He swam back over to Alanyra again and motioned downward. «Time to take our stations, Lady.»

«So soon?»

«We can take no chances of being seen too soon.»

«A yulon can overtake any ship, Blade.»

«In time, yes. But this close to land, Tymgur could run his yacht ashore before we could catch him. He would lose the ship and every man aboard, perhaps, but he would do that to save his own skin.»

«He would that.» She swam free of her yulon, arched her body gracefully, then signaled to the four teams below. Blade repeated the signal to the team on the surface. Minutes later, all six were two hundred feet down. Blade alone remained close to the surface. There was small risk of one man being noticed, and someone had to keep a lookout in case Tymgur's ship changed course at the last moment.

It did not. The big galley came driving on as straight as though it had been running on rails, the oars throwing up silver foam on either side. It came on until Blade could begin to make out individual figures on its deck. Not faces yet, but he did not need to. The Duke's personal banner was flying from the masthead. The Duke was on board.

Blade waited until the yacht's bow was looming above him like a wall. Then he plunged down, stroking furiously away from those churning oars, arrowing down into the depths. The sleek shapes of the yulons appeared. Blade flipped end-over-end and gave the signal. Faint and ghostly, cheers came up from below.

With those ghost cheers still in his ears, Blade turned and led the way back to the surface, to the battle.

Chapter NINETEEN

Blade's head broke the surface. Damn! He had miscalculated. He was a good fifty yards astern of the yacht. That would be too long a swim, unless-

A yulon rose among the yacht's port oars, with a terrible splintering of wood. Men stood frozen on the yacht's deck, staring openmouthed, waving their arms, and starting to draw their weapons. Blade saw one man who was too slow. As he raised a spear to throw it, a crossbow shot from the water drilled him through the chest. He toppled back. The yacht began to swim around in a drunken circle.

Then a second yulon rose among the starboard oars, leaping half out of the water. Its jaws slammed shut on another man on deck. He screamed and writhed and kicked until the yulon pulled its head back and the water closed over him with a gurgle.

A third yulon burst to the surface within a few feet of Blade. One of the Talgaran fighters threw out a rope's end. Blade caught it, and the Sea Master driving the yulon jabbed in his goad. The creature surged toward the yacht.

Arrows began to plunge into the water from the yacht's high stern. Blade kept his head down as the arrows hissed and splashed around him. The storm of arrows became thicker. Several arrows bounced off the yulon's head and one took a Sea Master in the arm.

Then the fourth yulon reared up out of the sea like a leaping dolphin, head driving toward the yacht's stern. The head smashed through the railing like a battering ram, scattering the archers. Several went down. Two ran frantically across the deck and leaped into the water just as Blade and his companions swam up.

A quick flick with Blade's knife, and one of the archers went under, bubbling out his life into the crystal seas. A Sea Master caught the other one, dragged him under, then twisted his neck until the spine gave with an audible crack and another corpse was floating away. Blade reached out, caught one of the trailing oars, and began hauling himself hand over hand up the side of the yacht.

As he approached the deck, two soldiers ran toward the railing, spears thrusting down. Blade braced himself with his feet against the ship's hull and lunged with one hand for the first spear that came at him. His hand closed around the shaft, his arm jerked, and the spear twisted out of the soldier's grasp. Blade swung the spear across, parrying the other thrust, then reversed the spear and thrust upward. The second soldier crumpled. Before anyone else could approach the railing, Blade had hauled himself over it and onto the ship's deck. Behind him Sea Masters and Talgarans were following him up the oars.

Blade drew his swords. Today he wielded a full broadsword, three feet long and as heavy as he could swing, with a razor-sharp edge. He smashed it down on the helmet of a man running at him with a knife, then chopped through the man's arm as he fell. Blood gushed out across the deck. Another man who ran at Blade slipped in the blood, reeled, and started to go down. Blade's sword hacked his head from his shoulders, and the man hit the deck in two pieces.

Then there were six men running at Blade, and he had to give way. But there were also five of his own side climbing over the railing behind him. A Sea Master darted low, rolling in against the legs of two of the oncoming men. They stumbled over him and went down. The Sea Master's knives flashed and the two soldiers never got up again.

This left four soldiers against Blade and four of his fighters. Blade and his men were all over them in a moment, slashing, hacking, thrusting, kicking with feet and clubbing with fists. Another moment of sword-strokes, screams, and blood, then all four soldiers sprawled on the deck.

But in dying they had bought time for their comrades. More soldiers were swarming up from below and out from the ship's sterncastle, forming two lines across the deck. The one toward the bow began to move against the attackers coming up there. The one from the sterncastle stood firm against Blade.

At least it tried to. But Blade was in a towering fury, and they might as well have tried to stand against a hurricane. He smashed into their left flank, broadsword whirling in the air and short-sword thrusting low. Two flashes of light, two dull chunks of steel biting into flesh, and a soldier went down, head lolling and arm cut half through.

Blade took a step backward, parried a downcut with the short-sword, slashed hard crosswise with the broadsword. It took a man in the chest, not cutting deep, but stopping him in his tracks. The broadsword rose and came down on the man's skull, splitting it from the crown of his head to the bridge of his nose. Blade jerked the broadsword free, stepped into the gap left by the falling man, and lashed out to either side. A man clutched at a thigh opened by the short-sword. Another clutched at an arm reduced to a spouting stump by the broadsword.

Now Blade was beyond the line, approaching the door to the sterncastle. Behind him the other attackers were hacking their own paths through the soldiers, rolling up the line in both directions. Two of the attackers were down, the other three were bleeding but still fighting on.

The soldiers began to break, crowding toward the railings. Some got up their courage to jump, in time to escape the swords of the Talgarans and Sea Masters coming at them.

But they did not escape the yulons. The great reptiles were splashing busily about on either side of the ship, their long necks swinging from side to side in search of the human prey so marvelously abundant today. When they spotted a fleeing swimmer, the neck would arch, the head dip down, and the jaws close. A clack of yellow teeth, a scream, a flurry of water and blood, and another servant of Duke Tymgur would be gone.

They were killing the Duke's servants at a great rate, Blade realized. The second line of soldiers toward the front was breaking up as the yulons began to reach over the side and snatch men from either end. When they saw that, the men in the center dropped on their knees, threw down their weapons, and begged for mercy. They did not get it. The blood of both Talgarans and Sea Masters was too hot today for taking any prisoners. And Blade's orders had been strict. «No one is to leave the yacht alive and free. If you can't take them prisoner-«