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The prisoner darted a wideeyed look at Muadh Then words began to pour out of hi swells of the Aryth Ocean made Spray roll, but Do tube of the looking glass to his eye and studied the large vessel that pursued the The here Spray ran was not the best or the strongest, but where the other ship smashed the swells into mountains of foam with its bluff bow, it could not have blown better The coastline of Toman Head loomed to the east, dark cliffs and narrow strips of sand He had not cared to take Spray too far out, and now he feared he ers, Captain?" Yarin had the sound of sweat in his voice "Is it a strangers’ ship?"

Dolass, but his eye still see ship with its odd ribbed sails "Seanchan," he said, and heard Yarin groan He druers on the rail, then told the helmsman, "Take her closer in That ship will no dare enter the shalloaters Spray can sail"

Yarin shouted commands, and crewmen ran to haul in boo the bowso far into the wind, but Domon was sure he could reach shoal waters before the other vessel came up on him Did her holds be full, she could still take shalloater than ever that great hull can

His ship rode a little higher in the water than she had on sailing froo of fireworks he had taken on there was gone, sold in the fishing villages on Toman Head, but with the silver that flowed for the fireworks had co reports The people spoke of visits from the tall, boxy ships of the invaders When Seanchan ships anchored off the coast, the villagers who drew up to defend their ho fro the invaders ashore, and the earth erupted in fire under their feet Do nonsense until he was shown the blackened ground, and he had seen it in too ht beside the Seanchan soldiers, not that there was ever ers said, and some even claimed that the Seanchan thee insects

In Tanchico, no one had even knohat they called themselves, and the Taraboners spoke confidently of their soldiers driving the invaders into the sea But in every coastal town, it was different The Seanchan told astonished people they ning to explain when they had forsaken the women were taken away one by one to be examined, and soain A few older women had also vanished, some of the Guides and Healers New mayors were chosen by the Seanchan, and new Councils, and any who protested the disappearances of the wo, or burst suddenly into flas There was no way of telling which it would be until it was too late

And when the people had been thoroughly cohen they had been made to kneel and swear, bewildered, to obey the Forerunners, await the Return, and serve Those Who Come Home with their lives, the Seanchan sailed away and usually never returned Falme, it was said, was the only town they held fast

In soes they had left, men and women crept back toward their for their Councils again, but most eyed the sea nervously and made palecheeked protests that they meant to hold to the oaths they had been made to swear even if they did not understand them

Do any Seanchan, if he could avoid it

He was raising the glass to see what he couldSeanchan decks, when, with a roar, the surface of the sea broke into fountaining water and flame not a hundred paces froape, another column of fla to stare at that, another burst up ahead The eruptions died as quickly as they were born, spray from them blown across the deck Where they had been, the sea bubbled and stea

"Wewe’ll reach shalloater before they can close with us," Yarin said slowly He see under clouds of mist

Domon shook his head "Whatever they did, they can shatter us, even do I take her into the breakers" He shivered, thinking of the flame inside the fountains of water, and his holds full of fireworks "Fortune prick ed at his beard and rubbed his bare upper lip, reluctant to give the order--the vessel and what it contained were all he had in the world--but finally heher into the wind, Yarin, and down sail Quickly, man, quickly! Before they do think we still try to escape"

As crewular sails, Domon turned to watch the Seanchan ship approach Spray lost headway and pitched in the swells The other vessel stood taller above the water than Domon’s ship, ooden towers at bow and stern Men were in the rigging, raising those strange sails, and arboat was put over the side, and sped toward Spray under ten oars It carried armored shapes, and -- Domon frowned in surprise -- toainst Spray’s hull

The first to climb up was one of the arers claimed the Seanchan themselves were monsters The helmet looked very much like some monstrous insect’s head, with thin red pluh ilded to increase the effect, and the rest of the old Overlapping plates in black and red outlined with gold covered his chest and ran down the outsides of his arauntlets were red and gold Where he did not wear metal, his clothes were dark leather The twohanded sword on his back, with its curved blade, was scabbarded and hilted in blackandred leather

Then the arure removed his helmet, and Domon stared He was a woman Her dark hair was cut short, and her face was hard, but there was nothe Aiel, and Aiel ell known to be crazed Just as disconcerting was the fact that her face did not look as different as he had expected of a Seanchan Her eyes were blue, it was true, and her skin exceedingly fair, but he had seen both before If this woman wore a dress, no one would look at her twice He eyed her and revised his opinion, that cold stare and those hard cheeks would m