A trail scarred the mountainside, running parallel to the Dyre River. Darrick was certain Raithen's pirate crew used it when changing the guard. He stayed off it, choosing the slower path through the brush.

Mat and Maldrin followed him, staying to the path he chose.

As they neared the riverbank's edge overlooking the three pirate vessels, wisps of silver fog threaded through the brush. Tobacco smoke itched Darrick's nose. Though Captain Tollifer didn't allow smoking on Lonesome Star, Darrick had been around a number of men who smoked in ports they patrolled and traded with. He'd never acquired the habit himself and thought it was repugnant. And it reminded him of his father's pipe.

The brush and treeline ended twenty yards short of the area the pirates had been using to shift their stolen goods. Shadows painted the stacks of crates and barrels, giving him more cover to take advantage of.

One of the pirates walked away from the group of five who played dice. "That ale's gettin' the best of me. Hold my place. I'll be back."

"As long as ye have money," one of the other pirates said, "we'll stand ye to a place in this game. This is yer unlucky night and our lucky one."

"Just be glad Cap'n Raithen's been keepin' us headed toward fat purses," the pirate said. He walked around to the side of the crates where Darrick hid in the brush.

Darrick thought the man was going to relieve himself over the side of the riverbank and was surprised to see himdig in the bag at his side frantically once he was out of sight of the others. Pale moonlight touched the dice that tumbled out into the man's waiting palm.

The pirate grinned and closed his fist over the dice. Then he started to relieve himself.

Moving with catlike grace, Darrick crept up behind the pirate. Picking up a stone loose on the ground, Darrick fisted it and stepped behind the pirate, who was humming a shanty tune as he finished. Darrick recognized the tune as "Amergo and the Dolphin Girl," a bawdy favorite of a number of sailors.

Darrick swung the stone, felt the thud of rock meeting flesh, and wrapped an arm around the unconscious pirate to guide him to the ground. Leaving the fallen pirate out of sight from the others, Darrick slid to the riverbank's edge. He peered down, seeing that all three cogs did lie at anchorage beneath the overhang as he'd thought.

He drew back, put his shoulders to the crate behind him, slid his cutlass free, and waved to Maldrin and Mat. They crossed, staying low.

"Hey, Timar," one of the pirates called, "ye comin' back tonight?"

"Told ye he had too much to drink," another pirate said. "Probably start cheatin' any minute now."

"If'n I see them loaded dice of his one more time," another pirate said, "I swear I'm gonna cut his nose off."

Darrick glanced up the slight rise of land toward the ruins of Tauruk's Port. No one came down the trail that wound through the wreckage.

"Four men left," Darrick whispered. "Once one of them makes a noise, there'll be no more hiding here for us."

Mat nodded.

Maldrin slitted his eyes and ran a thumb across the knife in his fist. "Better they not have a chance to make noise, then."

"Agreed," Darrick whispered. "Maldrin, hold the steps. They'll come from below as soon as we announce ourselves.And we will be announcing ourselves. Mat, you and I are going to see about setting the ships on fire below."

Mat raised his eyebrows.

"Barrels of whale oil," Darrick said. "Shouldn't be that hard to get them over the edge of the riverbank. They'll fall straight to the ships below. Get them on the decks of the one port of Barracuda, and I'll target the one starboard of her."

Smiling, Mat nodded. "They'll be busy tryin' to save their ships."

"Aye," Darrick said. "We'll use the confusion to get aboard Barracuda and see to the king's nephew."

"Be lucky if'n ye don't get yerselves killed outright," Maldrin groused. "An' me with ye."

Darrick smiled, feeling cocky as he always did when he was in the thick of a potentially disastrous situation. "If we live, you owe me a beer back at Rik's Tavern in Westmarch."

"I owe ye?" Maldrin looked as though he couldn't believe it. "An' how is it ye're a-gonna buy me one?"

Shrugging, Darrick said, "If I get us all killed, I'll stand you to your first cool drink in the Burning Hells."

"No," Maldrin protested. "That's not fair."

"Speak up first next time, and you can set the terms," Darrick said.

"Timar!" one of the pirates bellowed.

"He's probably fallen in," another pirate said. "I'll go look for him."

Darrick rose slowly, looking over the stack of crates as one of the pirates peeled off from the game. He held his cutlass in his hand, signaling Mat and Maldrin to stand down. If fortune was going to favor them with one more victim before they set to, so be it.

When the man stepped around the crates, Darrick grabbed him, clapped a hand over the pirate's mouth, and slit his throat with the cutlass. Darrick held the man as he bled out. A look of horror filled Mat's face.

Darrick looked away from the accusation he found inhis friend's eyes. Mat could kill to save a friend or a shipmate in the heat of battle, but killing as Darrick had just done was beyond him. To Darrick, there was no remorse or guilt involved. Pirates deserved death, whether by his hands or by the hangman's noose in Westmarch.

As the pirate's corpse shuddered a final time, Darrick released it and stepped away. Blood coated his left arm and warmed him against the chill wind. Knowing they were working on borrowed time, Darrick caught the edge of the crates in front of him and hauled himself around them. He lifted his knees and drove his feet hard against the ground, sprinting toward the three men still occupied with the dice game.

One of the men glanced up, attracted by the flurry of motion coming toward them. He opened his mouth to yell a warning.

SEVEN

"Kabraxis is the demon who created the Black Road," Lhex said.

"What is the Black Road?" Raithen asked.

The boy shrugged, bathed in the golden light of the lantern the pirate captain held. "It's all just legend. Old stories of demons. There's talk that Kabraxis was just an elaborate lie."

"But you said if a demon was involved," Raithen said, "it was all truth once."

"I said it was based on something that was supposed to be the truth," Lhex replied. "But so many stories have been told since the Vizjerei started supposedly summoning demons from other worlds. Some of the stories are based on incidents that might have or might not have involved demons, but many are total fabrications. Or a story has been fractured, retold, and made more current. Old wives' tales. Harsus, the toad-faced demon of Kurast-if he even existed-has become four different demons in the local histories. The man who taught me history told me there are sages at work now trying to piece together different stories, examining them for common links that bind them and make only one demon exist where two had stood before."

"Why would they bother with something like that?"

"Because there were supposed to be other demons loose in the world according to all those simpleminded myths," Lhex said. "My teacher believed that men spent so much time trying to name the demons in mythology the better to hunt them down instead of waiting for them to act. To pursue their quarry, the demon hunters need to know howmany demons were in our world and where to find them. Sages research those things." The boy snorted. "Personally, I think demons were all named so that a wise and wizened sage could recommend employing demon hunters. Of course, that sage would get a cut of the gold paid to rid a place or a city or a kingdom of a demon. It was a racket. A well-thought-out scary story to tell superstitious people and separate them from their gold."