machines, and also many bones. Where was this place I went to? I did not see any of you there. Then I heard a terrible sound, like your singing, only very bad. The sound reached into my chest, hurting like a dagger, and pulled me from the darkness, and then 1 am here." He looked puzzled. "What are you doing with Rotapan's staff, Og?"
"Urn, this won't hurt a bit. Just stand still, Yob," said Og, as he took up the bronze end of the broken staff and swung it mightily at the ore's head.
The impact would have killed a man, but Yob's eyes suddenly cleared, and he grinned again.
"Feeling better now? You just had a bit of the death shock hanging about. You'll forget all about it in a little while." Og tossed down the staff.
"About what?" said Yob. "I'm hungry. Let us hunt."
"No, no. We will feast in my lodge. You will honor my homecoming with your appetites." Wiggulf laughed. "Frijan, let us bring our guests to a bountiful table. Tell the guards to fish for a feast. The hall will be merry tonight."
"But Father-we have so little. How-?" Frijan began.
"The table of a generous person will never be bare, daughter. We will have plenty." Wiggulf hushed her. "If nothing else, my girl, there seems to be an abundance of crabs!"
Saelin woke up with a fiddler crab on his face. And a few hundred more dancing on his chest.
He lay sprawled upon one of the old bridge pilings, the one closest to the beach. Saelin sat up abruptly, and when the crabs scurried to find their holes, the one on his face dove for the nearest long, thin nostril. Saelin slapped hard at the crab, then recoiled in pain as he smacked his sunburned face, still tender with the cuts from Claria's combs. The assassin bellowed and