not a Ryadn. The bond to his greathounds was as close as kindred; Inu was all he had of his homeland. And besides, I'm fond of the great lump myself.

"Out of forty we lost ten-" She winced. "Boryis is bad," he continued softly. "Yahn's still alive but..."

"Is this worth it?" Rilla asked dully. "This was ten times worse than I thought it would be."

He grasped her shoulder. "We're here through our choice."

His grin was tired but still brilliant. "Let's see what Habiku thought was so valuable. It couldn't have been this ship."

Somehow she pulled a smile from inside somewhere.

The Captain's books were hung on the walls in the cabin, locked. It took them a while to find the keys. "Shit. Maybe we should just break open a few bales and so-forth... ah, Rilla. Here they are."The supercargo's loadbook opened with a sticky crackle of bookbinder's glue, powdering. There were a number of loose pages in the back that Shyll took, as Rilla ran her finger down the column of goods, her lips pursed in a silent whistle. There was a thump and a creak as the jollyboat cast off to take the marines ashore and turn them loose.

"My. Sweet. Serene. Unruffled. Goddess," Rilla whispered.

Showriger furs. Glass brick. Fine-steel. Ermine. Walrus ivory . .

What in Halya is going on-"

Shyll interrupted her with a whoop and a yell that had people running to see what was wrong. She looked up and he swept her and the book up and swung them around in a right, limping circle, barely missing smacking his head on the ceiling. "She's back! Fanged God, she's back. Rilla we were right! She's back -".

Rilla managed to squirm one arm free and put her hand over his mouth. "What are you babbling about?" Inu was barking.

Temuchin had wrenched the door open and half the crew was behind him. There were tears in the teRyadn's eyes. He set her down gently, put a crumpled dispatch in her hand. The smile on his face was like sunlight on water.

The stuff on board," he said quietly, "is all, was all for bribes to the young prince's advisors in Rand to arrange an accident for Megan. An accident that won't ever be arranged!

"Megan. She's back. My-" He grinned again, sheepishly. "Our Megan's back."