“How many in the unknown party?”

  “Close to fifty. They have the sea-worn look of sailors, but there are no signs of shipwreck. Some of them have leathers, but the rest wear no armor. For weapons they have swords and clubs, mostly, but they look to have a few short bows.”

  “Which means they may have a wizard?”

  “Unknown at this time, your grace.”

  “How well ensconced are they?”

  “Very well, though they lack enough missile weapons to fully exploit their positioning. And they do not seem to be expecting trouble. Nevertheless, they’ve set up among the rocks, and they have their backs to a cave.”

  “Lousy fighting on horseback,” Ser Beornric said, “weaving among rocks.”

  “True,” Aefric said. “What’s the ground like?”

  “Rocky,” the scout said, “and where they set up, largely unstable enough that horses will not do well in a skirmish. There is a smooth line of approach along the rock wall from seaward, but getting to it would be tricky.”

  Aefric nodded.

  “You said there’s a cave behind them,” he said. “So some could be in hiding? There could be more than fifty?”

  “No, your grace,” she said. “It’s a shallow cave, and full of crates.”

  “Pirates or smugglers then,” Ser Beornric said.

  “So said General Yrsa,” the scout said with a bow of her head.

  “What is her plan?” Aefric asked.

  “To ride down the pass herself, with two dozen pike, and demand their business. If they give a satisfying answer, she will report it to your grace. If they do not, she will give the signal. The archers will loose and begin the battle. She will take as many captives as possible.”

  “And she expects me to sit idly by through this, does she?”

  “Your grace,” the scout said, squirming a bit under his glare, “she requests that you and your guards hold in reserve, to support as needed.”

  “Is that what she requests?” Aefric asked sharply.

  The path down to the chasm floor was likely at least a hundred and fifty feet. And likely steep enough that the horses would have to watch their footing.

  Not exactly an ideal cavalry charge.

  “It is, your grace.” The poor scout sounded as though she’d rather have been back down below, keeping an eye on all those potential enemies than here, than telling her duke something he didn’t want to hear.

  “Very well,” Aefric said with a nod and a smile. “If she wishes us to remain as support, that is what we shall do. Please, tell General Yrsa that I intend to comply with her request.”

  “Thank you, your grace,” the scout said, giving Aefric the battlefield salute even as she bowed, and she and her partner scout quickly hustled back over to Ser Yrsa.

  Ser Yrsa gave Aefric a nod, then turned, gave her orders, and started leading the two dozen pike-wielding soldiers down the pass.

  “So, your grace,” Ser Beornric said casually. “What loophole do you intend to exploit?”

  “Loophole?” Aefric asked in barely disguised mock innocence.

  “Yes, your grace” Ser Beornric said, patiently. “I have no doubt that you intend to comply with the letter of Ser Yrsa’s request, while still managing to do exactly what you wish.”

  Aefric chuckled. “I believe you’re getting to know me too well, Beornric.”

  “Thank you, your grace.”

  “Don’t worry though,” Aefric said to his guards. “I don’t intend to leave the rest of you out of the fun.”

  Brightstaff in hand, Aefric crouched at the edge of the rocky ridge, overlooking the Dragonscar down below.

  He smiled into the wind. From where he crouched, he could see most, if not all, of those … pirates, smugglers, or whatever they might have been.

  He had control of himself again. The yellow diamond atop the Brightstaff remained unlit. Of course, he also held it back from the edge, so its glint in the bright sunlight wouldn’t be seen from below.

  To Aefric’s right, his dozen archers, with their longbows ready. To his left, Ser Beornric and the half-dozen knights of his personal guard. They too had their bows ready, though theirs were recurved, rather than traditional longbows.

  Aefric could feel all of the archers gauging the strong, salty sea wind as they picked targets down below.

  The scouts had been right. The sailors might all have been armed, but they didn’t look ready for a fight. They were watching the sea, not the land around them. Even those who looked to be standing watch scarcely look away from the sea.

  Clearly they were expecting a ship soon.

