Chapter eight
Nath, Zolta, and I carouse in SanurkazzI moved sideways and I kicked that florid-faced young man where I had kicked Cydones Esztercari, neatly, making him double up and retch all over the sea-wet deck. I took the long sword away. I held it so that Rophren and his friends could see it.
“Countermand a single order I have given,” I said, “and you die.”
Their hands bunched on their sword hilts. They were proud, arrogant men, used to command. They lurched on the decks as the galley surged and bucked and fought the sea. I stood there, limber and straight, balanced, and the sword in my fist maintained a steady arc upon them.
Whether they would have charged me, desperate in their ill-founded belief that I was consigning them all to a watery grave, whether they would have remained
