"You fear me, Blahyd."

"I do. You are the unknown."

"Am I, Blahyd?" She stepped forward and he caught her musky scent. He was conscious that it was beginning to arouse him. "Are women unknown to you?"

"I have known many women."

"And you shall know one more." She reached back to undo the clasp of the necklace and laid it gently on the stone floor. She took the tiara off and laid it beside the necklace. Blade's arousal was now well past the beginning stage. She noticed it, and Blade could not help being gratified as her eyes wandered over him and widened noticeably. Then she stepped forward until she grasped his hands and lifted them to the collar of her robe. He found the small black metal catch there, fumbled for a moment, then undid it.

The robe fell away like the veil falling from a statue. As he had expected, she was nude under it. And she was superbly built, better than he had expected: without Alixa's grace, but trim, compact, well muscled. He lifted his hands to her small, firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s and stroked the pink nipples with his thumbs, feeling the nipples bud and swell and hearing her gasp. Her own hands drifted lightly over his chest, playing with the hair, then down across his belly to flick gently his swollen phallus. His hands left her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and crept downward to play finger games in her blonde bush-a darker blonde than her gleaming, close-trimmed head and curly where the other grew straight. Again she gasped. Her hands rose to his shoulders, pressed down. She gave a little leap upwards and her supple legs wrapped themselves serpentlike (the idea gave Blade a momentary chill) around his ma.s.sive torso. As her arms and legs pulled her against him, he drove into her and felt her shudder almost at once. It had been a long time since this one had had a man. He was determined to make sure that it would be a long time before she needed one again. It was the only way he could see to take away that maddening coolness and contempt and perhaps make her willing or able to tell more about her plans.

He was able to hold her clear of the floor as he continued his thrusting; she was light and his own strength seemed to peak. On and on he went, until he felt her body becoming slick with sweat and felt it dripping down his own. Still he kept on, hearing her begin to moan in protest, feeling her body writhe in his arms, until those arms themselves began to turn heavy and ache. Still he kept on, until her mouth opened to emit a sound that was more of a gurgle than anything else and her legs unlocked themselves by pure reflex. She would have fallen if he had not still kept his own aching arms around her.

It was not until he had placed her on the cushions in front of the altar that her eyes flickered open and once more stared expressionlessly into his. Blade found her continued detachment after such a bout a little frightening, but even more what she said.

"I have mated before the eyes of the Serpent. I could have done so years ago, but none of the pigs and sots among the pirates were worthy. None of them had a mind. But you-you-"

"What about me?"

"You are so eager to know what you must do! As eager as you were a few minutes ago. Well, you have pleased me so greatly in the mating that I shall tell you."

Blade was even more appalled by what he learned in the next few minutes than he had been by the Festival. The pirates at least limited themselves to human vices, however ugly. This-this female thing-had notions far beyond those.

She had indeed been a Serpent Priestess in Mardha, and was one still. The island of Neral had once been the great sacred place of the Serpent Cult, the school of its priestesses, the breeding place of the sacred serpents. This chamber was one of the uppermost of many, connected by miles of tunnels that did in fact plunge to the foundations of the island and below, all carved out over many, many centuries.

But the cult had fallen on lean days as its worshipers dropped away or were slain in the persecutions launched by all the Four Kingdoms. Finally, it had been decided by a secret conclave of the surviving priestesses to abandon Neral. They would keep the cult alive in smaller, less vulnerable centers all over the world.

But a hundred years ago, when the Brotherhood seized Neral and began making it their fortress, the Serpent Priestesses had decided to send some of their number among the pirates and see what might be done with them-or to them, if it came to that. For that hundred years, there had always been at least one Priestess among the Free Women of the Brotherhood, but only Cayla herself had ever risen to the rank of Captain, with all the influence and freedom that meant.

"And my influence will be yet greater if I take as my Companion a man such as you, Blahyd. If you can defeat Oshawal, there is no other Captain who could stand against you in a duel. And if you can learn the art of piracy as well as I suspect you can, you will soon have wealth and influence of your own. Together we can be a mighty power in the Brotherhood."

"And then?"

She was silent for a moment. "The Captain's Council takes the gold of Chancellor Indhios of Royth and reaches out for the whole Kingdom. When they have it, however, they will not know what to do with it. You saw the Festival?" Blade nodded. "If the Brothers find themselves possessed of a whole Kingdom, they will glut themselves on women and dream dust and liquor and soon be unfit to rule an acre of onion patch. Then two strong people, who know their own minds and have a loyal following of good fighters and the aid of the conclaves of the Cult . . ." She did not need to finish. Blade nodded in understanding.

