The Radiant Dragon

by Elaine Cunningham

  The scro spread his hands in dismissal. “That’s all. See to it.”

  Without a word, the bionoids turned and filed from the room. Four officers, twenty-odd bionoids altogether, Grimnosh mused. That might seem a small band to send against an elven swan ship, but conventional military odds favored one bionoid against ten fully armed scro. The scrawny bunch that had just left his office probably could have the elven crew for dawnfry without breaking a sweat.

  “I thought that went rather well, didn’t you, K’tide?” Grimnosh taunted.

  “As you predicted,” the spy master acceded in a tight voice. He rose. “If you have no further need of me?”

  “No, K’tide,” Grimnosh said meaningfully. “I have no further need of you.”

  K’tide bowed deeply and left the room. He moved as quickly as his brittle body allowed, taking a shortcut in order to beat the bionoid team back to their craft. His mission – not to mention his life – depended on his getting out of sight before Grimnosh decided who would have the honor of doing away with him.

  The insectare made his way to the landing deck. He ran a pale green hand over the sleek surface of his own ship, a vessel shaped like a grasshopper’s head with two long, trailing antennae. It had been too long since he had been aboard a klicklikak, the ship of his own people. Perhaps the alliance with the scro had broken down, but he still had influence’ over the bionoid band. It would have to be enough.

  The group rounded the corner and pulled up short to see K’tide waiting for them. “There has been a slight change of plan,” K’tide announced.

  “The scro general sent you?” Wynlar asked, suspicion in his voice.

  For a moment K’tide debated whether to present his own agenda as his or Grimnosh’s. The bionoids had always been unhappy about the alliance with the scro; they were bound to be unnerved by their meeting with the fearsome general. Perhaps he should play into those feelings.

  “The scro has betrayed you,” K’tide answered firmly. “He plans to do away with you four as soon as you retrieve the human.”

  The bionoids exchanged worried glances, and K’tide saw that he had struck a nerve. “And the other members of Clan Kir?” asked Wynlar.

  “He needs them still, and he will until the Armistice goblins are released. As long as your people remain ignorant of the scro’s treachery, they will remain safe – at least for the time. You four are highly skilled and battle proven. That is why Grimnosh has chosen you to achieve his purpose. A short-sighted decision, but one to be expected from such as he.”

  “Why does the scro want this human?” demanded Wynlar.

  “The human has a cloak, an artifact of great power. As do all scro, Grimnosh wants this power for himself.”

  “Would it help him destroy the elves?” asked Tekura fiercely. K’tide suppressed a smile. Of all the bionoids, the silver-haired female had been his most stalwart ally.

  “Oh, yes, as well as every other race in wildspace,” K’tide said dryly. “Believe me, you would not want this cloak falling into scro hands.” The spy master came several steps closer. “There is more. In his lust for personal power, Grimnosh is abandoning the attack on Lionheart. I take it your first concern is to end the elven domination of the spaceways?”

  “Our first concern is the freedom of our own people,” Wynlar corrected him.

  “These are one and the same, are they not?” asked K’tide smoothly. “If we do not take matters into our own hands now, our goals will be lost Once the Armistice goblins are released, they have no further need of our services and we have no bargaining chips to use for their weapons. We must act now.”

  “What do you think we should do?” Wynlar asked quietly.

  The insectare took a step forward. “Attack the elven swan ship, as Grimnosh directed. Get the human’s cloak, but leave the ship and its crew intact.”

  “Why do we want this cloak?”

  “To be quite honest, at this point we don’t,” K’tide said firmly. “But the elves do. If their captain, Vallus Leafbower, should lose the cloak, he will be obliged to return to Lionheart and report his failure. We have an informant on board, though he has not proven as reliable as I would have hoped. A bionoid ship, armed with the stolen elven cloaking device, will follow the swan ship to Lionheart and release the secondary marauder.”

  “A risky plan,” Wynlar said cautiously.

  “Our only chance,” Tekura stressed, rounding on the captain. “K’tide is right. If we don’t move now, we’ll never have another chance at getting a Witchlight Marauder, and we’ll never have another chance to get one into Lionheart.”

