They raced through the streets of Sartossa as fast as their legs could carry them, which in Markus and Rajad's case was pretty fast but in Emmaline's was somewhat less so.

"You were the one that insisted I wear a dress!" Emmaline protested as Markus all but pulled her along by the wrist. Fortunately there were no ambushes waiting for them. Hired killers tended to grow somewhat squeamish when a dozen of them were cut down in the attempt, and those Von Roberts had hired decided that the fifty percent upfront was probably all they were going to get at good value. The danger now was that the port would be closed because of the incident. Von Roberts as an established pirate would have the advantage if it ended up before the council.

Markus all but hurled Emmaline up the gang plank and onto the hammer, ignoring her squawk of protest as he started bellowing orders to cast of lines. Morgan who had been in the middle of loading stores of dried fish, didn't hesitate, shouting orders through cupped hands and yelling for pirates to roust their mates from whatever bars or brothels they had vanished into. Within ten minutes all but two of the crew, too drunk or perhaps dead to be roused were aboard. Unfortunately the winds and tides did not favor leaving port, infact the making tide was nearly the worst possible time and the sea breeze only confounded matters.

"Boats?" Morgan asked skeptically. Towing the ship out by way of its boats might be the only way to get the Hammer out of harbor before the ebbing tide, but towing a ship against a flow of water was a back breaking exercise.

"We never make it," Markus replied bluntly.

"I have an idea," Emmaline interjected. Morgan glanced sideways at her but continuted talking as though she hadn't spoken.

"We could take our way out, be almost slower than boats the reaches wed have to make, and i'd not bet we dont end up aground if we miss our stays."

"I have an idea!" Emmaline repeated more emphatically. 

"Have you become a master sailor witch?" he asked wearily as Markus quirked an eyebrow.

"And get all salty and avast thar ma harties? Perish the thought, but I think I can get the ship out of harbor..."


Emmaline rode the bower anchor down onto one of the ships both in which six sailors stood agog. They all stared in horror as it settled onto the timbers. The boat creaked slightly as they guided it down on the timbers. Emmaline kept her hand on the anchor as she stepped onto the planking, whispering a chant in a low voice.

"Row!" Markus shouted from the prow and the sailors, scrambled to their oars trying not to look at the golden haired woman. They took up the stroke and the boat moved out over the water, pulling the anchor cable behind them. What disturbed them was how easy it was, because they knew that rowing an anchor that weighed upwards of a thousand pounds of bronze and steel should have been a task. Instead the boat rode as lightly as if it were not there at all. They covered the hundred yards of the cables length towards the mouth of the harbor till the rope grew taut.

"Ok put it over the side," Emmaline ordered. The sailors would have been less disturbed to touch a corpse, but the six of them gingerly lifted the anchor, ignoring the fact it weighted no more than a woman and dropped it over the side. The second the anchor left Emmaline's grasp it plunged like the massive weight it was, launching a shower of spray as it sped to the bottom.

"Haul!" the coxain shouted through cupped hands and on the deck of the Hammer, sailors threw their weight against the capstain bars, hauling the ship out into the harbor towards the anchor by main strength. Within ten minutes the Hammer was atop her anchor, the making tide running against her cutwater.

"What do we do now?" one of the sailors asked. Emmaline gave him a sour look and then looked down at her ruined silk dress.

"Yeah well dont say I never did anything for you," she grumbled and then leaped into the water, pulling herself down the cable hand over hand. There was a splash from the Hammer as the second bow anchor was dropped and then she began to rotate slowly around the cable.

"Haul you dogs!" Morgan roared at the boat crew, who obediently began hauling the first anchor up. Once again it weighed almost nothing and a minute later they pulled a spluttering sea weed caked Emmaline and her strangely light anchor up onto the boat. It took two repititions of the process until they were far enough out into the channel that the sails would fill and the Hammer began to move out of the passage at the speed of a walking man. An exhausted looking Emmaline and the full thousand pounds of anchor were hauled back up onto the deck, the sorceress having no strength left to work the spell.

"At least," she gasped, "I out ran my counterfeit money spell."