The Maelstrom Eye

cup under a waterfall, spilling over. Radiant energy poured out from his fingers, flashing straight into the orcs on the scorpion ship. The orcs fell as if they had been scythed down. Only three out of a dozen were left standing when it was over a moment later. The power was gone from Teldin as quickly as it had appeared, and he went limp with exhaustion.

'By the Great Captain!' Gomja gasped behind him. 'We've got them good now!' He then bellowed out to the world. 'Pull alongside the scorpion! Company, prepare to fire again!'

Even as Gomja spoke and the Perilous Halibut slid close to the scorpion, mote orcs appeared on the deck of the enemy ship, apparently coming up from one or more ladders below. Regaining his energy, Teldin cautiously got to his feet and noticed that both ships were traveling parallel to the ground, miles below them. Wispy clouds, like white horses' tails, were scattered above and below.

With wild whoops, the orcs on the scorpion suddenly hurled ropes and grappling hooks across at the gnomes' ship. A few of the hooks caught, enough for the black-armored orcs to start reeling the ships together. A few of the gnomes drew knives and meat cleavers to hack at the ropes.

Gomja was more direct. He seized a grapple and jerked on it with all his might. The orc holding the opposite end of the rope flipped headfirst off his ship, to fall screaming between the ships until no one could hear him.

Teldin drew his short sword as the ships closed, side by side in the roaring wind. Suddenly the orcs gave out wild cries and leaped over their railing onto the deck of the Perilous Halibut, swords held high. Some slipped and fell down the slick sides of the latter ship, but a dozen made it aboard, and the fight was joined.

As a particularly huge orc came at him with its scimitar aloft, it struck Teldin that these orcs were somewhat larger than the ones Gomja and Aelfred had described while crossing the phlogiston. Teldin dodged the downward blow the orc aimed at his head, slashing the orc across his black-armored chest. His wild blow hardly penetrated the ore's thick leather armor, bouncing off the metal studs across its front.

Teldin tried to back up, realizing in an instant that he'd made a mistake. The orc advanced quickly, lunging forward and almost skewering Teldin with the scimitar. Teldin tried to cut at the orc, but his blow went wild again. I'm screwing this up! he thought, almost in panic. I can't get this right! He almost fell against the orc as the wind shifted suddenly, and the huge warrior drew its sword arm back for another lunge, one that Teldin could see he wasn't going to avoid.

A small, feminine figure with long, wind-blown black hair appeared and jammed a wooden pole between the ore's elbow and its back, shoving the pole back as if it were a lever. The orc spun around, surprise on its face, and fell back on its side. Teldin lunged forward himself, avoiding the scimitar, and plunged his short sword into the orc's stomach. The orc died with a choking cry.

Gaye glanced at Teldin long enough to see that he was unhurt, then turned away to meet a second attacker. Teldin turned just in time to avoid being struck from behind by an orc that had circled around the fight, parrying the blow by sheer luck. Back to back, Teldin and Gaye fought their opponents as the fight raged around them. Even as he beat back the ore's attacks, Teldin heard Gomja's bombastic curses and the garbled cries of gnomes shouting detailed directions to each other.

The Perilous Halibut shifted its heading away from the orcish ship for a moment, then drifted back, slamming into the side of the latter ship. Teldin staggered at the unexpected blow, almost losing his balance. It went for nothing, as the orc could not recover its footing and collapsed against Teldin, knocking them both to the deck. Teldin blocked a badly aimed chop from the orc, then dived on his foe to wrestle in grim silence, weapons still clutched in their hands. Gathering all his strength, Teldin managed to turn his weapon and shove it into the ore's neck, only moments before the orc would have driven his own sword through Teldin's ribs. The ore choked, dropping his scimitar and giving a gurgling scream as he died. Teldin pulled his sword free and started to get up, splattered with gore.