  The bionoid captain bowed his head in resignation. “All right. We will tell Clan Kir only what Grimnosh asked of us: that we attack the elven vessel.”

  “We will travel together,” K’tide said. “I will follow aboard the klicklikak. Assign two of your ranks to serve as my crew.”

  “Bionoids, traveling on an insectare ship?” the bionoid wizard demanded. “Only an insectare can run the helm. You can’t power the klicklikak alone —”

  “There is an auxiliary helm,” K’tide broke in, “a lifejammer.”

  K’tide did not miss the bionoids’ shudders and the shocked glances they exchanged. “You will not use my people to power your ship,” Wynlar said, clearly appalled at the notion.

  The spy master suppressed a smile. It amused him that such fierce killers could have so soft a core. Of course, they had not had the benefit of Grimnosh’s tutelage, as he had. And he, K’tide, was a fast study.

  “I assure you, Wynlar, that won’t be necessary. I’ve had some kobolds packed in the hold. They should suffice as fuel.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Raven Stormwalker was the first to see the approaching ship. On her insistence, she’d been assigned duty on the forward watch. Although Vallus was a little leery of having her on the bridge, he had thought it wise to treat her as if she were what she claimed to be: a moon elf adventurer. The elven wizard watched Raven carefully, though always, Teldin noticed, from a considerable distance. It took Vallus several days before he could completely discard his theory of Raven as a “survivor,” and to shake his overwhelming horror of the type of living death such a being could deal. Teldin puzzled over the elven wizard’s strange reaction, but he had to admit that his own, private response to Raven Stormwalker was equally disturbing. She was, by appearances, an elf, and quite possibly the possessor of another ultimate helm, but Teldin was undeniably drawn to her.

  Almost daily Teldin found himself on the swan ship’s bridge during Raven’s watch, and more than once they’d spent the entire watch together, sometimes talking, sometimes gazing into wildspace in equally companionable silence. Not since Aelfred’s death had Teldin felt so at ease with another being. Perhaps Raven was a competitor for the Spelljammer, but who was not? If she was a competitor, she was also a comrade, and a palpable sense of kinship drew them together.

  Teldin could not, however, dispel the image of the monstrous face he’d seen superimposed on Raven’s features. What was she? Obviously, she was not the Raven Stormwalker of elven legend. If she could transform herself into an elf and – if the lakshu had been right – into a dragon, what was her true form? As Teldin puzzled this, it occurred to him that he’d reached a sad state of affairs: he found the prospect of a dragon less threatening than a woman.

  Whatever she was, Raven turned out to be a great favorite around the ship. She’d traveled widely and told her experiences in a wry, understated style that the story-loving elves found engaging. Her practical experience was also in demand; she even advised Hectate of a gate into the crystal sphere of Winterspace, a new one that the half-elven navigator hadn’t known existed. “Let’s just say I was there when it opened,” she had observed cryptically. She was good company: intelligent and amusing as well as easy to look at. And so Teldin’s days had slipped by, busy but uneventful … until now.

  Teldin and Vallus were on the upper deck when Raven gave the first alert.
“Captain!” she bellowed from her perch in the swan’s head. She leaned far over the railing that separated the bridge deck from the long drop to the main body of the swan ship, and her long midnight braids swayed as she gestured wildly for Teldin.

  He sprinted up the stairs leading up the swan’s neck to the bridge. “What is it?” he demanded.

  “Well, it’s something you don’t see every day,” Raven replied. Despite the flippant remark, her voice held a new, serious note. “Look there,” she directed Teldin, pointing off into wildspace.

  Teldin took up the brass tube that hung from his belt and peered through it at a distant, peculiar ship. The vessel was almost round, and two long streamers trailed behind as it approached the Trumpeter at a businesslike pace.

  What now? Teldin thought with a touch of resignation. He passed the glass to Vallus Leafbower, who had come up behind him.

  Vallus squinted at the approaching vessel, and his angular face tightened. “What do you make of that?” Teldin asked.

  “It’s an insectare ship,” Vallus said in a worried tone. “A klicklikak.”

