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 die 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 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.'
Teldin shook his head, amazed at the little warrior's prowess, and smiled. 'Good work, Emil,' he shouted. 'You keep surprising me.'
Emil grinned broadly, and his face turned a bright red. 'You should see what I can do with pigeons and weasel bats.'
The hamster snorted and spat umber hulk blood onto the deck. Teldin stepped away, remembering the giant hamster that had once tried to eat him.
Emil laughed, but he and the warriors found they had no more time to congratulate themselves. The fighters of the halfling community rounded the open market and joined the human ranks.
As a combined army, they charged across the landing field at the Spelljammer's bow and passed around the council chambers, turning toward the neogi tower in the distance. The fighting had increased since their last report from the tower watch. Here on the starboard side, the skirmishes had broken out in full. The warriors ran past the bloody corpses of human and neogi alike, and helped defend several lone warriors who had been ambushed by neogi slaves and umber hulks.
They rounded the corner of the captain's tower. Teldin looked up briefly and wondered what, if anything, he could find inside to help him discover his answers. Then they were in the street between the tower and the goblin quarters.
Teldin ordered his squad to take the lead, and he and Djan sprinted for the squat neogi tower, visible in the near distance.
Something small and silver whistled through the air. The warrior to Teldin's left fell, a star of steel embedded in his head.
Then the street echoed with a high-pitched war cry, and Teldin's squad was surrounded by warriors clad from head to toe in red silk. There were about thirty of them. The remainder of CassaRoc's fighters were not far behind, but the strange combatants engaged Teldin's men immediately, baring wicked, curved blades and razor-sharp shurikens of steel. One of Teldin's warriors cried out 'Shou!' then was struck down by the powerful kick of a red- garbed fighter. A single sword thrust quieted Teldin's man permanently.
Teldin knew little about the Shou, only that they were a race of oriental humans whose religious adherence to the Path made them deadly to anyone they considered an infidel. It was no wonder that they had never responded to Teldin's request of a treaty: they wanted the Spelljammer for themselves, to prove across the spheres that the holy Shou path was the true Path.
Djan quickly jumped into the fray, his sword singing through the air as he brought it down toward a Shou fighter. The shou's blade came up, and sparks flew as steel met steel.
Teldin whipped out his sword and started forward to aid his friend. Then his head buzzed with a warm feeling, a sense of urgency. Instinctively, he jerked back his head, and a shuriken whizzed just an inch past his face.
He spun around.
His antagonist wore a suit of black silk and a hood of scarlet. His sword gleamed in the chaotic light, and the man approached him cautiously. 'You are the one,' he said. The man's accent was strange, clipped as though the Common tongue were awkward to him. 'Cloakmaster. You are not invisible to our wu jen.'
Teldin knew that his disguise was then pointless. As the fighter's sword went up, Teldin took a defensive stance with his sword, and he felt his features return involuntarily to their original shapes. The Shou, he thought. They had the chance to be our allies. Now this. Just another obstacle keeping me from Cwelanas.
