Emmaline drew a deep breath. She realized there was a very high likelihood she was about to die. Ordinarily that would have scared her, but the thought of being enslaved again was more repulsive and terrifying than mere death. Long moments passed with no sound of alarm broke through the roar of the sword. She waited as long as she dared before taking a final deep breath and pushing open the hatch. An elf sailor stood in front of her, soaked to the skin by the rain, he froze in shock for the half second it took for her staff to fly up between his legs. The blow struck home and the elf doubled over in pain. Emmaline drove the top of her staff down onto his head with a crunch and sprang up the short flight of stairs to the quarterdeck. 

The sea heaved mountainusly and the spray flew so thick it nearly drowned her. The heat of adrenaline warmed her like a fire against the icy chill of this northern sea and it kept her moving in-spite of her fear. On the aft deck was the wheel, where stood the eleven captain and another elf wrestling with the wheel. They looked up at her in shock and the captain opened his mouth to shout something but she darted past him to her goal. Atop a swiveling platform at the rear most extension of the ship stood a large bolt thrower. She grabbed the weapon and hauled it around as best she could. The Captain seeing her intent let go of the wheel and grabbed for his sword, the ship luffed alarmingly as it lost way against the wind and the cruel elf hesitated for a half second. It was all that was needed. Emmaline heaved on the firing lever and the repeating bolt thrower thumped like a slaming door. A razor sharp bolt the thickness of Emmaline's thigh punched the captain through the chest and hammered him back into the wheel shattering it in a shower of splinters. The ship yawed sideways as it lost way completely turning broad side to the oncoming wave. Emmaline aimed and fired again the bolt smashing the rearward mast step to pulp. High above she could see Amal and Brenly in the fighting top, staring down at her in abject horror. Abandoning the bolt thrower she screamed a spell and summoned forth an arc of golden light, slicing the remainder of the mast away and severing all but a few of the many cables that ran to it. The roaring wind wipped at the lateen sail, now connected to noghting more than the fighting top, its own yard and a few cables. Ropes parted with a crack like thunder and Emmaline dived for the nearest, catching it and wrapping her arm in it for dear life. The face of the wave rushed on, fifty feat of roaring frothing seawater, and if any Elves had taken their eyes from that she could not see them. THe final cables parted and the fighting top and the lateen ripped skyward under the titanic forces of the wind. Emmaline was yanked upwards so hard she nearly dislocated her arm as they sailed free of the ship and up into the storm tossed sky. Her last vision of the Dark Elf raider was of the ship going broad side as the wave plowed over it, taking the crew and the remaining cargo to Mannan's judgement.

Emmaline could see nothing from the driving rain in her eyes as she hauled herself arm over arm up the cable. Amal and Brenly pulled her aboard but they were already losing momentum from the gust and sagging back towards the roiling sea. Emmaline shook the men off and placed her hands on the heavy wooden yard.

"Haul in the cables and find something to tie them to!" she screamed over the roaring wind as she began to work the spell. It was possibly the greatest magical working she had attempted in her young life. THe wood around her hands began to change hollowing out and forming diamond hard mage glass. It was a trick for creating durable reagent bottles and never meant for anything on this scale, but she held on and kept chanting. Slowly their decent began to slow as hundreds of pounds of timber dissapeared under the effect of the spell. Amal and brenly hauled on the ropes till the Lateen made a triangular slightly slanted canopy above them, the top now light enough to be held aloft by the wind a few dozen feet above the storm tossed ocean, rocking and surging like the down of a thistle. The spell spread like an oil stain across all the timbered surfaces until it seemed they were held aloft in a tub made of glass.

"Should I cut the cables!" Brenly called, wild eyed at what Emmaline had wrought.

"No..we.. need the.. sea ancors or we will flip," she groaned hoarsely, pulling her hands free and ending the incantation. The magical effort had been immense and it had nearly been too much for the young wizard. Her eyes flickered with traces and sparks of gold for a moment and then dimmed.

"For my next trick.. I need a voulnteer," she gasped and collapsed into a faint.