He did not have much chance of carrying out his plan, probably knew it, and did not care. Most men still feared death because the fear was in the cells of their bodies, and they reacted instinctively. A few had overcome their fear, and others had never really felt it.

Burton stepped up and banged the man on the side of the head with his axe. The man’s mouth opened; the bamboo knife fell out; he collapsed face down on the deck. Burton picked up the knife, untied the man’s belt, and shoved him off into the water with his foot. At that, a roar came from the men in the warcanoe, which was turning around. Burton saw that the shore was coming up fast, and he gave orders to tack. The vessel swung around, and the boom swung by. Then they were beating across The River, with a dozen boats speeding toward them. Three were four-man dugouts, four were big warcanoes, and five were two-masted schooners. The latter held a number of catapults and many men on the decks.

Halfway across the River, Burton ordered The Hadji swung around again. The maneuver allowed the sailships to get much closer, but he had calculated for that. Now, sailing close-hauled again, The Hadji cut water between the two schooners. They were so close that he could clearly see the features of all aboard both craft. They were mostly Caucasian, though they ranged from very dark to Nordic pale. The captain of the boat on the portside shouted in German at Burton, demanding that he surrender.

"We will not harm you -if you give up, but we will torture you if you continue to fight!" He spoke German with an accent that sounded Hungarian.

For reply, Burton and Alice shot arrows. Alice’s shaft missed the captain but hit the helmsman, and he staggered back and fell over the railing. The craft immediately veered. The captain sprang to the wheel, and Burton’s second shaft went through the back of his knee.

Both schooners struck slantingly with a great crash and shot off with much tearing up of timbers, men screaming and falling onto the decks or falling overboard. Even if the boats did not sink, they would be out of action.

But just before they hit, their archers had put a dozen flaming arrows into the bamboo sails of The Hadji. The shafts car tied dry grass, which had been soaked with turpentine made from pine resin, and these, fanned by the wind, spread the flames quickly.

Burton took the tiller back from the women and shouted orders. The crew dipped fired-clay vessels and their open grails into The River and then threw the water on the, flames. Loghu, who could climb like a monkey, went up the mast with a rope around her shoulder. She let the rope down and pulled up the containers of water.

This permitted the other schooners and several canoes to draw close. One on a course which would put it directly in the path of The Hadji. Burton swung the boat around again, but it was sluggish because of Loghu’s weight on the mast. It wheeled around, the boom swung wildly as the men failed to keep control of its ropes, and more arrows struck the sail and spread more fire. Several arrows thanked into the deck. For a moment, Burton thought that the enemy had changed his mind and was trying to down them. But the arrows were just misdirected.

Again, The Hadji sliced between two schooners. The captains and the crew of both were grinning. Perhaps they had been bored for a long tine and were enjoying the pursuit. Even so, the crews ducked behind the railings, leaving the officers, helmsmen, and the archers to receive the fire from The Hadji. There was a strumming, and dark streaks with red heads and blue tails went halfway through the sails in two dozen places, a number drove into the mast or the boom, a dozen hissed into the water, one shot by Burton a few inches from his head.

Alice, Ruach, Kazz, de Greystock, Wilfreda, and he had shot while Esther handled the tiller. Loghu was frozen halfway up the mast, waiting until the arrow fire quit. The five arrows found three targets of flesh, a captain, a helmsman, and a sailor who stuck his head up at the wrong time for him.

Esther screamed, and Burton spun. The warcanoe had come out from behind the schooner and was a few feet in front of The Hadji’s bow. There was no way to avoid a collision. The two men on the platform were diving off the side, and the paddlers were standing up or trying to stand up so they could get overboard. Then the Hadji smashed into its port near the bow, cracking it open, turning it over, and spilling its crew into The River. Those on the Hadji were thrown forward, and de Greystock went into the water. Burton slid on his face and chest and knees, burning off the skin.

Esther had been torn from the tiller and rolled across the deck until she thumped against the edge of the fo’c’sle coaming. She lay there without moving.

Burton looked upward. The sail was blazing away beyond hope of being saved. Loghu was gone, so she must have been hurled off at the moment of impact. Then, getting up, he saw her and de Greystock swimming back to The Hadji. The water around them was boiling with the splashing of the dispossessed canoemen, many of whom, judging by their cries, could not swim. — Burton called to the men to help the two aboard while he inspected the damage. Both prows of the very thin twin hulls had been smashed open by the crash. Water was pouring inside. And the smoke from the burning sail and mast was curling around them, causing Alice and Gwenafra to cough.

Another warcanoe was approaching swiftly from the north; the two schooners were sailing close-hauled toward them.

They could fight and draw some blood from their enemies, who would be holding themselves back to keep from killing them or they could swim for it. Either way, they would be captured. Loghu and de Greystock were pulled aboard. Frigate reported that Esther could not be brought back to consciousness. Ruach felt her pulse and opened her eyes and then walked back to Burton.

"She’s not dead, but she’s totally out" Burton said, "You women know what will happen to you. It’s up to you, of course, but I suggest you swim down as deeply as you can and draw in a good breath of water. You’ll wake up tomorrow, good as new."

Gwenafra had come out from the fo’c’sle. She wrapped her arms round his waist and looked up, dry-eyed but scared. He hugged her with one arm and then said, "Alice! Take her with you!’

"Where?" Alice said. She looked at the canoe and back at him. She coughed again as more smoke wrapped around her and then she moved forward, upwind.

"When you go down." He gestured at The River.’

"I can’t do that," she said.

"You wouldn’t want those men to get her, too. She’s only a little girl but they’ll not stop for that"

Alice looked as if her face was going to crumple and wash away with tears. But she did not weep. She said, "Very well. It’s no sin now, killing yourself. I just hope…"

He said, "Yes." He did not drawl the word; there was no time to drawl anything out. The canoe was within forty feet of them.

"The next place might be just as bad or worse than this one," Alice said. "And Gwenafra will wake up ail alone. You know that the chances of us being resurrected at the same place are slight."

"That can’t be helped," he said.

She clamped her lips, then opened them and said, "I’ll fight until the last moment. Then. .’

"It may be too late," he said. He picked up his bow and drew an arrow from his quiver. De Greystock had lost his bow, so he took Kazz’s. The Neanderthal placed a stone in a sling and began whirling it. Lev picked up his sling and chose a stone for its pocket. Monat used Esther’s bow, since he had lost his, also.

The captain of the canoe shouted in German, "Lay down your arms! You won’t be harmed!" He fell off the platform onto a paddler a second later as Alice’s arrow went through his chest. Another arrow, probably de Greystock’s, spun the second man off the platform and into the water. A stone hit a paddler in the shoulder, and he collapsed with a cry. Another stone struck glancingly off another paddler’s head, and he lost his paddle.