“Only ’cause she needs smugglers sometimes.” He hissed in a breath and blanched at a flare of pain from his broken arm. “Wouldn’t happen to have a healer handy, would you?”

  Ser Yrsa shook her head.

  “Tell me about the other ship,” Aefric said. “The one you’re waiting for.”

  Mavash paled, as did several of the others.

  “That…” Mavash clearly didn’t think well under pressure. “That would be the Swift Wave. Uh. Due to pick us up…”

  “Appallingly bad liar, isn’t he?” Aefric asked Ser Yrsa.

  “An embarrassment to liars everywhere,” she agreed. “Especially for a man who offered to buy his life with the truth.” She leaned closer to Aefric. “What do you think?”

  “I think I have a plan,” Aefric said, with a smile.

  A short time later, everything was in place.

  The fallen sailors had been taken to another nearby, shallow cave, found by the scouts.

  The surviving sailors had been stripped to their undergarments, gagged, hobbled and bound together back at the base of the pass, where they would be out of sight. Their wizard stood among them in his sea green robes, still frozen in place by Aefric’s spell, as Aefric expected him to remain until sometime past the next dawn.

  The wizard had been carrying a bronze pendant that held a spark of magic. Aefric now had that pendant in his pouch, pending further study and a determination of what to do with it.

  The prisoners were kept under guard by a few of the more injured among Aefric’s soldiers.

  The archers had retreated back up to the ridge, where they set up once more. The knights of Aefric’s personal guard — with Ser Beornric — were up there as well, sighting down and waiting for targets for their arrows.

  Aefric himself was up there with them, over his own objections. He’d wanted to remain below for the coming fight, but both Ser Yrsa and Ser Beornric insisted — with the other knights of his personal guard echoing their complaints.

  If he would be down there, risking his life, then his guard had to remain down there as well. Part of the price of his position.

  He knew that. Intellectually. It was just one of the parts of being a duke that he was … less fond of.

  The remainder of his soldiers were down below. They’d shed their tabards and their half-helms, and thrown the sailors’ roughspun clothing over their chainmail. They carried the swords and clubs of the sailors — nicely visible to anyone on approach — but kept their pikes on the ground at their feet.

  Ser Yrsa was down with the soldiers, of course. She hadn’t bothered with a disguise. She had arranged for a stack of the heavy crates to be moved slightly. Just enough to give her space to hide.

  One of her lieutenants would be calling the strike. Unless, of course, Aefric himself started things. Which was certainly possible.

  If only because he knew his soldiers wouldn’t pass for the sailors. Not up close. They didn’t have the weathered look. Their posture was too good. And their chainmail would clink when they moved.

  He could only hope that whoever was coming in would buy the deception long enough to land their boats and approach.

  For the moment, he could only wait.

  This was the good kind of waiting though. His empty stomach felt the right kind of tension. His muscles sang with readiness. A dozen spells danced on his fingers and his lips.

  This kind of waiting he’d done countless times over the years, and he knew how to do it well. There was a trick to when and how to make little movements that kept his muscles ready, without any of them falling asleep or starting to cramp.

  Finally, a ship weighed anchor in the distance. Aefric raised his spyglass. Couldn’t read the name on the side. It was too far away for that. But he could tell it was a big, two-mast ship kitted for battle. Right down the vicious ramming prow in the front.

  The ship was launching four smaller boats that were far more crowded with people than he expected.

  Four boats. Easily fifteen to a boat.

  But … they’d kept no empty space for the crates of cargo they surely intended to pick up.

  For that matter, where was their own illicit cargo, to trade?

  Then the truth ran cold down his spine.

  Each boat had two rowers, and three with naked steel in their hands, watching the other ten. Who were tied together.

  Slavers.

  That ship out at anchor. It couldn’t be allowed to leave. There might be more slaves aboard.

  But the slavers on that ship would be watching the shore, through their own spyglasses.