The two ships suddenly struck again, and the Perilous Halibut shook with the collision. Teldin fell on his back, away from the dead orc. The orcish ship again came out second best, its entire forward side smashed inward. Abruptly, the port claw of the scorpion, which had been jammed against the Perilous Halibut's bow, snapped and fell away. The two ships skittered apart, then slammed together once more. Unable to regain his footing, Teldin heard a shrieking sound like thick metal being crushed; for an awful moment, he feared that the gnomes' ship was the source. The scorpion ship then rose, nose up, its entire bow caved in on the near side. Its long metal legs scraped the starboard side of the Perilous Halibut as the orcish ship flipped over in the air, fell behind the gnomes' ship, and began a long, twisting dive toward the ground.

Teldin saw two mote orcs on the top deck fighting gnomes, their backs to him. He dove at them without thinking, killing each with a single blow through the lower back. When the last had fallen, he turned to see the rest of the battle.

The fight was almost over. The black deck of the gnomes' ship was slippery with smeared streaks and pools of blood, the bodies of orcs and gnomes thrown together across it. Only a dozen gnomes were left standing, several clutching the railing. Some of the gnomes were shoving the bodies of slain orcs over the side of the ship.

Gomja was hammering a battered orc lying flat on the deck with his huge, ham-sized fists. Seeing that his opponent was no longer fighting back, he grabbed the orc by its black-armored shoulders, lifted it from the deck, and casually hurled it off the side of the ship into empty space. 'Now you know the hazards of inviting yourselves onto other people's ships without asking first!' he roared, clapping his two thick hands together to dust them off.

Gomja looked back and surveyed the ship. Teldin, Gaye, and the gnomes were sweating heavily, their clothing askew and splattered with red. The gnomes had taken the worst of the fighting, having had so little experience with it before; half of their numbers on deck were dead, and the rest were exhausted and wounded. The wind whipped at the survivors as they stood on the deck beneath the huge sun, miles above the ground.

'Well, lads,' said Gomja softly. 'We've won.' He took a last look around, then walked over to catch a gnome who was on the verge of letting go of the railing and falling overboard. 'Gather your gear! All hands below!' he shouted. 'We've won! Let's tell the rest!'

The weary gnomes staggered against the wind, toward the nearest hatch, some still clutching their weapons. Gaye wandered over to Teldin and fell against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his stained shirt. He held her to him, thinking of the mounting toll of dead, all for the sake of his cloak, which snapped in the wind behind him like a flag.

*****

'We need to put down right away,' Aelfred said when he met Teldin in a narrow corridor near the helm. Teldin had just been on his way to check on Sylvie. 'I've got to get her off the helm before she falls asleep. She's almost too tired to think straight. No-don't go see her. The gnomes haven't found all their boobytraps yet, and I've got that gnome mage, Loomfinger, in there with her to keep her awake until she can set us down. I wish this ship had a second helm so I could just have Loomfinger take over for her.'

Teldin looked down the corridor to the helm room. 'If there's anything I can do . . .' he said.

Aelfred damped a hand on Teldin's shoulder. 'Old son, you've done more than your share already. Sylvie said you took but almost the whole upper deck of the scorpion with some spell you threw at them. She could see it from her helm. It really picked her up for a while.' Aelfred's twisted grin came back. 'She said your sword fighting needed work, though. Looks like we have to start getting together again on that.'

Word came a few minutes later from Loomfinger that Sylvie had spotted a place to land, and Aelfred went to the helm room to be with her. Avoiding several undismantied booby-traps in the corridors, Teldin went to his cabin to peer out the forthole over his too-short bed, not willing to risk being on the top deck when the ship came down.

Fortunately, the ship was circling its prospective landing site in such a way that his cabin was facing the site itself. It was long the coast of a large sea with a very smooth, regular coastline that curved off into the distance. The ship dropped toward the water at a comfortable speed, though Teldin found himself worrying about the impact when the ship hit the water. Sylvie was a much better pilot than he had been when he had brought the Probe down, he knew, but the knowledge did not take the edge off his worries.

'Can I see?'