“Hello!” he called out, speaking in the language of the Arktos. “Is anyone there?”

His words were swallowed by the mist, for he was too far from shore to bring an echo. After a long pause, however, he heard the groaning noise again. It was a plaintive cry, clearly indicative of pain and distress. If not quite human, it was not the noise of a beast either.

Kerrick hauled on the tiller, and Cutter, very slowly, came around toward a southward bearing. The slight breeze luffed the sail until he angled farther to the west, tacking through the placid sea, barely moving.

“Hello!” he called again, scrambling atop the cabin, straining to peer through the mist. The rising sun had some effect, brightening the fog, but he could see no feature marring the smooth surface of the sea.

A trace of rippling disturbed the placid surface, at the limit of his vision off the starboard bow. Hopping down into the cockpit, he adjusted the tiller, angling toward the place he tried to picture as the source.

The wind was so faint that the boat hardly moved. Impatient, the elf took up a paddle and propelled Cutter slowly forward. He strained to hear something, but the fog seemed full of silence. Kerrick didn’t call out again-he was making enough noise with his paddling. Raising the paddle from the water, he listened, hearing only the musical notes of the water droplets falling from the blade back to the sea.

Then there was a louder splash, like a fish jumping, and he saw a fresh series of ripples expanding from the mist. Fully alarmed now, he considered ducking into the cabin to retrieve his sword, but he didn’t want to take the time. Instead, he picked up the harpoon Mouse had given him and carried the well-balanced weapon above his shoulder as he crept forward.

Something splashed, to the right, and he turned in time to see the flash of a limb-or a flipper of some kind-just break the surface. He raised the harpoon and stared. Was it a dolphin? A seal? Or something more dangerous?

The sun was brighter now, and when Kerrick glanced upward he saw the gray sky shading toward blue. Again he saw something splash at the surface, unmistakably an arm. The stroke was followed, however, by the kick of a broad, webbed foot. A moment later he saw a rounded, whiskered face, turned upward toward the sky. The eyes were closed.

At last he understood. This was a thanoi. He saw the blunt tusks breaking the surface of the water above the creature’s chest. Again it kicked one foot listlessly.

Kerrick braced his foot on the railing and stared. The thanoi’s eyes-a deep brown, rimmed with blood-red-

flashed momentarily, and the walrus-man was gone, vanished into the depths. The elf’s fingers tightened around the shaft of the harpoon, and his body tensed, ready to cast the weapon at the next sight of the brute. A moment later he saw another splash, this time to the left, but by the time he shifted the creature had disappeared again. Obviously it could move under the water with surprising speed.

He wasted no time wondering what it was doing here, so far from shore. The walrus-men were aquatic creatures, secretive and deadly. He couldn’t allow it to hover nearby, a threat to the boat in this placid, windless water.

The next splash of sound surprised him. It came from the other side of the boat, very near the hull. He crossed the deck, his harpoon still raised, when once more he heard the plaintive groan. Another step took him to the gunwale, and he glimpsed that broad, tusked face looking up at him from the water. The creature raised one arm from the water, palm upraised as if to ward off a blow, and grunted again.

“Wait!” the thanoi cried, the word guttural and thick, but recognizable. “No kill!”

The thanoi floated sideways, waving that one arm, and Kerrick saw a ghastly wound scarring the creature’s flank. One of its legs drifted loosely in the water, and the elf could see that the other arm had been chopped off, a ragged wound that left raw strips of flesh draped from the walrus-man’s elbow. The elf was startled to see a thick ring of braided gold encircling the creature’s neck, a collar of intricate workmanship and great worth.

“Help,” groaned the thanoi, finally dropping the arm and floating on its back. The belly, leathery-skinned but unprotected, offered an easy target for the harpoon.

But Kerrick had lost the impulse to harm. Instead, he stepped to the stern and rolled the rope ladder off of the rain to trail into the water.

* * * * *

“Why you here on Dracoheim Sea?” asked the thanoi, seated in the cockpit, leaning against the transom. Despite the grievous wounds, the creature showed no sign of suffering pain. Perhaps the salt water had cauterized the flesh, Kerrick guessed. The raw cuts were not, at this point, bleeding.

“I’m sailing home, to Silvanesti,” Kerrick replied. “I heard you make a noise. What happened to you, anyway?”

“Shark,” spat the beast, the voice a guttural growl full of scorn. “I killed fish-it swallowed my knife hand, and I kill it.”

The elf grimaced. “Why were you here, so far from land? Are these waters claimed by your tribe?”

“Who can claim water?” asked the walrus-man. “No, I was on my way across the sea, to the dark island.”

“Dark island? What’s that?” Kerrick asked.

“Dracoheim. I work for the Alchemist.” These words meant little to Kerrick. The grotesque creature looked at the terrible wounds on its flank, the missing arm. “I will not return, this time, but I thank you for sparing my life, even for just a few hours longer.”

The elf nodded, solemnly. “Can I give you something to comfort you, food… water?”

The walrus-man blinked eyes that looked very old, very tired. “Yes, water.”

Kerrick fetched a ladleful as the thanoi pushed himself upright on the bench.

“I am called Long-Swim Greatfin. I thank you for mercy, strange as it be. No ogre nor human would show such care.”

For the first time Kerrick noticed the manlike features of the thanoi. True, the nostrils were broad, the upper lip split into two overhanging lobes. A pair of tusks, sharp and upturned, grew from the upper jaw. But there was also real intelligence in the brown eyes, and the chin was square and possessed a certain dignity. The musculature of the walrus-man’s chest rippled in an approximation of a man’s, and the thanoi had arms and legs-sort of-with webbed feet and fingers broad and flat. Kerrick noticed a tusk suspended by a leather strap from around the creature’s neck.

“How far away is this Dracoheim?” Kerrick asked.

Long-Swim shrugged. “A swim for many risings of the sun. In the direction of the sunset.”

“Why made you come so far?”

The thanoi closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the gunwale. Kerrick wasn’t sure the creature had understood the question and was about to repeat himself when the walrus-man opened his eyes and shrugged. “Took a message to the ogre king,” he said tonelessly. “Got a taste of warqat, and now I swim back.”

With that, he slumped backward again, and his chest rose and fell in a rhythmic pattern of slumber.

7

Alarm

The thanoi called Long-Swim Greatfin died during the short, ghostly night, not with a sudden collapse but with a gradual slumping along the cockpit bench. He uttered no distinguishable sound, made no dramatic final gestures. Indeed Kerrick didn’t at first notice that the soft, sonorous breathing had ceased.

The elf had fully raised his three sails and marked a course along the Icereach coast, still heading west. The winds were strong from the north-the night had brought the first real rush of summer air-and Cutter heeled hard against the pressure, fairly flying over the waves, bumping rhythmically into the crests before lunging into every trough. With water slapping against the hull, and clouds often obscuring the waxing moon, the elf failed to notice his passenger’s lifeless state until the first predawn light suffused the sky.