A second rock hurtled dangerously low over our deck.  Wersting Rogahan was a remarkable shot with a varter, and could split the Chunkrah's Eye at tremendous distances.  A horrific thought occurred to me in the chaos of the moment - how would a shoot-out between Wersting and our two varterists, Wilma the Shot and Alwim the Eye, turn out?  Impossible!  I could not let that happen!

Captain Linson bellowed furiously.

"Prisoner of war?  Prisoner of war!  The Vallian is mad!"

People scurried about the decks, confusion held them all, and the sudden powerful smell of the sea reached up to me in the crosstrees, blowing all the aromas of the ship away.

"You said we could not outsail him!" screeched Pompino.  The breeze blew words about like gulls over a cliff.  Wilma and Alwim looked aft, ready for the signal to loose.

The Womox bellowed again.

"Heave to!  Strike your colors!"

"Never!" raged Pompino.  He had drawn his sword and he waved it - somewhat foolishly - about his head.

Over on the Vallian's forecastle, low enough in the sleek galleon build, Wersting's crew was hard at it rewinding the gros-varter.  The next rock would not skim harmlessly above our heads.  The next shot would crunch sickeningly in, to gout a fountain of splinters into bodies, to smash and rend, perhaps to bring down a mast.

It seemed to me in the midst of this madness there remained but the one thing left to do.

In that old foretop-hailing voice that had cut through more than one gale in Biscay t yelled down to Pompino.

"Heave to, Pompino!  Buy some time!"

"You wouldn't surrender, Jak!"

"No.  But we must find the explanation -"

"We can pulp that damned varterist on their forecastle!" shrilled Wilma the Shot.

"Belay that, Wilma!"  If Linson refused to obey the order to heave to, if Pompino's proud Khibil blood got the better of him, we'd all be pulped.  "Just heave to!"

"Fiery whiskers flaring, Pompino glared up,  He stuck his hands on his hips.  His chin jutted.

"You're up to some deviltry, Jak!" he howled.

"Aye.  Fighting won't save our necks now."

The two vessels eased close alongside running sweetly, and the galleon shortened sail to reduce her way and so pace the argenter.  She creamed along, handled superbly, and the snouts of her varters and the arms of her catapults bore upon us.  Her flags were of Vallia - the new Vallian Union of the yellow cross and saltire upon the red field - and the crimson and pale blue of Ovvend.  The symbol of the kovnate of Ovvend down on the southwest coast of Vallia is a galleon.  That is fitting.

For what seemed to me a damned long time the ships sailed together and the canvas all about me drew strongjy.  With a rat-tat of the drum and a shrill of calls accompanied by the slap of bare feet upon planking, thankfully, Tuscurs Maiden responded and lost way, her canvas fluttering as she first backed her main tops'l and then gathered her canvas in.  No doubt Linson had performed the evolution in this manner as a sign to the hostile ship's captain that he did so under pressure.

Whatever the reason, the argenter lost way and soon we rolled sluggishly as the galleon, matching us, paced along side.

Men clustered at the falls of a longboat over on the galleon's spar deck.  A boarding party would come fully armed and ready for trouble.  Now, it was all down to me....

The water looked a long way down.

That was the quickeht route.

Once, I had dived into the Eye of the World, the inner sea of Tunsmond.  That had been a longer dive, far longer; I took a breath, readied, and dived.