"Then it is resolved between us? You can rule a Kingdom with me, Blahyd! Would you reject that even if you could?"

Blade grinned wolfishly. "By that you mean I will never leave here alive if I do not agree with your plans?"

"Of course. Or perhaps you will die elsewhere, if I pa.s.s on word of your plans to escape. If we Priestesses had ever been soft, ten times over would the Cult have perished without a trace. But we have been strong, and so it lives. And when we have Royth at our feet, it will not only live, but rise again to glory!" Her voice rose to a pitch of exaltation, the first emotion he had heard from her all that night.

That was not the end of their conversation, for there were still practical details to be worked out. How Blade should swear allegiance to Cayla for his term as mate aboard Sea Witch. Whether he could bring Brora with him (Blade insisted, for he wanted his back protected if at all possible, and won his point). Much more. And then they made love again.

The noise and glare of Festival had died by the time Blade stood again on the surface. The streets were gray and silent in the early dawn, fit only for ghosts and people on such strange business as Blade himself. It occurred to him that not once had Cayla mentioned Alixa. Perhaps jealousy was one of the things she considered a softness? Perhaps. But he wished he could be more certain. He had learned that it was always a mistake to a.s.sume anything about a woman's jealousy.

CHAPTER 9.

Cayla handled the little details of taking Blade on as her mate with a competence and a grasp of politics that impressed Blade in spite of himself. She sponsored him in his Initiation, when he stood up before the Captains' Council, let blood from a gash in his arm drip on to a small altar of Druk, the patron deity of seafarers, and said: "By Druk, I swear to serve the Brotherhood, obey its laws in all ways, heed the word of the Council of Captains, shed my blood for it without stint as I do here, and hold my own life lightly if only the Brotherhood live. If I foreswear myself, may my Brothers turn away from me, my ship be swallowed up by Druk's green sea, and Druk himself cast me forth from his halls as foul and corrupt."

Cayla also sponsored the elevation of her former first mate to the rank of Captain, to make a vacancy for Blade-and also to earn the mate's grat.i.tude. One more client among the Captains. When she hooked the jeweled dagger of his predecessor onto his belt, she said loudly, "Wear this and wield this as well as he who wore it before you," and Blade saw the other man almost glowing with pride. He also saw Alixa glowering at him, and afterwards she rejected all explanations and stamped away in a rage. He sighed, shrugged, and told Tuabir to continue his watch over Alixa.

"Aye, that I will do. The more for her sake than for yours, now. What can that witch have done to you, that you rush off to join her for mate-or mating?" It occurred to Blade that while Tuabir might not be adept like Cayla, he had a sharp eye and a fear of no man, woman, or beast. He might not be able to keep the old pirate as a friend now, but it would be wise not to make him into an enemy.

Then, quickly, there was too much for Blade to do to leave him with time for any worrying about his own intrigues or those of anybody else. Sea Witch had already been refitted and supplied for her next raiding voyage, and Cayla was anxious to be out and away again as soon as possible. But she would not leave until she was satisfied that Blade knew the ship and how to handle her and her crew as well as possible-or at least, as well as possible after ten days of instruction.

Blade spent every one of those ten days aboard Sea Witch, poring over charts and lists and navigational instruments, exploring every part of the ship from the masthead to the bilge, and finally standing aft beside Cayla as she watched him put the crew through every possible maneuver and exercise, flaying him at the top of her voice if he made a mistake. At times, being Cayla's first mate felt like being back at officer-training school, being tongue-lashed by the drill sergeants. But her competence as a sailor, like her political judgment, was something he had to respect. Cayla was now a friend, and it would be sheer suicide to make her into an enemy.

Finally, at the end of the eleventh day, she admitted him to her bed again, and as they lay in delicious exhaustion afterwards she told him of her plans for the voyage. It was a daring scheme she had in mind, and the risks of disaster were great, but the rewards of success would be even greater.

