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."
Sturm slipped down a stayrope, as he'd often seen the
sailors do, and dropped to the deck outside his mother's
enclosure. He pulled back the flap. It was dim and smoky
inside, but he spied Mistress Carin tending a small fire in a
copper pan.
"Mother! Mother!" he called.
"What is it?" Lady Ilys said from the shadows.
"Sergeant Soren says a rowing ship is coming for us. It
may be pirates!"
Mistress Carin gasped. Lady Ilys's face appeared out of
the darkness. She was very pale, and her expression was
grim.
"Why would pirates bother so small a ship as this?" she
asked.
"It's so foggy, my lady, Paladine wouldn't know us for
who we are," Carin said.
"Sturm, fetch the sergeant to me. I want a soldier's view
of the matter." The boy bowed hastily to his mother and ran
out to find Soren.
The thump and swish of oars was clearer now, even to
Sturm's young ears. The fog swallowed the sound,
dispersing it, making it hard to tell from what quarter the
galley approached. Definitely astern; that was certain.
"Sergeant! Sergeant!" Sturm shouted. He found the
guardsman on the poop deck, whetting the blade of his
broadsword. The SKELTER'S crew of lean, raffish seamen
nervously shifted hatchets and cutlasses from hand to hand
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