The Ultimate Helm tcc-6

by Russ T. Howard

  A hurricane ship catapulted a large shot of stone and iron balls into the library tower. The upper floors disintegrated in a cloud of ancient dust and rubble, which rained upon the warriors massed atop the captain's tower and killed one of them instantly. Then huge ballistae bolts from two shrikes and a crabship speared through the top floors of the dracon tower, and a forgotten store of smoke powder inside went up in a great gout of flame, jolting the Spelljammer with a resulting explosion of the surrounding phlogiston.

  Bombards spun crazily atop the giff tower, and iron shot hurtled toward a dozen different ships simultaneously. A side of the crabship blew out as a shot hit it squarely in its carapace, and the ship spun into a dive toward the Spelljammer.

  What was left of the library tower and the captain's tower was destroyed with the impact. The explosion rolled the great ship five degrees to port, and debris spewed out into the flow.

  The Cloakmaster screamed, feeling the ship's pain as buildings exploded, as it bled its life force over the fleets of its enemies. Still, there was irony in the Spelljammer's injuries, for most of the damage to the ship was located on its starboard wing, and it was the coming of the Cloakmaster, upon the starboard wing, that had initiated the war in the first place.

  He could feel the ship's life force ebbing, weakening with each attack on it. He had trouble banking the ship, then steeled himself and forced the ship down and to port. The Broken Sphere was spinning in a slow, eternal rotation, and the jagged gap in the crystal sphere now lay straight ahead, the gap that the Spelljammer had created a thousand lifetimes ago.

  The ship slowed enough to keep the enemy ships interested. Let them think we're helpless, the Cloakmaster thought. Let them think they have us, then…

  It had to be soon, Teldin knew. Time was short, and he thought fleetingly of Cwelanas and the others, trapped in the gardens with the smalljammer.

  He reached out with the Spelljammer's senses and willed the hangar doors to open. They worked in tandem, opening and closing together, but the damage done in the collision with the mosquito had jammed the starboard door, and neither would open. The Spelljammer shook under its enemies' attack. She has to get free! the Cloakmaster shouted in his mind. They may be the universe's only hope!

  He concentrated. He felt tendrils of energy snake through the hull of the ship and sparkle in the nerve endings around the hangar doors, but it was no good. The damage to the hangar door was too extensive, and the starboard door would move up only a few inches.

  — Perhaps… the Spelljammer started, sadly.

  — No! I will not think that. She must be freed! She is too..

  — Life is all important, is it not?

  — Yes. Cwelanas… Life…

  — Yes… Then… there will come a way.

  — Yes.

  The Spelljammer was being hammered on all sides. Wasps dove in for quick shots, then sped quickly out of the great ship's way. Boulders from the catapults of an elven man-o-war ruptured the walls of the great ship's Elven High Command Ballistae missiles aimed for the Spelljammer's eyes thunked deep into the soft grass of the landing field and into the ships skin. The great ship's dwarven battery was destroyed under a catapult assault from five leaf ships.

  The Cloakmaster felt the ship's injuries as though they were his own. His view of space became momentarily blurred indistinct. His being grew cold, and the sounds around him, of the battle, of ships exploding in the phlogiston, became muted.

  Then he heard voices. They called him, beckoning, echoing softly from a distance in the white haze. He reached toward them and felt coldness chill him to his soul. He was falling, falling in a sea of blue, but the voices called…

  He shook himself, and the Spelljammer quivered as it sailed toward the sphere.

  The voices grew louder, then their speakers appeared from the mists: his father, Amdar; his grandfather; and a woman he dimly recognized from when he was a child.

  — Mother?

  He held his hands up to ward them away.

  — No, he said. They were dead-had been dead for so long now. Another voice came, a high, querulous voice with a peculiar laugh, who called to him as a friend: Emil. Emil the Fierce.

  Teldin screamed to himself and shook himself out of the darkness. He reached out, feeling the energies of the flow around him, the increasing strength of the Spelljammer. He shook himself and flexed his hands and arms, feeling his life force flowing through him, through the Spelljammer, spreading warmth through their bodies. The gates to death had been opened wide, calling to him, beckoning for him. And the Spelljammer had almost sailed straight through.

