Teldin almost jumped down the ladder and sprinted across the foredeck. He staved off a massive jolt of guilt as he passed Merrienne's huddled body. The healers can do more for her than I can, he told himself. He sprinted up the portside ladder to the forecastle.
Julia was unscathed, he saw immediately, but another crewman hadn't been so lucky. The falling boom had bounced off the metal facing of the turret, shattering the port foredeck rail as if it were kindling. Somewhere along its path it had struck someone with the ill fortune to be standing just aft of the catapult shot hopper. Julia was kneeling beside the fallen man, her ear pressed to his chest, listening for a heartbeat.
Teldin didn't have to come any closer to know it was futile. The man's left shoulder and neck had taken the brunt of the impact, pulping the bones. The side of the man's skull, too, looked soft, like an overripe fruit. Even though the victim's face was distorted, Teldin recognized him easily as Allyn, the gunner's mate. The wind-tanned old man who'd survived a career in space that was longer than Teldin's entire life.
For what? the captain found himself wondering. To come here, to die in the service of Teldin Moore, Cloakmaster?
He looked up into the chaotic "sky" of the phlogiston that now surrounded the ship, tears blurring his view. Why? he silently demanded. Just what in the Abyss is it all for? One more dead-maybe two, if the healers' expressions were any indication. And the voyage had barely begun. How many more would fall before it was all over?
"Ship ahoy!"
The hoarse shout cut through Teldin's dark thoughts. He snapped his head around toward the source of the voice.
It was Dargeth, the half-orc, a member of the catapult crew. He was leaning against the forward rail of the turret, pointing out into the Flow. "Ship ahoy!" he repeated. "High on the port bow."
Teldin's gaze quartered the area of space Dargeth had specified. Nothing…
Yes, there it was, a black shape against the riotous colors of the phlogiston. It was close, too-closer than a ship had any right to be without being spotted… "What's the ship?" Teldin yelled. "And what course?"
The answer came from the afterdeck. Djan stood braced against the mizzenmast, Teldin's brass spyglass to his eye. "Battle dolphin," he called back. "And it's on an intercept course."
"A battle dolphin, confirmed," Djan sang out again a moment later. "It's maneuvering, probably trying to come in below us."
Even without a spyglass, Teldin could see that the half-elf was right. The black shape of the enemy ship was sinking toward the starboard rail. Soon it would be masked from view-and from weapon shot-by the squid ship's own hull.
"Load all weapons!" the Cloakmaster ordered. "Helm up now!"
"It'll take a couple of minutes to warm it up," Julia reminded him.
Teldin cursed under his breath, remembering his own order to bring the helm down. They didn't have a couple of minutes. But, at least, they did have other options.
"Get Beth-Abz up on deck," he told Julia. Then he planted his back against the mainmast and braced his feet. With an effort, he forced his breathing to slow and his muscles to relax.
*****
Berglund lowered his spyglass and snorted in amazement. The mystery man had proven himself right on two counts. Here was the target squid ship, right on time-and, lo and behold, dead in space. Would wonders never cease?
He flashed the other members of his bridge crew a predatory smile. "Bring us in," he ordered quietly. "Below their hull, if you please."
"Yesss, ssir," his first mate, an olive-scaled lizardman, hissed. Surprisingly fast for his heavy build, he hurried down the ladder to the helm compartment directly below, to convey his captain's orders.
"They're not maneuvering," Rejhan, Berglund's second mate, told him. "Their helm must be down."
The pirate captain nodded his agreement. "Continue to bring us in," he ordered. Then his smile broadened. "And… catapults away," he added almost negligently.
The hull of the Shark jarred beneath his feet as the vessel's twin catapults fired.
****
"They're firing! Take cover!" Djan screamed from the sterncastle.
Around him, Teldin heard the scurrying of feet as the crew took Djan's suggestion and found shelter. He wanted to do the same thing himself, wanted to crouch behind the metal glacis of the turret.
