“You escaped, obviously.” Shiv looked at him speculatively. “Using magic?”

“Picklocks and ’Gren’s talent for breaking heads,” Sorgrad said without humour.

“We could share a few things with you,” Usara said with studied casualness.

“Just so you can help out Livak and Halice,” added Shiv.

“Good of you to offer.” Sorgrad smiled, this time with satisfaction. “That was going to be a condition of my cooperation.”

“I thought we’d already agreed your price,” said Shiv with mild indignation.

“That was ’Gren’s price,” Sorgrad assured him earnestly.

Usara laughed. “It’s not far now. What do we do when we get to the docks?”

“We find a likely tavern where you two sit still, look rich and don’t so much as clear your nose like a wizard. In the kind of tavern we want, that’ll mean knives coming your way.” Sorgrad’s tone was simply matter-of-fact.

“So we’re looking for our own crew of pirates?” guessed Shiv.

Sorgrad smiled. “No, we’re looking for a ship. I’ll go looking for crew after dark and I’ll take ’Gren because I probably will be dealing with freetraders. If it takes a fight, I’d rather have him at my back, if it’s all the same to you.”

“We can get ourselves out of trouble,” protested Shiv.

“You won’t see how to keep yourselves out of it in the first place,” countered Sorgrad.

“If we’re caught using magic in some brawl, the word will get back to D’Olbriot quicker than bees to honey,” Usara pointed out to Shiv.

“What’s D’Olbriot’s stake in this game?” Sorgrad looked from Usara to Shiv and back again. “I think it’s time you told me what’s going on. Let’s start with why you two are playing truant from Hadrumal?”

With Shiv’s frequent interjections, Usara’s explanations lasted all the way through the grimy, gimcrack terraces cramped between the generous holdings of the merchant classes and the unyielding sprawl of the dockside districts. Warehouses loomed high on either side with blank walls and doors barred from within. They passed the much extended building where ship owners and captains paid for their helmsmen and pilots to learn the mysteries of the ocean coast, its winds and currents. The coachman drew up in a small square dank with the scent of the retreating tide and hammered on the roof. “This is as far as I go.”

Shiv stood with Sorgrad as Usara paid the man off. “Where do we start?” he wondered aloud.

Sorgrad nodded at a man selling freshly cooked shrimps from a bubbling pot on a small brazier. “Got a cup on you?”

Neither wizard did so each had to pay for a misshapen reject from someone’s kiln to hold a steaming spoonful. Sorgrad produced a short-stemmed silver goblet from some pocket and exchanged a few words as the shrimp seller filled it.

Nodding to the mages, Sorgrad led them away, holding a shrimp between his teeth to pull off its head before crunching the rest. “Our friend tells me there’s a captain about to be left high and dry by a merchant whose creditors will be breaking down his doors any day.”

“He told you that for the price of three pots of shrimps?” The difficulties of peeling one with one hand and his teeth didn’t mask the fact that Shiv was impressed.

Sorgrad shrugged. “I told him it’d be worth ten times that if the word turned out to be sound.”

Usara was licking a burnt finger. He passed a hand over his shrimps, which abruptly stopped steaming. “Where do we find this captain?”

“A dive called the Moon and Rake, so watch your step,” Sorgrad warned. “And if you use magic again, ’Sar, I’ll break your fingers.” He led them down a noisome lane running between a barred storehouse and a yard with high walls topped with broken glass. A few more turns brought them out on to a raucous dock. Sorgrad hailed a man hauling a laden sled on iron runners over the slick cobbles. The docker directed them with an unsmiling jerk of his head.

“Yonder.” Sorgrad led the way towards the tavern whose battered sign showed a man dragging a pole through shallow water beneath the lesser moon casting the secretive light of her full round. Her bolder sister was no more than a blind crescent. The building looked more respectable than Shiv had expected and he raised his hand to the door already ajar.

A dagger thudded into the jamb barely a finger’s width away from his startled hand. “No, this way.” Sorgrad retrieved his blade and gestured to an alley beside the tavern.

The wizards did as they were told. Sorgrad watched from the shadows for a moment before pointing to a big man. “Now what do you suppose he’s doing here?”

Much of a height with Shiv he was half as broad again across the shoulders, muscles emphasised by a close-cut shirt in faded red linen beneath a buckled jerkin. He was deep in conversation with a man handing bundles of clothes, baskets of bottles and a few crates of battered fruit down to a lad standing in a broad, flat-bottomed rowing boat tied to the stubby posts on the dock. The trader paused to consider several of the ocean ships anchored safe in the embrace of the curving arms of the harbour and surrounded with boats like his own tempting their crews to spend their coin on a few trifles.

“Darni!” Shiv was furious. “So Planir trusts us, does he?”

“He’s shaved off his beard,” Sorgrad noted with approval. “Passes better for Tormalin that way, I reckon.” With his black hair and dark colouring the big man certainly bore more than a passing resemblance to the incurious passers-by.

“He might have some business nothing to do with us,” Usara suggested doubtfully.

“Even when he’s hiring out as a mercenary Darni’s about some scheme of Planir’s,” said Shiv grimly.

“Can we get rid of him somehow?” wondered Usara.

“You really want to break with Hadrumal?” Sorgrad looked surprised, then considered the task. “I can take him with a knife in the back down some back entry but I’m not going up against someone that size in broad daylight. We’ll get some gang of sworn men running in to spoil the fun for one thing.”

“I didn’t mean kill him,” protested Usara, horrified.

“What do you suppose he’s doing?” Shiv watched as a woman came to see whom the trader was talking to. She was tall and stout with improbably dyed hair and rouged like a child’s doll. Several other women hovered close by, gowns cut low and legs bare beneath their soiled skirts. They flanked a couple of malnourished girls, one with her wrists held tight by her hard-faced elder. Darni turned to talk to her, gestures curt, face intimidating. The whoremistress had plainly faced his type before and shook her head, unimpressed. Darni turned on his heel, heading further down the dock. The trader and whoremistress looked after him with resentment.

“Wait here.” Sorgrad darted across the cobbles to be welcomed by the woman with an avaricious smile. They exchanged a few words and then Sorgrad headed back towards the wizards with the youngest whore released from her captor.

“What do you suppose he wants her for?” asked Usara with alarm, seeing Sorgrad’s protective arm around the girl’s thin waist.

“I’ll get Pered to draw you a picture.” Shiv was quite nonplussed.

Sorgrad ushered the girl into the alley. “How much coin are you carrying?” he demanded of the mages.

“Pardon?” Usara looked blank but Shiv was already reaching for the purse he’d tucked prudently inside his breeches.

Sorgrad unbuttoned his shirt and pulled several gold and silver chains over his head. “Right, I told the old bitch there were three of us, so you should have time to run before they come looking for you.” He scooped up the marks and crowns that Shiv offered and pressed them into the girl’s trembling hands, bruises banding her wrists. “Buy a ride on some carrier’s cart to the far side of the pass before nightfall.” He stowed the jewellery in the girl’s meagre cleavage with impersonal efficiency. “Sell that before you sell yourself, chick.”