The crew turned at the sound of voices, registering confusion and concern. “Give them orders,” Kerrick said, using the forms of she-who-is-highest to those-who-are-lowest. “Tell them to do nothing, to obey you. If they do this they will not be hurt. Do you understand?”

Erafnais seemed numbed and incapable of comprehending what was being said to her. They all were like that, Kerrick realized. Erafnais pointed at the dead, or dying, beast and spoke slowly with fargi-like simplicity.

“My first command. I was there soon after it was born, fed it fresh caught fish with my own hand. That is what a commander must do. They have some intelligence, not much, but it is there. It knew me. I helped with the training, doing what the instructors taught me. I know the creature is old, fifty-five, almost fifty-six, they don’t live much longer than that, but it was still strong. We should have been at sea, this never would have happened, not in this restricted channel with a storm on its way. But those were the orders.” She turned a hopeless look of despair upon Kerrick. “You sailed in her, I remember. We had a good crossing, rode out a storm, never a problem.”

The crewmembers were on their feet now, listening as he was, for they had lived aboard the uruketo, too. It was their home, their world. One of the crewmembers dropped to the sand again; the movement drew Kerrick’s attention. No, she wasn’t sitting, she was taking something from among the bladders and containers on the beach.

“Get away from there,” Kerrick ordered, modifiers of urgency and immense danger. She did not listen, was reaching down, sitting up now—with a hèsotsan.

Kerrick shouted and fired, saw the dart strike one of the containers. The opening of the other weapon swung toward him and he dived to the sand, scrambling into a dip, hearing the other fire. Raising his own weapon to fire again.

More successfully this time. The dart struck her in the chest and she fell face down in the sand. Kerrick ran forward, before the other crewmembers could react, grabbing up the other hèsotsan with his free hand, spinning about and pointing his own at the crew.

It had taken only instants—yet everything had changed. Another of the Yilanè was huddled on her side, dead. The dart that had missed him had found her instead. Kerrick pointed at Erafnais and the other two survivors.

“I warned you, ordered you to stop them. This need not have happened. Now all of you, move back away from these things. Two are dead. That is enough.”

“Eight others dead in the uruketo,” Erafnais said, speaking so softly he could barely hear the sounds, her limbs scarcely moving with the qualifiers.

“Tell me of the city,” Kerrick said, loudly, urgency-of-speech in his sharp movements. “What has happened there? Tell me of Alplèasak.”