On the heaving deck of the unmarked boat, a wild-eyed giant gazed down on his captives. “Look at the would-be Swordmasters!” He laughed hard enough that they could smell his reeking breath. “Weaklings and cowards, pampered by rules. Against a few stunsticks and a squad of half-trained soldiers, what good are you?”

Duncan stood on deck next to Hiih Resser and four other Ginaz students, nursing cuts and bruises, not to mention skull-splitting hangovers. They had been released from their shigawire bindings, but a squad of heavily armed soldiers in yellow Moritani livery waited nearby, holding an assortment of weapons. Overhead, the knotted gray sky brought darkness a full hour before its time.

The deck of the dark boat was wide and clear, like a practice floor, but slick with spray from drizzle and whitecaps that washed over the rails. The Swordmaster trainees kept their balance, as if this were just another exercise, while their Grumman captors held on to stay-ropes and support rails; some of them looked a bit seasick. Duncan, though, had lived for a dozen years on Caladan, and he felt completely comfortable on a boat. Loose equipment had been tied down in the rough seas. He saw nothing nearby that could provide a weapon for the prisoners.

The ominous boat headed out through the channels of the archipelago. Duncan wondered how even Grummans dared to do such a thing. But House Moritani had already flouted the rules of kanly and launched inexcusably vicious attacks on Ecaz. After the Ginaz School had expelled the Grumman students in disgrace, no doubt their anger had been stoked. As the only one to remain behind, Hiih Resser would face worse treatment than any of his companions. Looking at the redhead’s bruised and swollen face, Duncan could see that Resser understood as much.

Standing before them, the huge man had a braided black beard from cheekbones to chin, dark hair that cascaded over broad shoulders. Teardrop fire-jewels dangled from his ears. Entwined into his beard were bright green extrusions like small branches; the ends were lit in slow-burning embers so that foul gray smoke curled around his face. Two shiny maula pistols were tucked into his waistband. He had identified himself only as Grieu.

“What good has all this uppity training done for you? You get drunk, you get complacent, and you stop being supermen. I’m glad my son pulled out early, without wasting any more time.”

Another wiry young man in a yellow Moritani tunic stepped out of the main cabins. With a sinking heart, Duncan recognized Trin Kronos as he took his place beside the black-bearded man. “We came back to help you celebrate the completion of your training, and to show you that not everyone needs eight years to become adept at fighting.”

With his beard smoldering, Grieu said, “So, let’s see how well you fight. My people need a little practice.”

The Moritani-uniformed men and women moved with an animal grace. They carried swords, knives, spears, crossbows, even pistols. Some wore martial-arts outfits, others wore the more fanciful garb of Terran musketeers or swashbuckling pirates, as if in mockery of the Ginaz training islands. As another joke, they tossed two blunt wooden swords to the captives; Resser caught one, and Klaen, a musically inclined student from Chusuk, caught the other. The toys were laughably inadequate against maula pistols, flèchette guns, and arrows.

At a signal from the hirsute Grieu, Trin Kronos stepped in front of the battered Ginaz students and raked his deprecating gaze over them. He paused in front of Resser, then Duncan, and finally moved on to the next student, Iss Opru, a dark-skinned native of Al-Dhanab. “This one first. As a warmup.”

Grieu grunted in approval. Kronos shoved Opru out of line, to the center of the deck. The other fighters stood tense and waiting.

“Get me a sword,” Kronos said, without looking over his shoulder. His eyes remained locked with Opru’s. Duncan saw that the student had automatically crouched in a perfect fighting stance, ready to react. The Grummans clearly felt they had all the advantages.

Once he held the long blade, Trin Kronos provoked the dark-skinned captive, waving its sharp point in his face, swishing it expertly across the top of his head so that hairs were sliced away. “What are you going to do about this, sword-boy? I’ve got a weapon, and you don’t.”

Opru did not flinch. “I am a weapon.”

As Kronos continued to advance and taunt, Opru suddenly ducked under the blade and chopped the edge of his hand against his opponent’s wrist; the sneering young man cried out and dropped his weapon. With a fluid motion, Opru snatched the pommel before the sword hit the floor, rolled away, and sprang to his feet.

“Bravo,” the giant said, while Kronos howled and nursed his wrist. “Son, you’ve got a lot to learn.” Grieu shoved the young man away. “Stay back so you don’t get hurt even more.”

Opru clutched his stolen sword, knees bent, ready to fight. Duncan tensed, with Resser beside him, waiting to see how this game would play out. The other captives coiled, ready to attack.

Opru circled at the center of the deck, keeping the blade pointed, weaving, ready to strike. He stayed on his toes, kept his gaze moving, intent on the black-bearded giant.

“Isn’t that pretty?” Grieu strode around to get a better view. Acrid smoke twined around his face from the embers in his beard. “Look at his perfect form, right out of a textbook. You dropouts should have stayed in school, and then you might have looked good, too.”

