The sky grew lighter and fire, real fire, blazed in several locations from the sparks of musket and cannon shot. Konowa walked a short distance to stand on a jumble of rocks and look back down at the beach. Several soldiers milled about as more appeared, carrying the wounded. A makeshift first-aid station had been set up right on the beach and Konowa knew Visyna, Rallie, and his mother would be there now tending to the wounded. Farther up the beach were the still figures of several soldiers.

Konowa let his gaze drift out to sea where the Black Spike had dropped anchor, another full broadside ready and waiting. There were certain advantages to having the son of the Queen in command of the Iron Elves.

The ship named for his father’s Wolf Oak was a towering three-masted, seventy-two-gun ship-of-the-line, one of Her Majesty’s main means of projecting power around her far-flung empire. Five years ago, just the sight of her dropping anchor in the Bay of Kilok Ree had been enough to quell the rebellion there of some disgruntled natives protesting the exporting of priceless religious and magical artifacts to Celwyn, the Calahrian capital. Konowa could understand their reactions, both the rebellion and the sudden change of mind when the Black Spike appeared. The ship was for all intents and purposes a floating gun platform, carrying twenty of the massive sixty-eight-pounder carronades, another forty thirty-six-pounder long-range cannon, and twelve lesser guns, although six were currently strapped to the bows of her away boats. It was a pity there wasn’t a way to get the Black Spike up the side of the Shadow Monarch’s mountain. Along with the Iron Elves, the Black Spike could end this war, or whatever it was, in about three broadsides.