“What is that damnable insect up to?” Grimnosh muttered to himself. He turned to regard the bionoid who had attacked him, giving the audacious monster a lengthy appraisal. She would suffer for her actions later, but at the moment he had a use for her. “Tell me,
Captain
Ronia, how much longer before the orcs of Armistice are flight ready?”
“They’re ready now,” the bionoid responded warily. Her voice revealed her suspicion with both the question and the promotion. “They have been ready for some time.”
Grimnosh’s colorless eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“Some twenty ships are ready, complete with functioning helms. Many more are near completion.”
The scro nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. Do you know the gate into the Armistice atmosphere? You do. Very well, Captain, you will take one shrike ship to the ice world and prepare the orc recruits for an immediate mission. The rest of you, prepare yourselves for battle. All of you, meet in my study at four bells to receive further assignments and tactics. Go now.”
The scro spun and stalked out of the bionoids’ quarters, silently berating himself as he went. He should have known better than to let K’tide out of his sight even for a moment. He should have squashed the insectare like the bug he was.
Grimnosh had no doubt about K’tide’s goal; the insectare was obsessed with the destruction of Lionheart. It had not escaped the scro’s attention that the klicklikak – the insectare’s hideous ship – was no longer aboard the dinotherium. K’tide apparently had taken a crack crew of bionoids with him, and where else would they go but Armistice? The klicklikak had been stripped for cargo, and K’tide and his crew easily could load a secondary marauder and its attendant priest in the hold. K’tide would then chase down the swan ship, use the bionoid warriors to overtake the elven crew, and use the swan ship and the elflike bionoids to smuggle the marauder into the elven base. Not a bad plan, Grimnosh admitted grudgingly,
providing
one was willing to go one step further.
So far Teldin Moore had escaped every attempt to relieve him of his cloak. The human and his elven allies could not stand against the force that he, Grimnosh, would bring against them. In battle the
Elfsbane
alone was more than a match for a swan ship. K’tide might have culled the bionoid force somewhat, but a dozen of the monsters still remained under Grimnosh’s banner as well as three shrike ships, and soon a fleet of orcs would complete his personal navy. To ensure victory, Grimnosh would direct the battle himself.
Once the Cloak of the First Pilot was in his possession, his first act would be to take revenge on the presumptuous K’tide. Grimnosh personally would peel the insectare’s exoskeleton away plate by plate, then have the creature slowly flayed to death with its own antennae. The scro’s fierce scowl relaxed under the soothing prospect of pleasures to come.
Once he had dealt with K’tide, he would borrow the traitor’s scheme to use the bionoids, the captured swan ship, and the Witchlight Marauder to bring down Lionheart. Grimnosh was a practical scro, and he saw no reason why the insectare’s plan should die when the spy master did.
Chapter Sixteen
When the first morning rays of sunlight touched the swan ship, they fell upon a frenzy of activity. Only two days remained until the three moons of Armistice would come fully into alignment. According to Vallus, this event occurred every twenty-eight local days, and at such times the planet was racked with earthquakes, volcanic activity, and violent high tides. Getting off Armistice as soon as possible absorbed every member of the crew.
To Teldin’s way of thinking, things couldn’t get much worse. Turbulent seas already were buffeting the swan ship, and rumblings could be heard not only from the shore, but deep in the seabed beneath them. Blizzards were almost a daily occurrence, many of them punctuated with bone-shaking thunder and lightning.
During one such storm, a random flash of lightning caught Teldin’s attention. As he watched, a long, insistent streak blazed above the snow-covered ground, touching down between the shoreline and the mountains. Teldin stood at the upper deck’s railing for a long time, squinting in the direction of the vanished light.
Something about the flash stirred his memory. As he thought it over, Teldin recognized the true nature of the light. When last he’d seen the night sky lit by such a streak, a spelljamming vessel had crashed on his farm and had begun the nightmare he now lived. Time slipped away, and for a moment Teldin was a bewildered farmer again, helplessly cradling a dying reigar woman in his arms.
Not again, Teldin vowed silently. It was not likely that he could do anything for the crew of the vessel, but he had to at least try. With a surge of resolve, Teldin strode off in search of his improbable ally: Raven Stormwalker.
