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pink-marbled Serannian’s incredible bulk is builded on an ethereal shore of clouds. Indeed, they might yet tie up in Serannian’s harbor—
    —Unless the night-gaunts sank them first!

CHAPTER IV
    Man-o’-war
    The boat tilted farther yet, until Hero felt himself sliding head first into leagues of sky—but in another moment there came Eldin’s grunt of exertion, the whistle of his straight sword slicing air, and the sweet thwack of its blade biting deep into rubbery flesh. Then Hero heard his friend’s hoarse cry of delight, which almost immediately turned to a croak of alarm as the boat abruptly, violently, rocked back the other way; so violently that Hero was thrown upright against the mast. Feeling his legs under him and steady once more (or nearly so), he drew his sword and sliced at the first alien thing he saw: the half-severed leg of a gaunt where the creature clung to the port gunwale and flapped its mighty bat-wings in a frenzy of agony.
    His stroke was good; the curved Kledan steel finished the job Eldin’s blade had begun; the gaunt lifted off minus a paw and lower limb and flapped erratically aloft. Hero fancied he could almost hear its screams, and if the thing had had a mouth then certainly he would have heard them. But the crippled gaunt was forgotten in another moment. It was not important. Nothing was important except … where the hell was Eldin?
    Then something heaved and thrashed in the belly of the boat and Hero felt his leg grasped in a steely grip. He gave a great sigh of relief as the heaped nets parted and Eldin emerged red-eyed and roaring. “Gaunt, did you say?” he yelled. “Gaunt? In the singular? Man, there’s half-a-dozen of the damned things! I haven’t seen such a flock since our little scrap with Thinistor Udd. And that one there—” he pointed with his sword at the lopsided shape that fluttered jerkily in the sky high overhead “—he almost had me overboard … Look out, lad—here they come again!”
    There were indeed six gaunts in all, including the one they had crippled, and as Hero turned from his companion he saw four of the remaining five come winging in to the attack. As for the fifth—that one was a giant! The biggest gaunt Hero could possibly have imagined, but for all his great size he kept well away from the boat. Hero slitted his eyes in the dawn light and just before the four flyers struck he could have sworn that he saw—a rider? A man or youth, seated well back on the neck of the huge faceless fifth beast. And then—then he was obliged to give all of his attention to more pressing matters. Namely, the attempted wrecking of the stolen boat by these weirdly purposeful gaunts.
    No real chance for the adventurers to use their swords now, for the gaunts came at them from below, tilting the boat this way and that with their necks and back in an earnest and dreadfully urgent attempt to tip it over. Then one of the rubbery monsters backed off and hurtled in like a dart, its wings folding back at the last moment, to strike the boat such a blow with its arched back that the starboard strakes were stove in. Not only did this action damage the boat but the gaunt too, for following its near-suicidal swoop it rapidly lost height and spiraled down into the cloudbank far below.
    “Two down and four to go!” Eldin hoarsely cried as he hastily roped one of his legs to the tiller.
    “No, only three,” Hero contradicted, hanging onto the wildly swaying mast and waving his curved blade aloft as the specified trio swooped about the wallowing craft, apparently pondering fresh tactics.
    “Three?” Eldin queried.
    “Yon big fellow has a rider,” yelled Hero, “but whoever he is he’s a poor general. He commands his troops from the rear. Do you see him?”
    “Aye, I see him now,” Eldin answered. “Little more than a youth from his looks. But … a youth with power over night-gaunts? What in hell’s all this about? What’s he got against us?”
    “Search me,” said