The Ultimate Helm (21 page)

The paladin replaced the helmet and looked at Teldin seriously. “We can’t wait much longer. We’ll have to strike soon, Cloakmaster, or we humans will be worn down. Just give me the order.”

“The others will be here soon,” Teldin said. He looked at Chaladar, standing tall in his gleaming armor, and CassaRoc, ready to throw his men into a good fight. He had been on the
Spelljammer
for only a short time, and these men were ready to lay their lives down for him. He glanced away, at the fighting below. Somehow I have already become their leader, he thought.

And he felt, in his soul, that this was how it was supposed to be.

“Let’s go down,” Teldin said. They followed him to CassaRoc’s common room, now clear of rat corpses, and they waited for the arrival of the allied leaders.

It had been almost three hours since the discovery that Cwelanas had been kidnapped by the neogi, and Teldin had used that time well.

He had been healed by King Leoster and could walk and fight very well, though he was still a little stiff. Then, together, he and CassaRoc had organized the fifty or so warriors of the Pragmatic Order of Thought into four squadrons and had armed each with two short swords, a dagger, and whatever other weapons they could carry. In addition, all the leaders of the alliance had been informed of the humans’ intentions, and the giff, dwarves, and halflings had all started preparing for war. Lord Diamondtip had even come over for a short while to assure the Cloakmaster that all was going well in the giff’s smoke tower.

The collective and their allies had more powerful weapons than Teldin had initially believed. The Human Collective itself had twenty ballistae ready and armed. The Chalice was ready with one armed ballista and a catapult, and their fifty fighters were more than ready to spill a little – or a lot – of neogi blood. CassaRoc’s two catapults were in perfect working order, and the Guild tower was readying five ballistae and five catapults, which had been kept in storage.

Unfortunately, the halflings were armed only individually. The two dwarf communities, however, shared nine catapults and fifteen ballistae between them. The giff were extraordinarily enthusiastic about the battle and had kept their weapons in. total readiness. Lord Diamondtip had even mentioned a surprise, a giff specialty, that he thought the Cloakmaster would appreciate.

Secredy, Teldin hoped the surprise was not very dangerous. The giff were well known on the
Spelljammer
for their inventiveness with explosives, but even CassaRoc and Chaladar were surprised when Diamondtip described to them the giff’s secret weapon: four bombards bound together at the pinnacle of the giff tower. Manned by eight giff, the bombards could rotate 360 degrees on a single, circular platform.

Teldin hoped the war would not get so desperate as to use the giffs guns in the phlogiston. With the giffs joy for explosives combined with the combustive nature of the flow itself, he had wondered if this war would engender an explosive force as powerful as that which had destroyed the Broken Sphere. Then Diamondtip had explained to him that the explosion could not harm the
Spelljammer.
“Sure, the
Spelljammer
would be shaken up, and the giff’s tower would be taken out,” Diamondtip had shrugged, “but so would the towers of many of our enemies.”

“I’m relieved,” Teldin had said weakly.

Although the Elven High Command contained ten ballistae, spaced throughout at various entrances in defensive positions, Teldin and the others were more concerned about the elves’ promise of alliance. The elves had been informed of the upcoming attack and had been asked to join in a planning session, but Teldin was not convinced of the elves’ sincerity and guessed that they probably would not show up for the meeting.

For three hours, the humans prepared their weaponry and made preliminary plans to attack the neogi. Scouts watched from the roof of the Guild tower, the tallest of the human buildings, and sent word of the battles at the neogi tower, and of the fighting breaking out across the great ship.

Diamondtip finally left to check on preparations at his own tower, and the human leaders went to CassaRoc’s weapons room to double-check the armament. Then the approaching ships had been spotted by the watch, and Teldin knew that the war would soon begin, a war he did not know how to prevent.

In the common room, Teldin and the two leaders discussed Cwelanas’s kidnapping. It had all boiled down to only one conceivable possibility: neogi, probably Coh himself, had sneaked over into the Tower of Thought. The violence done to the guards indicated that large umber hulks had been with them, and they must have taken Cwelanas down the same, little-used stairway that they had sneaked up.

“Tell me more about Coh,” Teldin said.