The County of Tram lay near the northern end of the coast of Mardha. It was almost an island, about sixty miles by thirty, and connected to the coast by a long isthmus no more than two miles wide. To save coastal shipping the long and dangerous pa.s.sage around the sh.o.r.es of the County, the Counts of Tram had built a ca.n.a.l through the isthmus, for which they charged a stiff toll. A fair-sized town had grown up around the ca.n.a.l. In addition, there were at this time of year seldom less than thirty ships waiting at either end of the ca.n.a.l for pa.s.sage. And there was the money from the tolls, stored in small forts at either end also. There were few places in the Four Kingdoms where so much wealth was concentrated in such a small area.

Not that it was entirely ripe for the plucking. The counts maintained a fair-sized fleet of war galleys and armed merchant vessels to patrol their coasts and the approaches to the ca.n.a.l. Also, both the ca.n.a.l entrances and the town were fortified in a rather haphazard fashion. Any large fleet approaching would certainly be detected and engaged on the way in. And no single ship could carry enough fighters to face the garrisons.

But two or three ships might achieve surprise, particularly if they came in by night, skirting the northern and eastern coasts that were supposed to be too reef-strewn for safe navigation. Cayla knew pa.s.sages through the reefs-she said they were marked in ancient charts drawn up by the Serpent Priestesses.

"And as for the rest-it is always easiest to take a fortress that has not been threatened for many years. Its defenders become lazy and their watchfulness fades, because they think they have no need to worry." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "The Counts of Tram were great in the persecution of our Cult. They stuffed their coffers with gold and jewels looted from our shrines, and they filled their dungeons and torture chambers with our priestesses and acolytes." There was a flare of vengeful rage in her eyes.

Esdros, the former first mate, was joining them with his new ship, Spider Prince. But they needed a third, if possible.

"What about Tuabir and Thunderbolt?" asked Blade. "He seems to be a tough fighter and a good captain. And Thunderbolt's larger and has a bigger crew than either Prince or Witch."

"All that is true," said Cayla. "But I cannot help thinking that Tuabir is your friend and supporter more than mine."

"If I am your Companion, my friends and supporters are yours."

"Are they, Blahyd? I often wonder whether you seek to build up your faction within our faction."

"Tuabir will not turn down a chance to score a great victory and win great booty," said Blade, to turn the conversation away from this touchy area. "And if he values my friendship, he will follow those I follow."

"He will if he values his life," said Cayla shortly. "So be it. That will give us nearly three hundred good fighters. If we cannot make the Count of Tram howl with those, I shall give up my place as a Captain to someone who can!" Blade devoutly wished that last sentence might prove more than a mere verbal flourish.

Recruiting Thunderbolt caused more delay. This annoyed Cayla, since there were only about six weeks left for raiding voyages before the winter storms set in. It relieved Blade, however, since he had no desire to see Cayla get any more wealth and influence than she had now, even if his own would increase along with hers. It also gave him more time to consider how best to make his escape from Neral and somehow contrive to make his way to the sh.o.r.es of Royth with Alixa and Brora. He could not conceivably make his own escape and leave them on Neral to face a certain and horrible death.

There could be no way off the southern end of the island. Over the cliffs there was no possible route, unless one were a combination of bird and fish. And there was no way out through the pa.s.sage. All of those fortifications could keep someone in as easily as keep them out.

Off the northern part of the island, beyond the Mountain? More possible. That area was flat and comparatively unguarded. There were apparently only enough sentries there to keep out casual trespa.s.sers and keep in the household and plantation slaves. Some of the wealthier Captains had small villas on the northern slopes of the Mountain and small yachts in creek-mouth along the northern coast. If the three of them could make it across the Mountain and manage to steal one of those yachts, and if they could then get a good head start toward the coast of Royth before the alarm was raised-well, the Ocean was large. Even Cayla's influence would hardly be enough to turn out the whole Brotherhood after him. It was a hair-raisingly risky project, but apparently the best hope he had. And in any case, there was no need to do anything serious about it for some months yet, until the end of the coming winter. Trying to sail a small yacht all the way to Royth against the winter storms would simply be a complicated way to commit suicide. Blade firmly put the matter of escape from Neral out of his mind and concentrated on the raid against Tram.

Tuabir had been dubious about the raid at first, but once he had agreed to join it, he drove his own men and the dockyard crews as though sea monsters would swallow them all up if Thunderbolt were not ready for sea in three days at the latest. So did Captain Esdros. But enough days still pa.s.sed to make Cayla short-tempered and snappish before all three ships were manned, equipped, stored, and ready for sea.

