'The deathspiders,' he said. 'I could be wrong, but I have a hunch that the neogi will try to take advantage of B'Laath'a, the neogi mage who assaulted Cwelanas. They'll be sure to join the neogi in their fight against us, and they'll probably try to kill me again as well.' Chaladar nodded. 'Vicious, evil beings.' CassaRoc said, 'Be sure to expect other assassination attempts, too.'
'The other ships nearby,' Teldin continued, 'I've never seen before. They remind me of dragon ships with the colors, and the ornamentation, but much larger. And I'll tell you this.-they don't look friendly.'
'They're still a few hours away. We still have time to get to the neogi and get Cwelanas back,' CassaRoc said.
Teldin was silent.
Cwelanas. Yes, we will get her back.
They stared into the flow for a while, keeping track of the converging ships. Even at this great distance, they could tell that some ships were already battling among themselves. Ballistae were firing from the deathspiders, and missiles were sent hurtling into a deck of a hammership. Catapults aboard the hammership rained boulders upon the swifter deathspiders, but they turned away before they could take much damage.
Teldin looked down upon the Spelljammer with CassaRoc's gnomish spyglass. From the tower, he could see that the open market had closed, probably for fear of war, and that sporadic fighting among the races had already broken out across the ship. A better view could be had from the pinnacle of the Guild tower, Teldin knew.
'What does the watch atop the Guild tower report?' he asked.
Chaladar leaned back against the tower railing and removed his helmet. He ran his fingers through his long hair. 'The fighting has increased at the neogi tower,' he said. 'The bastards seem to be rallying, perhaps because they know their allies are on the way. And look.' Chaladar pointed down. 'The neogi are starting skirmishes all over the ship. They're using their slaves and umber hulks to terrorize the humans.'
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 SpelljammerTor 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 giffs 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 tiiought the Cloakmaster would appreciate.
Secretly, 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 mem the giffs 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 giffs 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 mat 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 die 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 Cwe- lanas 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
