“I'm with Kennit,” he said simply, and crossed the small space to stand with Sorcor's sailors. Half a dozen others followed him wordlessly. The mob began to shift restlessly as its numbers dwindled. Some of those who had come down from the jungle's edge stood apart from them, plainly reluctant to take sides. Nothing seemed as clear as it had a few moments before.

A woman's voice was raised suddenly. “Carum! Jerod! Shame upon you! You know what he says is true! You know it!” It was Alyssum. She was standing in the Marietta's boat. Sorcor must have put her there. She pointed accusingly at the young men as she named them. “Vahor. Kolp. You teased Lily and me, saying Father had offered her hand to a madman and mine to his first mate. And what did my mother tell you? That they were men who saw how the future could be! Men who were trying to help us be more than a village on the edge of nothing. And now she is dead! Dead! Kennit didn't kill her. Our stupidity did! We would not listen to him. We needed a king to protect us, but we mocked his offer!”

Kennit's shirt stuck to his back with perspiration. By now, both the Marietta and the Vivacia would have put out more boats. If he could just keep them from attacking him for a few moments longer, he would soon have enough men at his back to sway the odds more in his favor. He would still probably die. The boy in front of him and the woman at his side would at most slow down one or two of them. Then he would die, once they pressed him and he had to step away from the rock that braced his peg. He would die.

Some of the folk in the back of the crowd were standing more loosely. They had stepped slightly apart from their fellows, and struck poses more listening than threatening. Boj was not one of them. He and the five or so men standing closest to him stood with their shoulders raised and elbows out, gripping their weapons hard. The resistance from the other survivors only seemed to inflame Boj's anger. The young man at his side was most likely his son. Boj's breath came faster and harder, while his mouth worked as if he could not find words sharp enough. “You're wrong!” he roared suddenly. “It's his fault! His fault! He brought them down on us!” His voice rose into a shriek, and then he leaped forward, cudgel swinging. The crowd behind him was suddenly in motion, surging forward like a wave.

Boj's cudgel swept the place where Wintrow's skull had been. The boy had ducked, but not deeply enough. Kennit saw the glancing blow snap his head to one side. He expected the boy to go down. He planted his crutch and lifted his knife to defend himself. A young tough had engaged Etta's blade. She'd be no help to him.

As Kennit raised his blade, Wintrow suddenly sprang up again between him and Boj. Like a sapling blown to one side but not snapped, the boy swept back to his stance. The shock showed plain on Boj's face, but the fool had already drawn his cudgel back for a blow intended to kill Kennit. His chest was wide open; no doubt the tavern keeper was accustomed to a bar between himself and his victim. Wintrow's knife slammed into the man, punching through his shirt and vest and into his hard belly. Wintrow screamed as he did it, a cry of both horror and hate. Boj roared, injured, but far from dead.

The fighting closed in from all sides. Kennit could hear Sorcor roaring curses to encourage his men as they sliced through the crowd toward him. He heard the shrieks of women, and knew that some folk fled the fight. Everything was happening at once, yet Kennit felt he stood in an island of stillness. Etta was down in the mud with her man, shrieking, stabbing and wrestling. Kennit was dimly aware of the other fighting going on about him. He heard yells from the water, probably the men in the boats shouting their frustration at not landing yet. Behind him, two men grappled in the mud. One kicked out and clipped the end of his crutch, sending him staggering a half step into the mud. Boj's cudgel came crashing down on Wintrow's shoulder as the boy pulled out his knife and punched it into the man again. Kennit heard a solid smack as the cudgel connected and Wintrow's yell of pain and then he staggered into them. He caught himself on Boj and used his own knife. His crutch was gone; his peg sank into the mud, throwing him to one side. Boj's dying flail with the cudgel just missed him. Kennit fell across Wintrow, and then Boj came down upon them both like a tree falling. The weight of the tavern keeper slapped Kennit down into the shining mud.

The sheer indignity of it energized Kennit more than any anger. With a roar, he threw the heavier man off him. A slice of his knife across Boj's throat made sure of him. He scrabbled up onto his good knee, and saw Etta back-down in the mud. She gripped two-handed the wrist of a powerful man who was trying to plunge a knife into her with one hand while throttling her with the other. Kennit shoved his knife into him just to the right of the man's lower spine. The man shrieked and spasmed in the shock of his pain. Etta used the moment to turn the knife from herself into the man's gut. With the same thrust, she rolled out from under him and came to her feet, crying, “Kennit, Kennit!” She was filthy. She scrabbled through the mud toward him, then stood over him protectively with her knife. It was too humiliating. Kennit struggled to stand.