The boats met bow to bow with a crash and a shock that threw practically everybody in both off their feet with curses and a clatter of weapons. Practically everybody-except Blade. Before the pirate crew could regain their feet, he was over the side of their boat, flourishing both his weapons.

The pirate leader had been ready to lead his men into the enemy's boat, so he was the first to die. Blade's longer weapon and immensely longer reach gave him a decisive advantage. The pirate leader died with the rapier jutting out the back of his neck while his own cutlass whistled through the air futile inches short of Blade. Another pirate lunged forward past the leader. Blade kicked him in the stomach and laid open his throat with a slash of the dagger while jerking his rapier free to confront a third opponent.

This one bobbed and weaved, making three of Blade's thrusts miss by inches. Then the pirate sprang in and under the rapier, bringing his cutlass down in a whistling slash that missed taking off Blade's arm but crashed into the guard of the rapier so hard that it flew out of Blade's hand and over the side. But the pirate was off balance for a moment, long enough for Blade to thrust the dagger into his stomach, then snatch the cutlass out of the air as the man's hand unclasped. Almost with the same motion he slashed down to take off the head of a fourth pirate trying to get around the dying man.

He had killed four men in something under thirty seconds, and now the men in the boat behind him were waking from their amazement and crowding forward. But a moment later they had their own battle to fight. Out of the corner of his eye Blade saw the second pirate boat sweeping in. With a crash it smashed into the merchant sailors' boat, pushing it away from the first pirate boat. With yells and howls its crew hurled themselves on their opponents.

Blade was too busy to watch any more of that. He was alone in the bow of the first boat now, alone against eight or ten armed and furious pirates. The cutlass was shorter and heavier than the rapier, but it had an edge as well as a point. He chopped down with it like a butcher chopping meat while the dagger flickered in and out. The pirates could only get at him one or two at a time without going over the side. One bolder or more imaginative type tried that. But as the man rolled himself over the side of the boat into the water, Blade parried a thrust with his dagger, slashed his current opponent across the belly with a cutlass stroke, and leaped across the falling body to bring the cutlass up, over, and down on the bold one's back. He felt the blade chop through the spine. The man went limp and rolled into the water with a splash, vanishing like a lead statue.

There were eleven bodies in the boat when Blade finished, and the bottom was awash two inches deep in blood. If there had been any survivors of the crew, they had thrown themselves over the side and thrashed frantically off into the darkness to get away from this monster that had hurled himself upon them. Gradually, as the fury of battle faded from his mind, Blade became aware of someone calling.

«Hoy, friend! Be ye hurt? By Druk's coral trident, that were fightin' like none ever seen!» Blade turned about and saw Brora standing in his own boat some twenty yards away, surrounded by the survivors of his own men. Another thirty yards beyond, the second pirate boat was limping off, only two or three raggedly plied oars on each side in action, and blood visible on some of the oarsmen. Brora saw Blade looking, and grinned savagely. «Aye, they be goin'. We were hard at it for a bit, but we took six or seven o' them to four of us. Then they saw what ye'd done o'er there and that were enough for 'em. Hold where ye be, friend. We'll come clean those sharks out o' their boat and take it for our own.»

After the dead pirates had been stripped of usable gear and clothing and dumped over the side, the merchant sailors redistributed themselves among the two boats. While this was going on, Brora drew Blade as much out of earshot as possible and looked hard at him, with a faint smile on his weatherbeaten face.

«From the south, ye say?»

Blade shrugged. «As much as any place. I'm a footloose type by nature.»

«And a fighter. I've seen no sailor who could fight like that, tho' we do reckon ourselves fair tough in any scrap.»

«I wasn't a sailor. Down south-«Blade hoped there was enough of a «south» in this Dimension to make his story plausible «-I was a professional soldier. A freelance. There are many such.»

«So I hear,» said Brora, and that was apparently as much as he was interested in inquiring into Blade's origins. «Well, I tell ye-whatever ye think ye be worth as a fighter, any shipmaster of Royth would give ye double it or more were ye to sign on w' him as a guard. Ye've seen what the pirates are like. 'Tis a miracle sent by Druk to aid honest sailors that we found ye.» He thrust out his hand. «Brora Lanthal's son swears friendship with ye from now 'til death divides us. What say ye?»

Blade clasped the hand and shook it vigorously. «I say yes, Brora.»

«Well and good. When Brora speaks, no few o' the Sailor's Guild listen. And we sailors be half the honest men of Royth these days.» Before Blade could ask any further questions, Brora turned away and began issuing orders about shifting supplies and raising sail. Blade took the chance, a welcome one, to sit down and rest.

Blade had plenty of time to rest and think in the five days before they were picked up. Unfortunately, little of the thinking led to any useful conclusions. During the whole five days all he could guess from the conversation and from what Brora told him was that the Ocean was surrounded by land. Most of the land was divided among four kingdoms. Of these kingdoms, the most powerful was the Kingdom of Royth, from which Brora and his men came. In the Ocean, however, also stood the island of Neral, somewhat to the north of their present position. It was the base for a powerful confederacy of pirates, almost a fifth kingdom in military power, which preyed on the shipping and even on the coasts of the Four Kingdoms. During the past five years, the pirates had been growing more numerous, more enterprising, and more ferocious.

Brora had been first mate aboard the Blackfish, the larger of the two merchantmen Blade had seen burning. Because both ships were larger than usual, and both had well-armed and determined crews, they had succeeded in sinking one of the pirate galleys outright and setting the other three hopelessly on fire before themselves going up in flames. This, Brora emphasized, was a very unusual outcome for a battle against the pirates of Neral. They usually won, taking the ship and cargo, and either murdering, enslaving, recruiting, or (very rarely) holding for ransom everybody aboard. The survivors of both sides had made off in their boats; too concerned at first with sheer survival to bother each other. But Brora had decided that it might be wise to return to the area of the battle, to pick up any salvageable gear that might prove useful for survival. Apparently the remaining pirates had had the same idea. Thus the encounter.

A passing rain squall had given them several more days' worth of water and one of the sailors had set several lines over the side for fish. Brora estimated that with reasonable luck with the weather they would reach shore within three weeks. They were unfortunately farther south than merchant ships on the east-west route usually sailed, so it was not too likely that they would be picked up. But they were in no immediate danger, except for the possibility of more pirates or storms. Blade went to sleep that night in a resigned but relaxed frame of mind.

So it was an agreeable surprise when he was awakened the next morning by cries from the sailors.