Tuabir and Esdros were new as Captains, and Cayla was not one of the most popular ones, so there were no crowds to see them off. Perhaps there would have been none in any case, for they slipped out through the pa.s.sage in the pale gray light of early dawn, with lanterns still burning to illuminate the dark pa.s.sage and make the faint curls of foam from the oars glimmer. Clear of the reefs, they raised sail to the brisk following wind and swung away on a broad reach toward the west and their goal.

They sighted the high peak called the Helmet that marked the northeastern corner of Tram only thirteen days out from Neral. Tuabir's navigation had brought the squadron directly to their intended landfall. Almost too close, in fact, since Cayla said there were watchposts on the Helmet that scanned the sea for the approach of hostile fleets. The squadron turned north for half a day, then east again, and it was not until the sun was going down on the fifteenth day of their voyage that Cayla ordered course changed to the south again. She brought out a bra.s.s tube, uncapped it, and pulled out a chart yellow with age and frayed with much handling. Blade could recognize the outlines of the land ma.s.ses, but could not read a single word or number.

Cayla did not bother to explain, but went forward with the chart and a small silver box. She gave strict orders that none were to go forward of amidships until she gave the word. Blade and Brora sat down on the deck, with the rest of the crew behind them. They waited nervously while Sea Witch drifted aimlessly and the other two ships formed in a line behind her.

A low murmur from forward made Blade's flesh crawl. Cayla was chanting an incantation. A pungent whiff of the same smoke he had smelled in the underground shrine drifted aft. Then he started violently, feeling his hair stand on end.

Something large was moving in the water just below the bow-something large and living. Blade heard a splashing, the sound of a rough surface dragging across metal, then a prolonged and unmistakable hissing noise. Cayla's voice rose again, louder this time, with a note of impatience. The hissing came again. Cayla spoke a single word. Then a quick rasp, a loud splash followed by several smaller ones, and silence.

That silence was broken by a shout from Cayla. "Man the oars, you dogs! Blahyd, you pa.s.s my orders on to the steersman. Tell Esdros and Tuabir to follow us exactly, to the stroke." Again, there was a faint splashing sound from ahead, quickly drowned out by the thuds and bangs of the men running to the oars. Slowly Sea Witch gathered speed, with Blade standing amidships and relaying Cayla's orders. Brora stood on the stern and watched to see that the other two ships were following them. What they themselves were following, what Cayla had conjured out of the sea, Blade did not care to speculate.

The night was dark, but even in the darkness Blade soon caught the loom of land off to starboard. They were cutting dangerously close to the eastern coast of Tram, through waters the chart showed to be crisscrossed with an impenetrable and lethal maze of reefs. He supposed he should be glad that Cayla had somehow conjured their invisible guide out of the dark sea to lead them, but found he could not manage it.

How long they crept through the darkness behind the thing that swam ahead of them Blade never knew precisely. It was still deep darkness when Cayla suddenly shouted, "Back oars! Let go the anchors!" Blade heard the oar thumps and the rattle and sc.r.a.pe of the anchor chain echoing around them. There was land, high and close by, but invisible in the darkness. He saw the ghostly shapes of Thunderbolt and Spider Prince range up alongside them, then faint flurries of white as their anchors in turn went down. In the silence that followed, Cayla's voice rose again in a mighty shout of triumph that had no words in it, and was answered by a prolonged hiss from the water and a final tumult of splashing. Blade risked stepping over to the railing just in time to see a faintly glistening mound of water pa.s.sing aft just beyond the tips of the oars. But what swam beneath that mound and raised it by its pa.s.sage was still as invisible as it had been all during the night.

Cayla came aft, and for once she came into Blade's arms to be supported and held, as though the night had been too much of a strain even for her iron body and spirit. "I did not think they would answer, after all these years. But they live. They live." No need to ask what "they" were.

"Where are we?"

"A small river mouth less than two hours due west of our goal. We will spend the day here, resting, then move against Tram tonight."

"Won't they find us easily here?"

"Here?" She laughed savagely. "Once a temple of our Cult stood here. You will see the ruins when daylight comes. The count who made it ruins laid his curse on the spot and forbade all his subjects to ever pa.s.s by. The people's own superst.i.tions will keep them away and us safe."

Gradually the ships settled down for their rest, and gradually also the blackness around them turned gray. In that gray light Blade saw that the three ships were nestled between two steep bluffs, heavily wooded almost down to the water's edge. On top of the bluff to the right, a gaunt tower with windows gaping like the eyes of a skull rose above the trees. Dead black except where vines had struggled up from below, it seemed to brood over past evils-or contemplate future ones. Remembering what inhabited the still, black waters below it, Blade did not wonder that the land around the tower was shunned as cursed. With nothing else to do, he wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down on the deck in the shade of one of the rower's benches. He could not, after this night, bring himself to go below and share Cayla's bed.

