“Let me know if he manages one,” Halice said drily. “I’ll bottle the secret and hawk it round the fairs. Where’s his favourite complication?”

Darni nodded towards the aft cabin. “Taking a rest, along with little Allin.” The Hadrumal warrior’s square face was unreadable in the gloom.

Halice beckoned and he followed her up to the aftdeck. The helmsman and Master Jevon ignored them, intent on guiding the ship safely through the dark waters.

“How is your troop?” Halice asked Darni quietly. “Who would you send them up against? Who would you run from?”

Darni considered her question before answering. “They’d hold their own in a skirmish with the Brewer’s Boys, as long as we got the drop on them, that is. I wouldn’t want to face them in line of battle. I’d be the first one running if we fell foul of Arkady or Wynald.”

“Fair enough.” That Darni had fought in Lescar at the Archmage’s behest was a secondary consideration for Halice, as long as his judgement agreed with hers.

Darni studied the men down on the main deck. “We can still use all the time we can get to drill them but I don’t suppose Sorgrad will dally just to suit our convenience.” There was respect for the Mountain Man in the warrior’s voice.

“No, I don’t suppose he will.” Halice wrinkled her nose in a private grimace. She’d rather have Sorgrad as her co-commander on this raid but better a bony fish than an empty dish. Besides, Darni had won Sorgrad’s esteem when they’d fought together in the Mountains last summer. That made Darni one of a very select company.

Still, Halice acknowledged, if the big dog’s loyalty to his master’s quail got him killed, she wouldn’t weep for Darni. If he got any of hers killed for the mage-girl’s sake, she’d claim a slice of his hide for each and every one of them. She’d try, anyway. Could she take him? She mentally measured his reach and stride. She hadn’t gone up against another corps commander in a long while. Not since before she’d had her leg smashed.

Halice rubbed absently at her thigh, feeling as always the slight thickening of the mended bone. She’d been crippled as surely as Naldeth until Artifice had reshaped the twisted and shortened limb. Magic certainly complicated the fighting life but there was no denying the value of skills like Guinalle’s, and the mages’ come to that. If she had to take up her sword again, better for a cause like this than some mere coffer of gold.

“Are your banner sergeants clear on their tasks?”

Darni was unscrewing the pommel of his sword. “Absolutely.” He took a coin out of the hollow in the hilt and polished it against his jerkin before putting it back. He grinned at Halice. “A luck piece from Strell, my wife. What do you carry?”

Halice smiled briefly. “A good whetstone.” She looked over her troop again, satisfying herself that Minare and Vaspret were best placed to strengthen the less experienced lads like Glane.

The ship ran on through the silent seas, everyone deep in their own thoughts. As the darkness of Suthyfer carved an outline against the stars, every head turned towards the crouching islands and the rushing of the surf. Sailors rushed aloft to furl sails and the ship slowed.

“How close do we go?” Master Jevon asked Halice.

“Watch the wizard.” She pointed to Usara standing shoulder to shoulder in the prow with Jil. The mage was intent on the black sea beneath the bowsprit and the entire ship fell silent, watching him. The helmsman moved the whipstaff with agonising delicacy at every shift of Jil’s hand. The ship crept closer and closer to the mouth of the strait where the pirates lurked. Ominous, the islands closed on either side of the Dulse, blotting out the few stars breaking through the rents in the cloud above.

“Stir the girls,” Halice said quietly.

Darni slid silently down the ladder to summon Larissa and Allin. They joined him on the deck, faces pale in a passing gleam of the scant moonlight.

“Call up the boats.” At her order, Master Jevon snapped his fingers at the boatswain and the Dulse’s crew began hauling up the longboats that had followed her like so many ducklings. The stealthy flap and rustle of canvas overhead was overtaken by the noise of cautious boots on the deck as both troops began climbing down the ladders and netting that the sailors draped over the rails on either side. Only a few whispered oaths broke the hush as somebody was jostled, and then stealthy oars slid into the water.

“See you later, Commander,” said Rosarn. Burdened with arrows and bows, the archers climbed carefully down to a boat crewed by men from the Dulse.

Halice went down to the main deck where Allin waited for her, bundled up in a dark cloak. “Let’s go.”

She went down the ladder first, ready to catch the mage-girl if she slipped. The last thing they needed was that kind of commotion. Once they were aboard without mishap, Halice looked across the inky water to find the longboat where Darni hulked massive in the prow, Larissa hooded beside him. She nodded to Minare who silently signalled the men to start rowing. The boats crept forward, silence more precious than speed, sliding into line, each behind the other. Darni led the rest on the other side of the strait.

Halice saw a coppery thread curling through the blackness of the night sea, a sheen like firelight glittering in the very water that should kill it dead, just far enough ahead so the tiller man could see it. Allin sat beside her, round face grave with concentration as the guiding light led them through the rock-strewn shadows of the ever-narrowing strait. Halice rubbed absently at her thigh.

An oar scraped against a hidden rock and a banner sergeant’s rebuke was hastily stifled. A scatter of huge stones tumbled down from the cliffs appeared in the water, shadows coming and going beneath the fitful light of the greater moon. Halice scowled upwards. It was a shame these wizards couldn’t concoct some means of summoning back the clouds.

The breeze brought the acrid scent of damp, charred wood and Halice dismissed every thought beyond the task ahead of her. She could just make out the stark wrecks of the burnt ships some way down the strait as the thread of magelight coiled in a faint pool of radiance at the very end of the shingle beach. Halice patted Allin’s cloaked arm in mute approval before climbing carefully out of the boat. She slid her boots noiselessly through the water, careful of her footing on treacherous stones.

Glancing back, she saw the newer recruits intent on her, anticipation in their shining eyes. Those already blooded under her command were keeping watch for the enemy. Halice studied the sprawling encampment on the far side of the landing. Some of the crooked cabins had spread to two and three rooms and moonlight glinted on windows plundered from the stern cabins of the Tang and Den Harkeil’s ship. One even boasted a precarious, stubby chimney but most were relying on cook fires scorching the turf or dug into stone-lined pits. Dying back in this stillest watch of the night, they threw up little more than a reddish glow.

There was one fire burning bright, a figure momentarily silhouetted as he threw a log from a handy pile into the flames. Halice watched that single fire as she led her troop ashore. It was a good way off and while it was on higher ground, the indisciplined huts and canvas-covered stores of loot obscured what should have been a clear view of the water. The other side of that coin was Halice couldn’t make out just how many raiders were awake and supposedly on watch. A handful? A double handful?

Her foremost men were at the very end of the shingle reach now, creeping closer and closer to the stockade. Minare’s men were the first to leave the treacherous stones and move more quickly over the muffling grass. As soon as the timber-walled prison was between her force and the sleeping pirates, Halice divided them with silent hand signals. Minare led his lads up around the stockade to keep watch on the landward side while Halice sent her men the other way, their path curling round close beneath the base of the wall. She fell back behind them, Vaspret at her side, the two of them low to the ground and moving out into the darkness until she could see the whole arc of the beach and the ground rising up to the pirate encampment beyond. She drew her sword.