But saving his own life wasn't the only thing he had to worry about at the moment. The ship and its entire crew were his responsibility. The helm was down, and the Boundless truly helpless…
Unless he did something about it.
The squid ship jolted hard as a catapult shot struck the low port quarter of the bow. In his peripheral vision the Cloakmaster saw the second shot hurtle by, a couple of yards away.
"They're reloading!" Djan called.
Teldin took a deep breath-so deep that his chest felt as though it would burst-then let all the air spill out of his lungs. A sense of calm came down upon him, stilling the knotting fear in his belly. The sounds around him-the creak of the windlass as the weapon crew wound back the main catapult, the thunder of feet on the deck-seemed suddenly muffled, not as sharp, somehow. And yet he could hear everything, even those noises normally much too quiet for his ears to detect. He felt the presence of the cloak on his back.
The cloak felt warm around his shoulders-not the simple, passive warmth of a garment, more like the vibrant warmth of a living thing. Even though he couldn't see it, he knew it was starting to glow with a pink light. He felt his awareness start to blossom, to expand. I am the ship….
Julia grabbed his arm, and the glow-and the expanded perception associated with it-faded slightly. "Get below," she told him. "You're exposed out here."
He shook his head. "No time. I have to take over the ship now."
She gripped tighter. "You can do that from anywhere!" she shouted at him. "If you get yourself killed up here, what good will that do the rest of us?"
He wanted to argue but had to accept the sense of her words. He let the awareness, the sense of the cloak's power, slip away. Then he turned and followed her down into the forecastle.
*****
The squid ship still hadn't moved, Berglund saw. It still just hung there against the backdrop of the Flow, like a strangely shaped fruit ripe for the picking. He turned to his second mate.
"Rejhan, bring us in along their axis, full on the bow," he ordered.
The dark-haired man looked aghast. "On the bow… ?" he echoed. "But… but captain, all they have to do is roll and we're in their main catapult's field of fire, at point-blank range."
"Follow my orders," Berglund said, his voice deceptively calm.
Rejhan blanched even more and jumped to obey.
Berglund smiled. But behind that smile, he was doubting. Am I depending too much on the mystery man's promises? he asked himself. The next two minutes would tell.
*****
Teldin hurried into his cabin, flung himself into a chair, and tried to recapture the sense of calm. To his surprise, it returned almost at once. Again he felt his perception, his awareness, expand beyond the physical limits of his body, until it encompassed the whole ship. Again, he was the ship: he could feel its every plank, its every dowel. Its keel was his spine, its thwarts his ribs, its hull his skin, and its sheets and lines his muscles. He could sense the minor damage inflicted on the hull by the enemy's catapult shot, and the torn and twisted rigging, as a strange tingling, a kind of pain-yet-not-pain. The cabin brightened as the cloak began to glow with a rosy pink light.
With his expanded perception, he could see the approaching enemy clearly, even though he was inside the ship, and the other vessel was screened by the squid ship's own bow. The adversary was close enough now for him to make out details without the benefit of a spyglass.
A dolphin, Djan had called it, and the name was appropriate. It was a smooth-lined ship reminiscent of a huge fish-maybe a jumping trout, Teldin thought-with its horizontal fluked tail raised higher than the main body. A turret atop the tail
contained one catapult-heavy or medium, he couldn't be sure-while another catapult was mounted on the main deck just forward of the mast. The whole vessel, painted a misty blue-gray, was as long as the squid ship and slightly broader, hinting at a greater tonnage. The battle dolphin was coming in slowly, though Teldin had the unmistakable feeling it could move fast enough when necessary.
There was something about the ship's approach that bothered Teldin. It took him a moment to realize what it was.
"They're coming in wrong," the Cloakmaster said to Julia, who was standing in the cabin doorway. In his own ears, his voice sounded emotionless, detached. "It's as if they're daring us to roll and use our catapult. What do they know that we don't?"
Julia opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak Teldin's answer came from the deck above him. A crash and screams of fright came from the forward turret. The Cloakmaster's perception instantly focused on the foredeck.