CHAPTER 10.

Except for six guards on watch aboard each ship, all of the three hundred-odd men in Cayla's squadron slept through most of the day. Toward evening they began to wake and make final preparations--oiling weapons and armor, donning clean clothes, smearing their faces with soot for concealment in the darkness. The armsmasters set up their grinding wheels on deck and put razor edges on any weapon offered to them; the surgeons arrayed their salves and bandages and the less rea.s.suring saws and hammers. By the time it was fully dark, the squadron was ready for action, and Cayla ordered Tuabir and Esdros and their first mates over to Sea Witch for a final council of war.

"We will pull alongside the breakwater to the ca.n.a.l and put the landing parties ash.o.r.e. Thunderbolt's men will head straight into town; Prince's will move on the harbor. Witch's will hold the breakwater and enter the fort where the toll money is stored.

"Remember," she went on, "don't get caught in any serious fighting with regular troops. The local citizenry may be armed, but your men can certainly take care of any shopkeeper rushing out with a club to defend his wares. And don't try to bring any ships away from the harbor. We will have to head north as fast as we can afterwards, and prizes will slow us down. s.n.a.t.c.h as much as you can, then set the ships on fire. Do the same thing with the shops in town."

Tuabir looked shocked. Wanton destruction of ships and property was not a pirate habit. They tended to leave what they could not carry away in the hope of being able to some day pay a return visit. But he had sense enough not to protest in those terms. Instead, he said, "If we set the whole cursed town alight, Sister Captain, how are we going to get out of it safely?"

Cayla shrugged. "Use your own judgment. But I want to see a good blaze against the sky before we shove off." Blade had hardly expected her to admit her real reasons for wishing a thorough vengeance on the Counts of Tram.

The sea outside the inlet was almost as calm as that inside. The ships seemed to creep wraithlike across the gla.s.sy water. Blade finished his inspection of the crew manning the catapult erected on Witch's bow and came back to stand beside Cayla on the quarterdeck. She was grinning savagely, teeth gleaming in her blackened face.

"There will be screams and death tonight in Tram, as there were screams and death in our shrines. Yessssss," trailing off into what seemed to Blade's tense ears horribly like a serpent's hiss. Then she also was silent as the ships continued their slow progress toward Tramport.

Only a little more than the promised two hours later, they saw a yellow light gleaming dimly ahead and beyond it in the darkness a spangle of fainter lights in various colors. "That's the lighthouse on the end of the breakwater," said Cayla. "Alert the catapult crew" Blade went forward and watched as the men wound up their machine and loaded it with a whole cl.u.s.ter of heavy-headed lead bolts. Now the breakwater was clearly visible, silver gray in the darkness, snaking its way out from sh.o.r.e-did everything make him think of snakes?-toward the approaching ships.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a shout from ahead. The words came shrill and clear over the water. "Neralers! Neralers! Turn out the guard!" Blade nodded, the catapult tw.a.n.ged, its load of bolts hurtled towards the lighthouse. The light promptly went out. The oarsmen shouted warcries and bent to their oars, sending Witch surging ahead.

They crashed alongside the breakwater, and Blade was the first man to leap ash.o.r.e from the still-moving ship. Men were already swarming toward him from both directions. For a moment he had to whirl and leap like a dervish to keep from being spitted like a fowl. Then more of Witch's men were dropping their oars and scrambling ash.o.r.e, and the other two ships came sliding in and began disgorging their fighting men too. Blade heard Tuabir's voice bellowing farther up the breakwater. "Move, you sea turtles! We've got a long way to run!" and the clatter of weapons and pounding of feet as his men moved out, brushing through the scattered guards.

The lighthouse was clear of defenders now. Blade stationed half a dozen men with bows to hold it, then led the rest of Witch's landing party up the breakwater behind the other crews. There were already at least a score of bodies littering the breakwater or bobbing in the water beside it. He didn't have time to count whether they were pirates or defenders.

