A babble of voices rose belowdecks as the ship swung again, the tiller shifting with the first man’s weight.

Thom limped from the hatch in cloak and smallclothes, raising the shutter on a bull’s-eye lantern. “You were lucky, boy. One of those below had this lantern. Could have set the ship on fire, lying there.” The light showed a knife hilt sticking up from the chest of a man with dead, staring eyes. Mat had never seen him before; he was sure he would have remembered someone with that many scars on his face. Thom kicked a dagger away from the dead man’s outflung hand, then bent to retrieve his own knife, wiping the blade on the corpse’s cloak. “Very lucky, boy. Very lucky indeed.”

There was a rope tied to the stern rail. Thom stepped over to it, shining the light down astern, and Mat joined him. At the other end of the rope was one of the small boats from Southharbor, its square lantern extinguished. Two more men stood among the pulled-in oars.

“The Great Lord take me, it’s him!” one of them gasped. The other darted forward to work frantically at the knot holding the rope.

“You want to kill these two as well?” Thom asked, his voice booming as it did when he performed.

“No, Thom,” Mat said quietly. “No.”

The men in the boat must have heard the question and not the answer, for they abandoned the attempt to free their boat and leaped over the side with great splashes. The sound of them thrashing away across the river was loud.

“Fools,” Thom muttered. “The river narrows somewhat after Tar Valon, but it must still be half a mile or more wide here. They’ll never make it in the dark.”

“By the Stone!” came a shout from the hatch. “What happens here? There are dead men in the passageway! What’s Vasa doing lying on the tiller? He’ll run us onto a mudbank!” Naked save for linen underbreeches, Mallia dashed to the tiller, hauling the dead man off roughly as he pulled the long lever to put the course straight again. “That isn’t Vasa! Burn my soul, who are all these dead men?” Others were clambering on deck now, barefoot crewmen and frightened passengers wrapped in cloaks and blankets.

Shielding his actions with his body, Thom slipped his knife under the rope and severed it in one stroke. The small boat began falling back into the darkness. “River brigands, Captain,” he said. “Young Mat and I have saved your vessel from river brigands. They might have cut everyone’s throat if not for us. Perhaps you should reconsider your passage fee.”

“Brigands!” Mallia exclaimed. “There are plenty of those down around Cairhien, but I never heard of it this far north!” The huddled passengers began to mutter about brigands and having their throats cut.