Rold pulled at his beard, scowling. Then he nodded. “Wisely said,” he agreed and the others joined in.
“Aye—let it be proved.”
Rold turned to Carse. “You will submit?”
“No,” Carse answered furiously. “I will not. To the devil with all such superstitious flummery! If my offer of the Tomb isn’t enough to convince you of where I stand—why, you can do without it and without me.”
Rold’s face hardened. “No harm will come to you. If you’re not Rhiannon you have nothing to fear. Again will you submit?”
“ No!”
He began to stride back along the table toward his men, who were already bunched together like wolves snarling for a fight. But Thorn of Tarak caught his ankle as he passed and brought him down and the men of Khondor swarmed over the galley’s crew, disarming them before blood was shed.
Carse struggled like a wildcat among the Sea Kings, in a brief passion of fury that lasted until Ironbeard struck him regretfully on the head with a brass-bound drinking horn.
XII. The Cursed One
The darkness lifted slowly. Carse was conscious first of sounds—the suck and sigh of water close at hand, the muffled roaring of surf beyond a wall of rock. Otherwise it was still and heavy.