"There are two options," Captain Barden told them, "for dealing with numerically superior adversaries in a stern chase."

McKenzie cut in. "Before you go any further, Captain, let's make a decision. I'm quite willing to surrender, wait until the Sky Reaper is well clear, and then fuck some shit up aboard the Huntress. I can prob'ly bust you three out in no time and we'll improvise from there. I'd rather do that than wait here to be overhauled and see however many of the crew get killed. Anyone with me?"

McKenzie looked at the three girls. Predictably, there was no response.

"Looks like you're on your own with that one. The curse would probably not allow it anyway," Danandra told him.

"Fine, I'll do it my fucking self then. Can I borrow the boat again, Captain? I want to see how long it takes to punch out a hundred and fifty mercenaries hereabouts," McKenzie said.

"And if someone with half a brain is aboard the first ship you attack, they'll make sure to steal the launch while you're busy having fun, leaving the other two ships free to attack us without you here to help," Danandra informed him impatiently, but then paused. "Although on reflection that actually sounds fine: off you go."

"Alright, Napoleon, your strategic point is taken," McKenzie responded huffily. "I still reckon my first plan is doable, though."

Barden stepped in. "Your sentiment is appreciated, Mr. McKenzie, but in any event I will never require any passengers of mine to surrender to base pirates," he said. "Now, there are two ways to handle a pursuit such as this. When it is inevitable that one's ship will be boarded, and he intends to make a fight of it, a captain may choose to climb as high as his vessel is capable or descend to within a few feet of the ground. The former option offers two advantages: the pursuing captain may lack the nerve for such a lofty battle and give up, or at least stand off, giving the pursued vessel time to make for a safe port, and in some cases, the pursuing vessel may lack the ability to follow. However, neither of these cases holds true for Captain Jahistra - who does not want for resolve, no matter what her moral outlook may be - or the Huntress - which is a capable vessel - so instead we have already begun our descent. This at least guarantees that our assailants cannot approach us from underneath, and we shall only have to defend from potential attacks from above or alongside us."

"Can't they just ram us into the ground?" McKenzie asked.

"No - even all three ships acting in concert could not hope to budge the Sky Reaper an inch from her chosen course without inflicting serious damage on themselves: they are too light, and we too heavy."

"Cool."

"I shall station men by all of the exposed hatches to repel boarders. They may try to break through the hull directly, but our hull is thick, and it would take strong men with axes a goodly time to achieve this: boarding actions are usually lost or won well before the hull is breached. I do not usually ask this of passengers, but under the circumstances, your assistance would be appreciated." Barden looked faintly embarrassed as he said this.

"Not a problem. As we say where I come from: bring it on," McKenzie grinned.

Barden left shortly thereafter to prepare. Dinner would regrettably have to be brought forward from the customary hour, he said apologetically, which McKenzie found amusing. It was also indicative of his competence, though: he was making sure everyone was well fed before the coming battle.

Leni declined, to the relief of the bullock (at least if you could explain to it what it had just escaped). Everyone, crew included, knew why: she was hoping the curse would allow pirate on the menu, and had expressed a particular interest in their leader. McKenzie remembered what she had said in the inn: bad girls always taste the best. It made him shudder to think of it.

McKenzie had been involved in too many battles to turn down the offer of a good square meal beforehand: the ship's cook turned out a great quantity of stew - McKenzie ate a large portion with a tankard of ale.

He was the only person aboard without a weapon, or at least the only person who needed one. Sharinta was a cleric, whatever kind of cleric apparently didn't matter when it came to healing people, and so she was assigned to a central cabin which was repurposed as a sickbay. Danandra, of course, would fight with magic.

"It is not unlikely that we will be facing one or more mages," she said. "We are as likely to fight for coin as any other."

Barden offered McKenzie his choice of weapons - McKenzie, with a wry smile, opted for a four-foot long iron crowbar.

"Are you sure, Mr. McKenzie?" Barden asked.