  It occurred to Aefric that a ship might be able to sail up close to the foot of the Dragonscar. There was little beach, where the sea met the land, but the curve of the land might form a decent natural harbor. Assuming there were no dangerous reefs to worry about…

  Aefric dragged his attention back to the sailors below him. He knew that the others were picking their targets now, but Aefric had to wait for that.

  One or more of those sailors might be a wizard. Likely only one, but the chance of a competent apprentice was not worth discounting.

  Had he been closer, he could have felt the magic of any spellcasters, as well as any enchanted items, should they have any. But from here, spotting them would require a spell. A spell they might detect.

  So instead, Aefric held his eyes slightly unfocused so that, at the same time, he could watch the movements of all the sailors he could see. He wanted to know the instant any of them made for a wand — certainly none of them carried a staff or a rod — or began casting a spell.

  Commotion down below. Their scouts must have spotted Ser Yrsa, approaching with the foot soldiers.

  The sailors drew and readied weapons. Focused their cover on the direction of the path down from the ridge. One moved about, giving orders. He was a big man, the sort who had rolls of muscle hidden under rolls of fat. Black shaggy hair and beard, though he was dressed no better than the others. They were all in roughspun clothing, mostly tunics and breeches.

  “Dibs on the fat man,” Ser Beornric said, and one of the archers swore.

  “In this wind?” Aefric said. “Anyone who calls dibs must hit their target on the first shot, or buy all the other archers a drink when we next reach a town.”

  “Agreed,” Ser Beornric said, his wolfish smile visible because — like the other knights — he’d raised his visor for this.

  The others all echoed his agreement. And to Aefric’s amusement, they all began calling dibs on one target or another.

  “I reserve the right,” Aefric said, “to attack any who show themselves to be spellcasters. Be they dibsed or not.”

  They were smart enough not to object.

  Ser Yrsa came into view. She still sat her horse, and Aefric noticed that she had no weapon in hand. The foot soldiers fanned out around her, pikes ready.

  The ground beneath her was solid enough, if rocky, but the scouts were right. Where the sailors had set up, there were any number of cracks that could steal a hoof, and possibly part of a horse’s leg.

  Even fighting on foot among those rocks could be tricky.

  Ser Yrsa started saying something. Aefric could tell that much. But damn the wind, he couldn’t hear her words. Only the commanding tone of her voice.

  He couldn’t understand the answer called back by the fat man, either. It didn’t sound very respectful though. And the gesture accompanying the response was clear enough.

  We’ve got you outnumbered.

  And they did. They had numbers on their side — about two-to-one, down there — and a slight edge in the terrain. On the other hand, Ser Yrsa’s soldiers were likely better trained. And she had an advantage the sailors hadn’t spotted yet.

  She called back to them once more. Likely an order to surrender.

  The fat man gave the attack signal for her.

  Aefric’s archers had been told to wait for one of two things. Either Ser Yrsa would wave, or the sailors would shoot.

  Their four bowmen shot.

  The archers on the ridge unleashed.

  Ser Yrsa leaped down from her horse, and led the foot charge. Aefric could hear their roar over the wind.

  The first volley of arrows from the ridge was still falling when the second volley was loosed.

  There.

  Back beside the fat man with the shaggy hair and beard. A slight man had emerged in dirty, sea green robes. He had short, greasy hair and pale, blotchy skin. And he looked as though he disdained all of this.

  But he lifted his hands and began to cast a spell that would have loosed an explosive ball of fire. Had he gotten the chance to finish it.

  Aefric didn’t let him.

  Froze him like a human statue, right where he stood.

  Most of the first arrows from the ridge struck their targets, including Ser Beornric’s. Though the fat man must’ve had decent armor under his clothes, because the arrow stuck behind his shoulder without doing him much apparent harm.

  He looked up, though and began calling a retreat.

  Didn’t help. The second wave of arrows began hitting their targets.

  Then Ser Yrsa was among them, breaking limbs and ribs and jaws with every swift strike of her maces.

