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of the most senior Voyagers of the Guild. They had gone south as far as the great lake south of the Pavissia Steppes and whilst mapping the lake's shores, they had been besieged by a large, organized band of marauders, coveting the Voyagers' horses, equipment and weapons. The fight had lasted for eight days, and when the marauders finally fled, they left a hundred dead behind. How many of those Beko was responsible for he had not said, but Nomi did not believe that numbers really mattered. The voyage lost only four members, and it had become infamous in Guild history.
    “Drink?” Beko asked.
    Nomi's head was still spinning from her unaccustomed intake of morning cydrax. She shook her head and watched Beko pour himself some root wine from a tall clay bottle.
    “Please, sit,” the soldier said. He sat in one of the chairs around a low table and Nomi sat opposite, relaxing. “Remember I promised I would show you this?” He indicated the table, shifting aside a plate dirtied with leftover food.
    “Your trial carving!” Nomi leaned forward and gasped when she saw the table's hardwood surface. “Is that your seethe-gator?”
    Beko nodded.
    She touched the carving, and for an instant Nomi imagined the rough wooden edges to be seethe-gator teeth. She moved her fingertips across the deadly creature's image—its spines and serrated teeth, those long, hooked limbs that made it so deadly—and then she noticed the flicker of a figure beside it. It was so expertly carved that the candlelight revealed only its shadow: ridges and knots cut here and there to form the insubstantial image of a man. The seethe-gator was twice his size.
    “I took it with nineteen throwing knives, fifteen arrows, six crossbow bolts . . . and a sword for its head.”
    Nomi shook her head in awe. “How can you and your people live in such a place?”
    “My people have lived there forever,” he said. “Mancoseria is our home, and the seethe-gators have always been there too. Yet for me . . . I don't live there anymore. I live here.”
    “Of course,” Nomi said. “I'm sorry. I . . .”
    “It was a long time ago. And that was the creature that took her. I killed it. I've had my revenge. It's not every Serian who gets to kill such a seethe-gator for their trial.”
    Nomi sat back, amazed once again at the soldier's history. So much death, such harsh times. She tried to imagine Beko fighting the terrifying animal carved in the tabletop.
    “I'd like to offer you work,” she said at last.
    “But not Guild work.” Beko rested his feet on the trial table, heels crossed atop the seethe-gator's head.
    “No, not Guild. There are . . . reasons. And it would be myself and a friend.”
    “Ramus Rheel?”
    “Yes.” She'd forgotten how sharp Beko could be.
    He nodded slowly, looking at her over the top of his mug.
    What did I tell him about Ramus and me? She could not remember. They had spent many nights eating around campfires, and their discovery of Ventgorian airbacco had turned much of the voyage hazy and indistinct.
    “He's a remarkable man,” she said. “He reads, and not just the modern Noreelan languages. He's read old books too. He knows so much, and for this voyage—”
    “So it is a voyage. You were being a bit evasive, Nomi. It's not like you.”
    “True. But with this one, there's nothing defined or known.”
    Beko leaned forward and placed his mug on the table. “The very soul of voyaging.”
    “Are you interested?”
    “I'm intrigued,” he said. “Which for me amounts to the same thing. I've been here for almost half a year without a voyage. And the last one was with that fool Geary, a tiresome stomp down the Western Shores. We found nothing but sand and dead fish.”
    “I'll want you as captain.”
    He frowned. “How many more Serians do you need?”
    “Can you find five more who'll do private work?”
    He nodded. “Of course. But what do I tell them?”
    “Nothing for now.” She looked down at Beko's trial table again, and