The Radiant Dragon

Armistice, but a faint red glow gradually increased as they made their way along the winding path.

Finally they came out on a walkway that overlooked a vast, natural cavern. Raven grabbed Gaston's arm and pulled him down behind the cover of a large boulder, then she motioned for the others to do the same. Thus hidden, she turned her attention to the bizarre scene that sprawled out before them.

A large hot spring bubbled and gushed in the center of the chamber-that would account for the heat, Raven supposed, not counting the scattering of dung-fueled fires. Phosphorescent fungi grew along the base of the walls and lent a sickly green glow to the cavern. This light was augmented by a few oil lamps made from large mollusk shells. The lamps emitted more rancid smoke than light, but after the darkness of the tunnel the chamber seemed as bright as highsun.

Although the scenery was as dismal as any Raven had seen, more disturbing was the chamber's occupants. The place was littered with goblinkin of every description. There were the squat, deeply furred bugbears the first elven party had mistaken for yeti, packs of tiny, pale gray kobolds, and slightly larger goblins. The orcs were the most grotesque mutation. Although they still had the tusks, wolflike ears, and upturned snouts common to orcs, centuries of living underground had compacted more orc into less space. They appeared to be no taller than five feet, and their barrellike chests and large arms brought to mind dwarven warriors. They had no fur, but their hides appeared to have thickened to an unnatural degree. All of the creatures ranged in color from pale gray to dirty white, and almost without exception they were unclothed. Most of the weapons Raven saw were crude mallets: carved stone lashed to a long bone with a length of dried sinew. A few orcs carried deeply pitted blades or axes- family heirlooms or war trophies, Raven supposed. Armistice was metal-poor and lacked fur-bearing animals, so the goblin races didn't have much to work with. The 'culture' that had evolved was squalid, brutal, and apparently chaotic.

But someone had brought order to it. After she watched for a while, Raven could make out certain patterns. Amid the chaos, the creatures went about tending their motley vessels in an inefficient but purposeful manner.

'Ships?' she asked in a whisper. 'If this is their fishing fleet, I'll put good odds on the fish.'

Om shook her tiny brown head. 'Spelljammers. Working spelljammers.'

The first mate rounded on the gnome. 'Impossible,' Gaston hissed.

In the longest speech any of the others had ever heard from her, the gnome insisted that the ships, despite their appearance, were spaceworthy and ready for flight. Om concluded her argument by pointing up. The others looked. Far overhead was an opening big enough to reveal all three moons. The cone-shaped cavern apparently was the interior of a long-dead volcano. Raven guessed that any ship in the motley fleet easily could make it through.

'I've seen enough,' Gaston announced. The others nodded, and they made their way out as quickly as possible, fighting both the steep incline and the punishing gravity force.

Rozloom was where they had left him, half-frozen and edgy. He claimed he'd seen nothing, which struck Raven as odd. She would have expected him to invent a battle with fearsome creatures, a story that cast him in the hero's role. Dismissing the aperusa, she headed back toward the shore. She would have liked to stick around for a better look, but Gaston Willowmere was nearly turning himself inside out in his anxiety to return to the swan ship to report.

By the time they reached the longboat, Rozloom had regained his usual ebullient nature. As he rowed, he sang an obscene aperusa ditty in his deep bass voice, punctuating it with an occasional wink or leer. By the time they reached the swan ship, Raven was ready to throttle him.

Vallus received their news with alarm and insisted that they must send word of this development to elven high command as quickly as possible. The elves redoubled their efforts to repair the swan ship, but not for this reason alone.

The three moons of Armistice were almost in alignment.

*****

'Well, where is it?' snapped Grimnosh.

The bionoids of Clan Kir, now back in their elven forms, exchanged uncertain glances. They barely had docked their shrike ships aboard the Elfsbane when the scro general came striding into their midst, followed by his surly, gray-green adjutant. Wynlar, who usually dealt with the insectare and scro, had not yet arrived.

'Sir?' one of the bionoids ventured.

'The cloak!' thundered Grimnosh. He grabbed the bionoid who had spoken by the front of his shirt. 'Where is Teldin Moore's cloak?'

Another bionoid, a female warrior with the crooked nose and fierce amber eyes of a hawk, stepped forward and met the scro's glare squarely. 'I am Ronia, a lieutenant under Captain Wynlar. In his absence I will speak for the battle clan. We do not have the human or his cloak.'

Grimnosh's lip curled into a disdaining sneer. He tossed aside the first bionoid and faced down the female warrior. 'Teldin Moore was lost with the swan ship? That was careless, even for elf-spawned insects.'

Ronia's amber eyes narrowed to slits at the deadly insult. 'In a manner of speaking, he was lost, but carelessness had nothing to do with it.'

'Enough of these elven subtleties,' Grimnosh snarled. 'Give your report, Lieutenant.'

The bionoid warrior was soldier enough to respond to a direct order, and she drew herself up to attention. 'When we withdrew from the elven vessel, it was damaged but not destroyed. I do not know what course the swan ship took, but almost certainly the human was still aboard.'

'Withdrew? Against orders, you retreated?' Grimnosh echoed, his voice rising in a roar of rage and disbelief. In perfect Elvish he began to berate the group for their ineptitude and cowardice. By using the language of a race the bionoids both resembled and despised, he amplified his already scathing insults threefold.

At length Ronia could take no more. The Change came over her as she closed the distance between her and the general. In her insectoid form she loomed a good three feet over the ranting scro. One armored, spike-studded hand shot out toward the general's throat, circling his massive neck and effectively cutting off his tirade. She easily hoisted the seven-foot scro so that his snout was inches away from her multifaceted eyes. The glowing crystal eye in the center of her forehead cast an angry red light on the scro's pale hide, turning it a ghastly purplish blue as he struggled for air.

Two other bionoids quickly transformed into their monster forms and moved to hold back the general's adjutant. The gray-green scro put up a token struggle, but he watched his superior's distress with a manic gleam in his yellow eyes.

'You name us cowards, orc pig,' Ronia told Grimnosh coldly, 'when even a kobold knows that a bionoid warrior never withdraws from a fight of his own accord. If any showed cowardice, it was your minion, K'tide. He called off the attack.'

Contemptuously, the monstrous insect tossed the scro to the ground, then folded her massive, armor-plated arms in a gesture of defiance.

For several moments Grimnosh dragged in long, ragged breaths, one white paw gingerly massaging his throat. When he rose to his feet, he had collected himself and his unnerving, urbane facade was firmly back in place. 'You state your case forcibly, Lieutenant,' he managed to croak out. 'Where is our green friend?'

'I don't know. Several of the clan are missing as well.'

'What is that damnable insect up to?' Grimnosh muttered to himself. He turned to regard the bionoid who had attacked him, giving the audacious monster a lengthy appraisal. She would suffer for her actions later, but at the moment he had a use for her. 'Tell me, Captain Ronia, how much longer before the orcs of Armistice are flight ready?'

'They're ready now,' the bionoid responded warily. Her voice revealed her suspicion with both the question and the promotion. 'They have been ready for some time.'

Grimnosh's colorless eyes narrowed. 'I beg your pardon?'

'Some twenty ships are ready, complete with functioning helms. Many more are near completion.'

The scro nodded slowly. 'Yes, of course. Do you know the gate into the Armistice atmosphere? You do. Very well, Captain, you will take one shrike ship to the ice world and prepare the ore recruits for an immediate mission.