The Khonds on deck began to shout their own messages then, the eager words of men who have been a long time away from home. The Sky Men answered in their clear sweet voices and presently darted away, their opinions beating up into the blue air, higher and higher, growing tiny in the distance.
Lorn remained standing in the bow, watching until there was nothing left but empty sky.
“We’ll raise Khondor soon,” said Jaxart and Carse turned to speak to him. Then some instinct made him look back, and he saw that Lorn was gone.
There was no sign of him in the water. He had gone overside without a sound and he must have sunk like a drowning bird, pulled down by the weight of his useless wings.
Jaxart growled, “It was his will and better so.” He cursed the Sarks and Carse smiled an ugly smile.
“Take heart,” he said, “we may thrash them yet. How is it that Khondor has held out when Jekkara and Valkis fell?”
“Because not even the scientific weapons of the Sarks’ evil allies, the Dhuvians, can touch us there. You’ll understand why when you see Khondor.”
Before noon they sighted land, a rocky and forbidding coast. The cliffs rose sheer out of the sea and behind them forested mountains towered like a giant’s wall. Here and there a narrow fiord sheltered a fishing village and an occasional lonely steading clung to the high pasture land, a collar of white flame along the cliffs.
Carse sent Boghaz to the cabin for Ywain. She had remained there under guard and he had not seen her since the mutiny—except once.
It had been the first night after the mutiny. He had with Boghaz and Jaxart been examining the strange instruments that they had found in the inner cabin of the Dhuvian.