CassaRoc and Chaladar shared what little information they had that Teldin had not yet been told, of the rumored connection between Coh and the Fool, of his devoted slave, Orik, the ship’s most dangerous umber hulk. Teldin knew that Cwelanas had told him the truth of Coh’s partnership with the neogi who had brainwashed her, and he was convinced that Cwelanas was now his hostage – if not worse.

“Shemeat,” the guard had spoken in the tongue of the neogi.

The sign of Coh was a series of interlocking circles, tattooed on the neogi master’s forehead. When Teldin found him, the tattoo would be the first thing to be cut from Coh’s body.

The layout of the neogi tower was unknown to everyone in the Human Collective. The neogi were so despised by all the races on the ship that few, other than neogi slaves, had ever been inside. Teldin decided that a swift assault upon the tower would be best, and then to swarm through the tower and take back Cwelanas as quickly as possible. Perhaps then they would find the neogi at their least defensible, when their strength was weak after the attacks by the beholders and their unhuman allies.

It was rumored that there were only fifty neogi in the tower – about forty, now, counting their losses in the skirmish that had occurred when Teldin’s ship had crashed – and about thirty umber hulks and slaves. The human forces would overpower them easily – unless they were to engage other unhumans in the process of the assault.

And that possibility could not lightly be ignored.

The discussion was interrupted when Lord Diamondtip and the elf Lothian Stardawn finally arrived to the Tower of Thought, followed shortly thereafter by the halfling leaders, Hancherback and Kristobar, and the dwarf king, Lord Kova. With CassaRoc and Chaladar, Teldin quickly sketched out his plans to cut through the sporadic skirmishes between the collective, on the
Spelljammer’s
port side, and the starboard communities, to eventually reach the neogi tower en masse.

It was while their plans were being laid that a newcomer appeared and inadvertently interrupted the meeting. The discussion stopped suddenly as his shadow darkened the doorway. CassaRoc’s hand went to his sword, for he feared another assassination attempt on the Cloakmaster.

Teldin looked up and instantly rose from his seat. “Djan,” he said warmly.

Djan, the half-elf and the only other survivor of the crash of the
Julia,
stepped into the room. He held his left arm stiffly at his side, but he smiled as Teldin approached. His thin face had been brought back to its normal hue, and his eyes sparkled with the cold glint of steel.

“CassaRoc’s healers have assured me that I am well,” Djan said. “I cannot let you get into this fight alone.”

“Djan,” Teldin said, “I think you should wait until you’re much better.”

“I can’t wait any longer, Teldin. I’ve always hated being sick. I feel totally useless in that bed.” He placed his hand on Teldin’s shoulder. “I did not sail across the known universe with you to stay asleep and miss the events that called us here. Besides, you need all the able men you can get.”

Teldin grinned and pulled Djan around to face the assemblage at the table. “This is my first mate, late of the
Julia,”
Teldin said. “Djan will be with us on all decisions regarding the war for the
Spelljammer.
We’ve come a long way to find the
Spelljammer
and discover my destiny
 
—”

“—
Our destiny,” Djan said quickly.

Teldin nodded. “And Djan here deserves a lot of the credit.” Teldin made the introductions and pulled a chair over for Djan. The half-elf sat, and together the Alliance of the Cloak finalized its strategies to rescue the stolen Cwelanas.

*****

The humans of the Tower of Thought volunteered to go first and cut a vicious swath through the fighting around the collective. In the hour that the leaders spent talking and preparing, minor assaults had broken out threefold across the ship as the neogi spread their attacks: dwarf was now battling neogi, elf was battling neogi – almost no race was spared from violence, and soon the blood of all the races would be spilled at the murderous claws of the neogi.

Teldin laced up his leather armor and slipped on his vest of mail. He had shrunk his cloak to the size of a necklace as he pulled on his armor, and he commanded it to lengthen over his shoulders, just to see how he looked. Presently, his cloak filled out, and he was the image of the valiant, broad-shouldered warrior, ready to die for a cause. He tested the feel of his sword in his hands.

Behind him, Djan and CassaRoc examined their weapons and their armor. CassaRoc’s had obviously seen a lot of action. His armor was dented across his chest and scarred from many sword thrusts. Djan had borrowed light armor from CassaRoc’s cache and finished tugging it over his lithe frame just as CassaRoc snapped a heavy cloak around his neck. They looked at each other in silent appraisal then turned to the Cloakmaster as though they were saying, “We’re ready.”