"Absolutely," McKenzie replied. "I'm a bloody liability with a sword - I tend to break them. I'm happiest with a blunt instrument, honestly."

He was assigned, with Leni, to defend the boat bay - the largest opening in the ship, once the bridge had been sealed with panels of thick wood - along with a pair of crewmen equipped with cutlasses and crossbows. It was an absurdly small number of defenders for the bay - clearly Barden had decided to believe McKenzie when he said he'd ripped the tail off the ship. The two crew were clearly nervous of the she-troll, and stationed themselves on the far side of the bay behind the launch, which had been laid on it's side and secured in place to form a barricade.

"They seem sort of edgy," McKenzie commented.

"We can go kinda, um, berserk in combat," Leni explained. "In this confined space there's not a lot of room for people on my side to back away."

"What an incredibly rewarding person you are to have as a friend," McKenzie replied flatly. Leni snorted.

The word was passed a few minutes later: "They are upon us! To your posts!"

The crewmen loaded their crossbows. Moments later, there was a series of thuds from around the ship.

"Grapplin' hooks," a crewman tersely explained. "Brace for impact."

He wasn't wrong - his words were followed by a splintering crash that sent everyone to the deck. McKenzie picked himself up. He could hear shouts and cursing, and then the boat bay doors shook and rattled under a series of regularly spaced blows.

"Sledgehammers?" McKenzie guessed.

The crewmen nodded.

The doors were held in place by a thick wooden bar, but McKenzie could see that it wasn't this that was the weak point - the metal brackets which held the bar in place would come loose from the door a long time before that bar would break.

McKenzie went up to the doors and leaned against them - the rattling stopped, and surprised shouts showed that those outside had realised something had changed. The blows slowed, stopped, then recommenced, concentrated only on one spot. They were trying to break directly through.

He'd slowed them down, but no matter what McKenzie did, though, those doors weren't going to last forever. The wood was broken in several places, and pretty soon McKenzie was going to push them outwards by leaning on them, which would be just as bad a result as the boarders forcing them in.

"These doors are fucked!" He said. "Leni, guys, take care of whoever gets past me!"

When's the last time I was involved in a serious close quarters barney like this? McKenzie wondered. It had been decades, probably. The world - his world, not this one - didn't really contain much in the way of hand to hand fighting on a large scale anymore, or at least if it did then McKenzie hadn't been invited. Even during his stint in Nelson's navy he couldn't remember guys in armour trying to break into someplace.

So why was it familiar? The civil war, maybe? No: they'd've just aimed a cannon at the door.

The door cracked and fell. With a tremendous bloodthirsty shout and a few arrows, the mercenaries charged. Two of them fell with crossbow bolts in their chests, the rest met McKenzie's crowbar.

There wasn't room to swing it, and it wouldn't've done much good if there had been. McKenzie could have swung it hard enough to smash a concrete block, but he wasn't here to smash rocks, he was here to hold these guys back. So he grasped the thing in both hands and smashed it into the oncoming flood of armoured forms in short, strong, quick movements, which worked a treat even if McKenzie did have arrows and blades bouncing off him left right and centre.

The thing with super strength, or at least the version he'd got, wasn't what you couldn't do but what happened to you when you tried. It was all well and good being strong enough to lift a house, but you had to remember two things. One, houses were a lot heavier than you were, so all that actually happened was that you pushed yourself into the ground using a house as leverage. Two, items didn't tend to be all of a piece. Try to lift a house standing on, say, ultra-strong concrete and all you'd achieve would be to rip a bit off a house.

Same thing with this situation - theoretically McKenzie could've borrowed Leni's sword and swung it so hard he'd cut everyone in two: the result in the real world would be that, if the sword didn't break, McKenzie would simply swing himself off his feet once that sword got jammed up in someone.

Hence the controlled approach, which must've looked like anything but to anyone with the leisure to observe. Everyone nearby was equally busy, though: Leni was engaged with a couple of pirates who'd edged along the walls to avoid McKenzie, and the crewmen were keeping up a steady fire from their crossbows.

