"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 know 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 st
airs, 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, their 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.
"Prepare for boarding!" Vorr shouted to his scro marines. The Venomous Hullсatcher would be the first marine vessel to reach the hammership, but Vorr's ship would be close behind it. Vorr would have preferred the first boarding go to a more experienced crew on another scorpion ship, particularly the Eyecutter, but the scro of the Venomous Hullkatcher could use the experience, and it was, after all, the closest marine ship. If the crew on the vipership Hellfang held back on its jettison fire, the operation would be over within a matter of two or three minutes.
The whole thing was rather a waste of time, Vorr thought, given the way the hammership was so overwhelmed. He should have taken out just six ships at most, maybe four, and made it a challenge. He still wondered how the false lich was able to know that the cloak-wearing human had taken a ship to Ironpiece from the Rock of Bral. He'd have to check the lich's equipment over after he killed it; maybe Usso would get a present out of it.
"The pyramid is signaling, sir," the scro at his right elbow observed. General Vorr looked across the black gulf to the lich's pyramidal spelljammer. Bright light flashed out from each of the four corners of the pyramid, spelling out a short message in scro pulse code. The lich-or whatever that skeletal, robed thing was-had been remarkably efficient at installing the magical lights and at learning basic scro codes. The undead thing had admitted to being quite taken with this method of communication; it gave the lich ideas, the lich had said.
"The commander of the pyramid asks you to cease fire, to prevent harm to the cloak," the scro read.
Vorr nodded, having seen the same message. "Signal to him that we are about to board," the general muttered. "We will cease fire." He looked back at the ruined hammership and again thought about the joy he would have, wrapping his thick fingers around the lich-thing's skull and shattering it into a thousand-
The hammership moved. Rather, it shot forward so fast that Vorr could barely follow it. He saw its bow slice through the upper deck of the vipership ahead of it, then its mast smash against the lower hull of a scorpion ship farther ahead, splitting the scorpion almost in two. The hammership's main mast snapped off only ten feet above its forecastle deck, the pole carried away in the collision. Then the hammership was through the whole formation and was fading from sight on a course dead-set for the flat world of Ironpiece.
Vorr simply stared. Precious seconds slipped by before he regained his thoughts and voice.
"Go after it!" he roared. "Signal all ships! Get that damned hammership!"
The scro at his elbow grabbed at the signaling switch on the railing before him and prepared to bock out the message, but he was distracted by the flashing of another ship's lights, from the hammership Chain Master just to starboard. The scro read the message, then spun around and looked up and aft.
"Armada, by Dukagsh!" he yelled, pointing. "Elves!"
Vorr turned, eyes wide. From out of nowhere, out of nothing at all, a titanic orange butterfly had appeared. It was right behind Admiral Halker's elephant-faced flagship, an ogre mammoth called the Thundertusk, easily within weapons' reach. This the gigantic elven ship proved by opening fire at point-blank range, above and aft of its huge, oval target.
Fireballs and lightning bolts exploded across the Thundertusk's upper deck. Vorr saw ogres and scro hurled like cornhusk dolls into space from the mammoth's back, their black armor aflame. Shattered and burning planking burst in all directions, backlit by a stupendous fireball that punched into the rear of the reconditioned mammoth like a god's sledgehammer. A flaming wood-and-metal shield, a section of the mammoth's starboard ear, was thrown whirling into space.
"All units! Attack!" Vorr shouted at the top of his lungs. The admiral would have to save himself, if saving he needed. The scro hastily flashed Vorr's message as his own ship's catapults came to life, flinging two-ton loads of stone up at the gigantic wings of the elven warship above them. The first shots were off, but the gunners were already adjusting the sighting.
By the Tomb of Dukagsh, this was a fight! the general thought with a mixture of shock and excitement. An armada, an elven capital ship! But how could it have just appeared there? Were the rumors of cloaking devices on elven ships true? Could the elves hide entire battleships right up to the moment of attack?
"We'll know soon enough, wh
en we peel your skin off," the general said aloud. The scro next to him wisely said nothing. "It shouldn't take long. Twenty-seven ships to one seems fair enough to me." Vorr smiled.
At that moment, he saw a second elven ship, a man-o-war, appear out of nowhere and open fire on a vipership. The smaller vessel immediately burst apart in flames, its back broken.
Another man-o-war then appeared and went for its prey. Then a third and a fourth one came out of nowhere.
Ten minutes later, the gnomes arrived and shot at everyone.
Teldin wondered when the dream would end. He felt very warm and light-headed. He still couldn't move his legs, but they felt fine now. Numb, but fine.
In one way, Teldin could still see the companionway around him, with the buckled port wall and the hole in the ceiling where the galley had been. In another way, he was looking ahead of the Probe, as if he were still hovering above it like a guardian spirit. The curve of Ironpiece's distant edge now filled the forward view. The near edge of the world was below them and falling sternward rapidly. The ship was going right where Teldin wanted it: down to the ground.
I need a lake, he thought, as he watched one pass far beneath the ship. The Probe has to land in water. There must be water ahead somewhere.
"Teldin."
Teldin wasn't surprised. He had vaguely noticed Aelfred coming down the stairs from the main deck. Aelfred was followed by Sylvie, who had a torn strip of cloth wound around her bloodied head. It was a strip from Aelfred's shirt, he noticed. Aelfred seemed uninjured.
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