He found the moon elf down on the main deck, in what remained of the storage area. She directed Chirp and Trivit’s efforts to patch the gaping hole in the roof where the ballista had crashed through. A group of elves disassembled the ballista according to Om’s terse instructions, preparing to take the weapon above to the upper deck to be remounted.
Although Teldin was gratified to see the work progressing so well, the bustle was not conducive to his mission. Teldin walked up to the moon elf and quietly spoke a few words to her. She nodded, and he slipped away to the cargo hold. Within moments Raven joined him, wearing the warmest clothes she could find aboard ship.
“What’s on your mind, Captain?”
Fleetingly, Teldin wondered at her use Of the title. Raven always called him that, with subtle but deliberate emphasis. Was she baiting him, or perhaps mocking his pretensions toward commanding the
Spelljammer
? He added it to the bottom of the list of questions he planned to ask her – if and when they got back from Rakhar.
“Can you shapechange?” he asked bluntly. When Raven quirked an inquiring eyebrow, he hastened to explain the ability his cloak gave him to change his appearance at will. Raven listened, a strange smile curving her lips and speculation glinting in her gold and silver eyes.
“That presents some interesting possibilities,” she said at last, more to herself than to Teldin. “Why do you ask?”
Teldin quickly told her about the fallen ship and his decision to investigate and, if possible, help survivors. “If we took the form of one of the native races, we’d be less likely to run into trouble,” he concluded.
“Unless someone speaks to you in Orcish,” she pointed out.
Teldin shrugged away her objection and gathered up a handful of his cloak. “It translates.”
“Hmmm. Handy garment to have, Captain.” She pulled the sapphire pendant from its hiding place beneath her jerkin. “This trinket has a different set of tricks, but shapechanging happens to be one of my hobbies,” she said in a wry tone. “As for changing into goblin form, that might best be done a safe distance from the swan ship. If it’s all the same to you, I’m in no mood to be fireballed by a bunch of elven wizards.”
Teldin conceded her point with an uncertain smile, and they worked together to drag a spare longboat from the cargo hold. A ballista was mounted at the bow of the lower level, and they lowered the longboat through the opening the weapon port provided. The longboat was painted a silvery white, making it deliberately conspicuous in wildspace but providing effective camouflage in the icy water. The boat was almost invisible in the churning waters, which tossed the small craft about as effortlessly as if it were a fisherman’s float.
For more than an hour, the pair struggled with the oars. Merely staying afloat was an accomplishment, but at the end of the hour they still were no more than an arrow’s shot from the swan ship.
“Time to change,” Teldin gasped out.
Raven nodded, brushing a frozen lock of hair out of her face and securing her oar in the gunwale. “I’ve seen the creatures. I’ll go first.”
She closed her eyes. Immediately her outline blurred and her elven form was replaced by a nebulous gray haze. As Teldin watched, fascinated, the gray mist shifted and expanded, like a boat comes into focus as it emerges from a fog bank, so the details of her new features began to sharpen. The transformation was over in a matter of seconds, and Teldin recoiled instinctively from what Raven had become.
Beside him was a huge, vaguely humanoid creature covered with a dingy, whitish fur. Seated, the creature towered over Teldin, and its massive torso and thick arms gave mute testimony to its strength. Its shoulders were as wide as a broadsword, and its short, squat legs ended in the clawed feet of a bear. Indeed, much about the creature was bearlike. Its prominent snout had the distinctive pug shape of a bear, and its mouth was full of sharp, curved fangs. Its eyes were a pale, sickly green with blood-red pupils, and the tips of short, wedge-shaped ears protruded from the thatch of white hair that crowned its sloped forehead.
“Should I be glad I don’t have a mirror?” the creature asked in Raven’s wry voice. Teldin nodded dumbly, and her tusks glinted as she smiled at the dumbfounded man. “Your turn, and hurry. I’m heavier than you now, and the boat’s listing my way something awful. I don’t fancy trying to swim in this fur coat.”
Teldin stared intently at Raven, taking in the details of her new face and form. He closed his eyes and conjured a mental image of himself, replacing it in his mind with a replica of the creature beside him. He knew the transformation was complete when he heard long, ripping sounds, followed by a woman’s laugh. Belatedly he remembered his clothing. He cracked one eye open and looked down. His fine, elf-crafted garments were not equal to the transformation and they hung about his massive new body in ribbons.