  Teldin grimaced, not liking the mental picture that the buglike name conjured. “What are insectare?”

  “A mysterious race,” the elven wizard said absently, still peering through the glass at the odd ship. “At first glance, they appear to be elves. Pointed ears, angular features, and so on. They usually wear heavy robes with cowls, though, to hide their true nature.”

  “Which is?” Teldin asked, eyeing the distant ship with a growing sense of foreboding.

  “Imagine an intelligent insect, about the size and shape of an elf,” Raven suggested. “If you get a good look at their eyes, you’ll see that they’re multifaceted. They have long antennae sprouting from behind their ears, and the way they move is a little different, too, since their bodies are covered with hard plating.” She shrugged. “Apart from that, they’re pretty much like elves. Oh, except that their skin is light green, about the same color as Trivit’s, maybe a little brighter.”

  “With such minor differences,” Teldin said, “no wonder they’re mistaken for elves.”

  Raven acknowledged his sarcasm with a fleeting half-smile. “Not many get close enough to get a good look at one. I have.”

  Suddenly Teldin recalled the mysterious, elflike creature he had seen in the tavern back on Garden, and the terrified reaction of the drunken man who’d peered directly into the creature’s face.

  “I may have run into one myself,” he said. He answered Vallus’s questions with a quick version of the story of the tavern battle and the strange, elflike creature shrouded in brown robes. “At the time, I had a strong perception that it | was no elf,” Teldin concluded.

  “True seeing,” Raven mused, sliding a sidelong glance at the cloaked human. “The medallion at work?”

  Her seemingly innocent question startled Teldin. He hadn’t mentioned the medallion or its powers to her; how had she learned of it? He noted the peculiar expression on her face – a smug, almost feline satisfaction – and a second shock overpowered the first. She knows, he thought dazedly. She knows that I suspect she’s carrying an ultimate helm and wearing a face that is not her own. As he stared into Raven’s gold and silver eyes, Teldin knew precisely how a mouse must feel when a cat toyed with it. He broke eye contact and drew in a long, calming breath.

  “I wonder if there’s any connection between the creature you encountered on Garden and our new visitors,” Vallus said, oblivious to the exchange that had taken place.

  “The cloak,” Teldin said wearily. “That always seems to be the connection.”

  “Especially in this case,” Vallus agreed. “The insectare are a secretive and devious race. It’s safe to assume they crave the cloak’s power.”

  Teldin sighed and reclaimed his looking tube from the elven wizard. The klicklikak was still a good distance away, but coming directly for them. “I suppose it’s also safe to assume they’ll fight?” he asked with resignation. Vallus nodded.

  “I’ll alert the crew,” Raven volunteered. Reflexively Teldin caught Raven’s arm as she brushed by.

  “I want you to stay out of the fight, Raven,” he said quietly. “Sound the alarm, then go directly to your quarters. Whatever happens, stay below.”

  “I can handle myself,” she assured him. She patted the shoulder strap of her broadsword’s scabbard and smiled, but to Teldin’s hypersensitive eyes her smile seemed to hold secret, ironic amusement.

  “Oblige me,” Teldin insisted. “I don’t want to have to order you below, but I will.”

  A baffled expression crossed the moon elf’s face. Teldin wondered briefly if she might be picking up his own feelings. That certainly would account for her confusion, he thought wryly.

  Despite the mysterious power Raven had just flaunted, despite whatever game she might be playing with him, Teldin was afraid for her. Just because she looked like a legendary elven warrior, it didn’t necessarily follow that she knew how to use the sword she carried. On those occasions when Teldin had used the cloak’s power to alter his own appearance, he’d kept his own voice and his own abilities.

  “Now,” he repeated quietly.

  “If you say so, Captain,” she replied, still looking puzzled.

  As she spoke, Teldin’s vision wavered. Raven’s mismatched eyes became yellow, hooded orbs slashed by vertical pupils. In the instant before he blinked away the vision, he caught a flickering glimpse of a reptilian face. He released Raven’s arm as quickly as he would have dropped a live coal.

  As soon as Raven had left the bridge, Vallus turned to Teldin. “That was well done,” the elf said somberly. “Until we know for sure who and what she is, it’s wise to keep her out of battle.”