  But they were alive. And he could not let the ship die, neither it nor Cwelanas; they were not ready for that, not yet.

  The only ones who would die today would be the ones who worshipped war and death.

  He focused on himself, the ship, and felt the strong, distinctive life forces of CassaRoc, Estriss, Djan, and Na'Shee, of Chaladar the paladin, whose life force glowed with the white light of honor and inner strength. They were waiting in the gardens, and there, he knew, they would find their means to escape, their means to lead humanity to a universe of freedom and peace.

  — Yes, Teldin said. -Something must he done.

  — Yes, the Spelljammer said.

  They were alive. They were on course.

  The gap in the Broken Sphere lay only a few short miles ahead.

  The Cloakmaster gasped. The Spelljammer involuntarily shuddered, as though with fear.

  The path toward the Broken Sphere was blocked. The jagged gap lay ahead, directly behind a twisting, squirming Shou tsunami, a mammoth elven armada, and a wolflike battlewagon of the scro.

  All were converging on him, directly in the Spelljammer's path.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  "… It is said that the conflagration will be great, and that all who committed evil will perish in the fires of creation…"

  Leoster I, A Journey Out of the Fire; reign of Kel the Marked

  The undead Coh spread his wide mouth in a hungry smile. Bits of dead meat hung between his needlelike teeth. Droplets of bloody saliva oozed from his fangs. His master, B'Laath'a, moved behind him, leering. "Meeeaatt…" he spoke slowly at Cwelanas. "Know do I you. Cloakmeat the whore you were of. Mark of mine wear you. Meat for me, now will you be."

  Cwelanas struggled weakly off the garden floor and yanked a short sword from her belt. She glared at the neogi defiantly with her golden elven eyes. "Did you mean for that to rhyme, or did it just work out that way?"

  The grin collapsed across B'Laath'a's eellike face. His eyes grew dark with hatred. He struggled with his syntax, each word dripping with venom. "Prepare… to… die," he said clearly. B'Laath'a raised one claw in a gesture, and Coh lurched forward like a grotesque marionette, his lower jaw hanging loose from Teldin's assault in the Fool's lair.

  "Can we not talk this over?" Cwelanas said, stalling. The smalljammer seemed too far for her to make a run for it, and she wasn't sure that she alone, with just a short sword and a tiny dagger, could do much against the nastiest neogi she had ever met-much less the nastiest undead neogi.

  Coh crouched for a spring, then leaped toward her, growling deep in his throat. Cwelanas was faster. She had anticipated the move and dove to the ground. Coh collapsed behind her and scrabbled quickly around, just in time to see Cwelanas leap up and run toward the relative protection of the smalljammer.

  Together B'Laath'a and the undead Coh scrambled after her on their black, spidery legs. She could hear their hissing breath as the distance between them began to close. The smalljammer was still too far away, and her friends were still frozen in B'Laath'a's spell of immobility. She glanced hurriedly out of the corner of her eye to see if-to hope that-the hangar door had somehow opened.

  It had not.

  B'Laath'a had been spying on Cwelanas through a servant of his own, an undead rat that he had secreted in the Fool's lair. Coh had been under his control only seconds after being felled by the
Cloakmaster, and he had waited until he knew the outcome of the Fool's plans before he had put his own into action: to take Cwelanas again and bargain with the Cloakmaster for control of the ship.

  B'Laath'a grinned wickedly. The elf had no chance.

  Coh tackled her from behind. Blood pooled along her arm where his sharp claws raked her pale flesh, and her face went down into the dirt. She twisted under him, kicking up with her knee. It sank harmless into his bulbous stomach. One long leg of his slapped her across the face. His pointed claw dug a shallow gouge straight across her cheeks and nose.

  Cwelanas jerked her arm free from Coh's grasp and swung her sword toward him. At that awkward angle, the sword could do little more than chop, but the blade went into his side and took out a chunk of his painted flesh. Black blood spattered her chain mail and tunic. Coh raised his serpentine head and howled a scream of pain and infinite rage. His undead anger glimmered like crimson sparks in his black, dead eyes, and he focused on the elf with a smoldering hatred that only the undead could have for the living.