McKenzie cursed and swore as his opponents landed blow after blow on him - even if it didn't penetrate, getting hit with a sword was never a walk in the park. He was prevailing, though - there were a score of boarders on the deck, groaning with pain from broken limbs or just plain unconscious. Leni had dispatched four opponents, and a few more were lying dead with crossbow bolts protruding from heads or chests.

"Now fuck off!" McKenzie roared at them, as they started to fall back. Leni advanced, holding her shield in the manner of a roman centurion, stabbing from behind its protection or just plain using it to smash people with nearly as much force as McKenzie's crowbar.

The boarders' collective nerve broke - the pirates still waiting to board hesitated, and the ones already on the Sky Reaper backed hastily towards the hatch, then turned and ran.

"And stay fucked off!" McKenzie yelled as the last one left.

They'd laid one of the ships right alongside - not the Huntress in this case, the wood was a different colour, but one of the others - the gap was a foot at most between the boat bay and the opposing hatch. McKenzie came under immediate fire from the other ship, but ignored it. He could see now that they were no more than a few feet above the ground.

Unless that ship was going backwards, that hatch was near the bridge: the hull's curvature was fairly pronounced. It was tempting to jump across and cause some chaos, and, in fact, McKenzie had never been much for resisting temptation.

"Leni, can you hold the fort without me for maybe a minute?"

"Yes, but-" Leni said.

"Sailor guys! Is there likely to be any of our lot on the other ships?"

"No sir. Not a chance sir," a sailor replied.

"Right. Back in a bit then," he said over his shoulder, and stepped across.

"McKenzie, wait!" Leni said, but McKenzie was already charging down a corridor towards the bridge. The mercenaries, not waiting to see what he was about, fled before him. He was largely unopposed.

McKenzie opened the door to the bridge by the simple expedient of throwing it's guard through it, which produced a satisfyingly splintery crash and was probably, he reflected, one of his better entrances.

"Stop!" A man shouted, which seemed kinda pointless given that McKenzie had just thrown a guy through a door, but anyway. "Get him off my bridge!" The captain, then.

Three crewmen ran to try to attempt this, drawing cutlasses as they did so. McKenzie parried the first one's cut with the crowbar then rammed it into his chest, throwing him clear across the bridge. He ignored the second pair of blows, punched the second guy in the face, sending him senseless to the deck, and then headbutted the last sailor into a similar state.

The captain was the only guy left - he was manning the wheel.

"Why don't you get off your bridge?" McKenzie said, hefting the crowbar.

The captain weighed up the pros and cons of this suggestion, then fled. McKenzie stepped up to the wheel.

It looked like the same basic deal as the launch - you steered left and right and pushed or pulled for up and down. This ship had no wooden armour over her nose - McKenzie could see the hull of the Sky Reaper alongside.

He pulled back on the wheel. The nose of the ship rose skywards, and there was a sudden spanging noise as the ropes holding her to the Sky Reaper snapped and pelted back into her hull, killing anyone unlucky enough to be in their way. Someone started ringing an alarm bell behind him.

McKenzie eased off the thrust and let his prize fall a little behind. He could see the Huntress hovering over the Sky Reaper, attacking via her topside hatches, and on her starboard side the three-quarter tailed vessel, sporting a jury-rigged canvas repair, was embarking troops into whatever hatches she had on that flank.

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"Right," he said to himself, eyeing up the semi-crippled ship. "You'll do."

McKenzie piled on the thrust and gained some height, then dipped the nose and aimed it squarely at the three-tailed vessel.

"What are you doing!" The captain screamed, concern for his ship propelling him back to his bridge with a score of men behind him. "Are you mad?"

"Evidence would kinda seem to suggest it, yeah," McKenzie replied.

"Get him!" The captain shrieked. "He'll kill us all!"

The damaged ship grew bigger in the bridge window - quickly.

