Covenant of the Sword

In this, the second book of the Nagaro Chronicle, our young hero Nagaro, along with his fellow galley slaves, is free and safe on the remote, rustic island of Pakoa, but his future remains uncertain. The captured Mahuk war galley floats enticingly in the harbor, and Nagaro has a beautiful and deadly Mahuk sword under his bed, but neither seems likely to do him any good. He is famous from one end of the island to the other for leading the slaves' escape, but he has no way to earn his livelihood. Unanswered questions about the past he must conceal torment him. How did he escape the palace and the will-enslaving drug heskial? The name he once bore has become a synonym for "idiot", and the attentions of the crossed youth Simion have even his fellow shipmates looking askance at him. Then, his friend Taru hatches a plot to kill two birds with one stone, and things rapidly go from bad to worse.