  Coh's drooling lips spread wide. His jaws stretched open, and rows of teeth glinted a diseased yellow in the Spelljammer's artificial light. His head twisted slowly, almost instinctively, coiling back and preparing to strike. Then his teeth flashed and his head snapped toward her, and he plunged his needle-sharp fangs into her shoulder.

  Cwelanas heard one dead fang snap off as the neogi bit through her chain mail, then her flesh seemed to rupture and catch fire, burning coldly as Coh's neogi venom entered her bloodstream. He twisted his head and pulled her up, trying to rip out a chunk of her flesh. Blood streamed hot down her side, and she pounded her fists against his head. Dimly she noticed the slits that were his ears on the side of his head, and she hammered them repeatedly.

  Coh jerked his head up, releasing her. Blood spilled over her from sixteen round puncture wounds in the flesh of her shoulder. The wounds rang with intense pain. She covered them with her hand and kicked up between the neogi's legs.

  He grunted once and shifted his weight upon her. Then Cwelanas realized she had a little room to move, and she pulled her legs up into a tight ball and flattened her feet into his chest. She braced her arms and almost screamed at the tearing fire in her shoulder, then gathered her strength and shoved. Coh went flying and tumbled to the deck more than ten feet away.

  Cwelanas pushed herself off the floor and picked up her sword. She tasted her blood, dripping down her face, and her left arm dangled uselessly at her side. She could barely wiggle her fingers. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. She knew the neogi bite injected a victim with a slowing poison, but she felt cold paralysis spreading through her side. The only answer she could come up with was that Coh's poison was somehow changed with him when he had become undead.

  B'Laath'a hung back and watched as Coh shambled up and came for her again. She swung her sword in a deadly arc that missed his face by an inch. He advanced slowly, snapping at her with his venomous teeth, though one long fang was very obviously missing in the front. She backed away, sweeping the sword in front of her as protection.

  He lunged for her. She swung the sword out, and Coh slipped behind the swing and slashed down with a claw. The sword fell to the deck. Blood streamed from a wound across the back of her hand. Coh picked up her sword and tossed it blindly into the forest of jamberry trees.

  "Now tbeee how you are good no thting with," Coh said, lisping.

  He snapped up one of his forelegs and scraped her hard again in the face. Her head snapped back. Blood spattered the ground.

  He coiled back his head for one lightning-quick lunge that would have shredded the flesh from Cwelanas's neck, but the elf ducked, feeling Coh's yellow teeth snap just inches away, where her face had been. She leaped straight between his black legs and wrapped her arm around his neck.

  The pain in her arm and shoulder was like white fire as she kept Coh's reptilian head tight against her shoulder. Her other arm shot up with her dagger clasped in her fist, and she plunged the blade deep between his ribs, into his lungs, in his side, in his neck.

  The undead neogi squirmed against her, squealing in pain as each thrust brought him closer to true death. Cwelanas's arm and body dripped slick with Coh's tainted blood. His claws raked her back and legs, but did no damage to her chain mail vest.

  She felt the anger in her building as she plunged the dagger deep into his body repeatedly, and still the damned thing would not die. He thrashed against her, wriggling his head in a vain effort to tear loose from her stranglehold. He managed to bring her around in front.

  Cwelanas then kicked out hard and connected a powerful knee into his belly. The air blew out of him, and as he was momentarily stunned, she slipped the dagger under his spiderlike legs and plunged it up into his heart. His blood spurted onto her like hot oil, and she pulled out the blade and drove it straight into one of his black, undead eyes.

  He squealed like a fiend from the Abyss. His head thrashed madly, and with both hands she thrust the dagger deeper into the eye socket, then heaved until she felt the steel crack through bone and plunge directly into the reptile's soft, unliving brain.

  The neogi jerked once, spasmodically, then Coh slid limp to her feet. His jaws snapped once in an involuntary effort to close around his quarry's flesh. His head fell back, onto the ground, the hilt of the dagger deep in his eye socket. Blood oozed from between his dead lips.

