Chapter ten
Of red sails and green bannersThe crushing power of Magdag reached out a mailed arm across the Eye of the World.
Ten top class swifters, the smallest a hundred-and-twenty swifter, escorted a hundred and fifty broad ships carrying twenty-five thousand troops, infantry, cavalry, artillery. The force was sizable, well-balanced, the varters brand-new, and their equipment did credit to the slave armories of Magdag.
I would as lief have seen the lot at the bottom of the sea, save for the swifter Volgodont’s Fang, which carried my Lady of the Stars.
That flagship carried me, also, but I am an old hand at shipwreck, and so did not count myself among the blessed.
We sailed on southerly with a fair wind and a calm sea and the oar-slaves were relieved from their intolerable burdens o
