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Valyan, Kreeg, and I were right behind, slowing only long enough to pluck up three of the shields that were commonly lashed to the inside of an airborne flyer. These would be put over the side when the ship was landing so everyone could see the vessel’s origins and history from the lacquered designs on their surfaces. They would serve us now against arrows instead. I blocked several such darts as I raced forward.

In my right fist glittered a saber. I did not remember drawing it. It was the same weapon I had used in the lava mines of Andertalen when we had broken the slave chains of the Klar (see Swords of Talera). It had served me well there. I hoped it would again.

Rhandh was hard pressed at the prow and the three of us battered a way to him and threw his attackers back. Steel edges shrieked across metal and leather. In almost an instant my saber drank two men’s lives; my shield grew new designs, inscribed without artistry by the tips of thrusting swords. The taste of blood fogged my throat.

It wasn’t my blood.

Behind us, then! A shout!

I turned to see more of Rannon’s guards boiling up from below. Then a third wave of vullwings went over and dropped reivers to the aft. They took out the first of our guards to reach the open air and seized the hatchway to prevent others from following. It looked as if it would be four of us against many—the kind of battle of which songs are written.

Kreeg was not one to care for such songs. He merely grunted in angry pleasure as fresh enemies rushed upon us. His sword was knocked aside as a man lunged at him with naked steel. Kreeg avoided the cut to the left, caught the fellow’s arm and jerked him forward. He broke the man’s wrist, hurled him into a second raider. Both men fell back, and over the Aestor’s railing while we were half a verlang in the air. Both screamed. But not for long did we hear them.

Valyan and I went to sword strokes with new foes. I took an arrow in my shield; a cutlass’s edge crashed against the bronze boss and rebounded. My own blade licked out, sliced through a throat, then leaped back to parry a thrust, driving an enemy’s sword-tip down to scrape the planks of the deck. The vullwings were past us now. They’d not catch the ship again unless the pilot could somehow be taken. He would not be killed unless by accident, for the skills of the pilot caste are rare and are greatly valued on Talera.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be threatened.

The absence of bird-riders around us meant no more arrows and for that I was grateful. It made me wish for a parrying dagger rather than the shield. I had never felt comfortable with the heavy things dragging on one arm. I wasn’t about to drop this one, though. Not just yet.

Beside me, Rhandh was a devil in iron, his knife-strapped tentacles whipping up under opponents’ defenses to slash flesh while his broadsword demanded their attention. Valyan was almost as quick, and with a bit more élan in the way his blade twinkled, and danced, and ripped.

I carved my way through, parrying, thrusting, riposting, but going mainly for the cut and bludgeon. The middle of a melee is no time for refinement. One reiver thought to fence with me. He styled himself a talent. I barreled past his guard, using the shield to ward his tip, and smashed the hilt of my saber savagely into his mouth. He went backward over the railing and his talent didn’t keep him from dying.

Rhandh bellowed in frustration beside me as he realized that he’d come too far forward, too far from his Jhesana, who was now trapped below deck. He sought to disengage, to forge a road back to the hatchway—where I wanted him too. But struggling bodies clotted his path. I yelled for Kreeg and Valyan, and the three of us hacked a space for the huge Vlih to slip through. As Rhandh began to run, I ordered Kreeg to go with him, leaving Valyan and myself to hold at the prow.

Valyan’s green skin sheened with perspiration. That only meant he was warmed up. He flashed a quick white grin in my direction as he