Gasping and shouting, Yot thrashed around in the water. The others, watching from the top of the bank, still did not realize his difficulties. They thought he was just clowning it up a little, and would be wading back to the bank any moment now, star-globe in hand.Suddenly:
'He's stealing it!' yelped Simp Fiche, realizing Yot was getting too far away for comfort. 'The star-globe. He's stealing it!'
Yot, who had been crying out for help, was startled to hear a great roar from Bucks Cat:
'We'll get you, Yot! You won't get away with it! We'll skin you alive!'
Next moment, leadership fight forgotten, most of the pirates were charging along the riverbank in hot pursuit of the hapless Yot.
'Come,' said Zanya, and, grabbing Drake by the sleeve (or the nearest sleeve-equivalent remaining to his rags) started running in pursuit of the hunting party.
Walrus and Warwolf were left standing alone, bare swords still drawn, with Prince Oronoko observing them with interest – he liked to watch a good fight.
'Well,' said the green-bearded Slagger Mulps, sounding not entirely certain about it.
'Well indeed,' said Jon Arabin, thinking of his death-debt, and of the Supreme Auditor. 'Well, what say we leave this for the moment? At least until we've won back the star-globe.''Till then,' said Mulps.'Shall we swear to it?'
'Brothers in blood till the star-globe's back,' agreed Mulps, thinking that would be by sundown at the latest. And they swore to it.
Meanwhile, Drake and Zanya were running along after the others, following the muddy trail of footsteps, when Zanya suddenly stopped.'Arabin,' she said.'What?' said Drake, in some confusion. 'Where?'
Then remembered that was his name these days, for, to please his true love, he had become Arabin lol Arabin for always. He saw his true love was pointing up into a great big evergreen tree of crowding foliage and close-climbing branches.'Ah,' said Drake.And up the tree they went.
And, after realizing that Yot had been swept too far downriver for capture, the pirate party – led by the rape faction – spent a long time looking for those two young people. But never found them, no.
Come morning, the pirates set off for Estar, led by the Warwolf and the Walrus – who were oath-linked allies for the foreseeable future, since attempts to find the missing star-globe had proved just as futile as the search for Yot, Drake and Zanya.
The pirates?
They reached Estar, followed the river to the sea, then hijacked fishing boats and made it back to the Greaters.
Since the star-globe had not been recovered, Walrus and Warwolf were bound each to each by a bloodbrother's oath. Did they hate it, each being pledged to his worst enemy? On the contrary. It was the best thing which had happened to either of them for years.
They had been at war for so long now that they knew each other better than they knew any other living flesh. With each passing year, their hatred had become more and more a public ritual, less and less an affair of the heart.
Jon Arabin was delighted to welcome the Walrus into his household, delighted to. have some male companionship at home, after suffering for so long alone amidst his women.And the Walrus?
Jon Arabin was what he had always wanted: a dear, true, trustworthy friend.
Weep for the Walrus! Poor lonely little chap, so distressed by his exile from Chenameg, so cut off from the warmth of human society that he ended up raping a pig in a toilet in Selzirk! And was he comforted when found? Was he counselled and soothed and introduced to some nice young honest decent women in need of a good husband?No, of course not.
Instead, he was hauled up in a public court, abused by the prosecution, lectured by the judge, mocked by the public, then sentenced to labour as a galley slave – and was brutalized for five years on the Velvet River before being liberated by pirates.
And he was still a virgin on that traumatic night when he got into one of Jon Arabin's women and, in the raptures of his clumsy passion, bit off one of her nipples. From which accident all manner of evils followed.
Which gives credence to the assertions of Cho Sel Sig, a Korugatu philosopher, who holds that all the murder, mayhem, cruelty and brutality which together constitute 'history' is simply a consequence of bad sex (or no sex, which, according to Sig, amounts to the same thing).
Anyway, there they were then. Walrus and Warwolf. Friends at last. And Yot?
Well, Sully Datelier Yot never went to Estar. On reaching Lake Armansis, he turned west and crossed the
Razorwind Pass to Larbster Bay. There he had the luck of a boat which took him to D'Waith, from where – again, luck was involved more than good judgment – he made his way back to Stokos.
Where he was reunited with Gouda Muck. And was able to give warning of the invasion of Stokos planned by Lord Menator and King Tor. And to tell Gouda Muck, that dignitary of dignitaries, the avatar of the Flame, the High God of All Gods, all about the derelictions of Drake Douay.And Drake?And Zanya?
Well, Zanya went on with Drake. Foolish woman! She had been warned by the wizard Miphon that Drake was an awesome amount of trouble in a very small package. Her excuse was that she was in love . . .
First they almost died when they got lost in Looming Forest, on the northern marches of Estar. By sheer luck, they were rescued by a local woodsman, a heavy-jowled man by name of Blackwood, who sheltered them in the house he shared with his wife Mystrel.
Later, they ventured to Lorford, the ruling town of Estar, for Drake had thoughts of taking service with Prince Comedo, ruler of the place. He abandoned that plan when he realized both Atsimo Andranovory and Prince Oronoko were in the prince's employ.
He did, however, spend enough time in Lorford to get into trouble. As a consequence of this, he had a very unpleasant interview with a grim, tense, grey-haired Rovac warrior named Morgan Hearst, a fellow about 33 years of age, who took a hard line with hooligans.Hearst ran both Drake and Zanya out of town.
Travelling down the Salt Road south of Lorford, they were captured by priests of the temple of the Demon of Estar, and almost became human sacrifices. After escaping, they had a close encounter of the unpleasant kind with the dragon Zenphos, which lived in a cave high up in the nearby mountain of Maf.
Further south again, they ran into trouble with the locals after they killed a sheep which Drake had, or so he claimed in his defence, mistaken for a large and aggressive boar. But they talked their way out of that one – and, after several other adventures, including an encounter with a drunken ghost, they reached the southern border of Estar.
That border was guarded only by a derelict flame trench, a feeble ditch which steamed a bit, and boiled the water where it ran out into the sea, but which spat no fire and melted no rock.
Drake and Zanya crossed greasy wooden duckboards laid across the steaming mud at the bottom of the rubble-filled ditch, then climbed out of the warmth of its steam to the cold of the afternoon of a winter's day.
They explored the small, ruinous fort guarding the southern side of the trench. A stairway led down into darkness, but they declined to dare its dangers.
'Above will be enough,' said Drake. 'We'll camp here tonight.'
In the ruins of the fort's tower, they laid down the muddy sheepskins which they carried for sleep-warmth and stretched sheets of canvas above the skins to keep off the rain. Then searched for wood and lit a fire.
'Thus we leave Estar,' said Zanya. T wonder what lies ahead of us.'
'The Salt Road follows the coast south through Dybra and Chorst till it comes to Runcorn, which is a city major,' said Drake. 'We should get news of the world there for real.''If we get there,' said Zanya.'Oh, we'll get there all right,' said Drake.Will they reach Runcorn? Drake is right: they will.
It will be a long and perilous journey, but in fullness of time – on Midwinter's Day, to be exact – they will enter Runcorn.And Drake will learn that his world is in ruins.
He will learn that Tor and Menator have launched an invasion of Stokos. He will learn that Tor has landed near Cam, has fought against impossible odds – and has been defeated. His whereabouts are unknown. He will learn that Menator has survived the invasion unscathed. And for a very simple reason. Drake will learn that, with the coast of Stokos in sight, Menator turned his own ships homeward.
Drake will soon correctly analyse the reasons for this. Menator has struck a double blow. Menator has sent