The catapult had torn itself apart, he saw at once. As the crew had been winding back the shaft, one of the thick skeins of hemp fiber that provided the weapon's power had torn. The unbalanced force had wrenched the shaft to one side, tearing it loose from one of the bearings. A man in the weapon crew had been struck by the shaft and seemed to have a broken arm. The others were unharmed, he was glad to see.
But the catapult-the squid ship's only forward-firing weapon-had been rendered useless.
How did the enemy captain know… ?
*****
The Sharks second mate lowered his spyglass and shot a sidelong glance at Berglund. "Their catapult's down, Captain," he said.
Berglund just nodded. "Clear their decks, Rejhan," he ordered simply.
The second mate jumped to relay the order, but the unasked question still echoed in his head: How had the captain known… ?
*****
"Firing again!"
Teldin could hear Djan's voice twice-once, muffled, through his own ears; and once, clear as crystal, via his expanded perception. Even against the distracting background of the flow, he could track the enemy's catapult shots coming in. This time they weren't single stones, but clusters of pebbles. This "grape shot" couldn't harm a ship's hull or rigging, but was absolute murder on an exposed crew. He tried to call out a warning, but was a moment too late.
The tiny stones rattled off the foredeck over Teldin's head, sounding like a sudden lashing of hail. His ears were filled with screams. All over the ship he saw crewmen stagger and fall as the tiny stones tore into their flesh. Djan's forearm was laid open to the bone, but he kept his position by the speaking tube.
I've got to get us out of this, Teldin told himself, or they'll slaughter us. He extended the power of the cloak, the ultimate helm, and tested the squid ship's response.
With the first touch of power it surged forward responsively, but it resisted turning and rolling as if it were a live thing. It must be the rigging damage, Teldin realized, with a chill feeling in his stomach. Even with the ultimate helm, a ship needs rigging if it's to maneuver. He cut back on the power and examined the situation.
It wasn't good. As he'd discovered from experimenting with the Fool, he could drive a ship with any degree of speed or control only forward. That meant the Boundless's possible range of motion could be pictured as a flaring cone centered around the line of its keel. In this case, it was a narrow funnel, because he couldn't turn the ship's bow rapidly. No matter how fast he drove the ship, he'd still be within the battle dolphin's fire pattern for several minutes, the last portion of which he'd be at point-blank range.
Paladine's blood! he raged to himself. If the battle dolphin had made a normal approach-from the side, or the stem- he'd be able to use the speed of the ultimate helm to escape. But because the enemy was directly on his bow, his choices were cut to few or none. Again, it's as if the enemy captain knows my situation….
At least there's one thing he doesn't know about. With his extended vision, Teldin could see Beth-Abz-in human form, he was glad to note-clamber up onto the foredeck. We have one forward-firing weapon left, the Cloakmaster told himself with a grim smile. He watched the black-haired man stride to the front of the foredeck and grab the rail with both hands to steady himself.
Suddenly Teldin knew the tactics he had to use if he wanted to get out of this alive. He felt his lips draw back from his teeth, his smile becoming an almost feral grimace.
"Tell Beth-Abz to hold on," he told Julia. "Don't do anything until I say so."
She nodded, backed out of the cabin-leaving the door open behind her-and took up a position by the saloon's door that led out onto the deck. Teldin heard her voice as she relayed his instructions to the beholder above him.
Behind him, around him, he felt the ultimate helm's energy as he drove the squid ship forward.
*****
"They're moving!" the Sharks second mate called out.
His cry was unnecessary. Berglund had already seen the target ship lurch forward, directly toward the battle dolphin. Damn, he thought, they've got the helm up again sooner than expected. But he was close enough now to see the damaged rigging, the missing gaff boom, the mainsail still flapping uselessly over the squid ship's starboard rail. He remembered the time, several years ago, when he'd captained a military squid ship, and reviewed in his mind what he knew of that vessel's maneuverability. With that much damage, the enemy would be about as maneuverable as a heavily laden tradesman-in other words, not much at all. In contrast to his topped-out battle dolphin, it may as well have remained dead in space for all the good an operating helm would do for it. He smiled again.
