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decisive leader, ruthless, stern, courageous to a fault.
    But even Ravelin would not be able to put things to right these days. His personality and methods were for another time, another generation. No, the only one who could do anything was Gillard. But Simon was cursed if he could figure out how to motivate the lad anymore. Dropping his chin onto his chest, he inhaled the brandy’s aroma and thought that if he were a praying man, he’d ask that something be sent to startle the boy awake before it was too late.
    He didn’t remember getting into bed, but the window-rattling booms of what he first thought was cannon fire awakened him there. When it was not repeated, he deemed it his imagination and slipped back into slumber, only to be assaulted anew by his manservant’s shrill voice and a blinding light. As he rose up on his elbows, groaning and cursing, the servant, Edwin, turned from where he’d flung wide the velvet draperies to reveal the first glimpse of sun Kiriath had seen in two months.
    “My lord Simon!” the man repeated, far too loudly. “They’ve slain the monster! They’re bringing it right into port! Come and see the size of it!”
    At first Simon couldn’t think what he was talking about, so intrusive was the light and the pain jabbing his skull. His stomach felt queasy, too, and his mouth tasted like the inside of a horse trough. Did I drink that much brandy last night?
    “My lord?”
    What had Edwin said? “They’ve slain the monster.”
    It all connected in a flash and Simon leaped out of bed, staggered badly, and caught himself on the bed table before he fell. There followed an irritating moment of waiting for his head to settle, but finally he was at the window, fighting the pain from squinting into the bright morning light.
    The fog had not yet surrendered fully to the day, a ragged train of gray puffs sailing across the sky and shredding low over the water. The bay stretched southward in a great blue swath, on which two of the many tallships stranded in Springerlan now sailed halfway to the distant gold-crowned headlands that marked the verge of open sea. So desperate were they to begin recouping their losses, the tallships’ captains hadn’t even stayed for the celebration.
    And celebration there was.
    The harbor teemed with boats as it had not for six months. Mostly small to medium sized, their masts and bows fluttered with the brightly colored pennants reserved for festival days, and they raced about at great speed, a swirling crowd of attendants for the battered Andolen trademaster and her equally battered whaling companion, now limping into port. In the night the trademaster’s crew had juryrigged a new main mast and replaced or stitched up enough of her torn rigging and sails to get her under way. But even with the bright, stiff wind—unfortunately a land breeze she had to tack into—and the advantage of most of her sails, she still needed the help of the five smaller vessels arrayed before her, towlines taut as they pulled her into port. It was not her injuries that slowed her, however, but the carcass she dragged behind her, a creature half again as long as she was.
    Hangover nearly eclipsed by his sudden, keen interest, Simon hurried from the bedchamber into his study, snatched up his spyglass, and stepped into the cool morning breeze on the balcony, uncaring that all the world might see a grizzled old soldier in his bedgown. He strode to the balustrade, snapped open the scope, and fixed it upon the monster trailing in the trademaster’s wake. Dark-mottled, rough-surfaced, it shone wetly in the sun, having a long tubular body with a flangelike tail from which the trademaster’s towline was fixed. From its other end a fan of long arms trailed through the waves, some dark, some gleaming pearl white, a few of them twice the length of the rest of it combined.
    Some of the boats had come in close, and a few braver souls poked it with gaffs and spears. As he lowered the telescope