"What of your reward, Captain Fowler?" The witch glanced toward the departing caravel. The lanterns atop its stern were still visible whenever the great ship crested a dune, but the gray outlines of the vessel itself were rapidly fading into the night. "I thought you wanted to catch the caravel?"

Fowler did not even look over his shoulder. "Not if the dragon pilfered all its gold."

Several wails of surprise sounded from the windlass;

then the Storm Sprite righted herself so suddenly that half a dozen men fell flat on the deck.

"What happened?" Fowler boomed. "Why are those lines slack?"

"It-it just happened," came the reply. "The harpoons must have pulled free!"

A chorus of disappointed groans rumbled through the crew, but Fowler's gray eyes shined with alarm. "All of them at once? Never."

The sailors looked at each other with baffled expres- sions, as though they expected one of their number to confess to some mistake that explained the mystery. A

babble sounded ahead of the Storm Sprite and to both

sides of her bow. The little cog fell abruptly silent, and every head aboard swiveled toward the noises.

Ruha slipped a hand into her aba. "Perhaps the men should retrieve their weapons, Captain-"

A curtain of black wings rose from the sea ahead, eclipsing the moon's reflection on the water and casting a shroud of murky darkness over the ship. The crew gasped in alarm and retreated toward the somercastle, giving no apparent thought to the spears and axes that lay stowed around the deck.