There was a group standing apart on the quay, waiting. A handful of hard-bitten men who looked as though sea water ran in their veins instead of blood, tough veterans of many battles, some fierce and dark-visaged, some with ruddy laughing faces, one with cheek and sword arm hideously burned and scarred.
Among them was a tall Khond with a look of harnessed lighting about him and hair the color of new copper and by his side stood a girl dressed in a blue robe.
Her straight fair hair was bound back by a fillet of plain gold and between her breasts, left bare by the loose outer garment, a single black pearl glowed with lustrous darkness. Her left hand rested on the shoulder of Shallah the Swimmer.
Like all the rest the girl was paying more attention to Ywain than she was to Carse. He realized somehow bitterly that the whole crowd had gathered less to see the unknown barbarian who had done it all than to see the daughter of Garach of Sark walking in chains.
The red-haired Khond remembered his manners enough to make the sign of peace and say, “I am Rold of Khondor. We, the Sea Kings, make you welcome.”
Carse responded but saw that already he was half forgotten in the man’s savage pleasure at the plight of his arch-enemy.
They had much to say to each other, Ywain and the Sea Kings.
Carse looked again at the girl. He had heard Jaxart’s eager greeting to her and knew now that she was Emer, Rold’s sister.
He had never seen anyone like her before. There was a touch of the fey, of the elfin, about her, as though she lived in the human world by courtesy and could leave it any time she chose.
Her eyes were gray and sad, but her mouth was gentle and shaped for laughter. Her body had the same quick grace he had noticed in the Halflings and yet it was a very humanly lovely body.