"How long has the light been burning, Mor?" Rhys asked, raising his voice to carry over the sharp crack of the sail snapping in the wind as the small sailing ship cut through the surf under the skilled guidance of its master.
The skiff wasn't large; there was barely room for a dozen men to man the oars for traversing the shallow, treacherous waters on the far side of the Silver Cliffs, and the combination of Count Rhys, Sir Mor, the ship's master, and a pair of guardsmen made the remaining space very crowded.
Beyond the protective embrace of Blackwell Harbor's towering cliffs, the wind came at them from three directions at once, howling off the open sea to the east, sweeping down from the cliffs to the west, and curling back around the rocky islands that dotted this stretch of coastline to create eddies that made every heading a battle.
