Help me, Tayyan called. Serroi looked down at her shield-mate sprawled in her own blood, then she looked past her at the Norid, the Black Man, the terror that ran in her blood. And she ran. Scurried like an animal over roof tiles and walls. Ran with Tayyan’s accusing eyes always behind her.

Serroi shuddered and rubbed at her eyes, leaned her head back against the seat by the tiller and watched the sun drift upward, beginning to realize just how hungry she was. She laid her hand flat on her stomach, marveling at the desire her body had for life. Blinking away tormenting memory, she got to her feet and started rummaging through the lockers. She found a wineskin and shook it, squeezed a few drops of the sour wine into her parched mouth, shuddered at the taste. She broke a fingernail working open a tin of biscuits, sat sucking at the finger as she poked through the pale brown rounds inside. Fishing one of them out, she continued her exploration of the boat, chewing on the hard biscuit and sipping at the sour wine.

The boat was clean and well-kept, obviously the darling of some poor fisherman’s heart. There was extra rope, pieces of canvas for patching the sail, cord for reweaving nets, neat coils of fish line, a small packet of needles and coarse thread-and much more. Halfway round, she kicked into her bow, lying where she’d dropped it, still strung. “Yael-mri would have my hide.” She knelt, slipped the loop, ran her hand along the carefully tended stave, pleased that the wood seemed strong still in spite of its repeated inundations. She hung the bow over a mast cleat to continue drying, stretched, patted a yawn.

Higher up the cliffs hanguli-passare nested in hollows in the chalk and were flying about, their long leathery wings and small furred bodies coping easily with the thermals along the cliff face. Their cries blended with the steady roar of the surf and the creaking of the boat as wind and tide shoved it about.