Camilla climbed into the launch with Cydric and a few of the younger sailors, more because she didn’t care to separated from her Imperial companion than a desire to risk her life on the fireshot river. The dark waters parted as they shoved off towards the wrecks, sluicing down the sides of the launch in a smooth clean wake.
 
They encountered bodies almost immediately. The dead floated in the water, Camilla was no physic but she judged they hadn’t been dead long. Leaning close she held out the glass cased lantern she had bought from the Pride.
 
[b]“Reiner, arrows,” [/b]she exclaimed, pointing at one of the corpses floating passed. Several long shafted arrows protruded from the corpse. She could imagine trails of blood seeping from the wicked points, lost in the darkness. It had been too much to hope for that it had been some sort of natural disaster. Her skin suddenly crawled imagining bow men concealed in the thickets by the shore. And here she was holding a lantern and everything, she tried to think unobtrusive thoughts.
 
[b]“There is a live one!” [/b]someone shouted and the boat lurched sideways. Two of the deckhands reached over the side and yanked a weakly struggling man into the boat. The fellow had an arrow in his arm pinning it to his leather jerkin like a grotesque doll.
 
[b]“Praise be to the Fisher King,”[/b] the man gasped, his pale flesh trembling with cold and weakness. He hacked noisily, spattering a sailor with a fine mist of blood.
 
[b]“The brigands didn't get through!”[/b]
[@POOHEAD189]