  Cwelanas put her arm to her stomach, suddenly nauseated. The world spun around her. She put out an arm to maintain her balance, but her feet would not move properly. The small-jammer loomed ahead in the trees, but she realized that she was not moving. Somewhere she heard claws scraping through the leaves of the gardens. From somewhere, a dim thought came to her: B'Laath'a.

  Her shoulder burned, flaring bright with pain, and B'Laath'a attacked from the side, throwing himself upon her and snapping with his dripping teeth.

  She held back his slithering head with her good arm. It was all too much, the killing, the ceaseless attacks by Teldin's enemies. She felt her anger burning hot inside her, building like a furnace, then she realized that it was her vest of chain mail that seemed to burn, emanating with power.

  It is more than a helm, she realized. It has the powers of Teldin's cloak!

  She relaxed inside, still keeping the vengeful neogi at bay, and concentrated on the blossom of heat that she felt pulsing in her heart. B'Laath'a stopped his attack and stared at her, then his eyes widened, and she clasped him to her in an embrace from which he could not escape.

  Power coursed through her with the heat of molten steel. The chain mail glowed, and in a burst of energy, B'Laath'a was flung away with the force of a ballista and sent hurtling into the light panels in the ceiling high above.

  The neogi crashed into a crystal panel. Cwelanas dimly heard his bones crack upon impact. Then the mage fell from the ceiling and landed with a dull, sickening crunch near the smalljammer. Blood oozed from a score of breaks and lacerations across his body. His eyes, empty, devoid of their innate, Unhuman evil, stared blankly at her.

  The elf tried to stand, then fell to the ground, her side aching with cold fire from the undead neogi's bite. She thought she heard a cry, but the world was nothing but a blur around her, and she let herself fall deep into the sweet sleep of unconsciousness.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  "… No warrior stands alone, least of all he chosen by fate to deliver some higher meaning to his actions. "Each champion who has come here has had two things in common: a blind drive to succeed at his individual goals, and a charisma that pulls to him warriors who will stand ready to see his destiny through. "In so doing, these warriors may find their own wondrous destinies…"

  Seversen, scribe, Book of the Rushing Rapids, reign of Tomsun the Drinker

  The rainbow lights of the phlogiston glittered off the Broken Sphere's cracked shell, flickering as though to the beat of some secret symphony. The sphere seemed less the shattered remnant of an eons-old disaster t
han a giant backdrop, an empty theater where an act of the second Unhuman War was being played out for the ghosts of the dead.

  From port came an elven armada, the largest ship of the elven fleet. With a wingspan of three hundred feet, the armada was a hundred tons of death bearing a hundred elves, fourteen heavy weapons, and three explosive bombards. As the Cloakmaster watched through the eyes of the Spelljammer, hatches opened on the sides and belly of the butterfly-shaped armada, and a swarm of smaller attack flitters was deployed, buzzing speedily toward the Spelljammer.

  From the bow came the smallest of the attacking vessels. A sleek scro battlewagon, shaped like an attacking wild boar, hurtled toward the Spelljammer. One hundred and fifty feet long, the battlewagon, proudly christened Eviscerator, seemed almost as dangerous as the armada, for it carried fourteen medium weapons, a ram, and four bombards. In addition, it was equipped with a wildfire projector, which could spew a highly pressurized stream of fire, the way fountains spewed water. The ship was crewed by 160 ferocious scro fighters, reared, like their ancestors, the ores, on a diet of hatred and blood.

  From starboard came a Shou tsunami, second only to the Spelljammer in length. Like an impossible centipede, the massive vessel squirmed through space as if it were alive, three times the length of the armada's wingspan. Its segmented hull held two hundred Shou warriors, and its powerful defenses consisted of twenty-two heavy weapons, six bombards, and three jettisons. Hatches above each of the ship's legs held individual locust ships, which, when released en masse, would create a swarm that could wreak destruction on their enemies. The locusts were each equipped with a single light weapon, but were more often used in suicide dives against other craft and were sometimes filled with smoke powder, in order to blow the enemy into the gods' embrace.