Captain Deudermont lifted his hand high and looked to Robillard for guidance. “Alongside her fast and straight,” he instructed the helmsman.

“Not to rake?” Waillan Micanty asked, echoing perfectly the sentiments of the helmsman, for normally Sea Sprite would cripple her opponent and come in broadside to the pirate’s taffrail, giving Sea Sprite’s archers greater latitude and mobility.

Robillard had convinced Deudermont of a new plan for the ruffians of Quelch’s Folly, a plan more straightforward and more devastating to a crew deserving of no quarter.

Sea Sprite closed—archers on both decks lifted their bows.

“Hold for me,” Deudermont called along his line, his hand still high in the air.

More than one man on Sea Sprite’s deck rubbed his arm against his sweating face; more than one rolled eager fingers over his drawn bowstring. Deudermont was asking them to cede the initiative, to let the pirates shoot first.

Trained, seasoned, and trusting in their captain, they obliged.

And so Argus’s crew let fly…right into the suddenly howling winds of Robillard’s air elemental.

The creature rose up above the dark water and began to spin with such suddenness and velocity that by the time the arrows of Argus’s archers cleared their bows, they were soaring straight into a growing tornado, a water spout. Robillard willed the creature right to the side ofQuelch’s Folly, its winds so strong that they deterred any attempt to reload the bows.