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the law.
    ‘We aren’t seriously going to allow this woman to dictate to us?’ Onyx protested. ‘How dare she threaten to imprison us!’
    ‘I don’t think she is threatening,’ Vale quietly said.
    Diamond was rubbing his beard thoughtfully. ‘Well?’ Onyx asked. ‘She can’t be serious about putting us in the Bogpit, can she? I mean, she’s made that threat before and nothing happened.’
    ‘Many times,’ Diamond agreed. He stood by his chair. ‘Only this time I think our brother Vale is right. This time she isn’t bluffing.’ The assembled Seers waited for Diamond to continue, but he moved around the table towards the door.
    ‘Then what will we do if she’s having us arrested?’ Seer Gold asked.
    ‘I, for one, won’t be spending time in the Bogpit!’ Onyx roundly declared.
    Diamond turned to his colleagues. ‘No. None of us will be spending any time in the Bogpit.’ He drew a breath. ‘But we will send to our brothers and inform them of the Queen’s latest outburst, and we will do what we can to hasten their arrival with the Prince.’
    ‘How will we keep out of the Bogpit?’ Vale asked.
    Diamond smiled. ‘We will tell the Queen that we have been mistaken and that we will help her to defend the kingdom.’
    ‘Against our brothers?’ Onyx asked.
    ‘Defending the kingdom takes many forms, Onyx,’ Diamond said. ‘I never said from whom we were defending it, or in whose name we were defending it. Only that we will defend it.’
    ‘She’ll send us to the battle lines,’ said Gold. ‘Then what?’
    ‘Magic is such an unpredictable skill. Our Blessings are from Jarudha and if He does not bless us on the battlefield we can hardly expect our magic to work, can we?’
    ‘It’s still a battlefield,’ argued Onyx. ‘We can be killed.’
    Diamond shook his head. ‘The Bogpit? Or possibly a battlefield?’ He spread his arms in a questioning gesture. ‘I know which is safer for me,’ he declared, ‘and we will already be standing among our friends. Our foes are our liberators.’
    The Seers looked at each other as they assessed Diamond’s wisdom and nodded approval. ‘There is a reason you are our leader,’ said Onyx.
    ‘I will tell the Queen personally that we are contrite and committed to defending the kingdom. Then we must consider quickly advancing two or three disciples to Seer status so that they can be the first to go out to battle. While I’m gone, you four can make the choices. Jarudha bless our work.’ In unison, the Seers echoed Diamond’s prayer for blessing.
    Sailors scurried up the mast, adjusting the sheets to catch more wind. The ship heeled to port in a sharp gust and Prince Future stumbled, grabbing the railing.On the slippery deck, thundermakers slid and fell as the ship rolled, and all throughout the Kerwyn shipmaster bellowed orders. A grappling hook thudded into the woodwork, and another, and sailors frantically scrambled to cut the ropes as the Shessian ship pulled closer. Seeing the Shessian soldiers preparing to board, Future unclasped his hilt strap and drew his sabre. ‘Get below, Your Highness!’ Sharpaxe yelled, but Future ignored the warning. It had been too long since he’d last felt the thrill of hand-to-hand combat. Too many people were mollycoddling him because he was the prince and heir to the throne.
    Three more grappling hooks thumped on the deck and jagged against the railing. The black canvas of the Shessian ship towered overhead and the shouts and cries of men eager to fight mingled with the scraping of wood as the two ships crashed together. Kerwyn soldiers and sailors pressed around the Prince as the Shessian soldiers leapt aboard and thundermakers boomed.
    Future stepped back and waited for his foe to break through the cordon. Swords and knives and pikes bristled in the struggling pack of men. A Kerwyn sailor slid backwards to lie at Future’s feet, his stomach torn open, blood squirting across Future’s dark grey trousers, and a