Out, and the fight is a bloody draw.

Lana made a **** lunge for her opponent, knowing she had to kill the assassin before the dagger's venom took her out of the fight.

There was a swirl of a cloak and a stinging pain in her side. Up turned to down and a dark hole in the deck rose up to swallow her. Lana spun in the air like a discarded rag doll and landed with a stunning blow. The blood sang in her ears. A red haze of pain shrouded her vision, fading slowly toward grayness and blessed oblivion.

Lana woke to the gentle rocking of a ship. From the creak and the scent of tar and wood, her own Lady Luck. Wallowing a bit, riding low. Her head ached like the one hangover she'd ever had, and her cheek was hot, stiff, and throbbing. She touched ... bandaged. Stitched. Stitched too neatly for Snaps, the Lady Luck's answer to a ship's doctor. She shifted in the woven-rope bunk and snorted with disgust. Her guts were uneasy -- the wound, or the poison?

"Cap'n?"

Alistair was sitting in the dark room, atop a stool borrowed from somewhere. A bloody bandage covered his good eye.

"Aye. Ali? How?" Lana's voice cracked in her dry throat.

"The sailors were rabble. Bloody Cryn were better than we credited." He coughed. "The one that took you -- I went after you, Pup, and the little green-eyed bitch blinded me and stuck me with a poisoned knife."

"Then how?" Lana croaked.

"Better than we credited, I said, but we're Wavedog's boys. Y'pardon, Pup. Bosun said we nearly had'em, till one of the passengers ups with a powderpot and blows Billy and Finn to flinders, along with a piece of our hull."

The boarders had left under truce. One of the Cryn had been felled by the Lady Luck's bowmen, one was walking wounded, but the other four were still able and deadly, surrendering nothing to the wounded pirates.

The Lady Luck sailed overmanned -- efficient transport of cargo was not its calling -- but with the fallen from the battle, her able hands were a bit stretched.

"So it's a truce," Alistair said. "We're lashed together. Patching and pumping all round."

Lana laughed in her dry throat. "So are we to press the sailors into our crew, and leave the Cryn and their passengers to drift? Or leave Riversnake for another day and bid to ransom them all?"

"That's for you to say, Captain. It's cats staring each other down, abovedecks," Alistair said. "No one has the stomach for a fight."

Lana touched her throbbing cheek and winced. "Who has the watch?"

"Bosun and Second, turn and turn about," Alistair said.

"Who sewed my cheek?" Lana asked. "Not Snaps?"

Alistair laughed. "Nay, Snaps is feeding the fish, Pup," he said. "T'was one of the Cryn."

The Cryn. And Bosun and Second, switching watches, and the crew patching and pumping.

Lana fought herself out of the bunk and onto her feet, her guts twisting. "Why would the Cryn keep a truce?"

"I would say it's mission first, for them," Alistair said. "And we're a distraction at best. Not us nor them would want a fight where we could lose more hands."

Lana found a hanging jug and quenched her thirst. She still ached and throbbed and her insides were uneasy, but at least she felt more human.

"I need to know the right of things," Lana said. She pulled back her hair and pushed out of the cabin, walking unsteadily toward the deck.