‘Because Mael, having sent his greetings, need not send them again!’ and he cackled anew.

Sailors, she thought. The oddest sense of humour.

The pilot sliced an arm forward, yelling, ‘That one! Straight on!’ Lean heaved her considerable bulk against the arm while Sept pulled. ‘Further!’ Havvin urged. ‘Hard o’ port!’

‘I don’t remember volunteering for this,’ Lean gasped as she strained.

‘Beats marching,’ Sept grinned.

Lean, her jaws set, shook her head. ‘Never the right weather, is it? Always too hot or too cold. Too wet or too dry.’

Shimmer saluted them and headed back below. If they could still joke, then things were in hand. She descended the steep ladder to find Bars and Blues awaiting her at the bottom. Water poured down over her shoulders in one last chilling wash. ‘I’m beginning to hate these journeys,’ she told Bars.

‘I’m with you, Shimmer. Only way to get anywhere, though.’

They braced themselves on nearby timbers in the darkness of the low deck. Water sloshed about their boots. ‘And you, Bars,’ she asked. ‘Where were you in Assail lands?’

The man grimaced at the memory. ‘Exile Keep. On the shores of the Dread Sea. Turned out to be two inbred families of mages battling each other for control of the coast.’ He paused and ran a thumb along a scar on his chin. Blues’ eyes glittered in the dark as he waited and watched, just as Shimmer did. ‘Somehow they got it into their crazy paranoid heads that we were plotting to take the keep, or some damned fool thing like that. Both the families turned on us. Every last one of them. Anyway …’ Bars cleared his throat. ‘Cal an’ the rest withdrew. Pulled ’em all off so me and my Blade could escape in a local’s fishing skiff. That was the last I saw of them. Headed north along the Anguish Coast.’ He lowered his head to study the knuckles of one hand.

‘That was Cal’s plan, wasn’t it?’ Blues said gently. Bars nodded. ‘So stop beating yourself up about it. The plan worked. Now we’re back because of it.’

Bars curled the hand into a tight fist, lowered it. ‘Right.’

Ah, Bars, Shimmer thought. Always feeling everything so keenly. Like a raw exposed nerve. The man’s emotions were like a storm; it would be attractive if it were not so exhausting.

‘Where’s K’azz?’ Blues asked.

‘Up top. Watching the storm.’ Shimmer shook her head, mystified. ‘It’s like he’s not afraid one whit. Just curious. As if he wants to experience it.’

Blues snorted. ‘Well I’m damned afraid, if he’s not. Don’t like being out of sight of shore. Too far to swim.’

Of course, Shimmer reflected, being a mage of D’riss Blues wouldn’t like being out of sight of land. ‘We’re none of us happy sailors,’ she said.