Raven shook her shaggy white head. “Don’t think ahead much, do you?” she said with a chuckle. “Might as well toss those rags, Captain, though you’ll raise some eyebrows when you change back to human form.”
Silently agreeing, Teldin ripped off the remains of his clothing and dropped them into the sea. The thick fur insulated him from the cold better than his own clothing had, and he didn’t miss it. His only garment was the cloak, which, as always, adjusted its size to accommodate his form.
“You might do something about that cloak,” Raven suggested, pointing to the regal purple that flowed over his furred shoulders. “You’ll be the best dressed yeti-bugbear on Armistice. People will talk.”
Teldin grinned through his tusks and shrank the cloak down to its necklace size. The silver chain easily hid in his thick fur, and he caught a glimpse of the gold and blue pendant buried in Raven’s fur. Their transformation completed, the pair resumed their rowing. Having the strength of the Armistice-bred creatures sped their progress, and soon they pulled the craft up on a pebble-strewn beach.
They followed a barely discernible wisp of smoke and tramped up the first of several small foothills. As they walked, the winds picked up and yet another blizzard began. Even in his yeti form, Teldin found the climate punishing, and, to conserve their energy, he and Raven trudged on without speaking. As they crested the fifth hill, the wreck came into sight. Teldin fought back the memory of that first crashed spelljammer, and he led the way as they half-ran, half-slid down the snowy hill toward the downed ship as fast as their stubby legs allowed.
The ship, or what was left of it, had been cracked wide open by the force of impact and now was little more than a smoking hull. Four thin, twisted protrusions rose from the wreckage, and to Teldin’s eye the ship looked like a dead thing, lying on its back with it legs sticking up. Something about the ship seemed oddly familiar …
“The klicklikak,” Teldin breathed. His words formed a cloud, instantly condensing into icy droplets that clung to his facial fur. Raven squinted at the ship, then nodded confirmation. A quick investigation showed that no bodies remained in the ship; all apparently had been thrown out when the ship had split in two. Snow-covered mounds were scattered around the hull, however. Not sure what compelled him, Teldin insisted on checking each one. Together he and Raven dug out four dead elves, their bodies mangled and already stiffening from the cold.
“No insectare. That’s odd,” Raven mused. “Only an insectare can use that helm.” She pointed to the smoking, hooded throne that was fitted with two curling, long pipes. “No antennae, no power. It won’t do the orcs much good. That’s one comfort.”
Teldin rubbed his forehead with a half-frozen paw. Suddenly he wondered why he’d come here, what he’d ever thought he could accomplish. He didn’t see how anything could have survived the crash, and he said so. Raven wasn’t as sure.
“Ever see an insectare without his robe and cowl?”
“No. Am I missing something?” Teldin said wearily.
His humor was unintentional, but Raven’s appreciative smirk registered even through her yeti form. “They’re tough, hard to kill.”
Too cold and exhausted to talk, Teldin just shrugged and gestured back toward the shore. Raven nodded, and they plodded back in the direction from which they’d come. The snowfall had dwindled to a few swirling flakes, but the driving wind already had obliterated their footsteps. A few yards from the klicklikak they slogged past yet another mound. Teldin saw no reason to investigate. He’d seen enough dead elves for one day. He averted his eyes from the snowy grave, but not before he’d caught a glimpse of something that chilled him to the soul.
Frozen and stubborn, the tip of a familiar reddish brown cowlick protruded from the snow. Teldin was on his knees in a heartbeat, pawing aside the snow.
“Why?” Raven asked. Her question chased a puff of steam.
“I know this one,” he mumbled.
Raven cast her bugbear eyes toward the moons in a gesture of exasperation. “Captain, these frozen elves of yours give new definition to the word
stiff.
You can’t help this one.”
As she spoke, Teldin uncovered the pallid form of Hectate Kir. Maybe not, Teldin acknowledged silently, but I’m not going to leave him here either.
Raven moved in for a better look. The half-elf was almost as white as his snowy blanket, but no injuries were visible. She knelt beside Teldin and lay her furred ear directly on Hectate’s chest. After a moment she sat back on her heels. “What do you know. He must have changed to his bionoid form before impact. Bounced once or twice, I’d guess, but that’s about it.”