"Your choice guys," McKenzie said. "Brace for impact, maybe live, or, whatever, don't."

There was a moment of consideration amongst his putative adversaries. Then they turned and fled, screaming 'brace yourselves!' The captain looked about helplessly.

"Not your day mate. Laters," McKenzie said, then ripped the wheel out of the deck and flung it as hard as he could at the window. It shattered outwards in a sparkling fountain of glass and metal - McKenzie took a deep breath, ran across the bridge and leapt out of the resulting hole towards the Huntress.

If the captain of the three-tailed vessel had any warning of the impending calamity, he didn't or couldn't act on it. McKenzie's hijacked ship plowed majestically into the top of the other vessel with a sickening din of shattering wood and slammed it into the ground. Both ships came to a complete and sudden stop - the ropes connecting three-tails to the Sky Reaper went taut, she veered slightly on her course, and then the ropes snapped and went lashing back into the wreckage, to wreak whatever extra havoc they would. There was a lot of dying and screaming.

McKenzie didn't see the actual impact: he'd miscalculated his jump somewhat. Instead of landing lightly on the curve of the Huntress' upper hull, he slammed into her underside. McKenzie jabbed desperately with his crowbar, and succeeded in ramming it into the hull. It slipped, then held, and McKenzie was left dangling in mid-air. This position provided a fantastic viewpoint from which to witness the aftermath of the chaos he'd just created, but was sadly lacking in any other virtues.

"Cock it," he said, with feeling. Oh well - he could still drop onto the hull of the Sky Reaper underneath, which he did by pulling himself up, putting one hand on the hull of the Huntress, and, using the leverage thus created, yanking the crowbar out.

McKenzie was strong: he wasn't particularly graceful. He plummeted about twenty feet (the mercenaries boarding the Sky Reaper had the advantage of rapelling ropes, McKenzie did not) and slammed painfully arse-first onto the top of the hull with a heartfelt 'FUCK!'

The aforementioned mercenaries seemed a bit disheartened, as well they might having just seen two-thirds of their force wiped out, or at the very least taken decidedly out of the game. Their discomfiture did not last for long, however.

"There he is! Aim for his head!" Came the ever-predictable shout. McKenzie was just in the act of picking himself up when a six-foot long spear buried itself in the wood beside him with a terrific thunk!

"Holy crap!" He exclaimed, and looked up. From a hatch on the underside of the Huntress, he could see the crew of a huge oversized crossbow - a ballista, he vaguely recalled - laboriously rewinding and reloading their weapon.

"His head! You must hit his head!" The ballista-captain was exhorting the crew of three.

"Only if you really wanna piss me off!" McKenzie called back. He set off towards the nearest besieged hatch on the topside of the Sky Reaper - a lot of boarders were clustered round it, waiting to get in. A bit of lightning might take care of them: almost without thinking, he started to relax the controls over the reservoir within him. His hand crackled and sparked in readiness, but then he paused.

On the other hand, he thought, I'll probably get there before they reload, and they'll hold their fire for fear of hitting their own-

The next thing McKenzie knew, everything was quiet, he was lying on his back in long grass, and absolutely everything hurt.

- o O o -

It did happen to him - it was, in fact, the worst thing that could happen to him - getting knocked out. The last time it had happened was back in 1815, when the magazine of His Majesty's Armed Sloop Swallow had gone up, thus ending his naval career (unless he'd been able to do some seriously fast talking as to how he was alive). Come to think of it, the blast then had been behind him, too. Had they got him in the back of the head with the ballista bolt, and thus knocked him out? He couldn't remember.

McKenzie levered himself none too steadily to his feet. The pain was fading, albeit slowly, but he still felt like he was made of lead: McKenzie doubted he could fight off a moth, in his present condition. The twin shapes of the Sky Reaper and the Huntress were nowhere to be seen, and night was drawing in, so presumably he'd been out of it for a fair bit longer than a few seconds.