  When fighting broke out, what would they do?

  They had no more launches. They couldn’t support their troops on the ground. Not unless they wanted to bring their ship all the way to shore, which might not be possible.

  They might already be as close as was safe, for a ship of that size.

  They’d watch their people lose. See them taken prisoner.

  They wouldn’t stay. No percentage in it.

  By the time Aefric could get sea support from the port city of Ajenmoor, to the south, that slaver ship would be long gone.

  No.

  He almost took off right away. But he couldn’t do that. He was a duke. He had responsibilities. And he also had the power to do this the right way.

  He cast a sending spell then, which would carry his words to someone he knew well. In this case, the message was for his old friend and ducal wizard, Karbin.

  “Karbin, contact Ajenmoor and have them send three ships to the Dragonscar. Might be a fight. Definitely pick up prisoners and cargo. Hurry. Slavers.”

  Some variations on that spell would allow for a response. The one Aefric used did not. He didn’t have time for back and forth.

  “I’ll be back,” he said to Ser Beornric, and before the knight could raise an objection, Aefric was already flying.

  He flew swiftly, low to the ground, south for a distance, before turning west over the shore. He stayed low. Low enough that the spray and lick of the waves wetted him down.

  If that water made him cold, he didn’t feel it. He burned with anger.

  He flew that way out across the sea until he was well west of that slaver ship, though he kept it in sight the whole time.

  Then he ascended to a greater height, hundreds of feet above the sea, and eased his way closer to the ship.

  No one would see him here. Not while they were all watching the shore.

  Well, surely whoever sat their crow’s nest kept his lookout for other ships. But he wouldn’t see Aefric either. Not at Aefric’s height.

  He needed the spyglass to watch the launches approach the shore. Muscles tensed and ready, he forced himself to wait while they beached.

  As the offloading began, Aefric put away the spyglass and called forth the magic of the Brightstaff. White fire coruscated along the length of the thunderwood, passing over Aefric’s hands without harming them, and circling the yellow diamond embedded in the staff’s top.

  Then he struck. Calling forth mighty strokes of lightning from the Brightstaff, he dealt the slaver ship two vicious blows.

  His first bolt struck the mainmast at its base. His second, the mizzenmast, the same way. Both snapped and burned.

  Fire spread quickly. Along the deck, but more so along rigging and the sails.

  Panic ensued. The sailors not caught in the lightning or the first burst of flames began struggling to put the fires out.

  If Aefric left them to it, they might succeed. But he couldn’t take the chance that they’d fail. Not if there might be more slaves in the hold of that ship.

  So he drew from a small sheath at his belt the wand Garram, a gift from the king himself. The wand had served King Colm’s great great grandfather, King Iounn Stronghand, and Aefric had come to master its powers over ice and fire.

  He used the wand to extinguish the flames.

  The slavers might have oars, though from his current position, Aefric couldn’t see them. Even if they did, though, they’d never achieve any speed now. Not without their sails. They might try, but they wouldn’t get far before support arrived from Ajenmoor.

  His work here was finished. For now.

  Of course, chances were that sailors on that ship had spotted him by this time. Surely someone had wondered where lightning had struck from, out of a clear blue sky.

  Well, that was fine with him. He was too high up to worry about arrows. And if they had a wizard who wanted to come play, well, Aefric was more than happy to face him.

  That no wizard flew forth disappointed Aefric.

  He flew back to see how Ser Yrsa’s half of the battle had fared.

  With the strong, sea wind at his back now, Aefric flew down out of the bright afternoon sky toward the mouth of the Dragonscar. Even before he landed, he was able to get a good sense of the situation.

  The slavers had been defeated handily. Of the twenty slavers, half were dead. The other half had clearly surrendered — and weren’t happy about it. They’d thrown down their weapons and were being corralled by Aefric’s soldiers.

  Ser Yrsa was overseeing the unbinding of the slaves.

