staff. He made a strangled sound as the breath went out of
him and there was a cracking sound as a rib went.
As the bobcat slid over the side a coyote came down
a rope dangling above Roseroar, intent on splitting her
skull with a mace. The tigress’s swords flashed in unison.
Four limbs went their separate ways as the coyote’s limb-
less torso landed soundlessly on the deck, spraying blood
in all directions. It twitched horribly.
Jon-Tom fought for control of his stomach as the attackers
began swarming over the side in earnest. He found himself
backing away from a couple of armored sloths whose
attitudes were anything but slothful and, rather shockingly,
a middle-aged man. The sloths carried no weapons, relying
instead on their six-inch-long foreclaws to do damage.
They didn’t move as fast as the others, but Jon-Tom’s
blows glanced harmlessly off their thick leather armor.
They forced him back toward the railing. The man
jumped between the two sloths and tried to decapitate
Jon-Tom with his axe. Jon-Tom ducked the blow and
lunged, catching one of the sloths square on the nose with
the end of his staff. He heard the bone snap, felt the carti-
lage give under his weight. As the slotii went down, its face
covered with blood, its companion moved in with both paws.
Jon-Tom spun the staff, touched the hidden switch set in
the wood, and six inches of steel emerged from the back
end of the shaft to slide into the sloth’s throat. It looked at
him in surprise before crumpling. The man with the axe
backed off.
Jalwar and Mudge were trying to hack loose the grap-