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it.
    She felt Josei
shudder as his battle adrenalin began to kick in. It wouldn’t be
long now.
    She saw Josei’s
ears flicker forward and back as he strained to listen.
    : Is that a
splash of an oar? :
    : I think it is
:
    : Are they
coming in to land? :
    : Count to
Duntanvad : he instructed.
    Thalia had got
to thirteen, seven short, when Josei’s next telepathic ‘shout’
reverberated in her mind.
    Thalia gritted
her teeth and tightened her legs round Josei’s barrel and he
jumped, high over the dugo bush and raced towards the beach. She
heard shouts of alarm. She was conscious of the thundering of many
paws around them as the other vadeln-pairs raced into the
battle.
    There was more
confused shouting and she could see running figures on the beach.
The Ryzcks were silent, they had no need for verbal commands.
    : That big
man to the left of the group : Josei ‘shouted’ his instruction
and Thalia bent herself low on his back to make of herself a
smaller target and readying her sword. The man raised his, a wicked
curved blade but shorter than Thalia’s rapier.
    Now was not the
time for thinking and introspection. Training and reflexes took
over as Thalia and Josei ran down their enemy, Thalia sticking like
glue on Josei’s back.
    To do him
credit, although he didn’t deserve it, being a pirate and all, the
man stood his ground, which took a lot of courage when a large
horse-sized snarling beast was running you down, but it wasn’t
enough. Teeth bared and chelas tracted, Josei lunged and he
flinched. That split-heartbeat was enough for Thalia. Like a whip
her sword came down, she was aiming at his sword-shoulder, where
his ill-fitting armour had left a protective gap. She misjudged it,
or perhaps he moved more than she had expected, the rapier cut down
in a moon-gleaming arc of death and severed his arm right through.
Shocked eyes staring, he dropped to the ground, bright red blood
pumping. The man was twitching, ashen faced and he lay there,
staring as his life-blood spattered away. His body twitched a few
times then was still.
    Thalia and
Josei barely spared it a glance.
    Shouts and
yells of battle were filling the air and the Ryzcks were being
pressed hard. Pirates neither gave nor expected quarter. This was a
fight to the death. Piracy, banditry and murder were the three
crimes which were always punished by death in Argyll and it would
not be the headsman’s block as in the Kingdom of Murdoch. Argyll
favoured the slower, more lingering death by a hangman’s rope.
    Another pirate
lunged towards Thalia and Josei. This one was good and more than
good as Thalia realised as their swords met with a rustle. Josei
lunged but the pirate danced away as his jaws snapped down on thin
air. Josei spun round on his haunches to avoid the man’s sword.
Thalia leant into his neck as he did and not a moment too soon. She
felt the air-whizz of an arrow as it missed her head. Too close for
comfort. The pirates must have left some archers in the boats to
guard their backs.
    Josei snarled
as they leapt at the pirate again. He didn’t flinch but this time
his dancing around would be his undoing.
    This one’s
been taught by a fencing master , was Thalia’s fleeting thought
as the sword whistled towards her in a practised arc. She parried,
turning her blade with a flick of her wrist as Weaponsmaster Alkin
had taught her. The man, surprised, stumbled. The hilt dropped from
his hand but he still retained possession of it because he had had
the foresight to attach a wrist-clinch. Thalia had to finish him
now, before he got the chance to grasp the hilt again. He was
perfectly placed to blade Josei on his haunches. If Josei went down
Thalia’s chances of survival would be small, clipped in as she was
into the harness. She would drop with him and it took time to slice
away the harness straps.
    Josei spun
round on his hind legs, his front chelas swiping at the pirate. The
man didn’t retreat but leapt forward, dancing and weaving, sword