CHAPTER 15
The hands of strangers hauled Penrys back aboard the larger boat and dumped her against the mast again. Baelnei stood over her and kicked her one more time in the thigh, then he found a short rope and ran it through her chain, like a leash on a collar. He tied it off, and hitched the end to a cleat on the mast, high, above her reach.
“Stay where I put you, like a good dog.”
She lay there in her sodden clothing and shivered. Her muscles ached from the effort of swimming, and she could feel each separate bruise and cracked rib.
For some reason it was hard to catch her breath, and she concentrated on that for a while. When she looked outside herself again, she saw faces bending over her, wavering in her sight. They seemed to be quarreling.
“They want her alive, Baelnei,” one w
