Longbow carried Eleria to Sorgan’s cabin at the stern of the Seagull. Ox and Ham-Hand were already there, as was Red-Beard. “The best way I know of to get people’s attention in a hurry is to show them gold,” Sorgan was saying, “and this is the way we’re going to do that. Ox, I want you and Ham-Hand to spread the word that the Seagull’s got stacks and stacks of gold blocks down in her hold. They probably won’t believe you—which is right down at the core of our little scheme. As soon as some ship captain says that he thinks you’re lying, tell him that you’ll be happy to show him, if he’d like. Don’t bring any ordinary seamen or tavern loafers out here, and don’t waste my time on the ones who call themselves captains but only have an oversized rowboat and fifteen or twenty men. We only want the captains of full-sized longships with full crews. If somebody doesn’t have eighty men at his command, I don’t want to see him. Now then, just to keep things from getting rowdy, don’t bring more than two or three to the Seagull at any one time, and let it get spread around that those of us here on board won’t look kindly on uninvited guests. We only want two or three at a time.”

“I get your drift, Cap’n,” Ox said. “Me and Ham-Hand’ll take care to keep our visitors from turning into a crowd that the crew can’t handle.”

“Do your people really have little boats, Hook-Big?” Eleria asked.

Sorgan made an indelicate sound. “They’re leeches for the most part,” he replied. “They call themselves real Maag sea captains, but their boats are really nothing more than old fishing sloops, and the men who make up the crew don’t know the first thing about fighting. A real Maag longship’s better than a hundred feet long, and she’s got at least eighty men on board—fifty oarsmen, twenty-five to deal with the sail, three officers, a cook, a smith, and a carpenter.” He looked at Zelana. “How soon do you want the fleet we’ll put together to reach your country?” he asked.

“We have a bit of time, Sorgan,” she replied. “The creatures of the Wasteland aren’t in position to attack us as yet.”

“That gives us until next spring, doesn’t it? Nobody in his right mind tries to march an army across a range of mountains in the dead of winter.”

“The Vlagh has a different kind of mind, Sorgan. It doesn’t care how many of its servants die along the way when it wants something. I want the Maag fleet standing off the coast of Dhrall before the snow starts to pile up.”

“That’s only two months or so, Lady Zelana,” Sorgan protested. “I won’t be able to gather that many ships in so short a time. The ships aren’t all in one place, so I’m going to have to chase them down. I might be able to have a fair-sized advance fleet there by then, but it’ll probably take a while longer to bring the main body across. I’m just scraping a number off the wall here, but I think six hundred ships should be about right. With eighty or so men on board each one, you’ll have a good-sized army—fifty thousand or so anyway. The main problem’s going to be getting the word out to all those sea captains. A lot of them are cruising around out there in deep water looking for Trogite treasure ships.”

“Doesn’t that mean that they’re between us and the Land of Dhrall?” Red-Beard asked.

“I suppose so. Why?”

“We’ll encounter them along the way then, won’t we?”

“That’s open water out there, Red-Beard. If those ships aren’t right in our path, we won’t even see them.”

“Are there paths in Mother Sea now?” Red-Beard asked mildly. “I hadn’t heard about that. Is there some reason that I don’t know about that all the ships of the fleet absolutely must trail along behind the Seagull? Wouldn’t it be better if they spread out as they sailed to the land of Dhrall? I’ve fished the waters of Mother Sea many times, and over the years I’ve found that my luck’s much better if I fish in waters that haven’t been recently worked by other fishermen.”

“Well . . .” Sorgan began, but whatever he’d intended to say dribbled off.

“It will still be your fleet, Sorgan Hook-Beak,” Zelana assured him. “All the Maags on all the ships will know that you command. Do you really have to have them clinging to your tail feathers all the way to Dhrall?”

Sorgan looked a bit sheepish. “I’ve never had a whole fleet to follow me,” he admitted. “I really wanted to see all those ships massed up in one place and to know that it was my fleet. I was being sort of childish, wasn’t I?”

“It’s all right to be a child, Hook-Big,” Eleria told him. “Look at all the fun I’ve been having lately.”

Sorgan sighed. “I guess it’ll be all right if the fleet spreads out to bring in those other ships,” he said regretfully.

“That’s a good boy,” Eleria said affectionately.

“Just what’s this all about, Sorgan?” a lean Maag sea captain, among the first group Sorgan had invited to visit the Seagull in the harbor of Weros, asked as he climbed up the rope ladder to the deck of the Seagull.

“Come on back to my cabin, and I’ll explain it,” Sorgan replied, glancing at the two other Maags in the skiff Ox had just rowed out to the Seagull.

Longbow drifted along behind them as they went aft.

Zelana and Eleria were up near the bow of the Seagull, looking at the town of Weros, so the cabin was empty at the moment.

“Who’s he?” the other Maag asked, pointing at Longbow.

“This is Longbow, and he works for the lady that’s paying me to gather up a fleet.”

“Is it safe to talk in front of him?”

“He knows what this is all about, cousin Torl,” Sorgan replied. “Didn’t Ox tell you about all the gold we’ve got piled up down in the hold?”

The lean Maag snorted. “You didn’t really think I’d believe him, did you?”

“We’ll go look in just a minute. There’s a war in the works over in a place called Dhrall, and the lady who sort of runs things over there needs men who know how to fight to join up with her people, and she pays in gold. I brought about a hundred bars here with me to prove to the ship captains I come across that it’ll be worth their while to join up.”

“I think you might have lost your mind, Sorgan. Nobody with his head on straight starts waving gold in front of Maag ship captains.”