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‘Don’t get too happy about it, Torl,’ Sorgan said ‘You do know that the Trogs arenorth and that they didn’t pay any attention at all to e did to their ships, don’t you? Thattheir ships would stop theht in their tracks, but that idea just fell apart on us I don’t think we can even catch up to those Trogs now They’re too far ahead of us’

‘I sort of thought so reed ‘What do we do now?’

‘You, Torl, not "we",’ Sorgan said quite firo back up to that basin and tell Narasan - and Veltan - that we just failed Burning all their ships didn’tto the invaders Then I want you to tell Veltan that so with these farht even have done it himself, but that doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?’

‘Not to reed

‘I want you to put on full sail, Torl, and get up there just as fast as you can Like it or not, we do have two invasions, and there’s nothing I can do to stop the one that’ll be coet the word to him just as quick as I can, cousin,’ Torl promised

‘Even quicker would be better’

4

As luck had it, there was a good folloind as the Larksailed up along the east coast of the Land of Dhrall, but Torl was fairly sure that luck probably had very little to do with it So a lot of ta the war in Lady Zelana’s Do was quite common in this part of the world, but Torl couldn’t for the life of hi If he was on their side, he should have been trying to stop the second invasion, but it see that’d happened down on the south coast ht be in his house, Torl anchored the Lark just off the familiar beach a few days after he’d left the south coast, and walked on up to that peculiar building When he reached it, the wife of Veltan’s friend O for hi Ara, the farmer’s wife, was almost certainly the most beautiful woman Torl had ever seen, and he could not for the life of hiy faro He was certain that she’d have had ht now, is he?’ Torl asked her

‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied in that rich voice of hers ‘Did you want to see hi he needs to know, ht be able to catch hi very well lately, but it looks like it ed ‘It orth a try, I guess Have you heard anything about what’s going on up in thevery specific I don’t think the servants of the Vlagh have begun their attack yet’

‘That’s so their wall to hold off the ene is likely to take theht Veltan should know about?’ she asked ‘If he happens to stop by after you’veto do with that invasion of the southern part of his Doan was positive that we’d be able to deal with it, but our scheite ship down there,’ Torl said, ‘and that should have stopped the invasion dead cold, but it didn’t turn out that way at all’

‘What happened?’

‘Soht out from under us I know that Veltan, Lady Zelana, and their relatives can do all sorts of things that nobody else can do, but it see around here in the Land of Dhrall who can do even stranger things That other so that I don’t think even Veltan could have pulled off’

‘Really?’

‘The other somebody stuffed a ridiculous fairy tale into thethe south coast, and they’ll all repeat that fairy story in exactly the saold"’

‘How did you find out about this, Torl?’ Ara asked hi to one of the natives down there - Bolen, I think his na our conversation As soon as I said "gold", his eyes glazed over and he told ht he’d just gone crazy, but after he’d finished, he see at all had happened’

‘How curious,’ Ara said

‘It gets even ht at first, it didn’t make any sense, but then I had a peculiar notion, and I walked around through several of those villages and said the word "gold" to every single native I met, and would you believe that every one of the Bolen had done Their eyes went blank and each one told- is playing a very cos go even crazier than the word "gold"off to the north as if sohed then ‘What an a way to put it,’ she said with a sly smile

The majority of Commander Narasan’s ships were anchored in the bay at the mouth of the River Vash, so the river itself wasn’t as cluttered as it had been when cousin Sorgan’s men had coe of the Lark, and hurried up Nanton’s streas in the south hadn’t turned out as they’d hoped

It was about noon of the next day when Torl reached the top, and he saw that the Trogites had been busy at the north end of the basin building wall rather than a fort, and their groas already h