He tucked the spyglass away in his shirt; he had no need of it now. The sloops were close enough for the naked eye, while the whirlpool was increasingly obscured by the clouds of white vapor thrown off the lip of the funnel. As it was pulled into the deep, the vapor formed a spiral lens over the gulf, mimicking the whirlpool’s appearance.

Then theDragon Wing tacked port, diverging from the current in Uthar’s bid for the open sea. The keel chattered across the puckered water, and the ship’s speed dropped in half as theDragon Wing fought the deadly embrace of the Boar’s Eye. A shudder ran up the mast, jarring Roran’s teeth, and the crow’s nest swung in the new direction, making him giddy with vertigo.

Fear gripped Roran when they continued to slow. He slashed off his bindings and—with reckless disregard for his own safety—swung himself over the edge of the basket, grabbed the ropes underneath, and shinnied down the rigging so quickly that he lost his grip once and fell several feet before he could catch himself. He jumped to the deck, ran to the fore hatchway, and descended to the first bank of oars, where he joined Baldor and Albriech on an oak pole.

They said not a word, but labored to the sound of their own desperate breathing, the frenzied beat of the drum, Bonden’s hoarse shouts, and the roar of the Boar’s Eye. Roran could feel the mighty whirlpool resisting with every stroke of the oar.

And yet their efforts could not keep theDragon Wing from coming to a virtual standstill.We’re not going to make it, thought Roran. His back and legs burned from the exertion. His lungs stabbed. Between the drumbeats, he heard Uthar ordering the hands above deck to trim the sails to take full advantage of the fickle wind.

Two places ahead of Roran, Darmmen and Hamund surrendered their oar to Thane and Ridley, then lay in the middle of the aisle, their limbs trembling. Less than a minute later, someone else collapsed farther down the gallery and was immediately replaced by Birgit and another woman.

If we survive,thought Roran,it’ll only be because we have enough people to sustain this pace however long is necessary.

It seemed an eternity that he worked the oar in the murky, smoky room, first pushing, then pulling, doing his best to ignore the pain mounting within his body. His neck ached from hunching underneath the low ceiling. The dark wood of the pole was streaked with blood where his skin had blistered and torn. He ripped off his shirt—dropping the spyglass to the floor—wrapped the cloth around the oar, and continued rowing.

At last Roran could do no more. His legs gave way and he fell on his side, slipping across the aisle because he was so sweaty. Orval took his place. Roran lay still until his breath returned, then pushed himself onto his hands and knees and crawled to the hatchway.

Like a fever-mad drunk, he pulled himself up the ladder, swaying with the motion of the ship and often slumping against the wall to rest. When he came out on deck, he took a brief moment to appreciate the fresh air, then staggered aft to the helm, his legs threatening to cramp with every step.

“How goes it?” he gasped to Uthar, who manned the wheel.

Uthar shook his head.

Peering over the gunwale, Roran espied the three sloops perhaps a half mile away and slightly more to the west, closer to the center of the Eye. The sloops appeared motionless in relation to theDragon Wing.

At first, as Roran watched, the positions of the four ships remained unchanged. Then he sensed a shift in theDragon Wing ’s speed, as if the ship had crossed some crucial point and the forces restraining her had diminished. It was a subtle difference and amounted to little more than a few additional feet per minute—but it was enough that the distance between theDragon Wing and the sloops began to increase. With every stroke of the oars, theDragon Wing gained momentum.

The sloops, however, could not overcome the whirlpool’s dreadful strength. Their oars gradually slowed until, one by one, the ships drifted backward and were drawn toward the veil of mist, beyond which waited the gyrating walls of ebony water and the gnashing rocks at the bottom of the ocean floor.

They can’t keep rowing,realized Roran.Their crews are too small and they’re too tired. He could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for the fate of the men on the sloops.

At that precise instant, an arrow sprang from the nearest sloop and burst into green flame as it raced toward theDragon Wing. The dart must have been sustained by magic to have flown so far. It struck the mizzen sail and exploded into globules of liquid fire that stuck to whatever they touched. Within seconds, twenty small fires burned along the mizzenmast, the mizzen sail, and the deck below.

“We can’t put it out,” shouted one of the sailors with a panicked expression.

“Chop off whatever’s burning an’ throw it overboard!” roared Uthar in reply.

Unsheathing his belt knife, Roran set to work excising a dollop of green fire from the boards by his feet. Several tense minutes elapsed before the unnatural blazes were removed and it became clear that the conflagrations would not spread to the rest of the ship.

Once the cry of “All clear!” was sounded, Uthar relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. “If that was the best their magician can do, then I’d say we have nothing more to fear of him.”

“We’re going to get out of the Eye, aren’t we?” asked Roran, eager to confirm his hope.

Uthar squared his shoulders and flashed a quick grin, both proud and disbelieving. “Not quite this cycle, but we’ll be close. We won’t make real progress away from that gaping monster until the tide slacks off. Go tell Bonden to lower the tempo a bit; I don’t want them fainting at the oars if’n I can help it.”