Salk Elan shouted a warning that brought Kalam spinning around. Hovering just off the port side, directly behind the grouped marines, an apparition took form, its wings ten paces across, its shimmering scales bright yellow and blinding in the new day’s light. The long reptilian head was a mass of fangs.

An enkar’al – this far from Raraku – Hood’s breath!

‘I warned you!’ the treasurer laughed.

The creature was a blur as it plunged into the midst of the marines, talons crunching through chain and helms.

Kalam whirled again, drove his fist into the grinning treasurer’s face. The man dropped to the deck unconscious, blood gushing from his nose and eyes.

‘Kalam!’ Salk Elan shouted. ‘Leave the mage to me – help the marines!’

The assassin bolted forward. Enkar’al were mortal enough, just notoriously hard to kill, and rare even in their desert home – the assassin had never before faced one.

Seven marines were down. The creature’s wings thundered as it hung over the rest, its two taloned limbs darting downward, clashing against shields.

Pirates were streaming onto Ragstopper, opposed now by only half a dozen marines, the lieutenant among them.

Kalam had little time to think of what he planned, and none to gauge Salk Elan’s progress. ‘Stiffen shields!’ he bellowed, then leapt forward, scrambling onto the shields. The enkar’al twisted around, razor claws lashing at his face. He ducked and drove his long-knife up between the creature’s legs.

The point jammed against scale, snapping like a twig.

‘Hood!’

Dropping the weapon, Kalam surged upward, clambering over the gnarled, scaly hide. Jaws snapped down at him but could not reach. The assassin swung around, onto the beast’s back.

Sorcerous concussions reached his ears from the raider’s deck.

Thrusting knife in one hand, his other arm looped around the enkar’al’s sinuous neck, Kalam began slashing at the beating wings. The blade slipped through membrane, opening wide, spreading gaps. The enkar’al fell to the deck, into the midst of the surviving marines, who closed in around it, thrusting with their short swords.

The heavier weapons succeeded where long-knife failed, driving between scales. Blood sprayed. The creature screamed, thrashing about in its death throes.

There was fighting on all sides now, as pirates converged to cut down the last of the marines. Kalam clambered off the dying enkar’al, shifted the knife to his left hand and found a short sword lying beside a dead marine, barely in time to meet the charge of two pirates, their heavy scimitars slashing down on both sides.

The assassin leapt between the two men, inside their reach, stabbed swiftly with both weapons, then pushed past, twisting his blades as he dragged them free.