The most difficult part of the plan was getting to Khral’s ship without being observed: The various vessels of the fleet had been exposed to a tremendous variation of strains. Some had encountered losses of their sails or yardarms, slowing their progress. Others had suffered fractures in their keels or rudders, requiring a lengthy halt for repairs. The original formation the fleet had assumed had been completely upset by the unpredictable nature of the voyage, and now Aleran and Canish ships alike were thoroughly intermixed.

Each ship had acquired a similar routine in two days of swift travel. At the rest stops, virtually everyone aboard, crews and passengers alike, would pile off onto solid ground. Even the saltiest hands aboard the ice ships had begun to turn a bit green around the gills (or wherever it was the Canim turned green, Marcus supposed), and they were glad of the chance to stand in place without being jolted from their feet or flung into a companion.

The Aleran woodcrafters who fought to hold the ships together were no exception. Marcus watched as the four men aboard Khral’s ship staggered drunkenly down the ladders to the ground. Then they shambled away to sit on a fallen tree trunk nearby and pass among themselves a bottle of some vile concoction the amateur distillers in the Legions had created. Dazed legionares and limp-eared Canim warriors alike took the opportunity to stretch their legs, united by a torturous common foe—or at least by a common torture.

Khral’s caution remained vigilantly in place. His ship had been brought to a halt better than eighty yards from any of the others, and sentries had been posted fore and aft, port and starboard. Against the backdrop of rippling white ice, anyone who approached would be spotted immediately.

Marcus and Sha padded down the length of an Aleran ship parked parallel to the larger Canim vessel, and Marcus waited until a gust of unseasonably chill wind had driven a cloud of snow and sleet into the air, swirling it around them in a freezing veil. Then Marcus drew his sword, grunted with effort, and hacked a hole in the sheet of ice a little larger than his own foot. He put a hand down through the ice to the bare earth beneath, called upon his earth fury, Vamma, and the ground quivered, the ice cracked, and the cold earth swallowed both him and Sha without making a sound.