by Roger Moore
“Step on him? Step on him?” The gnome was suddenly seized by a fit of laughter that was cut short only when the topmost books slid off his stack and struck him on the top of his bald head. The whole stack spilled across the floor immediately after that. Teldin and Aelfred helped the gnome pick up his books, though the gnome had trouble picking them up himself because he was unable to stop laughing.
“My, my, I really am going to have to remember that one. That was very good, just excellent!” Dyffed gasped, wiping away the tears. “When I get to Ironpiece, I’m going straight to Admiral Maxineutonarisprago to tell him, and the old boy will simply rupture himself.”
“What’s so funny?” Teldin asked, dreading the answer.
“Oh, you know that – no, wait, of course you don’t know, you couldn’t, which makes it all the funnier, you see, because a fal would just barely fit into the cargo hold on this ship, with no room left over for its luggage, if it had any to carry with it. Not to mention any of our luggage. Stepping on it and smashing it – now, that was quite the runniest thing.” The gnome sat on the floor and wiped his eyes again. He occasionally chuckled or shook his head in amazement.
Teldin sat back on his heels. The Prate’s cargo hold, he recalled, was about sixty feet long and a quarter of that wide. “A giant slug,” he said dully.
“I guess it makes as much sense as anything that’s happened to us since you came aboard, Teldin,” Aelfred said, picking up the last book and setting it on the gnome’s stack. He got to his feet and ran a hand through his close-cropped curls. “Well, fine, we eventually have to look for a giant slug. I’m tempted to go back to the saloon and think about this for a while, but I’d never come out again – not under my own power, anyway.”
Teldin had nothing to add as he came to his feet. In the months since the reigar’s ship had crashed on his house, he had managed with some success to keep his head above water as he learned more and more about the grand design of the cosmos. Once in a while he had to tread water harder than usual. This time, he felt he’d gone under.
“I’ll be in my cabin,” he said at last. “I’ve got some reading to do.” He started upstairs with Aelfred, leaving the gnome struggling with the stack of books below.
“It could have been worse, old son,” said Aelfred sagely, dapping a thick hand on Teldin’s shoulder. “The fal could have been another gnome.”
Chapter Six
“Ship ahoy!” rang out a distant cry on the third day. Teldin started awake. He raised his head and blinked, his head encased in thick fog, After a moment, he realized he was seated at the table in his cabin, with Cirathorn’s papers on the Spelljmmer pressed under his folded arms. He had been struggling through the papers for hours, cursing his inability to grasp the meaning of any word longer than six or seven letters, and the frustration and exhaustion had claimed him at last. He rubbed his eyes. He was aware that his clothes smelled of old, stale sweat, and his skin felt grimy. It was long past time to see about washing up and changing clothes.
He heard the bell on the main deck clang loudly, fast and hard. It didn’t stop.
“More ships! Low to port, just forward!” came a call from the direction of the forward bridge. Teldin froze, then jumped up from his chair and hastily stuffed the papers back into their scroll tube, sealing it and tying it to his belt with fumbling fingers. He then crossed the room in quick strides and flung the door open. As he ran aft down the companionway toward the door to the main deck, he heard frantic shouting from other crewmen.
“It’s a fleet, by the gods!”
“There’s a big one, like a pyramid! To the left!”
“Crew on deck! Battle stations!” Aelfred’s voice rang out from above, probably from the forecastle near the ballista, as always. “Get the damned lead out!”
“Captain, ten ships! Eleven!”
“Scorpions! Those are scorpion ships!” screamed someone in disbelief. “And viperships!”
Teldin ran onto the main deck and into chaos. Sailors ran for their stations, every face drawn and white with fear. He slammed into a half-elf gunner who was heading for the forecastle ladder, never feeling the pain, then nearly bumped into a waddling Dyffed before he got to the port railing. A solid line of a dozen crewmen was already there, cranking back heavy crossbows and stringing longbows with tight-lipped speed. He looked down over the rail and slightly forward.
