[Arry]

Carandû set aside his blade on the coverlet of his bunk. He’d honed the edge to razor sharpness and now he took up his knife to do like. ‘You know, brother,’ he said as he ran the edge this way and that across the whetstone, ‘perhaps we should speak with the Captain about our suspicions.’ He took his oiled rag and wiped along the blade of the knife, removing the metal scrapings. ‘I’m sure he has thought along these same lines himself, but I’d feel better if he heard what we had thought on it, also.’

‘Annû held up a fistful of arrows he still intended to sharpen. ‘Let me finish these,’ he put in. ‘Or better yet, let me stay here and you go down to the Captain’s cabin and speak with him.’ Carandû agreed, and putting away his knife and sword, pulled on his boots and headed down the passageway to see Luindal.

The door was ajar when he arrived. He called the Captain’s name and rapped twice on the door. There was no answer, but the door swung open and Carandû stepped in to see if Luindal might be in by any chance and had not heard him. A lamp, turned low, which sat on the desk, cast enough light for him to peek about. No one was in the cabin and Carandû stepped back toward the door to leave.

‘I should turn out the light,’ he thought to himself as he retreated back toward the desk. ‘Wouldn’t want it to be knocked over and start a fire.’ He leaned over the desk toward it, his eye caught by a map of the bay left lying atop it, a certain area circled for emphasis. ‘What’s this, I wonder?’ he said half aloud picking up the map to take a closer look.

The sound of footsteps stopping outside the opened door made him turn. There stood a Lossoth woman. Tall and thin, her grey hair in two braids, she watched him with narrowed eyes. Now what was her name?

‘Hilde!’ he said, laying the map down on the desk and turning off the lamp. Carandû stepped out to the hallway where she stood, closing the door behind him. She looked up at him, giving him an appraising look. ‘The Captain - I was looking for the Captain,’ he said to her. ‘Have you seen him?’

She shook her head and scurried off down the hall.

Wondering at her abrupt departure, Carandû returned to his room. ‘He wasn’t there,’ he told his brother. ‘It’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow,’ he went on yawning widely. ‘I’m tired. Leave the lamp lit for Glahardir and his nephew. Then let’s turn in.’