The raider's ship looked red. Most ships are built of oak that darkens as the ship lives, but this ship had been made from pine and when the morning or evening light lanced low across the sea's edge she seemed to be the color of darken blood.

She looked a livid red when we first saw it. That was on the evening of the day we launched and the red ship was long low and lean. She coursed from the eastern horizon, coming towards us at a angle, and her sail was a dirty gray , criss-crossed by the ropes that strengthen the cloth, and Rerri saw the beast head at her prow and decided she was a pirate and so we struck inshore to waters he knew well. They were shallow waters and the red ship hesitated to follow. We rowed though narrowed creeks, scattering waterfowl, and the red ship stayed within site, but out beyond the dunes, and then the night fell and we reversed our course and let the ebb and tide take us out to sea and Rerri's men whipped us hard to escape the coast. The dawn came cold and misty, but as the mist lifted we saw that the red ship was gone.

We were going to Fartoria to find the first cargo of the season, but as we approached the port Rerri saw the red ship again and she turned towards us and Rerri cursed her. We were upwind of her, which made escaping easy, but she had at least twenty benches, she was much faster then the Fina, but she could not close the wind's gap and by the following morning we were alone again on an empty sea. Rerri cursed her all the same. He casted his rune sticks and they persuaded him to abandon the idea of Fartoria and so we crossed to the northern region where we loaded beaver hides and dung-encrusted fleeces.
We exchanged that cargo for fine candles of rolled wax. We shipped iron-ore again and so the spring passed and the summer came and we did not see the red ship. We had forgot about her.

Rerri reckoned it was safe to visit Fartoria so we took a cargo of reindeer skins to the port, and there he learned that the red ship had not forgotten him. He came back aboard in a hurry, not bothering to load a cargo., and I heard him talking to his crewmen. The red ship he said was prowling the coast in search of the Fina. No doubt they were from the north, he though, and she was crewed by warriors.

"Who?" Hakka asked.

"No one knows."

"Why?"

"How would I know? Rerri growled, but he was worried enough to throw his rune sticks on the deck and they instructed him to leave Fartoria at once. Rerri had made an enemy and he did not know who, and so he took the Fina to a place near his winter home. and there he carried gifts ashore. Rerri had a lord. Almost all men had a lord was called Tyring and he owned much land, and Rerri would pay him silver each winter and in return Tyring would offer him protection to Rerri and his family. But there was little Tyring could do to protect him at sea. Yet he promised to discover who sailed the red ship and to learn why that man wanted Rerri.

In the mean time, decided to sail far away and so we went into the north sea and down the coast and make some money with salted herrings. We crossed the north sea for the first time since I had become a slave. We landed in a river that ran to the west of the coast, and I never did learn what river it was, and we loaded thick fleeces that we took back to Fatoria and there bought a cargo of iron ingots. That was a rich cargo because Fatorian iron is the best in the world. Well, that what Rerri always said. But later on Davon told me of three other countries iron that was far superior. Yet we purchased a hundred of there prized sword blades. Rerri, as ever, cursed the Fatorians for there hard-headedness, but in truth Rerri's head was just as hard as any Fatorian's, he knew that they would bring him a great profit in the northern lands.

So wee headed north and the summer was ending and the geese were flying south above us in great skeins and, two days after we had loaded the cargo, we saw the red ship waiting for us off the northern coast. It had been weeks since we last saw her and Rerri must had hoped Tyring had ended the threat, but she was lying just off-shore and this time the red ship had the wind's advantage and so we turned in shore and Rerri's men whipped us desperately. I grunted with every stroke, making it look as though I hauled the oar-loom with all my strength, but in truth I was trying to lessen the force of the blade in the water so that the red ship could catch us. I could see her clearly. She was much longer then the Fina, and much faster, but she drew more water which is why Rerri had taken us in shore to the coast which all ship masters fear.

It was not rockbound like so many other northern coast. There were no cliffs against which a good ship can be broken to pieces. Instead it was a tangle of reeds, islands, creeks, and mudflats. For miles after miles there was nothing but dangerous shallows. Passages are marked though those frail signals offer a safe way though the tangle, but the people here were pirates also. And they like to mark false channels that lead only to a mud bank where a falling tide can strand a ship, and the folks, who live in mud huts on there mud island, would swarm like water rats to kill and pillage.

But Rerri had traded here and, like all good ship masters, he carried memories of good and bad water. The red ship was catching us, but Rerri did not panic. I would watch him as I rowed, and I could see his eyes darting left and right to decide which passage to take, then he would make a swift push on the steering oar and we would turn into his chosen channel. He sought the shallowest places, the most twisted creeks, and the gods were with him, though our oars sometimes struck a mud bank, Fina never grounded. The red ship being larger, and presumably because her master did not know the coast like Rerri did, was traveling much more cautiously and we were leaving her behind.