A dozen or so specks of light moved against the infinite backdrop of constellations. Two of the specks were especially large; one even had three points, like a triangle. Teldin couldn’t imagine how far away they were or how fast they were going, but he could see they were moving in the same direction as the Probe. The specks of light were quickly getting larger, too. He could now tell that they were irregular in shape, some of the smaller ones being long and thin.
“Intercept course, Captain!” bawled a sailor from the forward bridge, hidden from Teldin’s view. “They’ll be ahead of us in a few minutes!”
“Clear the deck and strike the sails!” Aelfred roared out. “Get cover, but prepare to fire when we hit tactical speed! Helmsman!” Aelfred was shouting into a tube that went down to the lower bridge. “Maintain course, all ahead full! They can’t turn and catch up if we drive straight through them! We’ll run their gauntlet!”
“Almost down, and now this,” muttered a crossbowman standing next to Teldin, staring anxiously at the drifting specks of light to port. “I’ve rarely seen so many ships together in my life. Ptah send us luck with his wisdom.”
“Almost down?” Teldin said, not comprehending. He leaned over the railing and looked toward the bow. A huge, bright oval was fixed in space ahead of the hammership. The shape was painted with tans, greens, and blues, and wispy clouds streaked its face. Ironpiece, he thought, maybe named after the Krynnish coin, and he saw with astonishment that the world truly was shaped like a flattened coin seen from an oblique angle. This coin was hundreds of miles across at least. The world was so close that the Probe was only an hour or less from landing. He must have missed the approach as he slept. “More ships behind the first wave!” screamed the lookout. “At least a score more!”
“Teldin!” It was Aelfred. “Get your ass up here!”
Teldin immediately bolted for the stairs up to the forecastle. Aelfred was at the rail, watching the approaching ships with his brass spyglass. His lips pulled back from his teeth in an ugly parody of a smile.
“Know what those are?” Aelfred asked conversationally. He suddenly handed the spyglass to Teldin, who took it and sighted it on one of the irregularly shaped ships below.
It took a moment to find the ship among the star field’s distant glory. A yellow-legged thing swam into view, upside down in the glass. Teldin immediately thought of a large insect with a tail coiled over its back.
“A scorpion?” he asked.
“I’ve never actually seen a scorpion ship before, except in a scrap yard,” said Aelfred, “but they used to be everywhere before the Unhuman War. The elves wiped them out – or we thought they had. Orcs used them. See the claws?”
“Yes.” Paladine’s blood, Teldin thought. The claws on the ship he was watching had moved. The pincers were opening and closing. The scorpion’s deck was crowded with figures wearing black leather and holding polished steel.
“If they get hold of us with those things, we can hang it up,” Aelfred said. “They’ll tear the ship apart. A deathspider’s arms have nothing on them.”
Aelfred took the spyglass back and took another look. “All the gods be cursed,” he said under his breath. “What did we wander into?”
The answer came to Teldin easily. It was perfectly simple. “They want the cloak,” he said as he looked down over the railing, hands gripping the wood so hard that it hurt.
“How do you know?” Aelfred demanded, lowering the spyglass. Then he grimaced. “Of course. Everyone else does. Why not the orcs? Why in the Nine Hells not?” Aelfred turned and yelled right at Teldin’s face. “But how did they kno
w it was here?”
Without waiting for a response, he turned away and shouted to everyone on the ship. “Prepare to fire, on my command!” When he looked back at Teldin, there was no trace of the crooked smile that was his hallmark. “Old son,” he said softly, “if you’ve got a good card in your deck, you’d better play your hand now. We’ve got one chance to get through their formation when they drop us to tactical speed. I don’t know what they’ll do with us if they catch us, but I have no intention of finding out. We’ve got to get down to Ironpiece.” What can I do? Teldin thought in anguish. He looked around and saw a half-crouched crewman beside him raise a heavy crossbow and sight on a ship. “Let me take that,” Teldin said, reaching for the weapon. The crossbowman looked surprised but gave up the device without a word.
Teldin raised the heavy weapon and cradled it in his arms, fitting his right hand over the wooden stock and trigger. He looked down the notched metal sights, took a deep breath, and blew the air out of his lungs. Now’s the time, he thought, and willed the cloak to use its powers to help him.
