“How can we aim at something we can’t see?” one of the wizards demanded.
“They’ll hover over the deck so the bionoids can drop —”
“And the cloaking device might shut down when a ship comes to a halt,” Vallus broke in. He eyed the half-elf with new respect, and his expression did not falter when Hectate abruptly transformed into his monstrous insect form.
The shrike ships whistled by, then began their circling approach, slowing as they prepared to drop the deadly warriors. Vallus looked inquiringly up into the bionoid’s large frontal eyes, and Hectate nodded his insect head. The dorsal plates on the bionoid’s armored chest folded back, and the membrane beneath began to glow with magical red light. At the same time, the wizards began the complicated gestures that summoned fireball spells.
When the first shrike ship came into view, a bolt of energy burst from Hectate’s chest. The ball of red light scorched along the shrike ship’s long, pointed beak and hit squarely between its domed forecastle windows. The red glow spread over the entire shrike ship, enveloping it in a crackling field of energy and holding it quivering in its grip. The elves braced for the explosion, but the shrike ship burned far too rapidly for that. To their astonishment, the ship blackened and collapsed into a cloud of fine ash. The destruction of the shrike ship took place so quickly that the other bionoid ships had no time to react. When the second and third shrike ships came into view, the elven wizards released a barrage of fireball spells. Some flew harmlessly off to fizzle in the blackness of wildspace, but one managed to hit its mark. A second ship disappeared into smoke and ash, which drifted with the ship’s momentum to cover the deck of the swan ship and the unconscious form of a reluctant, half-elven hero.
“Return Hectate Kir to the captain’s cabin,” Vallus ordered. “He’ll need a day’s rest.” Two of the wizards immediately stooped to do his bidding against a whirling backdrop of stars. The swan ship was making another rapid retreat. This time, however, the third and final shrike ship darted after it in furious pursuit.
The bionoid ship did not risk coming to a hover. Barely slowing its flight, it dipped low over the swan ship. Enormous weapons dropped from it and clattered to the deck, and several bionoid warriors leaped out after them. Five of the monstrous insects managed to land, tucking at the last moment and rolling to their feet with fluid, athletic grace. The sixth was less fortunate: it missed the ship entirely. Flailing its spiked arms, it floated outward toward wildspace and death. The surviving bionoids snatched up their halberds and formed a battle circle.
“Trial by champion.”
Hectate Kir’s hoarse whisper echoed in the unearthly silence. He gently pulled away from the elven wizards who supported him and made his way slowly over to the invaders.
“You know our battle codes?” one of them asked Hectate in feminine, incredulous tones.
“Name your champion,” the half-elf replied, his voice a little stronger this time.
“I am Ronia, captain and ranking officer of Clan Kir,” the female replied. Her huge black head dipped slowly as her multifaceted eyes looked Hectate over. “But I cannot accept an honor challenge from such as you. You’re a half-elf.”
“As are you,” Hectate said softly.
There was a hiss of anger from the bionoid warrior. She spun her halberd in a quick circle, signifying her readiness for battle, and the wicked blades at each end of the staff caught and tossed back the starlight in a gleaming arc.
“Weapons?” she snapped.
“Halberds,” Hectate replied, holding out a hand to another bionoid. The creature slapped the enormous weapon into Hectate’s palm, and the half-elf staggered a bit under its weight. He quickly rested the tip of one blade on the ground and balanced the thick staff with both hands.
“Terms?” Ronia’s voice was inexorable.
“Victory by survival.”
She let out a bark of laughter. “Of course. Conditions?”
“If I am slain, you avenge the deaths of Soona, Wynlar, Tekura, Enester, and Zeddop. If you die, the rest of the battle clan will withdraw with honor, leaving the swan ship and its crew unharmed.”
“Agreed. You know much of our customs,” she said with suspicion.
“I should. My name is Hectate, formerly of Clan Kir.”
The bionoid woman recoiled with another hiss of rage, and she leveled her halberd’s blade at Hectate’s throat. “Change quickly, then, or I’ll spit you like a skinned hare,” Ronia gritted out. She charged forward, blade leading.
Hectate leaped aside and spun. As he did, the Change came over him and in a blink he was a ten-foot-tall insect, the mirror image of his attacker. As he whirled, he hooked one of his curved forearm blades over Ronia’s halberd staff. He quickly bent forward at the waist, using the momentum of the female’s attack to throw her up and over him. She flipped and landed on her back with a dull clatter.
