Crude things, they were unfit to caress a weapon like mine. No wonder they had not harmed any of us.

I dropped a score into the melee, probing for officers and sergeants, then took out a bothersome pair of snipers in the caravel's rigging. They had been plinking at the Old Man, who stood like a gnarled tree defying a storm, laughing as arrows streaked around him.

He would be some match for the dead captain of the phantom.

The caravel's poop was clear. Barley and Priest were holding the ladders against counterattacks from below. The men with them threw things at the crowd on the maindeck. I decided to recover my arrows before some idiot trampled them, went aft.

The uproar was overwhelming.

Shouts. Clanging weapons. Shrieks of pain. Officers and sergeants thundering contradictory orders. The sides of the vessels ground together as the seas rolled on beneath them. And the Old Man still laughed crazily on the poop. He and I were the only ones who remained aboard.

He nodded. "As always, well done."

I gave him an it was nothing shrug. When the sterncastles rolled together, I jumped across.

My feet came down in a pool of blood, skidded away. Down I went, my head bounding off the rail.

Colgrave laughed again.

It was nearly over by the time I came around. A handful of soldiers were defending a hatchway forward. Most of our men were pitching corpses overboard. They were eying that hatchway hungrily. Feminine wailing came from behind it. Priest and Barley were getting ready for the final rush.

I staggered up, planning to help with a few well placed arrows.

Damn! My head! And the Freylander seemed to be rolling badly.

It was not my imagination. The squall was closer. It would arrive in a few hours.

That was time enough for recreation. And to find the grog.