The ship came in at midday, but it wasn't a trader and it wasn't a refugee vessel. It was a mercenary galley—lean and fast, built for raiding, its hull patched in a dozen places. The crew who stumbled onto the dock were not the hardened fighters who had set out from wherever they had set out from. They were hollow-eyed, battered, their armour dented and their weapons notched. Some of them were wounded. Some of them were missing.
