The hunt spilled through the village like a black flood. Fiamo could see the rider better now, a man dressed in clothes like no commoner would wear. The boat was more than twenty strides from the pier and gathering speed as fear lent strength to the crew. The vorns ignored the houses. They loped onto the pier, then milled at the edge. The rider looked around at the fleeing boats, and his gaze returned to Fiamo’s. He raised a hand.

Fiamo drew in a breath, ready to defy the stranger’s order to return. No voice came across the water. Instead, the boat shuddered to a halt.

Then it rushed backward.

The oars jammed in their rings. Crew struggled uselessly with them. The boy gave a high-pitched shriek. Others cried out names of the gods. Fiamo crouched, paralyzed by terror, as his boat raced back to the shore like a woman who had just laid eyes on her lost love.

We’re going to smash into the pier, he thought.

At the last moment, the boat slowed. Even before it bumped into the pier, vorns were leaping aboard. There were splashes on either side as those men who could swim dived into the water. I should go too, he thought, but he remained where he was. Cursed fool I am. I can’t bring myself to give up my boat so easily.

A thought had burrowed its way into his mind. If this man could control these beasts, then he had only the man to fear. A man could be bargained with.

Still, Fiamo’s heart thundered in his chest as the vorns surged past him, their tongues lolling in mouths lined with sharp teeth. A few circled him, but they did not leap for his throat. He turned as yells of pain came from behind, and cried out in dismay as he saw vorns with their jaws fixed on the arms and legs of crew, but they were dragging the men away from the railing, not pulling them to the deck. With their added weight the boat floated low in the water.

Hearing the sound of wood sliding over wood, Fiamo turned back to see the gangplank move, unaided by any human, to the edge of the deck. As it settled on the pier the stranger rode aboard. He slid off the back of his mount and turned to stare at Fiamo.

“Captain,” the man said in a strange accent. “Tell crew take oars.”

Fiamo forced himself to look at his remaining crew, huddled together, ringed by vorns. Some, he heard, were murmuring prayers to the gods.

“You heard him, boys. Back to the oars.”

His voice shook, but held enough command to send the crew edging around the vorns to their former places.

“Pull up oars and keep them up,” the sorcerer ordered.