The Maelstroms Eye (43 page)

The giff fell forward into the grass.

“Gomja!” Teldin shouted. His eyes burned with tears. “Gomja, you son of a bitch, get up!”

“Not likely,” said Cirathorn. He reached down to drop his silver pistol and pull a new one from Gomja’s belt. “He was a very poor actor, anyway. We never charmed him or magically compelled any behavior from him. He was much easier to manipulate directly. If he believed he was doing you good, Teldin Moore, he would do anything. He was faithful and loyal to the end. Not very bright, but faithful, certainly. Giff overplay their parts, and pretending to betray you by turning you over to me was only to be expected. But he tried. He gave it his last full measure.” Cirathorn looked up at Teldin and raised his new pistol, steadying his aim once again on Teldin’s face.

“And you gave your last full measure and more, Teldin Moore, but the Cloak of the First Pilot does not recognize that. It responds only to who is the more clever and powerful and dangerous. That would be me, I believe.”

On impulse, Teldin raised his hand and pointed a finger at Cirathorn. “Die,” he said, not knowing how the cloak would respond. “Die and rot in the Abyss.”

Cirathorn did not move for several moments, his face frozen in surprise. Nothing happened. Then he smiled broadly. “Interesting,” he said. “I feel fine. And now, it’s your —”

There was a movement behind him. A thick blue hand stained with gleaming red came up swiftly and caught the admiral by the leg. Cirathorn started involuntarily and half turned, the pistol swinging around at his assailant.

A second blue fist the size of a baked ham swung up and slammed into the elf’s midsection. Metallic armor crumpled under the force of the blow. The admiral gasped and choked, the wind knocked out of him. Swiftly, Gomja came to his feet, one hand still locked on the admiral’s leg and causing the elf to fall halfway to the ground.

The wide-eyed pilot of the flitter, who had not moved a muscle until this moment, suddenly grabbed for the arms of his helm chair in obvious panic. Gomja spun on his feet at the same moment, whirling the admiral in a tight orbit once around his body, pulling the elf close to avoid striking Teldin or the flitter. On the second pass, as the flitter was beginning to lift away from the ground, Gomja gave a mighty heave and flung the armored elf at the nose of the small ship.

The port window was smashed instantly as the admiral struck it. The flitter rolled backward suddenly, its wings digging into the ground and pivoting the craft onto its back. With a sound like shattering glass, the two wings on the ship broke apart, the shards flying through the air. The ship’s fuselage leaped up, free of all but its wing stubs, and flung the admiral’s body out of the port window. It then flipped again onto the ground. This time, it lay still.

“Gomja!” Teldin cried out, rushing forward to the giff. Gomja stepped back clumsily from looking at the flitter’s wreckage and turned to see Teldin. The front of his crimson jacket was splashed with a darker red that spread down over his barrel chest toward his waist. The giff tried to swallow.

“I hope he heard ray name,” Gomja said. Then he sagged and fell backward to the ground just as Teldin reached him, the giffs thick arms spread-eagle on the grass and weeds.

“Damn you, you are not going to die on me!” Teldin roared, kneeling and tearing at Gomja’s uniform coat. He had the idea that by shouting, Gomja would hear him and would know enough to stay alive. “You’re going to live, you stinking giff! You’re going to live, and I’m going to beat the hell out of you for scaring me like that! Damn you, live! Live, you ugly blue monster, live!”

“There’s … no need to be profane,” came a husky, gasping whisper from the giffs thick lips. “I’m … hardly deaf either. I’m just … a little tired, sir.” The giffs small black eyes blinked open and stared up at the sky. “Giff are notoriously … hard to stop.”

Teldin found the bullet wound: a round hole nearly in the center of the giffs chest, bleeding profusely. He quickly tore the giffs coat at the entry hole for the bullet and wadded one red strip into a thick bandage, which he pressed to the wound. “Hold this!” he ordered. It had been years since he had done this, during the War of the Lance, when he had cared for several victims of arrow attacks in his unit on Krynn. He was amazed he remembered anything at all about first aid.

“You should get to … the ship, sir,” Gomja wheezed, slowly raising a thick blue hand to press on the bandage. “Leave me here, and I’ll —”

“Just shut up!” Teldin yelled. “We’re both going to the ship and we’re getting our butts off this monster for wild-space! Knock off this noble crap, and just shut up and move! Keep that bandage on tightly, as tight as you can!”