A good look around revealed, well, lots of grass. A few rocks. Some deer or similar, nervously eyeing the middle distance where a large pile of wooden wreckage could be discerned. McKenzie jumped as a bird started chirruping, apparently from inside his jacket.

No - it was his phone. That was decidedly odd. Danandra had the mirror.

"Surprise Safaris Incorporated, every destination a confusing ordeal," McKenzie answered it.

The deer ran off, startled.

"Monsieur McKenzie?" Asked a woman's voice in a Swiss accent.

"Yeah, um, I mean oui," McKenzie replied.

"Bonsoir," the woman said. "You wished to be informed when a certain deposit was made in your account. The deposit has been made in full."

"Ah, oui, tres bon, merci," McKenzie replied shakily.

"Is there anything else I can do for you today, Monsieur McKenzie?" The Swiss accountant asked.

McKenzie didn't reply for some time. He had noted, with a certain amount of alarm, the sudden and unexplained presence of a number of spear-points in the grass. Their owners - bronze-tanned chaps with bright blond hair, predominantly leather-based apparel and a penchant for tribal tattoos and human-body-part based accessorising - materialised out of the grass moments later.

"Now's really not a good time," McKenzie replied. "Thanks anyway. Have a good evening."

"Merci, monsieur. Au revoir," the banker hung up. McKenzie replaced the phone in his jacket and zipped the pocket shut.

"Er...I am the sky god McKenzie who has fallen to earth from heaven, take me to your leader?" He asked hopefully.

In reply, he was met by a chorus of derisive laughter and then surrounded by a forest of levelled spears. One of the tribesmen approached with a length of rope.

"Well it was worth a try," McKenzie sighed.

- o O o -

There were not many survivors from the three-tailed vessel - she had already debarked many of her troops to fight aboard the Sky Reaper - those she had not had been waiting in the hold, which was now a crumpled mass of dirt, wood and crushed bodies. The Red Falcon had not been a large vessel: she only carried a crew of eight, and the captain and first mate were both dead.

By some miracle, the captain of the other ship, the Irago, had survived, was in one piece (although he had a broken arm), and was on the ground. This was surprising for a number of reasons, not least of which was that his ship, once it'd half-crushed the Red Falcon, had suffered drive damage which had put the core to full power and sent her skywards, shedding wreckage, never to be seen again. He was alternating between pure blind fury, shock, surprise and fear.

He primarily feared attack by wild animals who might be drawn by the smell of blood, so, taking command of the six surviving sailors from the Red Falcon, he'd ordered them to build a large fire to scare off any such predators.

This worked admirably: a pack of the small jackals which were the top predator on the Great Northern Vyrinian Plains - and no threat to people - were well and truly scared off. Regrettably, it acted as a handy beacon for the Bazuli hunting party which had already taken McKenzie into captivity. They arrived in the final moments of the day, as the sun was setting: the captain had hoped this particular day couldn't get any worse, but the tribesmen just managed to beat the sunset and dash his hopes.

Most of the survivors were too dazed and shaken to try to escape or offer any resistance, save for one stout fellow who wrestled himself free of the grasp of the Bazuli tribesmen and legged it as fast as he could across the plains. This provided a few minutes entertainment for the hunting party, who derived great enjoyment from the impromptu spear-throwing competition this provided. The sailor was dragged back to camp by two of the tall, nordic looking savages, relieved of a selection of teeth, fingers, hair and other trophies, then left for the edification of the jackals at the edge of the firelight.

"Nice people," McKenzie commented to his fellow prisoners, who, like him, were bound hand and foot.

"Here is the source of all our troubles, lads," the captain said. "'Twas this fiend that steered the Irago into your ship and brought us all to this. 'Tis my most fervent wish that I should see him slaughtered by these savages afore we meet our ends."

"Solidarity, brother," McKenzie commented sarcastically, with a raised fist.

"Silence dogs!" A tribesman snarled from around the fire.