The map showed the toll fort as lying off to the right of the breakwater, up a short path and through a grove of tall trees. He led his men up the path at a trot without incident, but as they reached the trees crossbows suddenly began to tw.a.n.g from inside the grove. Blade saw two of the men behind him topple to the path and lie there writhing. But the whole force of fifty odd pirates were moving so fast that they were closed with their opponents before another volley hurtled from the slow-firing crossbows. Screams, oaths, the clang of swords on swords and the chunk of swords carving human flesh rose into the night.

Blade found himself confronted by a grotesquely short man with a plate cuira.s.s, wielding a sword taller than himself with both fury and skill. He steadily gave way before the flailing dwarf, waited until the man was forced by the trees to shorten his stroke, then lunged past his guard into his face. Leaping over the body, Blade reformed his men with bellowed oaths and brandishings of his sword and led them quickly up to the fortress wall.

As a "fort" the toll establishment would never have stood against a major force equipped with even a few siege engines. But Blade's force was one of pirates equipped with nothing but their personal weapons. They would have been baffled utterly by the fort's ditch and single eight-foot wall if Blade had not noticed that several large trees had been allowed to grow within their own height of the wall.

He gave his orders quickly. Archers climbed some of the trees to pick off anyone on top of the wall. Axe men attacked four of the trees nearest to the wall. The remaining pirates drew back under cover. Bows began to tw.a.n.g and axes to flash and hack. "Make those chips fly!" called Blade. "We haven't got all night!"

He had barely finished speaking when with a crackle of splitting wood and breaking branches one of the trees tipped drunkenly, seemed to hang against the sky for a moment, then toppled over with a crash. It slammed straight down onto the wall, making a bridge over both ditch and wall. Blade ran monkeylike up the fallen trunk before it had stopped rocking, sword out and yelling to his men to follow.

Two of the men atop the wall had been crushed into red pulp by the falling tree, but some of their fellows were still alive and fighting. Two of them came at Blade with pikes leveled. He twisted, parried one pike thrust with his sword, grabbed the man by the collar, and slung him bodily off the wall into the ditch. The other drew back, but not fast enough, as Blade's sword whistled down and slashed through the pike shaft and one of the arms holding it. Then others of Witch's crew were coming up behind Blade to help clear the wall, and he was able to seize a branch and swing himself down to ground level inside the fort.

Another tree came crashing down and more broken branches and stones pattered down about Blade. He looked around him. Inside the wall was a small flagstoned courtyard, with three buildings set in a rough triangle in the middle of it. As he ran toward the first one, four more soldiers ran out of it. Blade stepped back before their rush, noting almost with detachment their shoddy swordsmanship. This was a sleepy and over-confident garrison. In a moment half a dozen of his own men again caught up with him, and the four soldiers died where they stood.

That was very much the story of the whole battle for the fort. Little knots of resistance popped up unexpectedly and chaotically and died minutes later. Perhaps the pirates were clumsy on land, but they were also numerous this night. Not that the pirates escaped unscathed. Six of them were lying dead or dying by the end of the fighting, and more were wounded. But even the dying raised a cheer when Blade, using the keys s.n.a.t.c.hed from the body of the fort's commander, opened the huge iron-shod doors of the vault. Soon they saw their fellows bringing out chest after chest of gold and silver pieces, jewels, fine silks, painted vases, ornamented weapons-everything the Counts of Tram had taken as tolls from pa.s.sing ships during the months gone past.

It took nearly half Blade's force to simply carry the chests, so he was just as glad there was only one prisoner to guard. The fort commander's daughter was a girl of nineteen, small, blonde, vaguely pretty. She must have been shy and nervous at the best of times and was now fortunately scared almost senseless and certainly far beyond making any attempt to escape. Blade had her hands tied behind her back and one of the pirates led her with a rope around her neck.

The fort's buildings were stone, but everything inside them was blazing as merrily as possible when Blade led his richly enc.u.mbered raiders back toward the waiting ships. In the confusion of his own battle, he had almost forgotten about the other two parties. But now as he looked up at the sky, he saw it flaring red and orange over both the town and the harbor. Then as he led his men out of the grove and down the path toward the water, he stopped abruptly.

A solid ma.s.s of helmeted and armored men, the heads of their pikes and halberds gleaming in the firelight, had blocked off the end of the breakwater. Blade saw swords and cutla.s.ses flashing just in front of the soldiers, as the pirates tried to break up that solid front, but the wall of points and blades was too strong. Somebody had called out the regular infantry. From what Blade remembered of the Swiss pikemen whom these men resembled, if they once got a good start down that breakwater, they would sweep the pirates aside as inexorably as an advancing tidal wave and then turn to the ships.

