It was a bright, moonlit night, and Tim tasted a salty tang in the air as he watched the waves as they curled and crashed, looking like hundreds of foamy white mice scurrying towards the shore before dissolving and breaking apart before the next wave came rolling in.

“Oh look, he’s back,” Eric said as he leapt to his feet.

Tim turned to see the silhouette of a short man arrogantly strutting down the stone quay at the head of fifty men.

“Look at that, he actually found enough men,” Tim muttered.

“Sir Giles, you’ve outdone yourself,” Emily remarked, sounding impressed as she walked up the quay to meet him.

Giles Markin was the master of the docks, and the only other person who seemed to know what was going on had been shocked when his master’s daughter arrived earlier that evening with only two boys and a handmaiden. He had admitted he was expecting the prince and Lord Erwyn together with at least fifty men for the night’s action. The mousy man then somehow managed to scrounge the men up from somewhere in the five hours since they’d last seen him.

The diminutive man twirled the end of his magnificent handlebar moustache and let his pleasure show openly. “Yes, it was a good chance for me to show off my administrative prowess. They’re harbour patrolmen who I personally hired to keep the peace on the docks. You might not know this, but sailors can be an unruly bunch.”

Tim looked at the fifty men Giles had assembled and raised an eyebrow. They appeared to be little more than thugs armed with truncheons. Only Giles and the boys were armed with swords, and Tim wondered if the sailors had weapons on their ships.

“Lady Emily, would you like to brief the men?” Giles offered as he adjusted his freshly polished steel cuirass.

Emily smiled uncomfortably and shook her head. “I think you should do the honours.”

Giles seemed to grow larger in stature at being granted the honour and turned around smartly to face his men. “Gentlemen, you have been summoned here tonight to perform a great service for our lord, Duke Ferdinand Soren.”

The assembled men drew themselves straighter and stopped murmuring amongst themselves upon hearing the name of their lord.

“Your task is an important one,” Giles continued importantly. “We are to board the twenty Guild ships presently at anchor and seize them in the name of the Duke.”

Giles paused to let his words sink in. When they did, his men’s eyes widened, and the murmuring started again.

“As you know, they are currently locked and chained to the docks as per the Charter of Neutrality the Guild signed,” the murmurs ceased when Giles resumed speaking. “As per our lord’s plan, the bulk of the sailors returned to their homes in Flosti last week, and each ship is currently crewed by five unarmed men who have the sole task of ensuring that they remain seaworthy. We shall demand they turn the ships over and if they fail to comply, we shall take them by force. We shall work methodically, ten men to a ship and work our way down the docks. Are there any questions?”

Tim watched as the gathered men shook their heads and raised his hand, earning himself a scowl from Giles.

“What is it, boy?” he snapped.

“When you say by force, do you mean we should kill those who resist?” Tim asked.

“Yes, of course,” Giles snapped irritably.

“What if they try to sail away?” Eric asked.

“You can’t sail a ship with five men,” Giles sighed impatiently. “Besides, didn’t you hear? They’re under lock and chain, and we hold the keys.”

“Now, are there any intelligent questions?” He asked the group.

When no one raised their hand, the diminutive man who scarcely came up to Eric’s shoulder spun smartly on his heel to face Emily. “Then My Lady, by your leave.”

Emily nodded, and Giles barked. “Men, on me.”

Tim and Eric exchanged uncertain looks as they fell in behind the harbourmaster, who walked alongside Emily and Nina.

“Are those barrel lids on your backs?” one of the men behind them sniggered.

“These are our shields,” Eric replied indignantly.

When they rounded the corner, the ships came into view, and Tim almost stopped in his tracks. The ships were enormous, their masts towered high over the nearby buildings, and each looked like they needed an entire forest of trees to make.

“Keep moving, boy,” one of the men snarled from behind.

Tim forced his feet to keep moving as he studied the ships closely. In the moonlight, he could make out a pair of lookouts on the raised quarterdeck of the closest ship. The others were likely to be sleeping below decks. Then, he noticed a light flickering through a porthole below the forecastle of the closest ship. He looked at the ship next to it and noticed that the light was present at roughly the same place.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, one of the men on the quarterdeck of the nearest ship noticed them and disappeared from view. Moments later, a bell began ringing. Soon, the bell on another ship joined in and before long, all the bells on all the ships were ringing. Giles’ men came to a stop and looked at one another in confusion.

“They’ve seen us coming,” Giles declared. “Keep moving, this changes nothing.”