On Teldin’s first trip into wildspace, he had discovered quite by accident that the cloak could change his perception of time, sharpening his concentration in the process. He had then been able to aim and fire a crossbow with unbelievable accuracy, killing a pirate gunner with but one shot. Would he be able to do anything now?
The oncoming scorpion ship in his sights was only half the size of a small coin held at arm’s length. What could he do to stop it? He couldn’t even see any creatures on it! He stared at the ship until his eyes watered.
Nothing happened.
Biting down on his fury, Teldin closed his eyes and lowered his head. He then handed the crossbow back to the sailor. He felt Aelfred’s eyes burning into him, waiting for some miracle to happen.
“Give me a few minutes,” he mumbled in despair.
“We don’t have a few minutes, Teldin,” Aelfred said quietly. “If you’re going to do something to pull us out of this, do it now.”
“I don’t know what to do!” Teldin screamed, balling his fists and turning to look at the orcish fleet, now closer and farther forward than before. The Probe was about to drive directly into them with only a minute remaining.
Aelfred stared at him, white-lipped, then turned away as if Teldin had vanished. “Aim on that scorpion with its back to us, the one just off to port there!” he shouted, pointing. “There’s a catapult on its tail! When I tell you, get that and the ballista crew on its back!”
Helpless, Teldin looked over the side to forward. One of the long, thin viperships ahead of them suddenly produced what looked like a glimmering cloud from its stern. The cloud became a hundred tiny flecks of light, expanding as it came on toward the Probe.
“Jettison!” yelled someone from the forward castle. “It’s dead on —”
Teldin had jerked his head back when he heard the word “jettison.” Scarcely a second later, hundreds of rocks, spikes, bolts, and deadly debris slammed into the hammership in a spray. He heard glass shattering and screams from forward. Suddenly he thought of Gaye. Where was she? Terror took hold of him. He didn’t know where to look for her.
The deck rocked under his feet at the same moment that the sound of snapping boards and screaming metal rang out. Teldin clutched at the forecastle deck railing. He saw board fragments spin wildly away from the bow.
“Helm down!” someone cried out in a hollow voice over the speaking tube. “We’ve been hit! The helm is down!”
“Damn it!” Aelfred bolted for the stairs, running crouched, taking the steps three at a time down to the main deck. Teldin ran after him, his mind reeling from the news. How could something have punched through the metal-plated hull that surrounded the lower bridge? It struck him then that Sylvie might be there, in the chart room next to the helm. He felt his chest tighten as he hurried after the captain. The helmsman on this watch would be Garioth, a bearded minor priest that Aelfred had hired two worlds back. Teldin ran from the foot of the stairs, across the main deck, to the forward companionway door, then through it and down the companionway to the stairs. At the bottom, he turned left, then forward to the open door into the lower bridge.
Red-splashed bodies lay on the floor among scattered charts and books. Part of the port hull was smashed through. Wild-space and stars beckoned through the hole. Aelfred had shoved aside a dead crewman whose green clothing was stained and glistening from a dozen awful wounds across his legs, chest, and face. Another crewman, a white-faced assistant navigator, staggered past Teldin, a foot-long spear of wood sticking out of his left side. An arm hung slack over the arm of the helm, framed in the doorway in which Teldin stood. He couldn’t see the priest in the chair, but he saw Aelfred grimace and pull back from the helm, his hands dark with the helmsman’s blood.
“Catapult got us. Let’s get out of here,” Aelfred said, heading for the door again. Teldin stood aside as Aelfred pulled the door shut. The captain then ran back to the main deck. Teldin started after him.
The companionway wall to his right was suddenly flung aside into Teldin’s face. Shooting stars filled his vision. There was a roaring sound in his head. He came to lying on his back, numb and disoriented. Someone was screaming far away. He blinked, looking at the paneled wall that hung at an angle over him. For a few moments he gaped at the woodwork that was revealed at the top of the wall. This ship was solidly built, he thought stupidly.
