More men yelled in fear and anger. A man tumbled from the rigging above Skyreach. The sailor slammed against the main deck with a sickening thud and remained still. His neck was at an unnatural angle. The corpse stayed there only the space of a drawn breath, then the hungry waves came slavering across the deck. When the foamy sea water recessed as Chalice of the Crowns crested the next wave, the body had disappeared.

Skyreach murmured a quick prayer to Rillifane Rallathil, god of the wilderness that she found herself so far from now. Cormanthyr had been the only home she'd ever known. Evermeet was only a place her great-grandfather had bade her visit a few times, not home at all. And it lay days in her future. Provided she had a future. She swallowed hard and remembered her great-grandfather's words and the importance of the duty she was doing.

"Ready the mages," she told the signalman.

"Yes, milady." Verys chose his flags, one scarlet and one white, then waved them in prescribed patterns. "They are ready."

Peering across the roiling waves, Skyreach saw the humans lining the side of the pirate ship. Lightning flickered, burning reflections from the burnished pieces of the crew's armor and their bared weapons. She knew none of them, but she had no doubt that they knew her. Faimcir Glitterwing had acquired a number of enemies over his long life span. Her great-grandfather's stand against allowing humans into Cormanthyr despite Elminster's arguments that had swayed Coronal Eltargrim and the Elven Court had never wavered.

She didn't hate the humans. At least, she didn't hate all of them. There were many who'd been brave, and had died defending Cormanthyr against the Army of Darkness that had gathered to bring the city down. But there'd also been many who'd tried to ransack the city and the homes of the inhabitants on their way out of town. Some of those had died on her sword. What Chalice of the Crowns carried was only a fraction of what remained to be taken out of the doomed city. It represented her great-grandfather's legacy. She would not let it be taken.