  Forty slaves, dressed in sack cloth belted with rope that had doubled as wrist bindings.

  Aefric landed near Ser Yrsa, who spared him a cold glance.

  “It is a strange thing, your grace,” she said in tones that could freeze lava. “I would have sworn that not an hour past, you and I had discussed what it means for a duke to travel unguarded. Does my memory fail me?”

  “It does not,” Aefric said. “But this is hardly the time and place for this discussion.”

  “So long as your grace understands that this discussion is coming.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt of it,” Aefric said, drawing a sharper glare because he sounded unrepentant. “And I have no doubt that Ser Beornric will have words to contribute to the conversation.”

  “Presuming he does not simply resign his post,” Ser Yrsa said, “I should think so.”

  She drew breath to say something else, but Aefric mouthed later, and she grimaced, but nodded.

  Speaking of Ser Beornric, Aefric could hear him, as well as the other knights of his guard, thundering closer from the pass. Aefric turned, watched them approach, and before any of them could open their mouths, said, “Ser Yrsa and I have already agreed to discuss the matter later. There is much to do right now.”

  Ser Beornric frowned, but nodded and dismounted, with the other six knights of Aefric’s guard following suit.

  A short time later, the slavers were contained, and the slaves freed. Two of the scouts were keeping an eye on the slavers’ ship, and the other two were watching the Dragonscar, to make sure no one else approached.

  For the time being, the slavers and the smugglers were kept separate. The smugglers likely knew that Aefric’s party had taken the slavers captive, but the slavers might not have known that the smugglers were prisoners as well.

  Which was how Aefric wanted it.

  He did check his freezing spell, to make sure that the wizard in green remained locked in place, unable to do more than breathe. So far all was well.

  Ser Yrsa had already called for food from their supplies, for the poor souls who had been enslaved.

  They were a mixed group, with no particular attributes in common. Forty in all. Thirty of them human, of a variety of ages, physical conditions, and backgrounds. Twenty of them women, but ten of them men.

  Five were eldrani, and even in their captive state, the beauty of their people shone out. Three of them were women, and two were men. Including, in their number, two dark-skinned eldrani. One man, one woman.

  Dark-skinned eldrani were quite rare in this part of Qorunn. Aefric couldn’t remember seeing them before, on this side of the Risen Sea, where their pale kin were far more common.

  Of course, these two had all the stunning beauty of their people, and in their case it extended beyond their sharp features to their hair, the dark purple of latest sunset, and their eyes the yellow of flame.

  Of the other former slaves, three were derekek, all male. Derekek stood about the height of humans, but were thicker through the limbs and torso. Their flesh was always some shade of green and they tended to wear their hair in spikes.

  All three of these derekek had the same coloring — a dark, mossy green — and somehow even managed to keep their hair spiked through their captivity, which surprised Aefric.

  He’d always thought they spiked their hair with grease or fat or something. But perhaps their hair simply grew that way.

  The remaining two were borogs. Bigger than humans, though smaller than na’shek, they had heads like rhinos, with horns and skin to match.

  “Your grace,” Ser Yrsa said, leaning close. “The troops are nervous about the borogs, and I can’t say I blame them. Should we bind them as well?”

  “No,” Aefric said, just as quietly. “The Godswalk Wars are over, and these two aren’t under the influence of the Flayer. I won’t treat them like they’re guilty unless I’m given a better reason than their race.”

  Louder, to the group, he said, “Do all of you understand the common tongue?”

  The humans all spoke assent, along with one of the pale eldrani men. This one had short hair of vivid blue. He spoke up to say, “These four” — he indicated the other eldrani — “have no common tongue. Neither speak the derekek or horn-noses.”

  Aefric almost corrected that last, but it wasn’t intended as a derogation. Well, it was, but only in the sense that the eldrani word for borogs was shissnatach, which translated to the common tongue as horn-noses.

  “All right,” Aefric said. “What’s your name?”