"Silence yourself, you pseudo-viking fuckwit!" McKenzie called back, and again received naught but laughter.

"Sir, what do they mean to do with us?" A sailor, the youngest, not much more than a teenager, asked McKenzie.

"The fuck should I know," McKenzie grumped at him.

"Sir, you know their words sir," the sailor said.

"I do?" McKenzie listened to the tribesmen. They were discussing the best way of drilling a hole through a human tooth so that it might be made into a necklace with which to buy the favours of a woman. Charming. "Holy fuck, you're right."

"Sir, please?" The sailor asked.

"They haven't mentioned an itinerary, mate," McKenzie answered. Blank stare. "They haven't said what their plans are."

"Oh," the boy replied.

McKenzie strained against his bindings again. The ropes creaked as if under high tension, but he was still unable to break them. He rubbed his finger and thumb together and allowed a miniscule amount of magical energy to leak out - tiny sparks flickered briefly. Well, he could still do that, at least, although if Danandra was to be believed, that might not be a solution so much as an extra problem on a completely different order of magnitude. Best leave that for the last resort if it could kill him as easily as save him.

And now he could understand these tribesmen, in the same way he'd suddenly been able to talk to Nibnandali's people. Callena had been able to speak to her and the other sort-of-tibetans without any problems: was he catching abilities, and, more importantly, was that fucking with his own ability? After that magazine explosion two centuries ago he'd been mostly back to normal within a few hours: was it going to take longer now, and if he didn't have all of his strength, did he have all of his resilience too?

For the first time in a very long time, McKenzie found himself pondering his own mortality, and he didn't like it one bit.

- o O o -

McKenzie was woken with a kick to the stomach, roped to the boy in front and the captain behind by the neck, and then the boy screamed. Two of the tribesmen had branded him on the arm. While he was distracted by that, they rifled through his pockets: something they'd opted not to do the night before.

The process was repeated for McKenzie. One - the biggest, a huge guy who had to be at least six-six - grabbed him in a necklock, another pulled back McKenzie's jacket sleeve and applied the brand. McKenzie didn't have to fake the curse that issued from his lips, and he threw off the guy who had him in a necklock, then hit him two-handed with enough force to send him rolling across the grass, which McKenzie felt good about.

"Maybe my grandmother should hold them down instead of you, Jarn!" One of the tribesmen called, to general jeers.

Jarn made no reply. One of the tribesmen, eventually, wandered over to figure out why. The reason was simple enough: Jarn was dead, neck broken and face smashed in.

Although they didn't unrope him, they kept their distance and didn't try to take any of his things. No-one seemed particularly bothered by the death of Jarn: McKenzie could only guess that he hadn't been particularly popular.

He checked his arm, which hurt like hell. The skin was reddened into the mark on the end of the iron, but there was no burn.

"Thank fuck for that," McKenzie said, smiled, and blew air out of his lips, but in truth he was very, very relieved. He tested his bonds again - the ropes creaked. Nearly there. McKenzie grinned - he was going to have a bit of fun later today.

That prospect was soured somewhat when, after the captain and the other two sailors had been branded, McKenzie was addressed by one of the tribesmen. He was older and more grizzled than the others, and they seemed to defer to him.

"You. Outlander. You know our tongue," the man said.

"Frightfully sorry old boy, don't speak a word of it," McKenzie replied.

The tribesman ignored that. "Tell your friends: if any man tries to escape - or should you kill another - all shall have their manhoods cut from them. An eunuch fetches as much as a man on the slave blocks of far Vyrinium. Be warned."

The man ambled off. "Morning just improved, guys: if anyone tries to run away we all get emasculated," McKenzie explained.

Blank stares.

"Man alive, you really start to see the value of state-provided education when you visit this place. If any of us try to do a runner, we all get our cocks cut off. Oh, and the plan seems to be go to someplace called Farvy Rinnyum, get sold as slaves. Any questions? No? Good," McKenzie said.

The tribesmen set them to walking.

