Crouched uncomfortably in the bow of the Raven Cloud in an attempt to be inconspicuous, Arvid almost misses the beginning of the chaos. He is nudged out of a semi-doze in time to see the mast of the neighbouring ship fall, descending silently and almost elegantly with trailing ropes until it slams into the deck, and the shouts and cries of the crew rise up around them. Not just one crew either. All around the harbour the warships are breaking and dying, planks springing apart, ropes snapping, spars falling, boats sinking. Their crews struggle to disembark, many of them having to splash their way to the docks where their luckier, drier fellows help haul them out. Amid all the chaos, nobody notices that the small merchant ship that had been coopted into the war effort remains unharmed, and nobody notices when that ship pushes out to sea, and by the time the sails are raised, it is too late. Similarly, the slight shimmer of the air over the walkway goes entirely unremarked.