She began to overhaul us again when we had to cross a wide stretch of open water, but Rerri found another channel at the far side, and here, for the first time, he slowed our oar-beats. He put Hakka in the bows and Hakka kept throwing a lead-weighted line into the water and call the depth. We were crawling into a maze of mud and water, working our slow way north and east, and I looked across to the east and saw Rerri had at last made a mistake. A line of whities marked the channel we threaded, but beyond them and beyond a low muddy island thick with birds, larger whities marked a deep water channel that cut inshore of our course and would allow the red ship to head us off, and the red ship saw the opportunity and took that larger channel Her oar-blades beat at the water, she ran at full speed, she was over taking us fast, and then she ran aground in a tangle of clashing oars.

Rerri and his men laughed. He had known the larger whities marked a false channel and the red ship had fallen into the trap. I could see her clearly now, a ship laden with armed men, men in mail, sword and spear warriors, but she was stranded.

"Your mothers are ugly cows!" Rerri shouted across the mud, and I'm sure they heard him. "You are turds! Learn how to master a ship, you useless bastards!"

We took another channel, leaving the red ship behind, and Hakka was still in Fina's bow where he constantly threw the line weighted with its lump of lead. He would shout back how deep the water was. This channel was unmarked, and we had to go perilously slowly for Rerri dare not run aground. Behind us, far behind us, far behind us now, I could see the crew of the red ship laboring to free her. The warriors had discarded there mail and were in the water, heaving at the long hull, and as night fell I saw her slip free and resume her pursuit, but we were far ahead of her as the darkness cloaked us.

We spent that night in a reed-fringed bay. Rerri would not go ashore. There were folks on the nearby island, and there fires sparked in the night. We could see no other lights, which surely meant that the island was the only settlement for miles, and I knew Rerri was worried because the fires would attract the red ship. And so he kicked us awake in the very first glimmerings of the dawn and we pulled the anchor and Rerri took us north into a passage marked by whities. The passage seem to wriggle about the island's coast to the open sea where the wave broke white, and it offered a way out of the tangled shore. Hakka again called the depths as we eased as we eased our way past reeds and mud banks. The creek was shallow, so shallow that our oar-blades constantly struck bottom to kick up swirls of mud, yet pace by pace we followed the frail channel marks, and then Hakka shouted that the red ship was behind us.

She was a long way behind us. As Rerri had feared she had been attracted by the settlement fires, but she ended up south of the island, and between us and her were the mystery of mud banks and creeks. She could not go west into the open sea, for the waves broke continuously on a long half-sunken beach there, so we could either pursue us or else try to loop far around us to the east and discover another way to the ocean.

She decided to follow us and we watched as she grouped her way along the island southern coast, looking for a channel into the harbor where we had anchored. We kept creeping north, but then, suddenly, there was a soft grating south beneath us our keel and the Fina gave a shudder and went ominously still.

"Back oars!" Rerri bellowed.

We backed oars, but she was grounded. The red ship was lost in the half light and in the mist that drifted across the islands. The tide was low. It was the slack water between ebb and flow and Rerri stared hard at the creek, praying that he could see the tide flowing inwards to float us off, but the water lay still and cold.

"Overboard!" he shouted. "Push her!"

We tried. Or the other tried, while Davon and I merely pretended to push, but the Fina was stuck hard. She had gone aground so softly, so quietly, yet she would not move and Rerri, still standing on the steering platform, could see the islanders coming towards us across the reed-beds and more worrying, he could see the red ship crossing the wide bay where we anchored. He could see death coming.

"Empty her!" he shouted.

It was a hard decision for Rerri to take, but it was better then death, so we threw all the ingots overboard. Davon and I could no longer shirk, for Rerri could see how much work we were doing, and he lashed at us with a stick and so we destroyed the profits of a year's trading. Even the sword blades went, and all that time the red ship crept closer, coming up the channel, and she was only a quarter-mile behind us when the last ingots splashed over the side and the Fina gave a slight lurch. The tide was flooding now, swirling past and around the jettison ingots.

"Row!" Rerri shouted. The islanders that was watching us suddenly began running from the area. Rerri looked behind us to see a handful of armed men coming towards us. We fought the incoming tide and our oars pulled on mud as they bit water, But Rerri screamed at us to row harder. He would risk a further grounding to get clear , and the gods were with him, for we shot out of the passage's mouth and the Fina reared to the incoming waves and suddenly we were at sea again with the water breaking white on our bows. Rerri was about to hoist the sail to catch the northern wind to aid in our escape. But what we saw coming from around the island froze Rerri and his crew's blood.

It was ANOTHER red ship, speeding towards us.

There was no way we could out run it. She came at us in a perfect angle. In minutes, they across our bow and armed men were boarding us. Rerri and the crew surrendered instantly, for they were traders, not warriors.

Davon and I looked at each other. We gave each other a small smile. For we did not know what would happen to us. Other then being put to death. It couldn't be any worse then what were been though.

And with that we dared to hope. Dared to dream of freedom........And revenge against the now captured Rerri and his crew that was how being fitted with chains. And I saw pure horror in his eyes. At that moment I did not know what scared him more. The Raiders that was now looting the ship of anything and everything of value. Or us slaves that would tear him apart if given the chance.

Death was all around him.
And I smiled.