stood dazed and wretched in their soiled rags. The scented breeze of the island wilted beneath the stink of their despair.
‘The Sailfish.’ Hosh translated the Archipelagan’s shout.
Halcarion’s Crown, according to the old sergeant-at-arms who’d taught Corrain his stars on night watches as a young trooper.
A sword landed in the dust in front of the Sailfish stone, tossed by one of the men guarding the ditch. The newly arrived slaves looked at it before nervously eyeing each other.
‘The Spear.’
Consternation stirred by that marker as a pole arm with the curved blade and recurved barbs of the islands was thrown down before the slaves.
‘Pick it up,’ Hosh murmured under his breath.
Corrain’s stomach curdled with sour anticipation. Ducah had stepped over the ditch.
Where everyone else ashore, slave or raider, wore the loose tunic and trews of the islands, Ducah invariably went bare-chested, however brutal the wind or rain. That left the vicious scourge scars criss-crossing his broad back plain for all to see, along with the shackle marks at wrist and ankle.
Corrain didn’t know what had earned the man such scars or how he had survived, still less how had he escaped the oars to become Reef Eagle’s overseer ashore, guarding the galley captain’s house and the loot stowed in its capacious cellars. He’d warned Hosh off asking any stupid questions. Rouse the big man’s anger and he’d kill the lad without a second thought.
Half a head taller and more heavily muscled than any of the dull-eyed slaves, Ducah scooped up the sword lying by the Sailfish stone. He hacked the nearest man’s head from his shoulders with a single murderous stroke.
Spattered with the dead man’s blood, the closest captive fell to his knees, pleading for his life. Ducah grabbed him by his collar, hauled him to his feet and forced the bloodied sword into his hand. Kicking the corpse and its severed head into the ditch, the brute shoved the unwilling swordsman towards the Spear stone.
All around the circle, Corrain could see men belatedly recognising the dark stains in the earth. Blood. This was a killing ground.
Two men went for the pole arm. One yielded that dubious honour, a copper-haired lanky youth with sun-seared skin. Forest blood bequeathed such hair and a pale complexion.
Corrain wondered what malign fate could bring a man so far. Travel the whole length of Caladhria, three hundred and fifty leagues from Attar on the southernmost rocky tip to the trading city of Peorle at the White River’s mouth, and a man would have the same distance to walk again across Ensaimin’s self-governing cities and fiefdoms to reach the Great Forest’s endless woodlands.
The man who picked up the pole arm was the usual mongrel found in Caladhrian harbour towns. Did he know how to fight? What of the hapless swordsman?
‘Don’t fight the weapon. Fight the man,’ Corrain snarled under his breath.
The swordsman couldn’t drag his eyes away from the pole arm’s lethal blade. He hacked vainly in hopes of splintering its wooden shaft. The mongrel made a few hesitant thrusts and then the shining steel darted forward, biting deep into the swordsman’s belly. Blood gushed onto the dusty ground as his intestines bulged from the wound. The spearman’s next wild swipe ripped out the swordsman’s throat but Corrain reckoned he was already dead before he hit the ground.
Hosh watched the blind corsair’s slave hold up another token ‘He’s going to the Knot Serpent .’
A corsair whip master muscled through the crowd and jumped across the ditch to drag the victorious spearman away.
‘That’s not the best of omens,’ Hosh said seriously. ‘The Sailfish stands in the heavenly arc of health. The Spear stands with home and family and these slaves are so far from either. The swordsman should have won.’
How could Hosh cling to his faith in the uncaring gods and take these Aldabreshin superstitions to heart as well? It exasperated