Bitterlich pulled on his erstepelz and descended to the gun deck. One end had been partitioned off into cells to hold the remaining Skaladin. Bitterlich inspected his men and their prisoners and found their precautions satisfactory. If Fleet Command and the Célestial ambassador to Skaladin concluded the aeronauts belonged to the tyrant, they would be treated as prisoners of war; otherwise they would be executed as pirates.

There was nothing about the bedraggled crew or their run-down ship that suggested to Bitterlich that anyone in Skaladin would want to claim them. Most were older than the average aeronaut, grizzled and spare. Their green-and-black uniforms were patched and worn, those who even had uniforms. Interspersed amongst the captives were younger men in Célestial garb with clean-shaven chins and tattoos such as the Skaladin never wore.

Why would Hasdrubal need to employ pirates and riffraff in the first place? As an agent of the Maze of Eyes, he ought to have all the resources of the tyranny at his disposal. He could have called upon a crack raiding squadron instead of this motley lot.

Bitterlich strolled to one of the cells. Most of the Skaladin gazed on him with a sullen anger, and many made signs against evil. They could not abide sorcerers as anything but slaves.

The foreigners amongst them were more fearful than furious. How had they had fallen in with the pirates? They might have been criminals or fortune-seekers or just drunk in the wrong alley at the wrong time, but they were much less likely to be loyal to the collective than the Skaladin.

“Bring me that one,” Bitterlich said, pointing to one of the Célestials, a man with a pox-pitted face and many small scars on his work-hardened arms.

A marine hauled the man up. Bitterlich led them to the chartroom. The pirate looked around like a caged beast introduced to a new environment. He might not have liked the cage he’d left, but he did not trust the one he was in.

“Do you have a name?” Bitterlich asked.

“Sinclair,” he said. “Please. I’m not part of this.” He gestured at the ship with his hands still bound. “Didn’t ask for this. Got pressed, see?”

“So, you fell into a barrel of beer, and woke up on a pirate ship,” Bitterlich said.

“Yeah,” Sinclair said. “Not my fault.”

“Then you’ll agree to testify against your kidnappers,” Bitterlich said.

“Will you let me go?” Sinclair said.

“That depends on how truthful your testimony turns out to be,” Bitterlich said. It was not technically up to Bitterlich to decide what happened to these men, a but a judge was unlikely to deny Bitterlich if he asked for clemency.

“How long has it been since you were abducted?” Bitterlich asked.

Sinclair shook his head slowly. “Little more than a turn. Took me on as a carpenter, see. The ship was a mess. Worse’n now.”