Captain Fowler stood at the rear of the ship. He was as much ore as human, with a jutting brow, swinish snout, and tough, grayish-green skin, and he seemed a strange sort of commander to the eyes of a Bedine witch not long absent from Anauroch's burning sands. He hugged the tiller with one burly arm, and his gray eyes never strayed from the ship's single bulging sail.

Ruha grabbed the binnacle, the wooden compass stand before the tiller, and asked, "Captain Fowler, why do you sail in the wrong direction?" She pointed over the star- board side. "Do you not see the dragon? Over there!"

"Lady Witch, I know the beast's bearings well enough."

Though his voice was deep and gravelly, the captain spoke with a deliberate composure that belied his feral aspect. "But even I cannot sail Storm Sprite full into the wind. We must beat our way."

Ruha had learned a little of the strange speech used by the men who lived upon the water, enough to know

Fowler meant they had to follow a zigzag course to their goal, and she did not need the captain to explain why.

Even a woman who had not set eyes on a ship until three days ago could see that the Storm Sprite could not sail directly against the wind. But she could also see that

Captain Fowler placed a high value on his vessel, and he was certainly shrewd enough to make a great show of rushing to the caravel's aid while sailing at angles shal- low enough to ensure he arrived after the battle was done.

Ruha glanced over the starboard side and saw the car- avel topping the moonlit crest of a rolling sea dune. High upon its poop deck sat the dragon, swatting at the far- away vessel's indiscernible crew as a man slaps at sting- ing flies.

"Captain Fowler, we have no time for this sailing of a snake's path! By the time we reach the ship, we shall find nothing but dead men."