  There was something hypnotically deadly about the way she moved when she was fighting. Every strike led to the next. Her momentum shifted with every blow. Sometimes accelerating in the direction she was already moving, other times reversing direction.

  The foot soldiers worked in pairs, to take advantage of their weapons’ reach. Each pair coming around both sides of a rock at once, stabbing with their pikes at foes who’d thought themselves safely shielded.

  Between the archers, Ser Yrsa, and the organized attack of the foot soldiers, the sailors were falling quickly.

  A fact that wasn’t lost on them.

  They threw down their weapons and surrendered before the fourth volley of arrows was loosed.

  Ser Yrsa whistled a rising note.

  A scout poked his head around the corner of the pass.

  “Your grace,” the scout said, “General Yrsa asks that you join her below.”

  The ride down from the ridge was actually more pleasant than Aefric expected. The path zigzagged its way down, and the walls rose gradually on each side, so there was a view of the chasm below and the sea to the west for at least the first third of the way down.

  Though that did mean that the hundred fifty feet of direct distance was more like four hundred fifty feet of riding.

  So he felt all the better about not waiting for some sign from Ser Yrsa that he was supposed to lead a supporting charge. That would have made no sense … at all…

  Just what had she intended? Had she simply told Aefric that he and his knights were being held in reserve to placate him while she took care of the problem herself?

  He didn’t like that idea. Not one bit.

  Down at the bottom, Ser Yrsa had things well in hand. Two of his soldiers had taken arrow wounds. One, only the tip had gotten past the links in her chainmail, so her chest wound was hardly more than a scratch. The other had been caught in the arm, just below the end of his chainmail sleeve.

  Punched right through his forearm. The arm was wrapped and in a sling by the time Aefric saw the man. Aefric would have to say something to him, and perhaps to the others who’d taken nothing more than minor cuts and bruises, after they finished dealing with the sailors.

  Most of the foot soldiers were busy keeping the surrendered soldiers under guard. Aefric could see the pile of the sailors’ weapons, well behind Ser Yrsa.

  A couple of his soldiers were limping. Likely turned ankles during the fight, thanks to those cracks in the rock floor.

  The sailors were in a bad way. Fully a third of their number were dead. Another two dozen were down with arrow wounds. Of the others, only a few had escaped the battle without a scratch, and that didn’t seem to endear them to their many wounded colleagues.

  The fat man with the shaggy black hair and beard had one of Ser Beornric’s arrows in his forearm. He was clutching the arm, and panting open-mouthed as he glared first at Ser Yrsa, then at the knights, then at Aefric, then back at Ser Yrsa and around again.

  “I hit the green robe. I know I did.” This from lean, dark-skinned Ser Temat, pointing at the unbroken arrows at the feet of the frozen wizard. “His corpse should have a scar like mine.”

  Aefric understood the sentiment, but there was no way an arrow could cause a scar as wicked as the one crossing Ser Temat’s neck.

  “It was my spell,” Aefric said. “He can’t be harmed in his current state. Any more than he can cause harm.”

  “So long as all agree I don’t have to buy drinks,” Ser Temat said, and Aefric dismounted and left the knights and archers to the debate.

  He approached Ser Yrsa.

  “Well done, your grace,” she said, approvingly. “Exactly the kind of reserve support I had in mind.”

  Aefric tried to conceal his frown of puzzlement behind a nod, but he thought he saw amusement in Ser Yrsa’s eyes that suggested she knew exactly what he’d been thinking.

  Not that this was the time and place to discuss it.

  “Did that one” — Aefric nodded toward the fat man — “even give you a name before he called the attack?”

  “I said,” the fat man said in a voice used to hollering orders, “she wants my name she can suck it from my—”

  “Yes, yes,” Ser Yrsa said. “We all heard your attempt at wit.”

  The fat man eyed Aefric. “Goes for you too, pretty man.”

  Aefric shook his head. Why they bothered putting up fronts like that he never understood. What did this man think his bluster would earn him? Respect?

  Ser Yrsa raised an eyebrow at Aefric. He nodded. She could take the lead for now.

