and we'll row you across." "I will give itver there," Rocannon said, pointing across the sound. "No," Karmik said. Yahan, helpless in his hands, had not moved a muscle; Rocannon could see the beating of the artery in this throat, against which the knife-blade lay. "Over there," he repeated grimly, and tilted his driftwood walking stick forward a little in case the sight of it might impress them. "Row us across; I give you the thing. This I tell you. But hurt him and you die here, now. This I tell you!" "Karmik, he's a pedan," Piai muttered. "Do what he says. They were under the roof with me, two nights. Let the boy go. He promises the thing you want." Karmik looked scowling from him to Rocannon and said at last, "Throw that white stick away. Then we'll take you across." "First let the boy go," said Rocannon, and when Karmik released Yahan, he laughed in his face and tossed the stick high, end over end, out into the water. Knives drawn, the three huntsmen herded him and Yahan to the boat; they had to wade out and climb in her from the slippery rocks on which dull-red ripples broke. Piai and the third man rowed, Karmik sat knife in hand behind the passengers. "Will you give him the jewel" Yahan whispered in the Common Tongue, which these Olgyior of the peninsula did not use. Rocannon nodded. Yahan's whisper was very hoarse, and shaky. "You jump and swim with it, Lord. Near the south shore. They'll let me go, when it's gone� "They'd slit your throat. Shh." "They're casting spells, Karmik," the third man was saying. "They're going to sink the boat� "Row, you rotten fish-spawn. You, be still, or I'll cut the boy's neck." Rocannon sat patiently on the thwart, watching the water turn misty gray as the shores