  “Ulltruchu,” he said, bowing his head in a very human gesture of respect.

  “Well, Ulltruchu,” Aefric said in High Eldrani, “I will ask you to translate for your fellows of the True Race” — which was actually how eldrani referred to themselves, despite being a relatively young people — “while I do my best to translate for the others.”

  Ulltruchu bowed his head again.

  “All right,” Aefric said. “You are all free people. Let me make that clear. I will do my best to return you all to your proper homes as soon as possible.”

  Aefric had just begun translating that into Dreykeke, the language of derekek, when one of the human women raised her hand.

  “Please allow me to finish translating first,” Aefric said, “or this will take forever.”

  She nodded respectfully, and Aefric continued his translation.

  Dreykeke was a language he was pretty good at. Helped that the language only had one main form, and that regional variations were mostly in colloquialisms.

  As he finished with the first translation, the derekek frowned and two of them looked at the other, who wanted to say something.

  Aefric asked him, as well, to wait.

  Borog, alas, was a language he didn’t know much of. He knew full well that what he said came out no more coherent than, “You whole.” Borogs didn’t have a word for “free” but considered captivity a kind of injury. “Me run you to clan.”

  The Borog language, as far as Aefric understood it, didn’t differentiate between subject and object when it came to pronouns. “Me” — uruk — stood for both “I,” “me,” and “my.”

  The borogs’ eyes narrowed in shock. They both snorted. The bigger one started to speak.

  “You hold fire,” Aefric said, not knowing any other way to ask them to wait. “Others shoot first.”

  That one snorted. Which Aefric hoped was agreement.

  Aefric turned back to the first woman who’d raised her hand.

  “We’re refugees, your grace,” she said with a shaky bow. “None of us — well, I don’t know about the greenies and” — her gaze flicked to the borogs — “them, but the rest of us have nowhere to go.”

  Everyone who could understand that was nodding agreement, with Ulltruchu agreeing for the eldrani.

  Confirming that the derekek were in the same position was easy enough. And while the larger borog said a lot, Aefric was able to understand just enough to know that they were refugees too. They had no clan to return to.

  With that established, the next question was the one Aefric considered most immediately important.

  “Are there any other slaves on that ship?”

  None of them seemed to know of any, so likely not.

  From there, a quick series of questions and translations determined that almost all of them were from south of Armyr, the region around Kesh, and the Free Baronies of Olwich.

  The two dark-skinned eldrani, whose names were Li’nasachal and Li’sheneesha, had been captive the longest, and were taken much further to the south. In the outskirts of Sartis, on their way to that great city.

  The borogs were another matter. Aefric went back and forth with them a few times, trying to find the right words for his question and trying to understand their answers.

  The closest he could come was that they’d been taken recently, near great mountains. Which could have been any of a dozen mountain ranges that Aefric could name.

  Unfortunately, the others had all been kept in the hold, and had no idea where they were when the borogs were brought aboard.

  “Your grace,” one of the scouts interrupted then. “The ship is moving.”

  “Rowing?” Aefric asked, looking up and checking through his spyglass.

  Sure enough, it had oars in the water.

  And it was trying to escape.

  “No,” Aefric said, lifting the Brightstaff and ready to take to the air.

  Ser Yrsa grabbed him by one shoulder, and Ser Beornric grabbed him by the other.

  “They’ll get away,” Aefric said.

  “They won’t get far,” Ser Beornric said. “I heard you tell Karbin to send for ships.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Ser Yrsa said archly, “but either way, if they escape, they escape.”

  “But I could—”

  “Does your grace know the penalty for slaving in Armyr?” Ser Yrsa asked.

  “No,” Aefric admitted. “Though I have a few ideas—”

  “Neither do they,” Ser Yrsa said. “But in many places, it’s death. Which means those sailors will fight to the death. And if it’s just you out there fighting them, one of them might get lucky.”