A ball of ice formed in Tim’s stomach as he saw a shadow pass in front of the light of the closest ship. Without knowing why, he began running towards the gangplank of the nearest ship.

“Wait, you can’t storm the ship on your own!” Eric protested.

“Follow me, hurry!” Tim cried over his shoulder.

“Lady Emily, please tell your dogs to heel!” Giles wailed.

Tim knew he would be severely punished if his hunch was wrong, but something told him that the fire was bad news. As he approached the nearest ship, he noticed that it was secured to the pier by a heavy chain and padlocks. Then, he saw a pair of men appear at the top of the gangplank wielding hatchets.

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“Stay back!” One of them warned. “We do not want to spill the blood of our brothers in faith, but we will defend these ships with our lives!”

Tim spotted movement in the corner of his eye and raised his buckler instinctively. Moments later, he felt an arrow slam into it.

“They have archers!” one of Giles’ men cried.

Eric didn’t hesitate and bounded past Tim up the gangplank before hurling himself at the two men with his short sword raised. Tim spotted the archer and positioned himself between Eric and the man and was prepared to intercept the next arrow. However, the archer ran from the gunwale towards the hatch leading into the bowels of the ship and shouted, “Brother, they are aboard!”

“Eric, follow me!” Tim gasped as Giles’ men swarmed the ship.

Eric paused to hurl himself at the archer and cut him down with his sword before charging after Tim into the dark hold. Their eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness and once he got his bearings, he saw that the light he’d seen was another level below. He charged down the next flight of stairs and saw a lantern at the opposite end of the ship. A man held it up, illuminating his face, and Tim could see that he was terrified as he stood in a small room at the bow of the ship. He was standing next to a large barrel.

“Stop, don’t move!” Tim ordered as he raised his sword menacingly.

The sailor wrestled the barrel to the ground, dumping out the foul smelling liquid. He looked up at Tim and cried, “Divine Three, take me into your keeping!”

Tim watched in horror as the sailor hurled the lantern down onto the deck, setting himself and the small room ablaze.

“Get out!” Tim cried as he grabbed his friend by the collar and tried to drag him up the stairs.

“Bloody maniac,” Eric gasped as the man stood defiantly at the doorway as the flames consumed him.

“Come on Eric, we have to go!” Tim gasped, struggling to move the bigger boy.

Eric blinked and came to his senses as the fire spread rapidly through the ship’s hold. He turned around and grabbed Tim by the arm. “Come on, stop standing around, we have to get out of here!”

Together, they rushed back up to the main deck where Giles was waiting at the top of the stairs with his arms folded across his chest. “What’s going on below decks?”

“They’ve set fire to the ship,” Tim panted.

The diminutive man’s face turned red. “Then why aren’t you putting it out?”

“My Lord, look!” One of his men cried from the gunwale.

Giles strutted over slowly, and his face turned pale when he saw thick black smoke pouring from the portholes of the adjacent ship. The men who hadn’t boarded the first ship stood unmoving on the docks, unsure of what to do.

“Get to the harbourmaster’s office and bring up the pumps!” Giles screamed as he leaned over the gunwale. In his panic, he leaned out too far and began to teeter when one of his men hauled him back.

“My lord, look!” One of his men gasped as he pointed at the black smoke that was billowing out of the hatch of the ship they were on.

“Get down there and see what’s going on,” Giles gasped.

One of his men draped a seawater soaked blanket over his head and bravely went down the hatch. He reappeared minutes later, gasping for air. When he could speak, he shook his head. “It’s no good, My Lord. I think they’ve used quickfire.”

“Sir Giles, I suggest you get your men off that ship,” Emily called up from the dock.

The diminutive lord ground his teeth as he looked at the smoke billowing out from the hatch. Soon, the red tint of flames could be seen, and the deck began to feel hot underfoot.

“Everyone, get off the ship now,” he ordered at length.

Tim and Eric didn’t waste any time hurrying down the gangplank where they joined Emily on the docks. Tim watched as the other ships began going up in flames around them except for the two at the far end of the pier. He watched as the Guild sailors scurried down the gangplanks of the blazing ships and boarded the last two ships.

“Come on,” he gasped as he ran down the pier. “They’re making a run for it.”

However, he had only run half of the way there when the last two ships began to pull away, towed by the longboats that had been launched underneath the noses of their attackers. Tim and Eric watched helplessly as the ships sailed out into the bay.

“We’ve made a pig's ear of this alright,” Eric remarked.