Teldin turned. “Almost time,” he said.

Djan nodded.

Teldin concentrated. Slowly, his cloak and amulet shrank again into a thin necklace, which he covered with the collar of his shirt. Then, before his companions’ staring eyes, the contours of his face shifted. His hair changed color, his shoulders widened, and his form shrank by several inches. For the charge to the neogi tower, it would not do to have the Cloakmaster be seen by all of his enemies.

“No matter how much you do that, I’m never going to get used to it,” Djan said.

Teldin asked, “How do I look?”

“Look for yourself,” CassaRoc said. He held up a small piece of polished steel.

Teldin stared at the familiar face in the mirror. The craggy features, the angry light behind his eyes – just looking at himself made the old feelings churn inside, fear and hatred mingling with love.

“You look quite good,” Djan said. “Anyone in particular?”

Teldin remembered the stern lessons of his father, his heavy hand, and how he had practically chased a young Teldin off the farm to find peace, the only peace he could truly find: alone, on the dangerous, bloody fields of the War of the Lance.

He looked up from the mirror. “No one important.”

He led them from the room to the tower entrance. CassaRoc’s warriors waited anxiously along the walls of the corridor, adjusting scabbards and cloaks, nodding as the leaders passed, and barely casting a glance at Teldin. They had been told of Teldin’s planned strategy to cross the ship; despite his disguise, they recognized him by the hastily painted insignia above his left breast, the manta-like outline of the cloak unfurled, or perhaps even the
Spelljammer,
with a yellow circle at the neck, signifying the amulet.

Djan took his place beside Teldin. “You don’t have to do this,” Teldin said. “You should probably stay in bed, like I said.”

The half-elf secured his short sword on his belt. “You’re here for a reason, Teldin, a reason more important than the life of a half-elf. Remember:
verenthestae.
You’re here for a reason that is far more complex – possibly predestined – than you truly know. I am here because I’m with you.
Verenthestae.
I must be here for a reason, too.”

Teldin accepted the explanation with a grin, then handed Djan an extra dagger from his belt. “Just in case. Take care of that arm.”

Djan smiled.

At the prearranged time, CassaRoc led his warriors out of the tower in a furious charge toward the open market. The human warriors swarmed through the market, careening into stalls and accidentally spilling wares across the deck. Teldin was just another warrior in the rear flanks, which, when the human and halfling armies united, would take the lead and invade the tower in search of Cwelanas. Behind them, a squad of men carried between them a huge battering ram, ready for the tower invasion. The warriors of the giff, elves, and dwarves would meet them after word was sent that the neogi tower was taken.

The clang of steel rang out as the humans engaged a couple of umber hulks that had cornered a stray halfling in the market. With their massive battle-axes, the hulks easily parried the warriors’ sword thrusts. Then, with a shrill scream, a huge shadow lumbered around the corner of the market. A tiny warrior sat atop a giant beast, which Teldin finally recognized as an example of an extremely rare species, the giant space hamster.

The warrior was Emil. His plaid cloak flowed proudly behind him as the small fighter charged the umber hulks, shouting, “For the Cloakmaster!” Flashes of steel flew from his sling and his poisoned barbs struck the umber hulks in each of their chests, their long points embedded in the flesh beneath their armored carapaces. Again, twin barbs of steel were slung with uncanny accuracy. One struck an umber hulk just above its miniature eye and pierced its skull; the other found its target in the thick flesh of the other hulk’s neck.

The hamster bared its sharpened teeth and slashed out at the misshapen giants. Blood spurted from deep gashes across the hulks’ chests and dripped from the hamster’s mouth.

As one, the umber hulks wavered on their flat feet. The loss of blood and the speed of Emil’s poison sent them weakly to their knees. They fell to the deck, their arms and legs flailing helplessly, white foam bubbling rapidly from their gaping mouths.

Then they were still.

The warriors erupted with a cheer for their first victory of the War of the Cloakmaster. Emil waved gleefully at Teldin. “This is GhoTaa,” he said, quickly, laughing. “I trained him myself.”