“ Can you crush Sark?” asked Carse.
She answered honestly. “No. The Dhuvians will intervene and even the weapons they already have will turn the scale against us.
“But we must try and die trying, for it will be a better death than the one that will come after when Sark and the Serpent level Khondor into the sea.”
He stood looking down at her and it seemed to him that no moment of his life had been more bitter than this.
“Will the Sea Kings take me with them?”
Stupid question. He knew the answer before she gave it to him.
“They are saying now that this was all a trick of Rhiannon’s, misleading Rold to get the secret into Caer Dhu. I have told them it was not so but—”
She made a small tired gesture and turned her head away. “Ironbeard, I think, believes me. He will see that your death is swift and clean.”
After a while Carse said, “And Ywain?”
“Thorn of Tarak has arranged that. Her they will take with them to Sark, lashed to the bow of the leader’s ship.”