The suddenly widening eyes of the men closest to Blade gave him part of the warning, and the sound of metal on wood behind him gave the rest. Blade whirled, bending to snatch up the sword as he did so, and saw two sailors scrambling over the railing. They must have climbed along the hull outboard of the railing and below Blade's angle of vision. He didn't have time to admire their agility, but he did have the sword. This was lucky, because one of the sailors had a sword of his own and the other held a six-foot spear with a barbed head.

Blade chopped down with the sword as hard as he could, taking off the spear's head and two feet of the shaft. With the club he blocked a sword cut. The spearman dropped the stump of the shaft and started to draw a knife from his belt. Before he could complete the movement Blade closed with the swordsman, immobilized his weapon, grabbed the man, and swung him around. Blade got his living shield into position just as the other sailor thrust hard with his knife. Fortunately he only stabbed his shipmate in the buttocks. The first man let out a yell, struggled wildly, and cursed fluently. Blade couldn't tell if he was cursing his enemy or his shipmate.

Blade put an end to the curses by squeezing the man's right wrist until he dropped his sword, then picking him up like a sack of flour and heaving him off the foc'sle. The second sailor had the courage to try facing Blade armed only with his knife, but this didn't do him any good. Blade cracked the man hard across one knee with the back of his sword. Then he twisted the knife free and sent the knifeman flying after his shipmate. He landed squarely on top of the swordsman, but once again the amount of noise floating up from the main deck told Blade that both men were more or less in one piece.

Less reassuring was the fact that the main deck of the ship was now filling with armed sailors. At least a dozen of them held spears, and two of them had bows and quivers of arrows. None of them were armored and none of them were saying anything, but none of them looked particularly friendly either. Blade realized he might have rather overdone the job of showing them he wasn't an easy victim. Now he'd better start talking before one of those archers let fly, and hope they wouldn't consider his trying to talk peace a sign of weakness.