"Hold course," he ordered.
Then, to his shock, he saw the squid ship leap forward, faster than any ship had any right to move….
*****
Teldin gasped with the exertion-neither physical nor mental, but something totally different-as he poured on the power. In only a few seconds, the Boundless was up to its normal top speed, and still it accelerated.
Suddenly the heavy vessel lurched, tried to maneuver in a way that Teldin hadn't intended. He knew that the ship's major helm was on line again, and knew that the helmsman was trying to take command of the vessel.
"Get Blossom off the damn helm!" he yelled to Julia, and again heard her echo the order aft. After a moment, he felt the extraneous movement cease as he regained control of the ship. "And tell Beth-Abz to get ready."
The enemy battle dolphin loomed ever larger before the Boundless. He altered the ship's heading by a few degrees-even that minor change taking great effort-and brought the squid ship's slender piercing ram to bear on the larger vessel. Still the Boundless accelerated.
He saw the attacking vessel's two catapults fire again, and watched both shots go wide as the enemy gunners tried to track their high-speed target. That would be their last chance, he knew. There was no way they'd have the time to load and fire again before this was over… one way or another.
The battle dolphin swelled in his forward view. "Brace for ramming!" he bellowed. "And tell Beth-Abz to hit them with everything he's got!"
*****
They're ramming! Berglund felt a sudden chill. The enemy was taking the fight to him. This engagement wasn't going the way he'd intended it at all.
But then he relaxed a little. What other choice did the enemy captain have, after all? With no way to maneuver, the squid ship's tactical choices were cut almost to nil. A successful ram would damage the Shark, perhaps seriously, but it wouldn't destroy the larger vessel. Then Berglund's crew would swarm aboard the enemy-his highly trained boarding crew easily outnumbering the smaller, and generally untrained, crew of the target-and that would be the end of the fight. Mentally he reviewed the crew roster the mystery man had given him. There were three people aboard the squid ship worthy of respect in combat: the captain himself and the first and second mates. Everyone else, however, may as well already be dead before the swords of his boarding party.
No, he remembered suddenly, there was one unknown quantity: the large,
curly-haired warrior who'd signed on soon before the squid ship had left port. He might prove to be a problem, so Berglund would order four of his better swordsmen to handle the burly man. No matter how good he may be, he wouldn't last long against four swords.
There he was! Berglund could see him on the foredeck of the rapidly approaching squid ship. If Berglund could see him, that meant he in turn could see the armed warriors lining the rails of the Shark. Yet, even seeing the force arrayed against him, the big man seemed undismayed.
That was something to consider, wasn't it? That much confidence might be based on some foundation….
All this flashed through Berglund's mind in a heartbeat. Maybe accepting the ram wasn't a wise decision after all….
"Hard to port!" the pirate captain yelled.
But it was too late. With a sudden pang of real fear, Berglund saw the squid ship-impossibly-accelerate even more.
Then he saw the large warrior on the enemy's foredeck start to change….
*****
Teldin growled with fierce exhilaration as he saw Beth-Abz assume its true form. A beam of brilliant green- brighter than the sun-lashed out from one of the beholder's lesser eyes and struck the battle dolphin amidships. The Cloakmaster saw the heavy wood of the hull flash into dust under the magical onslaught.
Then the squid ship's piercing ram struck. The impact hurled Teldin from his chair, into the forward bulkhead. For a moment he was stunned, the ringing in his ears drowning out the sound of shattering timber. Shaking his head to clear it, he forced himself to a sitting position. The glow of the cloak-flickering as he struggled to regain control- flared brightly once more. His expanded perception returned.
The Boundless's slender ram had driven deep into the "head" of the battle dolphin, piercing the reinforced wood as if it had been light balsa. Chunks of torn timber, knocked free by the impact, slammed against the hull of the squid ship. Many of the battle dolphin's crewmen had been knocked to the deck, he saw, but they were quickly readying themselves to board.
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