  The image of a metamorphosing dragon flashed into Teldin’s mind, and he silently agreed with Vallus. Since he didn’t care to reveal – or even examine! – his other motives for sending her away, Teldin acknowledged the elf’s praise with a curt nod and returned to their immediate problem. “How many insectare can we expect, and how do they fight?”

  “Ten to twenty. They use long swords and antennae.”

  “Antennae? But how —”

  “Whips,” Vallus broke in grimly. “Eight-foot whips that can break an opponent’s neck in a single strike. Even if you can get close enough to lay a sword on one, its body armor is virtually impenetrable. Ten or twenty insectare could give us serious problems.”

  “If they manage to board,” Teldin replied. “Let’s make sure they don’t.”

  He hooked the brass tube back onto his belt and strode out of the bridge. As he sped down the steps to the upper deck, it occurred to him that he had never before directed a battle. The prospect was not as daunting as he would have expected. Thanks to the cloak, he’d had plenty of battle experience.

  Teldin quickly shrank his cloak down to its smallest size so it would not hamper him in battle or mark him as an immediate target. He loosened his sword in its scabbard, and as he circulated among the elven troops he was surprised at how little fear he felt at the impending battle. The swan ship had a crew of some thirty elves, each a crack sailor and fighter, and Teldin felt an unexpected twinge of excitement over the prospect of directing such a force.

  Raven had spread the alarm, and the upper deck was humming with tension and activity as elves took their battle stations at the railing. Loaded crossbows lay in piles, as well as pikes to repel boarding attempts, and a small band of wizards gathered under Vallus’s direction. The tufted tail at the stern had been folded down to reveal a deadly catapult. A team of four elves busily cranked the mechanism into place and loaded the weapon. Teldin could hear whining of gears from the cargo deck below as the ballista was readied for firing. He positioned himself on the upper deck at the head of the stairs. There he had full view of the approaching foe, and his shouted commands would carry to the two lower decks as well as up to the bridge.

  The wooden stairs behind him creaked in protest as the dracons lumbered
up onto the deck. Both were in full battle finery: Trivit wore his practical chain mail and wielded the enormous broadsword, and Chirp sported the purple-hued leather armor and carried his ornate two-headed axe as if it were a fashion accessory. Having seen the pair in battle, Teldin was not fooled by Chirp’s frivolous appearance. The dracon brothers had proven themselves excellent fighters, but suddenly Teldin thought of a better use for their talents.

  “I want you two to go below and guard Raven Stormwalker’s quarters. Whatever happens, don’t let anyone or anything get near her.” Can’t have her goaded into changing form during the battle, he added silently.

  The dracons exchanged worried glances. “But she sent us up to guard you,” Trivit blurted out.

  Chirp hissed and rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, marvelous. ‘Act natural,’ she said. ‘Be discreet,’ she said. Aren’t you the very soul of discretion?” he said nastily.

  “Well, I’m a bit unnerved by the dilemma in which we find ourselves. Moral dilemmas do strange things to one,” Trivit replied thoughtfully. “I’ve always wanted to experience just such a thing – for the intellectual exercise, mind you – but now I’ve thoroughly repented of my wish. Moral dilemmas are damnable nuisances.”

  “Below,” Teldin ordered firmly.

  The dracons responded instantly to his tone, saluting and clumping down the protesting stairs toward the moon elf’s quarters. Teldin glanced toward the starboard railing, where Vallus had gathered the ship’s battle wizards. Once Teldin had thought that six wizards was a frivolous use of crew space, but at the moment he was glad to have them.

  The klicklikak had drawn close enough that details were clearly visible, and it had slowed almost to a hover. It was a relatively large ship, about one hundred feet long, and had an odd, oblong shape. Two windows shaped like bulging eyes dominated the front of the vessel, and the long streamers that had trailed along behind while the ship was in rapid motion now stuck straight up before it. The ship was covered with intersecting plate armor, and two pairs of short metal rods protruded from the bottom. Landing gear, Teldin supposed, though something about them suggested the feelers that hung down on either side of a locust’s mouth.