She looked at him with huge, hopeless eyes. “My da drowned last year and the scour took the babe and my mam with it. My auntie took the little ones but—”

“There’s a goldsmith on Angle Street,” said Usara with sudden inspiration. “Find a man called Renthuan there. Tell him Ryshad Tathel wants him to help you.”

A spark of life lit the girl’s fearful face. “Yes, masters.” She turned and ran down the alley away from the docks, fists clutching the coin to her bony breast.

Sorgrad watched her go with a shake of his head. “Whoring for sailors is no task for children.”

Shiv was looking at Usara. “Sending her to his money lender isn’t going to flatter Ryshad’s reputation.”

“Shall we go before that fat madam comes asking what we’ve done with her?” Usara looked apprehensively at the whoremistress who was fortunately busy with a handful of newly arrived sailors. “Did she say anything about Darni’s business?”

“He’s looking for a girl who he reckons is looking for a passage over the ocean. From the description, he’s after your Larissa.” Sorgrad was watching the woman now deep in negotiations. “Now, quickly.”

Neither Shiv nor Usara delayed as Sorgrad led them out of the alley and, unseen, away down the dock. He passed the first tavern beyond the Moon and the Rake but ushered the mages into the next; a sour-smelling, ramshackle place. “Over there.” He led them past a gang of men waiting for a boatswain to pay them off according to the figures chalked on their broad-brimmed, oiled-leather hats or the offside shoulder of their dark leather jerkins. A thickset man with a cudgel stood ready to discourage anyone keen to take more than their share from the coffer of coin.

“I think we should offer Darni a seat at the game,” announced Sorgrad.

Shiv leaned against a pillar. “Livak doesn’t like him.”

“Livak’s not rounding up a crew willing to fight pirates with just you two dancing masters to back her up.” Sorgrad grinned at Shiv. “Besides, Livak takes the runes as they roll, just the same as me. Darni’s big and scary and he’s useful with a sword. We worked together well enough in the Mountains and that counts for a lot.”

“If Planir’s concerned enough about Larissa to send Darni after her, we should surely let him know she’s safe.” Usara realised he was standing in a sticky pool of ale and looked down with distaste.

Shiv pursed his lips. “Do you think he’s here to haul her back to Hadrumal?”

“Possibly,” said Usara cautiously.

“If we’re taking a pretty piece like her on this voyage, she’ll need her own guard dog,” Sorgrad pointed out. “Otherwise you’ll find ’Gren playing her champion and slitting the throat of anyone stepping too close.”

“Darni’s no fool.” Shiv looked at Usara. “He’ll find us or her sooner rather than later. Don’t we want to have that conversation on our terms rather than his?”

Usara nodded. “He might let slip what Planir thinks of our little expedition.”

“Let’s go find him.” Sorgrad was already heading for the door.

Shiv grimaced. “It’s more cursed complications every way we turn.” He pointed a firm finger at Usara. “You can tell Livak.”

For someone who so dislikes the sea, I was spending entirely too much time aboard ships.

“Still feeling queasy?” The ship’s carpenter passed me leaning on the rail of the Eryngo.

“No, thanks all the same.” I glanced up to the crow’s-nest where several sailors were keeping as eager a vigil as me. “Any sign of the Dulse or the Fire Minnow?”

Lemmell shrugged. “You’ll hear it the same as everyone else.” He came to stand beside me, one hand smoothing the rail like a man caressing a favourite hound. He loved this ship, always keen to point out some virtue to me, explaining to anyone who’d listen that the Eryngo was a quarter as long again as the biggest of the pirate ships, never mind half as broad again. That’s right, Haut the sailmaker would agree, and we carried more canvas and better rigged. I couldn’t decide if they truly knew the ship better than anyone else or were just hopelessly biased. Captains came and went at the whim of an owner and crews were hired from voyage to voyage but I’d learned boatswain, helmsman, shipwright and sail-maker stayed with a vessel from the first laying of the keel until it was either broken or rotted as a hulk. Some even kept wives and families in their canvas-walled cabins on the lower decks but Temar had forbidden, that on this voyage.

“Don’t you worry about pirates, my girl,” Lemmell continued. “We’ve high sides and a steep forecastle ready to repel boarders and the rear deck stepped to give D’Alsennin the best view of any fight.”

As the carpenter went on his way, I glanced towards the stern but D’Alsennin wasn’t up there. He was down on the main deck and seeing me, came over. “How much longer, do you think?”

I looked back across seawaters calm with the stillness of early morning. Somewhere, just out of sight, were the islands we’d come to reclaim. Somewhere, beneath the featureless cloak of trees, Kellarin’s mercenaries were prowling with murderous intent. Quiet as a squirrel too mean to share his nuts, Ryshad on one headland, Halice on another, they would be creeping up on the watchposts Allin’s scrying had betrayed to us. Somewhere, two of Kellarin’s coasters lurked in the inlets they’d crept into under the scant cover of the moonlit night and every mask of magecraft and Artifice that Allin and Guinalle could summon. Dastennin, Halcarion and every other deity grant the ships would bring our people back to us.

“Not long.” I spoke with more hope than certainty.

“We’ll make those bastards sorry they ever thought of staking a claim to Suthyfer,” Temar muttered. Kellarin men still asleep in the Eryngo’s capacious lower decks would help make sure of that.

I glanced up at the sun, still broad and soft gold this early in the day. “It’ll take as long as it takes.” That would be Ryshad’s answer and Halice’s too but they’d better hurry, if we were to launch our attack to catch the pirates still fuddled with sleep.

The deck swayed beneath my feet as the Eryngo made a slow turn. The Nenuphar and the Asterias did the same, square-rigged mainsails furled like the Eryngo’s, just relying on the triangular sails on their stubby aftmasts for steering in circles. I sincerely hoped all the sailors were pulling the right ropes to stop us colliding as we marked time in the same patch of sea.

“I should have gone too,” muttered Temar, frustrated.

“This is a very different fight to sweeping across the Dalasorian plains with half an Imperial army at your back,” I pointed out.

“As Ryshad and Halice keep saying with all their talk of skulk and strike and cut and run.”

I made a non-committal sound by way of reply. It was plain his exclusion from the fun still rankled with Temar but Ryshad and Halice had been adamant. The Tormalin wars of lordly conquest back in the days before history had been a very different affair from the base civil war that was Lescar’s running sore. It was dirty fighting that was wanted here.

Still, I didn’t like sitting on my hands aboard ship any more than D’Alsennin. This inaction came all the harder after the ceaseless hectic days since Parrail had raised his alarm. All of us had roused yeomen, miners and artisans to hone their tools and fury to a murderous edge. Halice and I had set every mercenary to scouring rust from swords and summoning old ingenuity for scavenging supplies.

Temar turned to look at the sterncastle and the doors to the rearward cabins under the raised afterdeck. “Allin may have news. Guinalle might be able to reach Parrail without so much water between them.”

“We let them sleep,” I told him firmly. If I couldn’t help my friends with a weapon in my hand, I could ensure this expedition’s magical resources were carefully husbanded. Guinalle was an even worse sailor than me and the stresses of working Artifice while actually afloat left the noblewoman with a headache like a poleaxed cow. Allin wasn’t so tired but seeing the pirates’ captives daily beaten, degraded and filthy distressed the mage-girl dreadfully. After breaking our backs to get Vithrancel’s ships sailing, we’d had to stand off the islands for three frustrating days waiting for Shiv and Usara’s ship to make the longer crossing from Toremal, even with wizardry clearing a path through the waves and swelling their sails with mageborn winds.