Out beyond the surf, a lean, black Cherek war-boat swung at anchor, the air above her alive with screeching gulls. Barak pulled his horse in and shaded his eyes. "She looks familiar," he rumbled, peering intently at the narrow ship.

Hettar shrugged. "They all look the same to me."

"There's all the difference in the world," Barak said, sounding a bit injured. "How would you feel if I said that all horses looked the same?"

"I'd think you were going blind."

Barak grinned at him. "It's exactly the same thing," he said.

"How do we let them know we're here?" Durnik asked.

"They know already," Barak said, "unless they're drunk. Sailors always watch an unfriendly shore very carefully."

"Unfriendly?" Durnik asked.

"Every shore is unfriendly when a Cherek war-boat comes in sight," Barak answered. "It's some kind of superstition, I think."

The ship came about and her anchor was raised. Her oars came out like long, spidery legs, and she seemed to walk through the froth-topped combers toward the mouth of the river. Barak led the way toward the riverbank, then rode along the broad flow until he found a spot deep enough so that the ship could be moored next to the shore.

The fur-clad sailors who threw Barak a mooring line looked familiar, and the first one who leaped across to the riverbank was Greldik, Barak's old friend.

"You're a long ways south," Barak said as if they had only just parted.

Greldik shrugged. "I heard you needed a ship. I wasn't doing anything, so I thought I'd come down and see what you were up to."

"Did you talk to my cousin?"

"Grinneg? No. We made a run down from Kotu to the harbor at Tol Horb for some Drasnian merchants. I ran into Elteg - you remember him - black beard, only one eye?"

Barak nodded.

"He told me that Grinneg was paying him to meet you here. I remembered that you and Elteg didn't get along very well, so I offered to come down instead."

"And he agreed?"

"No," Greldik replied, pulling at his beard. "As a matter of fact, he told me to mind my own business."

"I'm not surprised," Barak said. "Elteg always was greedy, and Grinneg probably offered him a lot of money."

"More than likely." Greldik grinned. "Elteg didn't say how much, though."

"How did you persuade him to change his mind?"

"He had some trouble with his ship," Greldik said with a straight face.

"What kind of trouble?"

"It seems that one night after he and his crew were all drunk, some scoundrel slipped aboard and chopped down his mast."

"What's the world coming to?" Barak asked, shaking his head.

"My thought exactly," Greldik agreed.

"How did he take it?"

"Not very well, I'm afraid," Greldik said sadly. "When we rowed out of the harbor, he sounded as if he was inventing profanities on the spot. You could hear him for quite some distance."