Swordships of Scorpio

Chapter ten

Chapter ten

Swordships“Swordships!”

I eyed the lean low-lying leem-shapes surging through smothers of foam all about us. Slender, cranky, spray-drenched craft, they clearly had put out from some pirates’ lair hidden on a nearby island. They were closing in for the kill. Soon our decks would run red with blood.

“Oh, Dray!” said Tilda, grasping my arm in a convulsive grip. Snuggled against her side and held by her other arm, Pando — who was a Kov although he did not know it — stared with all his boyish excitement and venom out to sea and those slender hungry shapes.

A hail from forward distracted my attention from the swordships for a moment. Then I saw the cause. Tangled together in a raffle of mutual destruction two other argenters from our shattered armada wallowed toward the shore. I