After a few minutes, Gunnlag's big voice called again, and the bosun slowed our pace a few strokes a minute. We might have to stay ahead of our pursuers for hours, I realized, and it wouldn't do to use ourselves up at the start. I glanced up to see what I could see, which under the circumstances wasn't much. They'd struck their masts too. I returned my full attention to rowing; I had to keep the stroke and not miss the water with my oar.

Meanwhile we had spare men. There hadn't been oars for all of my shift, and now we had the prize crew aboard as well. So after a while some of us were replaced at our oars to rest, including all three of us non-Varangians. Ordinarily, the Varangians didn't mind rowing, and considering that this was a matter of escape or die, they probably wanted the best oarsmen on the oars. Which didn't include Michael and me, or even Amo.

I took half a minute to try contacting Deneen, on the off chance she was somehow powered up and tuned in, but got no answer. Then I followed Arno back to Gunnlag Snorrason in the stern, with Michael behind me. Most of the Saracen fleet was out of sight again; apparently they'd continued on their original northwesterly course. Judging from the sun, we seemed to have veered all the way around to somewhat east of north.

Only three of our original five pursuers could be seen. I suppose the other two had turned aside to capture the horse ship. But the remaining three, I told myself, ought to be more than enough, considering that Arno had no replacement charges for his blaster. And their bows had a lot longer range than my stunner; it was only effective up close.

Arno was talking to Gunnlag in Norse-he'd gotten pretty good at it-and of course I couldn't understand. So I questioned Michael. From what he said, I got the impression that a warship was more of a troop carrier loaded with infantry than it was a fighting ship. Lots of naval battles on Fanglith amounted to boarding the enemy with your troops and fighting it out with swords. Any one of our pursuers would have two or three times as many fighting men as we had, maybe more.

No, he said, the Saracens were not the fighters the Varangians were. Mostly they were men of smaller frame, less brawny and not so savage, wearing lighter mail and wielding lighter weapons. That much was well known.

But they were brave and skilled, and when they caught us they'd be fresh, because slaves did their rowing.

Could slaves row as hard as the Varangians? I asked. Michael thought not-Byzantine slaves couldn't anyway. But the dromans, the big Saracen warships, had as many as fifty great oars each, each pulled by two men, with the whip to inspire any who didn't pull hard enough.

After a while we sat down at the oars again for about an hour. The next time I was relieved, the Saracens had gained quite a bit. The Varangians who weren't rowing were arguing with each other and with Gunnlag. Michael explained that some of them wanted to stand and fight while others thought we ought to keep running.

It seems that Arno had told them earlier that the Normans held most of Sicily now-probably including the part we were headed for. Even if they didn't, a strong party of determined warriors might make their way to Norman territory. And Roger, the Count of Sicily, who was notoriously generous, would be glad to hire Varangians in his army, or help them continue home as Christian pilgrims.

Those who wanted to run figured we might reach Sicily, and that if we were about to get caught, then we could stand and fight. Those who wanted to make a stand now figured we didn't have a chance to reach Sicily, and they wanted to fight before they got any more tired from rowing. They assumed they were going to get killed anyway, and they wanted to kill as many Saracens as they could while they were at it.

Michael told me the Varangians were famous for never surrendering. According to him, the most dangerous thing you could do was trap Varangians.

Finally, Gunnlag had heard enough, and bellowed one short command. The argument thinned down to a few "last words" by some of his men to some of the others, then stopped. We kept going.

Arno went up to the bow. I followed and sat down next to him. "What decided the argument?" I asked.

He looked at me and grinned, reminding me of the Arno I'd seen before a few times-happy-go-lucky.

"I told Gunnlag that if we stopped, the Saracens would come up on us all at once. But if we kept running, they'd probably come up on us one at a time. And that one at a time I could use the device you gave me to sink them or drive them away."

He took it out of its holster and looked at it thoughtfully, slipping the silent safeties off and on. "It isn't accurate at a distance, and without the recharge cylinders"-he used the Evdashian words for them, of course-"I must make each shot count, which means we must be close, within reach of their arrows. If they come at us all at once, we'll be under heavy fire, and these"-he gestured around to indicate the Varangians- "would stop rowing to fight. We would surely be taken then.

"Not that I explained all that to Gunnlag. Best he thinks of this as thaumaturgy instead of the handwork of some weapons artificer."

That took me by surprise. I'd assumed that Arno himself still thought of it as magic.

"It was then he made up his mind," Arno finished.

He looked me over. "In your way, you are brave. And you are one of those who are still alive after the danger or chase or fight are past. You proved that in Savoie and Normandy, more than once. Nonetheless, if it comes to it and they close with us, I'll see that one of the Varangians covers you against arrows with a shield. Then, just before the ships touch, you rise up with your stunner and sweep its force along their rail. Some of us will cut the ropes."

He grinned again. "We will arrive at Palermo yet, you and I."

Before Gunnlag ordered us back to the oars, I tried the communicator once more, just in case. And once more got no answer. When I sat down to row again, we could see Sicilian hills in a faint line along the horizon.

At the end of our next shift, the hills were a lot closer, but the Saracen dromans were too. At the end of the shift after that, the nearest two dromans were almost even with each other, and I could imagine them treating it as a race, with us as the prize.

The bosun quickened our pace, and I wasn't sure I could make it through my next shift. Arno wasn't rowing now; he was with Gunnlag in the stern. He must have had quite a bit of experience with the blast pistol we'd left with him before; I hoped he'd gotten good with it. When at last I was relieved, I could see more than the Sicilian hills, which weren't so high here. I could even make out the shore, we were that close. Maybe three miles, I thought, and turned and went aft.

Behind us, the Saracens were so near, I could easily see the oars of the nearest two. They'd gotten strung out at last. There was the nearest, then maybe a couple of hundred yards back the second. The third was probably a half mile farther still.

I couldn't tell whether we were going to reach the shore ahead of them or not. Or what we'd do if we did. Looking down into the long ship's bottom and then over the side at the water, it seemed to me she couldn't draw more than four feet of water. But for seaworthiness, she had a keel. And for all I knew, the keel could be deep enough that we'd hit bottom in water over our heads. Or there might be a reef offshore, or a shoal, and we'd pile up on it a quarter or half mile out.

I supposed the Varangians could swim, but not with hauberks on, or swords at their belts. And in Normandy, I'd discovered the hard way that a blaster, or at least some blasters, wouldn't fire after being submerged in water. Did the dromans have small boats aboard? Would they launch them to attack us as we swam, or to follow us ashore? Did the Normans control this part of the island? If they didn't, were there Saracen troops in the vicinity? Were those hills wild? How far could we travel without being discovered?