His head began to clear. “Paladine save me,” he whispered, trying to get up. He couldn’t move because of the pressure on his legs. Looking down, he saw that the door to the galley, which had been to his right, had been blown off its hinges and now lay across his legs with the greater part of the door frame and wall around it still attached. He looked up and saw a gaping hole in the ceiling as well. Beyond the broken timber lay blackness and many stars.
The galley’s gone, he thought, the port “eye” of the hammership. Completely gone, and it tore away pan of the port side when it left. Far away, men were shouting. Teldin tried to pull himself out from under the door and frame, but his legs were caught and the door had wedged itself into the starboard companionway wall and the door to the helmsman’s quarters.
Shivering panic ran through his bones. “Help me!” Teldin called out. “Somebody!” He clawed at the companionway floor for the stairs, where Aelfred had gone. No one was coming.
The floor shook again as a cracking burst sounded from the hip’s stern. “Fire away!” he heard Aelfred roar in the distance. “Fire for all you’re worth!”
Teldin tried once more to pull out from under the door, but he couldn’t move. My cloak, he thought dully. Why doesn’t the cloak do something? Why doesn’t it help me? Why, why, why? He was feeling tired and overwhelmed. So suddenly, everything was gone, all because of the cloak. How many dead now? How many dead?
The floor rang again. People were yelling about the aft helm. Teldin closed his eyes. I wish, he thought, I wish, by Paladine, that we were out of here.
Time slowed down.
*****
A warm feeling spread down his back, through his legs, through his arms, into his face. Sharp agony stabbed him in his knees and thighs, then receded. His thoughts were strangely clear and light. Teldin felt a tug, that being the only word he knew for it, and he pulled free of himself.
The next thing he knew, he was hovering over the forecastle ballista. A half-elven gunner gripped the loaded weapon, aiming at a nearby scorpion ship. To Teldin’s surprise, Gaye was there, too, the kender ready to crank back the weapon after it fired. There was no sound. Everything had stopped dead.
Teldin looked around, down at the main deck. The bodies of several crewmen lay with their faces turned to the wooden deck or staring open-mouthed at the sky. There was Old Hok, an ex-slave of the neogi, who used to call Teldin “Talon.” Near him was a cargo hand, Mamnilla the halfling, who now lay curled around a pool of dark crimson. The survivors stood by the railing, poised to fire their bows and crossbows, thei
r faces set as they looked at their last battle.
Teldin drifted back from the forecastle deck over the ship. It felt perfectly normal to move this way. It was all a dream anyway, wasn’t it? The killing had stopped. Nothing would hurt his ship and his friends.
He hadn’t thought about it, but he headed for the spare helm room, on the main deck to his right, beneath the stern castle. He looked through the open door and saw a new hole in the port wall, where a ballista bolt had passed through. The bolt was now embedded in the helm, the helm’s wood split through where the flat-headed bolt had struck it. Two men were trying to pull the bolt out. Teldin saw that their efforts were wasted. The secondary helm was destroyed.
The Probe had no power.
Teldin left the sight and hovered over the stern castle. The star-filled space before the hammership was filled with yellow scorpion ships, green and blue viperships, and even a long, cherry-red squid ship with a ram. All bore insignia and flags of black, on which a fat red spider stood out. To port, Teldin could see another wall of ships lined against the distant stars. A huge stony ship, shaped like a pyramid, hovered perhaps only a quarter of a mile away. The nearest enemy vessel was dead ahead, a vipership perhaps a few hundred feet distant.
The Probe could no longer be saved.
So I will have to save it, thought Teldin. It was the most logical thing to do.
Time was going to start up now, he knew (without knowing quite how he knew), so he would have to hurry. I will become the ship, he thought. And he did.
He was now the Probe. Painlessly, he felt the great holes and tears in his hull, the shattered wood beams, the missing left eye of the hammerhead shape, the torn-away spanker at the tail. The ship’s spine still held, however.
We’re getting out of here, Teldin thought. Right now.
Time began.
Spiral was lost behind them. Before them was a shatters hammership. The fight was over as quickly as it had started. The admiral had wasted his time in bringing all that smoke-powder, General Vorr reflected. But it was just as well. The old scro was entirely too fond of the stuff.
