The sleet struck down cutting my face.

I drew again on the one-strap and again the bird's wings snapped, and he was on the long, sloping yard on the round ship's foremast.

His head was very high and every nerve in his body seemed alert, but puzzled. He looked about himself.

I did not hurry the bird.

I slapped the side of its neck, and spoke to it, gently, confidently. I drew on the one-strap. The bird did not move. His talons clutched the sloping yard.

I did not use the tarn goad.

I waited for some time, stroking it, and talking to it.

And then, suddenly, I gave a cry and jerked on the one-strap and the bird, by training and instinct, flung itself into the sleeting wind and began to climb the dark, running sky.

I was again on tamback!

The bird climbed until I released the one-strap and then it began to circle. Its movements were as sure and as swift as though it might have been over the familiar crags of the Voltai or the canals of Port Kar.

I tested its responses to the straps. They were im- mediate and eager. And suddenly I realized that the bird was trembling with excitement and pleasure, finding itself swift and alive and strong in a new world to his senses. Already, below me, I saw tarns being unhooded, and the straps that bound their beaks being unbuckled, and cast aside. Riders were climbing into the saddles. I saw tarns leaping to the decks of the round ships, and I saw the knotted ropes being attached to the saddles, and picked seamen, experts with the sword, five to a rope, taking their positions. And besides these seamen, each tarnsman, tied to his saddle, carried a shielded, protected ship's lantern, lighted, and, in the pockets of leather aprons, tied together and thrown across the saddles numerous clay flasks, corked with rags. These flasks I knew, were filled with tharlarion oil, and the rags that corked them had been soaked in the same substance.

Soon, behind me, there were some hundred tarnsmen, and below each, dangling, hanging to the knotted ropes, were five picked men.

I saw that the fleets of my fifth wave, the two fleets of forty ships apiece, under the command of Chung and Nigel, were well engaged in their strikes on the flanks of the great fleet.

At this time, before their numbers could have been well ascertained by the enemy, before the enemy could be much aware of anything more than the unexpected flanking attacks, I, followed by the tarnsmen, with the picked seamen, darted through the sleeting, windy skies over the locked fleets.

In the turmoil below, primarily of tam ships locked in battle, and the great round ships trying to close with enemy tam ships, I saw, protected by ten tam ships on each side, and ten before and ten behind, the flagship of Cos and Tyros. It was a great sNp, painted in the yellow of Tyros, with more than two hundred oarsmen.

It was the ship of Chenbar. It would carry, besides its oarsmen, who were all free, fighting men, some one hundred bowmen, and another hundred men, seamen, artillery men, auxiliary personnel and officers.

I drew on the four-strap. Almost instantly the ship was the center of a great beating of wings and descending tams.

My own tarn landed on the stern castle itself, and I leaped from its back. I whipped the sword from its sheath. Startled, Chenbar himself, LJbar of Tyros, the Sea Sleen, drew his blade.

I tore away the wind scarf from my face. "You!" he cried.

"Bosk," I told him, "Captain of Port Kar." Our blades met.

Behind us I could hear shouts and cries, and the sounds of men dropping from their ropes to the deck, and of weapons meeting weapons. I heard the hiss of crossbow quarrels.

As one set of birds hovered over the deck and their men dropped to its planks, the birds darted away, and another set took their place. And then, their fighters disembarked, the birds with their riders swept away, up into the 'black, vicious sleeting sky, to light the oily rags, one by one, in the clay flasks of tharlarion oil and hurt them, from the heights of the sky, down onto the decks of ships of Cos and Tyros. I did not expect a great deal of damage to be done by these shattering bombs of burning oil, but I was counting on the confluence of three factors: the psychological effect of such an attack, the fear of the outflanking fleets, whose numbers could not yet well have been ascertained, and, in the confusion and, hopefully terror, the unexpected, sudden loss of their commander.

I slipped on the sleet-iced deck of the stern castle and parried Chenbar's blade from my throat.

I leaped to my feet and again we engaged.

Then we grappled, the sword wrist of each in the hand of the other. I threw him against the sternpost and his back and head struck against the post. I heard someone behind me but whoever it was was met by one of my men. There were blades clashing at my back. I feared for the instant I might have broken Chenbar's back. I released the sword hand of the admiral of Tyros and struck him in the stomach with my left fist. As he sank forward I wrenched free my sword hand and, holding the sword still in my fist, struck him a heavy blow across the jaw with my fist. I spun about. My men were engaging those who would try to climb to the stern castle. Chenbar had sunk to his knees, stunned. I pulled the slave manacles from my belt and clapped them on Chenbar's wrists. Then, on his stomach, I dragged him to the talons of the tarn. With the rope, taken from my belt, I tied the slave manacles to the right foot of the bird.

Chenbar tried, groggily, to get up, but my foot on his neck held him in place. I looked about.

My men were forcing the defenders of the ship over the side, into the cold waters. The defenders had not been prepared for such an attack. They had been taken unawares and resistance had been slight. Moreover, my men outnumbered them by some hundred swords.

The defenders were swimming across to the other tam ships of Tyros, now swinging about to close with us and board.

Crossbow bolts from the other ships began to fall into the deck of the flagship. "Hold the men of Tyros left aboard at the parapetsl" I cried.

I heard a voice from across the water cry out. "Hold your fire!"

Then the first of the tarns returned to the flagship, having cast down its flaming bombs of burning oil.

Five of my men seized its rope, and, in an instant, they were lifted away from the ship.

"Fire the ship!" I called to my men.

They rushed below the decks to set fires in the hold.

More tarns returned and more of my men, sometimes six and seven to a rope, were carried away from the ship.

Smoke began to drift up through the planking of the deck.

One of the ships of Cos grated against the side of our own.

My men fought back boarders and then, with oars thrust away the other ship. Another ship struck our side, shearing oars. My men rushed to repel boarders again.

"Look!" one cried.

They gave a cheer. The ship flew the flag of Bosk, with its green stripes on the white background.

"Tab!" they cried. "Tab!"

It was the Venna, thrust through to free us.

I briefly saw Tab, sweating even in the cold, in a torn tunic, a sword in his hand on the stem castle of the Venna.

Then, on the other side, was the Tela, the Venna's sister ship. The heavy, protective wales, the parallel beams protecting her hull, were fresh scarred and half cut away.

My men eagerly leaped aboard these two ships.

I waved away other tamsmen, returning to the flagship to pick up men. I could see ships burning in the distance.

Then flames shot up through the deck planking of the flagship.

The last of the men of Tyros aboard the ship leaped free to the cold waters to swim to their own ships. I could see some, a hundred yards-away, climbing the wales of tarn ships, some clinging to their oars.