“Can we kill them all?” Temar set his jaw. “And who takes that privy rat’s place? Most likely one of Ilkehan’s enchanters. Do we raise the stakes that high?”

“We want him looking this way, don’t we?” Halice was not deterred.

Temar could hear Usara and Allin whispering urgently to Guinalle. Were they as appalled at what he was doing as he was himself?

“Nothing to offer?” Muredarch sighed with false regret. “Time for another dipping.”

Greik pushed the hapless mage off the rail, heedless of his cries of anguish.

“Then do it as fast as you can!” Guinalle hung back, face twisted with concentration as Allin and Usara stepped forward to the Dulse’s rail.

A crack of thunder from the clear blue sky silenced Muredarch even as a shaft of lightning hissed into the sea by Naldeth’s head. Another and another split the water with blinding light and scattered the sharks. Muredarch raised his bloodied dagger at Temar but his words went unheard among shouts of alarm as the seas beneath the pirates’ hull bucked and heaved. Muredarch clung to the stern rail, face ugly, only to recoil a moment later as a golden shaft of lightning split the wood, cutting the rope holding Naldeth. The polished lamps exploded, shards of glass cutting Muredarch’s hands and face. A pirate tumbled screaming into the water but even with the sharks fled, no one threw him a rope.

“Allin, quick!” gasped Guinalle as Naldeth’s unconscious body was lifted on a swathe of dusky light. Usara was still intent on the pirates, a blazing thunderbolt shattering the sloop’s single mast and exploding into knives of light to shred the tumbling sails.

“Sink the bastards!” Halice raised one hand as archers on the Dulse’s ratlines waited for her signal.

Usara’s face twisted with concentration. Magic-tainted mist like bloodstained gossamer rose from the hostile sea to thicken around the pirates who slapped with rising panic at coils tightening around their arms and heads. The magic dissolved at their touch but the threatening tendrils reappeared a moment later. The pirates’ shouts cracked with fear.

“Stop, all of you!” screamed Guinalle. The noblewoman pressed her hands to her temples, eyes closed and face white. Naldeth thudded senseless on to the Dulse’s deck.

“Help me, somebody.” Allin was on her knees beside him, breaking her nails on the viciously tight tourniquet. His swollen thigh was dark with blood, cruel contrast to his pale, wasted body.

“One shot! Make ’em pay!” Halice swept her hand down. Shafts hissed through the air and pirates cursed and yelled as the arrowheads bit home.

“If we’ve no sails then we cursed well row! Get the sweeps out!” Muredarch was down among his men, tossing a corpse overboard before dragging at a long oar himself. “So, Tormalin Sieur, this is how you dishonour truce.” Muredarch stood up, unafraid. “You’ve a lot to learn, boy, if you’re ever to have men keep faith with you!”

With the long sweeps now deployed, the pirates strained to pull themselves out of bowshot.

“You broke faith first!” Temar’s rage got the better of him before he realised he sounded like a petulant child.

Muredarch laughed scornfully. “I’ve a whole stockade full of slaves and the ocean’s full of sharks. Let’s see who sickens of this game first!” He turned his back on Temar to lend a hand and encouragement as his sweating men fled for the sound between the islands.

“Can’t you sink it?” Halice demanded of Usara.

“Not with Muredarch’s enchanters ready to pounce.” Usara looked to Guinalle who nodded tight-lipped confirmation.

“We have to get him ashore.” Allin looked up at Temar. She had the stump of Naldeth’s leg raised across her lap, swathing the torn and ragged flesh in linen torn from someone’s shirt. Crushed splinters of bone were impeding her, blood running between her fingers and staining her cuffs. Guinalle dropped to her knees to cradle Naldeth’s head.

“I can raise us a wind,” Usara offered.

Guinalle opened her eyes for a moment. “No. They’re seeking us with every art they can summon.”

“Back,” Temar waved to the Dulse’s captain. “Fast as you can.”

Usara glared after the vanished pirates. “I could slaughter that whole nest of vermin with every torment of magic I could think of.”

“Help us lift him,” Allin demanded. “Careful. Keep that leg raised.”

With Guinalle steadying his head, Temar and Usara carried Naldeth into the stern cabin, Allin looking to his wounded leg and remaining foot. For all their care, a lurch of the ship caught them unawares, jolting Naldeth and forcing a moan from beneath his gritted teeth.

“On the bunk.” Usara and Temar laid Naldeth down and Allin began stripping away linen already soaked with blood to study the open wound. She covered it again with a light layer of clean cloth. “We have to stop this bleeding and that means cautery,” she said bluntly. “I daren’t use magic, not with him being mageborn and in such pain. It’ll have to be hot irons.”

The cloying scent of blood was rapidly filling the cramped cabin. Temar realised he was feeling sick and swallowed hard. That left him feeling both empty and nauseous, his mouth dry. The cabin darkened and Halice filled the doorway. “I’ll see to that,” she said grimly.

“Will you be able to?” Temar took the stained dressings Allin held out to him and then wondered what to do with them. “I mean, if they couldn’t brand him.”

Allin stroked Naldeth’s forehead. “Go and find anything that might dull the pain; tahn, thassin, spirits. Ask all the sailors.”

“Let me do that.” Usara followed Halice out of the cabin. Temar would have gone too but Naldeth suddenly writhed on the bunk. “Hold him,” Allin cried in alarm and Temar forced the mage’s shoulders back on the blankets. Naldeth’s eyes stayed closed, lips drawn back from clenched teeth, panting breaths rasping in his throat. A pulse beat fast and ragged in the hollow of his neck. Temar held him, expecting heat to sear his hands at any moment.

“Apple brandy.” Usara appeared at the door, offering a dark bottle sewn into a leather sleeve.

“Use liquor to clean the wound,” said Guinalle from the corner where she was standing, eyes unseeing as she worked some Artifice. “It won’t help the bleeding to have him drink it.” She looked at Usara. “The enchanters are trying to read Muredarch’s intentions. Now we are retreating, they have no interest in harassing us. You could speed us home with some small magic worked just around the ship. But I cannot keep watch for you,” she warned, eyes huge, “not if I’m helping Naldeth bear the pain of the cautery”

“Usara knows some elemental defences against Artifice,” Allin was still concentrating on Naldeth’s stump, fingers pressing tight to stem the bleeding. Temar moved closer to the door and seized the chance for a breath of fresher air as the mage departed.

Guinalle laid a gentle hand on Naldeth’s forehead. “Concentrate on my touch, on my voice. Let me take you away from the pain.”

The stricken wizard flinched but Guinalle persisted with gentle, inexorable hands bending close to whisper her incantations. Naldeth swallowed a sob, deep in his throat, eyes rolling beneath flickering lids. Gradually his laboured breathing slowed, the rigid tension lessening down his body.

Temar saw tears trickling down Allin’s face. She sniffed irritably, trying to scrub her cheek dry on her shoulder. Temar dug in a pocket for his kerchief and went to dry her face. As she mouthed her gratitude, he thought how remarkably sweet her smile could be.

“Mind your backs.” Halice held the cabin door open as the Dulse’s shipwright carried in a small brazier held tight between thickly padded leather gloves. His apprentice followed, lugging a hefty slab of slate. “Set it down there.” The shipwright steadied the brazier as it rested on the tile. “I don’t know what irons you might want, my lady, so I brought a fair selection.” The lad ground pincers, tongs, a small prybar and a plain length of iron into the glowing charcoal.