"Well I never was very good at following instructions."

Emmaline nearly dropped her sword as Amal swept her up in his embrace. So relieved was she to see him that she momentarily forgot that they were on a ship full of murderous elves. The embrace continued until the older man beside Amal cleared his throat politely. Emmaline peered at him before the realization struck her.

"Sir Brenly?" she asked in astonishment. The older Knight performed a courtly bow. She couldn't fathom how he hadn't drowned when El Cragador went down, but she supposed if she and Amal had survived, perhaps others had as well.

"My Lady," he said with a grin that made him look a decade younger. She handed him the sword, the tip stained with drying blood, to the Knight certain that it would be more use in his hands than in hers. Brenly took it and glanced at the blood.

"You have already seen some of the enemy I take it?" he asked. Emmaline nodded, pointing back towards the door to the officers mess where a thin trail of blood dissipated into a cupboard. If she had time the might have used a spell to clean it up, but it seemed unlikely they would remain undiscovered long enough for it to matter. She thought she could hear a distant hammering on a hatch, but the storm was too furious to be sure.

"Do you have a plan?" Amal asked. Emmaline looked a little embarrassed though not as much as Sir Brenly who appeared to be trying to avoid looking at the rain soaked silk clinging to her body.

"Find the carpet and escape was about as far as I got," she admitted. In retrospect that wasn't much of a plan, even before there had been  a third person involved, so far as she knew the carpet had been burned with the Destrier after the Dark Elves had looted her. Amal and Brenly exchanged glances. Emmaline folded her arms crossly.

"Well if either of you has an idea," she asked. Both men looked at each other in chagrin. What did they expect her just to fly them to saftey? Emmaline frowned.

"I have an idea," she said after a moment.

"A good idea?" Amal asked.

"Well lets not get ahead of ourselves," she cautioned before kneeling down on the deck and scratching a rough outline of the ship on the ancient timber.

"Most of the elves are going to be working the ship," she explained, quickly relating what she had seen when she had peaked out into the malestrom of the storm.

"If you two can get up into the little box just below the sail on the back mast..."

"The aftermost fighting top," Brenly added pedantically. Emmaline shot him a waspish look.

"Whatever, if you can get up there, I think I can get us out of here..."