Instantly Hectate leaped at the fallen bionoid, his halberd held before him. Ronia brought her knees to her chest and kicked out high and hard. Her foot spikes raked down Hectate’s plate-armored chest with a sound like fingernails on a windowpane. Hectate staggered back, ichor dripping from the large dorsal plates on his chest; the plates had not yet sealed after opening for his ball of force spell.
Leaping nimbly to her feet, Ronia pressed her advantage. In a lightning-quick combination, she raised her left knee high and snapped a kick at Hectate’s crystal eye, hit it again with a side kick from her right foot, and whirled to strike a third time with her left. She danced back, both hands holding the halberd before her in a horizontal line. An enraged oath escaped the bionoid warrior when she saw that Hectate still stood. The glow from his central eye had dimmed, but the crystal was not shattered.
Hectate mirrored her stance and the guard position of the halberd staff. A quick spring brought him toe-to-toe with Ronia. Thick oaken staffs clashed again and again as the two bionoids sparred viciously, each trying to work an opening for a halberd’s blades. For many moments the battle went on. The monsters were so evenly matched that it seemed that only exhaustion could claim one of them.
Then Ronia spun, taking a sharp blow to her back but kicking backward hard. Her spiked foot smashed into Hectate’s knee, and he went down with a sharp cry of pain and the crunch of cracked plate and bone. With a triumphant yell, Ronia raised her halberd high overhead and chopped down. Hectate rolled aside, and the blade bit deeply into the wood of the deck where his head had just been. Before Ronia could tug her weapon free, Hectate hoisted himself up on one elbow and smashed the back of her knee with a mailed fist. The joint buckled, and she went down.
Plate armor clattered against the wooden deck as the bionoids rolled and grappled, each trying to get the advantage. Finally one of the warriors lifted its head high, smashing its forehead into the other’s face. The creatures’ crystal eyes struck each other like flint and steel, and there was a bright spark and a sudden flare of red light. Then there was darkness, and both bionoids lay still.
In the aftermath of battle, elves and surviving bionoids eyed each other uncertainly, not sure what the strange outcome meant.
After a long, silent moment, one of the creatures stirred and rose unsteadily to its feet. There was an empty oval indentation on the other bionoid’s forehead. Its crystal eye had shattered; the creature was dead. Everyone on deck held his breath as the onlookers waited to learn who had survived the challenge.
The dead bionoid quickly compressed back to elven form. A tall, rangy female elf lay on deck, her sweat-drenched black hair clinging to her head and her amber eyes open. Even in death those eyes held the wild, fierce expression of a hawk. Still in his monstrous form, Hectate stooped and closed Ronia’s eyes with a gentle, taloned finger. He rose and faced the other four bionoids.
“Challenge was made and met. You will withdraw, as agreed.”
The four bionoids inclined their heads in agreement, and one of them signaled the shrike ship by waving its arms at the shrike ship in an elaborate pattern. The bionoid ship circled, came to a hover, and threw down boarding ropes. One of the creatures gathered up the elven body of Ronia, and, without a word, the survivors of the once fearsome battle clan returned to their last ship. The shrike ship flew off, disappearing into the black vastness of wildspace.
*****
Grimnosh pounded the railing with a white-hided fist. “The bionoids have failed again! Thrice-damned elf-spawned garden pests, fit only as food for giant Zenuvian flytraps!”
The scro ranted for some time, while the hideous ice orc general looked on impassively and waited for the storm to pass.
“What plan now?” Ubiznik asked at length.
“We must have that cloak!”
“Cloak, scro want. Elf blood, orcs.”
“Indeed.” Grimnosh’s colorless eyes narrowed. “Perhaps it’s time for both of us to take what we want. Choose four of your best soldiers and report to the landing dock immediately. We’re going to board the swan ship.”
*****
Pearl came up onto the main deck just as Chirp and Trivit were dragging Hectate’s limp bionoid form into the captain’s cabin. “About time,” she murmured with satisfaction. Turning to Vallus, she demanded to know what had just occurred.
“The bionoids have retreated,” he said tersely.
“Good. An assortment of goblins is trouble enough. By the way, I’m supposed to tell someone that we’re out of ballista bolts down in the cargo hold.”