Blade was not going to let the pirates become involved in a general disaster like that, regardless of what he might think of them in general, and particularly when Brora-and yes, Tuabir-would be involved in it as well as himself. He quickly gave his orders. Eight of the able-bodied men would stay behind and guard the chests and wounded. The rest-again he waved his sword, this time towards the rear of the infantry formation, and ran down the slope.

As he ran, he noticed a small figure slipping into the water and a bright blonde head swimming up the breakwater until it was just behind the front rank of the infantry. Cayla! Before Blade could wonder what she was doing, he saw her reach up and jerk one infantryman by the ankle. He went over with a yell and a splash. Before the weight of his armor could take him down, she thrust her sword up into the groin of a second man. As he screamed and crumpled, she leaped like a salmon out of the water into the midst of the close-packed soldiers. A moment later, the same ma.s.s of soldiers cut off his view of her, and he had too many other things to think about.

Blade's forty men were outnumbered at least five to one by the soldiers, but the soldiers were packed close together and concentrating completely on the enemy to their front. The pirates bit them from behind, by surprise, and at a dead run, yelling like a horde of fiends and laying about them like madmen. Some of the soldiers tried to turn and bring their pikes and halberds to bear. The pirates spitted most of these before they could strike a blow. Some dropped their pole weapons and drew short swords. These lasted a little longer. Some simply dropped everything including helms and armor and ran for it or leaped into the water and swam for it. These mostly got away, because Blade and his men were too busy with the ones who stayed to fight.

Blade was keyed up to the highest pitch, and he was a terrifying sight as he lunged and slashed and hacked and yelled. Run his dagger through the hand of a man trying to bring a halberd down on him, then take the man's head off with a backswing. A swordsman coming at you? Kick him in the knee and then stab him in the neck as he goes over. Blade's sword stuck in the wood of a halberd shaft and was wrenched out of his hands. He let it go, grappled with the halberdier and snapped his neck like a carrot, then darted under a sword thrust and b.u.t.ted the swordsman in the belly so hard that he crashed backward against two of his fellows and all three of them went over the edge of the breakwater to be carried under by the weight of their armor.

There were shouts and yells and running feet behind him, such an uproar that it penetrated even his battlefogged brain. He turned to see Tuabir, carrying off all things a quarterstaff, charging toward the breakwater at the head of his crew. They too were yelling like fiends. Blade saw the soldiers turn toward the new attack. Then by one accord and at one instant they broke, and there was a mad scramble to shuck off armor, helms, and weapons and get into the water and safety.

Not all of them found it. The archers in the lighthouse had plenty of light and great sport. And Blade saw Cayla splashing merrily about in the water, as at home as any seal or otter, coming up behind soldiers, jerking their heads back, and smoothly cutting their throats. The water was blotched with red patches when she finally pulled herself out of the water and came up to Blade.

Her shirt was hanging in shreds about her waist, and there was a feather-thin red line across the skin of her left breast. All of the rest of the blood that dyed her trousers was from her score or more victims. She was maddening and deadly and frightening and beautiful, and Blade felt nothing strange for once in reaching out and pulling her against him.

A cough from Tuabir interrupted him. "Sister Captain, Master Blahyd. I see Esdros' men coming up across the ca.n.a.l bridge. I judge it were time we were thinking of gathering ourselves together and making for the open sea."

"True," said Cayla slowly, as if reluctant to leave before she had thought up some other way of wreaking vengeance on the Counts of Tram. "A good night's work we've had."

"The night isn't over," said Tuabir with a note of impatience in his voice. "And we'd best be putting what's left of it to use in getting well clear of here before the war fleet comes down on us."

Cayla nodded sharply, and all her dreaminess left her. She began barking orders with all her normal briskness, and soon men and booty were streaming aboard all three ships. Without waiting to stow or count the booty, the men took their places at the oars, the lines were cast off, and the last sentries recalled. All three ships backed hastily out into the approaches of the ca.n.a.l, turned north, and fled away as fast as their battle-weary rowers could thrust them along.

Half the sky was filled with a b.l.o.o.d.y glow behind them as they pounded along. Cayla, a blanket hastily wrapped around her, stood watching it as it slowly receded behind them. Blade went up to her and said, "Captain, how do we break through to the open sea?" He swallowed. "Do we use the same-method-we used coming in?"