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Updated: May 17, 2025
The vibration which had carried through the planks on which he lay was stilled. Some engine shut off; one portion of his mind put that into familiar terms. Now the vessel rocked with the waves, did not bore through them. Ross brought up against another body. "Loketh!" "Ahhhhh ... the fire ... the fire !" The half-intelligible answer held no meaning for the Terran.
The reef on which the ships had been wrecked was a snare of sorts first by the whim of nature when wind and current piled up the trading ships there. Then, Ross was startled when Loketh elaborated on a later development of that trap. "So Zahur returned from this meeting and set up a great magic among the rock, according to the spells he was taught.
"The Foanna !" Just as Loketh cried out, Karara plunged over the prow of the boat, whether by design or chance Ross did not know. And then the craft whirled about, smashed side against side with a dark bulk looming out of the fog. Above, Ross heard cries, knew that they had crashed against one of the raiders.
He struggled against the drying strands which bound him from shoulder to mid thigh. There was no give in them. More sounds from the upper deck. Now the ship was answering to direction again. The Terran heard sounds he could not identify, and the ship no longer rocked so violently. Loketh moaned. As far as Ross could judge, they were heading out to sea. "Loketh!"
That odd misty quality this day held provided a murk hard to pierce, but the men were gesturing at a low-riding object rolling with the waves. That was near enough for even Ross to be able to distinguish a small boat akin to the one in which he, Karara, and Loketh had dared the sea gate of the Foanna. Torgul took up a great curved shell hanging by a thong on the mainmast.
He demanded in turn: "What kind?" "Larger, much larger than this." Then Loketh broke in: "A Rover Raider three of them!" Ross frowned. He was the cripple here. The other two, with their ability to communicate with the dolphins, were the sighted, he the blind. And he resented his handicap in a burst of bitterness which must have colored his tone as he ordered, "Head inshore now!"
And smaller ones of the same type were on the raised deck at the stern and mounted in the prow, their muzzles, if the square fronts might be deemed muzzles, flanking the blinking dragon head. Catapults of some type? Ross wondered. "Rosss " His name was given the hiss Loketh used, but it was not the Wrecker youth who joined him now at the stern of the ship.
They were well past the pillars when Ross was aware that Loketh had changed place in the line, spurting ahead. After him went Baleku. They caught up with Karara, flashed past her. Ross looked to Ashe, on to the Foanna, but saw nothing to explain the action of the two Hawaikans. Then his sonic beat out a signal from Ashe. "Danger ... follow the Foanna ... left."
Ross reached him quickly to catch him as he slumped forward. "Loketh?" the Terran asked. "The women-killers took him." Somehow the Rover got that out as Ross half supported, half led him to where the Foanna were gathering those they had been able to revive.
"All right, I'll accept that." Ross glanced about the ledge. They had piled the containers at the far end. For Karara to move might be safe. He said so. "Move where?" she asked flatly. "Those men from the castle are still hunting drift out there. I don't think anyone knows of this cave." Ross nodded to Loketh. "He did, didn't he? I wouldn't want you trapped here.
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