to the center.
Razeen moved at their head. He stopped just outside arm’s length from Corin and surveyed the camels with some appreciation, but his expression turned sour when it touched on Blake and dark indeed on Iryana.
Still, he feigned a gap-toothed smile for Corin. “As I told you, friend, we will collect the weight that’s owed. You’re not the first who’s tried to run.”
Corin sighed and stepped forward. His eyes traced the edges of the heavy swords among these accusers. Seven here. Another twenty in the ring of sheiks, but hundreds more arrayed beyond them. Soldiers filled the sandy slopes.
Corin showed a lopsided smile. “How many try?”
“Thirty-seven in my time. Five or ten a year, I’d guess. And none has made it. Ever.”
Corin reached toward his belt, but Razeen’s curved blade cut through the air and stopped just short of his throat.
With exaggerated care, Corin completed his gesture. He drew the dagger from his belt and dropped it in the sand. Corin met the big guard’s eyes. “You seem overcautious.”
“I have seen your tricks.”
“Of course,” Corin said. “But have you seen my pirate crew?”
Razeen blinked, confused. He glanced at Ethan Blake, but Corin shook his head.
“That’s just one man, however impressive his disdain.”
Razeen frowned at Blake, then raised his eyes to the ring of surrounding sheiks, to the larger force that had followed him from the camp, and finally up to the tops of the dunes.
“Too far,” Corin whispered.
Then on the slopes above them, one hundred and forty men threw off their linen wraps. Beneath they wore the loose, light trousers of sailors and the red silk sash that Blake had made so popular. Daggers and Ithalian short swords gleamed in the desert sun, but not as brightly as Corin’s grin.
Razeen cried, “How?”
Corin shrugged. “You brought them to me. Blake, take the sheiks’ swords.”
“We should kill them now,” Blake said as he slid from his saddle.
“Ephitel bless your murderous heart,” Corin said. “But we do not want a blood feud with these slavers. Tie them up.”
“This is no joke—”
“And this is not a council,” Corin snapped. “You have my order. Tie them up and leave them here, then bring the men to camp.”
“Bring?”
Corin grinned. “I’m borrowing your camel. See you at the cliffside.”
The captain swung up into the high saddle and nodded to the great sea of his men outside the frail circle of slavers. He threw a mocking salute to Razeen, avoided Blake’s glare, and grabbed Iryana’s reins. Then he led her from the watching crowd, between the dunes, and off toward the sunset.
They went a while in silence, but Iryana made no effort to escape. She came easily along, her strange, dark eyes cutting into the back of Corin’s neck. At last, almost irritated, he asked, “What’s on your mind?”
“A time is coming soon when you will wish that man were dead.”
Corin glanced back and shrugged. “He is just a slaver’s guard. And I will leave these sands behind—”
“I do not mean Razeen,” she said softly. “I mean the man you left in charge.”
“Blake? Ha! He is no threat.”
“He hates you.”
“With all his black little heart,” Corin said.
“You know this, and still you leave him so much power?”
Corin shared a secret smile. “He alone among all my crew is wholly and utterly predictable.”
“Even though he hates you?”
“Because he hates me…and still he follows me. That should tell you much about his ambitions. But perhaps your people are not so complicated.”
She favored him with a smirk. “Or we are not so simple.”
Corin laughed, bright and clear. “Oh, there is nothing simple about me. As for Blake…aye, I’ll give you that. But I know the shape of his schemes.”
She reined up hard and rounded on Corin, her dark eyes flashing. “You do not know as many secrets as you claim, and I know more than you’d believe. I can see the treachery draped across that man like Aeshmir silks, and it drips with the blood of clever men.”
“I am not without my bloody rags,” Corin said.
“You are clean as sand-polished bone against his stain. You are shifting shades and interwoven tones, but there is a beauty and a harmony in your madness. He is just one shade and just one tone.”
“Iryana—”
“No.” She spoke over him. “Hear my words and understand. He drips with dark ambition, and you stand in his way.”
Corin licked his lips and forced another smile. “I hear you,” he said, with unaccustomed gravity. “And I tell you true, I know full well the treachery that reigns over