“The plan was ill conceived from the start,” Tim muttered. He then noticed the inferno around them and nudged his friend on the arm. “Come on, we’d better get back to shore. It isn’t safe here.”

“How are we going to explain this to your father?” They heard Giles wail as they joined the others on the quay.

Emily sighed as she watched the flames. “I don’t know.”

Giles stared at Emily blankly before mumbling something about having a report to compile. As he left with his men in tow, the boys sat beside Emily and Nina and watched the ships burn. They sat there through the night, and by dawn, only the ships’ blackened masts were visible above the waterline.

“What do we do now?” Eric asked at length.

“Mernes, grant me your wisdom,” Emily muttered, not taking her eyes off the wrecks.

“What’s this?” a patrician voice demanded from behind them. “I see that my daughter has come home for the first time in months and didn’t even think to visit her mother!

“Lady Rebecca!” Nina cried as she leapt to her feet and curtseyed.

“Mother,” Emily said, smiling for the first time since they’d arrived in the city.

She embraced the older woman warmly and held her hands in hers. “Father said that this task was of the utmost importance, so I came straight here. Once we’d captured the ships, I was supposed to stay in the city until he arrived, so I thought I’d have plenty of time to see you then.”

Rebecca Verindi was a handsome woman in her forties who had an air about her that demanded respect from those in her presence. She looked at the ships and made a face. “Oh, I thought you were here to set fire to them. Why else would your father have sent you?”

Emily looked hurt by her mother’s words. “He sent me because he didn’t trust anyone else to get it done. It seems his faith was misplaced.”

“He could have sent one of your brothers,” Rebecca snorted. “This job is beneath you. However, I am glad that you are here.”

“Oh that’s not true, Mother, Edmund and Carlton are very capable,” Emily protested, unable to stop herself from smiling.

“Emily, I love your brothers, but that simply isn’t true.”

Emily smiled and squeezed her mother’s hands.

“What do you plan to do now?” Rebecca ventured.

Emily sighed. “I don’t know, mope around here until Father gets word of the debacle and see what he wants to do.”

Rebecca frowned. “That isn’t the proactive daughter I know.”

She brushed a strand of Emily’s fiery red hair out of her face and looked her daughter in the eye. “With the ships destroyed, there’s no reason for you to be here, is there?”

“I suppose there isn’t,” Emily allowed.

“Good,” Rebecca smiled and placed her hands around her daughter’s shoulders. “Do you think you have time to have breakfast with your mother before you leave?”

“Of course,” Emily grinned. “Come along boys, we’re leaving.”

“Oh,” Rebecca said, noticing the boys for the first time. “And who might they be?”

“My bodyguards,” Emily replied.

Rebecca’s face fell. “Them? They don’t look very reliable.”

“My husband handpicked them,” Emily smiled.

Rebecca scrutinized the boys dubiously. “Did he now? How have they fared?”

“They’ve proven competent fighters,” Emily allowed.

“Oh,” Rebecca’s jaw dropped, and she quickly covered it with her hand. “I didn’t know it was so dangerous out there.”

“It’s a battlefield, Mother,” Emily pointed out as Eric puffed his chest out with pride.

“But on the other hand,” Emily continued. “They did just charge ahead and left me alone in the heat of battle earlier, so I suppose there is room for improvement.”

“Did they now?” there was ice in Rebecca’s voice that sent a chill down Tim’s spine.

“Could you go ahead to the carriage?” Rebecca asked, “I wish to speak with them in private for a moment.”

“But My Lady, we’re supposed to protect…” Eric began and struggled to find the words under Rebecca’s baleful gaze. “… that lady.”

“Oh Mother’s guards can look after me for a few minutes,” Emily said cheerfully as she walked towards the waiting carriage.

“Now listen here boys,” Rebecca said sweetly as she placed a hand on each boy’s shoulder. “You may not know this, but House Verindi is famous for our skill in the art of torture. It’s not something I enjoy myself, nor is it something I am proud of, but my mother did her best to ensure I learned the family trade, if you get my meaning.”

Rebecca then wrapped her arms around their necks and pulled them close with surprising strength for a woman of her stature, so that she could whisper into their ears. “If anything happens to my daughter, I’ll make sure that you discover first-hand just why the Verindis are such famed torturers. Do you understand?”

Tim swallowed and nodded. “Yes ma’am,” he managed to squeak.

“Good,” Rebecca released the boys abruptly and walked to the carriage. “Now then Emily, what would you like to have for breakfast?”