McKenzie had been expecting days and days of hard slogging - well, not for him, he was going to break his ropes, beat everyone up and fuck off when he felt up to it, but anyway - so he was somewhat surprised when just three hours walking brought them to the tribal encampment. This was quite large, and consisted of a great many wagons, tents, piles of crap and kids running around. It smelt awful: McKenzie soon realised that although part of the reason was the lax personal hygiene of the tribe, a large portion of blame had to be levelled at the hard-faced, oriental-looking gentlemen who had come to trade with them. They brought shiny things, useful things, sharp things and tasty things which were not to be had on the plains: in payment, they took away people. To do this, they used wagons with cages: ten of them. These were not effectively cleaned, and thus the smell was awful.

The inmates of the wagons were a mixed bunch: for the most part they were men and women similar to their captors, albeit with slightly different raiment and accessories (none of them seemed to be sporting bits of people as necklaces, for example, which was possibly an indicator of why they were in slave wagons and the others were not). Some, however, were different. Three of the men in one wagon were clearly recent acquisitions from the selfsame battle that had led McKenzie to this pass: they had been de-armed and de-armoured, but were clearly mercenaries from one of the ships. Others were darker-hued than their captors, others looked like the slavers themselves. No attention had been paid to considerations of gender: men and women had been thrown in together.

McKenzie tested his bonds again - nearly there. If he really went for it, he thought the ropes would snap, but he wanted to be a bit closer to full strength because in the immediate aftermath of any rope-breaking he was probably going to have to break some other things and people until they realised it was in their best interests to leave him alone.

One of the slavers - they wore robes, were armed with long, curved swords, bows and, naturally, whips - wandered over when they were led toward the wagons. He made a cursory inspection of them, and haggling began.

"Pah. Scarcely worth more than a knife each," the man said.

"These? Young and fit, and strong! They all fought like lions - this one killed a man! We could barely rope them! Three knives each, or I am no judge!" The senior tribesman said.

And so it went. Knives seemed to be the de-facto currency out here, and, via a series of offers and counter-offers taking into account the captain's age, the relative weediness of the youngest sailor, the fullness of the wagons, how much strain this would put on the horses that drew them and a host of other factors, McKenzie and the others were sold for a grand total of eight knives.

The captain and the four sailors were loaded into one of the wagons, which was already quite crowded.

"Well I hope you're happy, that's all I'm saying," the captain snarled at McKenzie as he was pushed up onto the wagon.

McKenzie was unroped from the others and their door was slammed shut - the tribesmen readied their spears.

"Have a care, Khatafri," the elder tribesman warned. "This one is stronger than he looks. He killed one of our mightiest warriors with a single blow."

Khatafri, who appeared to be in charge of this humanitarian expedition, grunted and yanked out his sword. "You - that wagon."

McKenzie was directed toward a different wagon which, though smaller, was more bar than gap - you could not easily see inside - and boasted more complex locks. He strained, unobtrusively, against the ropes. They'd break, he was sure of it, but he was in the middle of an encampment which contained not only a lot of warriors, but a lot of potential for collateral damage, too: kids were underfoot everywhere. The wagon was not only smaller but a lot cleaner than the others. McKenzie looked at it.

A sudden slash of pain across his back forced a curse from his lips. Khatafri had employed his whip - even through his jacket, it hurt.

"Into the wagon!" Khatafri barked.

McKenzie glared at him. Soon, he thought, and decided to wait for better odds. He clambered up into the wagon - the door was slammed shut and the lock squeaked closed.

"Hey, viking boy. You see me again, you'd best hope it's from a distance," McKenzie addressed the tribesman. The man laughed, and walked off with Khatafri to collect his payment.

McKenzie turned to appraise his surroundings. His eyes grew accustomed to the light, and he realised he was not alone.

"If it is any consolation to you," Captain Jahistra told him, "I now wish I had accepted your earlier offer."

"If it's any consolation to you," McKenzie replied, "I fucking wish you had an' all."