“Take some from the main deck,” Vallus replied absently.
“Thanks, but I don’t run errands.” Pearl raised her voice and summoned Trivit, sending the dracon to resupply the lower level.
Elven crossbows twanged as the swan ship charged yet another orc scorpion ship, and the thud of the catapult sounded twice more from the stern.
“How long can he keep this up?” wondered Pearl, glancing up at the bridge with deep concern. “Sooner or later those scro out there are going to get mad, squash this sorry excuse for a ship like a ripe melon, and make off with the captain.”
Vallus Leafbower turned to face the mysterious moon elf. “That would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it. With Teldin Moore gone, you would have a clear path to the
Spelljammer.”
“Convenient? Ha!” Pearl said scornfully. “Teldin can have the captain’s job, and welcome to it.” She shot an arch glance at the elven wizard. “I’m sure
you
can understand that.”
Vallus recoiled as if she’d struck him. “But how much does he know about the
Spelljammer?”
the wizard persisted. “Has he any idea of the dangers aboard the ship? Or that few who seek the ship are ever heard from again?”
Pearl’s eyes mocked the elven wizard. “Not unless
you’ve
told him.”
“You see what the elves are up against,” Vallus said, a trifle defensively, pointing toward the ongoing battle with the orc fleet. “The Imperial Fleet faces destruction. We need the cloak.”
“What do I care about that?” Pearl retorted. Her hand curved around her sapphire pendant in a gesture of deliberate menace. “I want Teldin Moore, end of story. If the Imperial Fleet interferes, I’ll destroy it myself. That goes for anyone else who gets in my way. It’s as good a hobby as any. Think about
that,
little wizard.” She whirled and darted up the stairs to the bridge.
Teldin looked up briefly when Pearl burst into the room. “They’re tightening the noose,” he murmured in a distant, distracted voice. “They’re starting to close on us, and we can’t get them all.”
“Can you break through? Outrun them?” she suggested.
“I doubt it. The swan ship’s held together with string and spit,” Teldin said ruefully. “Pieces of it fall off every time I make a run.”
“Then it’s time for us to leave,” Pearl declared. “Turn die ship and its problems back to the elves, and come with me.”
Her suggestion startled Teldin. “Leave? But how? On what?”
“Under your own power!” she said, and her voice sang with the exultant freedom of wildspace. “Think of it: Your cloak allows you to shapechange. What better form to assume than that of a radiant dragon? Ahh!” she broke off, her face glowing. “It would be good to fly again. Let’s go!”
Teldin was too staggered by her suggestion to speak, and he just stared at Pearl’s outstretched, entreating hands. Was such a thing
possible?
He had taken on other human faces and forms, had endured a brief interlude as a gnome, had fought in the body of an orc general, and had assumed the appearance of an Armistice bugbear, but a
dragon?
Something hit the swan ship with an extended, rattling thump. The ship lurched, sending Pearl falling backward to land squarely on her backside. She leaped to her feet, eyes blazing. While she swore and rubbed at the offended portion of her inconvenient elven anatomy, Teldin swept his magically extended vision over the ship. One of the orc ships had loosed a catapult load of stones. Teldin could feel a crack along the lower part of the hull, slightly above the paddle line. They could fly and probably land, but they’d slowly sink once they
did
land. Still, it could be worse.
As if on cue, the attack began. A scorpion’s jettison shot another load. Stones thudded against the swan ship like a summer hailstorm, and the cries of injured elves drifted into the bridge.
Still using his strange double vision, Teldin hovered over the ship. To his horror, he saw a small, triangular ship – one of the things Vallus had called “kobold arrows” – coming straight toward them. He brought the swan ship around, but then he noticed that the arrow had changed its course. The tiny vessel flew straight at the scorpion that had just attacked them. The two orc ships met in a ball of flame, and wave after wave of explosions rocked the burning remnants.
“Now there’s an object lesson for you,” Pearl said. “Someone on that battleship doesn’t want this swan ship to be attacked, and they’re letting the other orcs know it’s not healthy to get carried away. They want something on this ship, Captain – probably that cloak of yours, though I never saw a scro who looked good in pink.” Her facetious expression faded, and her face and voice became grim. “If you don’t come with me now, the scro will get you. The elves can’t stop them, and you know it. You’ve got to pick friends who’ll be of some use, Captain, and that means me.”