  “If you don’t have a name,” she said to the fat man, “I’ll call you Dog. Who’s your master, Dog?”

  “I’m my own master,” he sneered.

  Ser Yrsa and Dog went back and forth a couple of times, getting nowhere, while Aefric looked over the other sailors. None of them looked happy about the current arrangement. And not only that, he got the impression that not all of them were happy with Dog, either.

  “All right, all right,” Aefric said, waving his hands to stop the pointless back-and-forth.

  Ser Yrsa frowned at Aefric. He sighed.

  “Look,” he said, with a shake of his head. “It’s obvious that the man won’t tell us what we want to know. And I don’t fancy wasting my time, any more than I fancy torture.”

  Dog’s eyes flared with triumph. He must’ve thought Aefric was an easy mark. What with his finery, and letting Ser Yrsa handle the questioning.

  Aefric smiled.

  “I am Aefric Brightstaff,” he said. “Duke of Deepwater. You and yours attacked my soldiers without provocation or anything like a rational excuse. As duke, I have the right to regard an attack on my soldiers as an attack on my person. And since I also have the right of high justice, I might as well just execute the lot of you right now, and commandeer your cargo as payment for the harm caused to my people.”

  “No!” one of the sailors yelled. He clutched a broken right arm, likely the work of Ser Yrsa’s maces. He was deeply tanned and sun-wrinkled, and kept his hair cropped close. He had three gold earrings dangling from his left ear.

  “I’m Mavash,” he said, stepping forward. “Second mate aboard the Swift Wave.”

  The fat man whirled and grabbed Mavash by the collar of his undyed roughspun jerkin.

  Before the fat man could finish growling his threat, Ser Yrsa smacked him across the back of the head with a mace.

  He thumped to the ground, unconscious.

  “Continue,” Aefric said.

  Mavash cleared his throat.

  “Brusi there,” — he pointed to the fallen fat man — “he’s our captain all right. But we sail under…” he looked around at his companions. None would meet his eye, though they were all shaking their heads.

  “We serve the pirate queen Nelazzi.”

  Nelazzi. Scourge of the Risen Sea. Aefric knew that she’d caused problems for his predecessor, Duchess Arinda. And as Keifer, she’d been one of his favorite villainous non-player characters from the Torn Kingdoms sourcebooks about Qorunn.

  His favorite appearance by her had been in adventure module O3: Sea Devils and Sea Dogs, where she could be persuaded to aid against the sea devils, but was likely to betray the player characters and steal the adventure’s treasure…

  “Well,” one of the other sailors grumbled, “if we weren’t dead before, we are now.”

  “She won’t blame us,” Mavash said, pointing at Brusi. “She’ll blame him. And she’d be right to.”

  “You’re the one, said her name,” one of the other sailors said.

  “Only because Brusi was too stupid to lie to them as wears a tabard. And insulting these two? What was he thinking?” Mavash grimaced, then ducked his head to Aefric and said, “Begging your pardon. Your highness. My life ain’t worth much. But if tellin’ truths now will spare it, I’ll tell all I know.”

  “Address him as ‘your grace,’” Ser Yrsa said, sidestepping the question of his fate. “And clearly Captain Brusi challenged me because he thought he had the advantage.”

  “No excuse,” Mavash said, shaking his head. “Bribed or lied. Only way with them as wears tabards. Anything else leads to, well…”

  Mavash gestured to the current state of the sailors.

  “Where’s the Swift Wave?” Ser Yrsa asked.

  “Holding anchor,” Mavash said. “Safely away from here. You’ve got us. And I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But I’m not giving up our ship. Not even if you kill me.”

  “Who’d you steal that cargo from?” Ser Yrsa said. “And where was it bound?”

  “Begging your pardon, Ser,” Mavash said, ducking his head at Ser Yrsa, “but we didn’t steal it from nobody. Know the right people in the right place to buy it for the right price. We smuggle, I don’t deny it. But we ain’t pirates.”

  “And yet,” Ser Yrsa said, one eyebrow high in disbelief, “you serve a pirate queen.”