With his uninjured arm, Trin Kronos yanked one of the maula pistols from his father’s belt. “Why prefer form over substance?” He pointed the pistol. “I prefer to win.” And fired.

In an instant of shock, the captives understood that they would all be executed. Without hesitation, before Iss Opru’s body had crumpled to the wet deck, the Swordmaster trainees launched into an all-out offensive with violent, sudden abandon. Two of the smug Grummans died from broken necks before they even realized the captives had begun to attack.

Resser rolled to his right, and a wild projectile hit the deck and ricocheted off into the swollen waves. Duncan dove in the opposite direction as the Moritani soldiers hauled out all their weapons.

The mob of Grumman fighters closed in behind the giant Grieu, then fanned out around the remaining captives. Individuals broke off from the swarm to attack the students at the center and then retreated under a hail of defensive blows and spinning kicks.

The giant whistled in mock appreciation. “Now that is style.”

Klaen, the Chusuk student, ran forward with a blood-curdling yell, launching himself at the nearest of the two men holding cocked crossbows. He held up the wooden blade to catch two crossbow quarrels and then slashed sideways, gouging out the eyes of an enemy who did not back away quickly enough; the blinded Grumman fell screaming to the deck. Behind Klaen, a second student— Hiddi Aran of Balut— shadowed him, using the Chusuk man as a shield in a repeat of an exercise they had run a year before. This time Klaen knew he would be sacrificed.

Both men with crossbows fired their quarrels over and over again. Seven bolts skewered Klaen’s shoulders, chest, stomach, and neck. But still his momentum drove him forward, and as he collapsed, Hiddi Aran leaped over his falling comrade and slammed his body into the nearest crossbow archer. With a speed that broke bones, he tore the crossbow out of the hands of his attacker. One quarrel remained in the bow, and he spun in a fluid motion to shoot the second archer through the hollow of his throat.

He dropped the now-empty crossbow and snatched the second one out of the dying archer’s hands before it could strike the deck— only to face an explosion of fire as the big, bearded Grieu drew his second maula pistol and placed a projectile through the middle of the Balut student’s forehead.

Gunfire erupted all around them, and Grieu bellowed in a voice like an avalanche, “Don’t shoot each other, idiots!” The command came too late: one Grumman fell with a projectile in his chest.

Before Hiddi Aran had stopped moving, Duncan dove across the slippery deck to the Chusuk student’s arrow-studded body, yanked one of the crossbow bolts out of the corpse’s chest, and lunged toward the nearest Moritani. The enemy swung a long sword at him, but in a fraction of a second, Duncan was through his guard, rising up to drive the already-bloody shaft under the enemy’s chin and up through the soft palate. Sensing movement, he grabbed the convulsing man around the chest and spun him so that his back absorbed the impact of three shots fired at Duncan.

With only his dull wooden sword, Hiih Resser yowled an intimidating scream and flailed with the blade. Using wiry, powerful muscles, he smacked the nearest Grumman on the head so hard he heard the skull crack even as his wooden blade shivered into long, sharp splinters. As the Grumman sagged, Resser spun about to jam the splintered end of the toy sword into the eye of another attacker, through the thin bone into the man’s brain.

The remaining student— Wod Sedir, nephew of the King of Niushe— delivered a sharp kick to send a smoking maula pistol up into the air. His opponent had fired it repeatedly, but missed his weaving target. Wod Sedir followed through with his heel under the Grumman’s jaw, shattering his neck, then grabbed the pistol as it fell and turned toward the other Grummans— but the pistol clicked on an empty charge. Within seconds, he became a pincushion of flèchette needles.

“Goes to show you,” Grieu Kronos said, “the gunman beats the swordsman every time.”

After less than thirty seconds, Duncan and Resser found themselves side by side, at the edge of the boat. The only ones left.

The Moritani murderers closed in on the survivors, brandishing an arsenal of weapons. They hesitated, looked to their leader for direction.

“How well can you swim, Resser?” Duncan asked, looking over his shoulder at the heaving swells of dark water.

“Better than I can drown,” the redhead said. He saw the men draw their projectile pistols, weighed the possibility of being able to grab one of the enemy and drag the man over the side of the boat. But he dismissed it as impossible.

From a safe distance, the Grummans took aim. With a sudden movement of his arm, Duncan knocked Resser back into the railing and lunged after him. Both of them tumbled overboard into the churning sea, far from any visible land, just as the gunfire rang out. Needle flèchettes and blundering maula projectiles blasted the side of the boat, sending up a shower of splinters. In the water, silver needles hissed and stung like a swarm of wasps, but both young men had already plunged deep, far out of sight.

The armed attackers rushed to the ruined side of the boat and stared over into the roiling sea. But they spotted nothing. The undertow must have been horrific.

“Those two are lost,” Trin Kronos said with a scowl, nursing his wrist.

“Aye,” the big, bearded Grieu answered. “We’ll have to dump the bodies of the others where they’ll be found.”