Gomja did not reply right away, but after a moment he did make an effort to get up on one elbow, his other hand pressing the bandage to his chest. “I’m not deaf,” he repeated petulantly, in a barely audible voice.

Gomja had almost made it to his feet when he froze, his wide-eyed face turned up toward the sky. Merciful Paladine, not again, Teldin thought in despair. What now?

“Look out, sir!” Gomja began. “That —”

The explosion overhead drowned out the rest.

*****

The yellow man-o-war was too close, Mirandel noticed. It didn’t matter. She looked down again at the wreckage of the flitter and the sprawled silver body that lay among the green litter. She knew, without using a spell or device of any sort, that her husband’s family line had now ended – except for her.

There was some sort of alarm going off, a howling collision alert. She looked up at the window and saw the yellow man-o-war coming straight for the
Empress Dorianne
 – straight for her window, in fact.

It didn’t matter. Her lips moved. She would see her sister soon, her beloved sister, and all would be well.

She had started to say her sister’s name when the yellow man-o-war hit the bridge.

*****

Only Gomja and a handful of other onlookers saw the transformation as the yellow man-o-war collided with the armada’s bridge. The man-o-war had looped in as if seeking refuge from its pursuers, then had dived dead-on at its prey. As the two made contact, the yellow-winged ship vanished in a glittering shower of magical lightning and fire that burst across the gigantic armada as its bridge was destroyed. The craft that was the man-o-war exited the blast and was now revealed to be a tan stone pyramid much smaller than the armada but obviously far more compact. One point on the pyramid’s base had pierced the bridge, like a chisel point through the head of an insect.

The debris from the falling armada rained down across an area a thousand feet wide, and the giff and the human were right in the middle of it.

Chapter Nineteen

Fire fell from the sky. Teldin looked up and said, “No.”

Power surged through his body. Time slowed down. The flaming debris fell lazily now. Teldin grabbed for Gomja’s free arm and heaved. The giff seemed to be unusually light, and Teldin was able to drag the blue-skinned, red-suited goliath at a respectable speed. As he did, Gomja’s face slowly turned to face Teldin with a look of astonishment, one hand still pressing the bloodied bandage to his chest.

A shadow drifted over the grass around Teldin. He looked up and saw a gigantic orange wing tumbling directly at him, magical sparks and flames pouring in rivers across its surface from where it had been torn free of the armada’s hull. The wing was two hundred feet across. It fell quickly, even in slow time, and it was too big to avoid. He tried to speed up his pace, but he was still too slow. The orange wing covered the sky, seconds from striking him.

You will fear not,
said a voice in Teldin’s mind. Teldin slammed into something incredibly hard that he had not seen before him just a moment earlier. Stars exploded in his vision.

He came to on the grass, Gomja gasping for breath at his side. He thought his head was split open, judging from the pain he felt, but he had only smashed his nose. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. And what was Gomja doing here? What was going on? Flames roared all around.

I owe you my apologies,
said a strangely familiar voice in his head.
I want you to sleep very deeply for now, both of you. You will feel no more pain. You soon will awaken and be refreshed.

Teldin clawed at the earth to get to his knees. Darkness overtook him before he could manage to get halfway up. He never felt the ground when he hit it.

*****

The wreckage of the armada was stupendous. Vorr allowed himself to be impressed as the pyramid ship settled down toward the earth, casually passing over the smoldering, smoking pyre of the elven warship. There was no sign of the last man-o-war, which had broken free of combat after the armada was destroyed and had fled. Several ships were chasing it, but the man-o-war had the edge in speed. Vorr could accept its loss, given the magnitude of the victory over the other elven forces. “My general,” called a scro from inside the cargo deck. Vorr turned from the doorless opening where his forces had entered the deck. He shifted his grip on the newly loaded harpoon bombard as the scro continued his message. “Usso reports that he has located the body of Teldin Moore. We will be there in a moment.”

Vorr nodded and looked out of the cargo doorway again. The pyramid ship was only a hundred feet off the ground. Thick smoke drifted past him, causing him to wrinkle his nose in disgust. He would take a long vacation after this, away from everything but clean air and pure water. Anyone who disturbed him would be ground up and eaten.

“How are you doing, General?” Vorr stepped back from the entrance momentarily and gave a brief salute to Admiral Halker, who was walking up behind him. The toothless old scro was looking especially cheerful. “The scars giving you any trouble?” he asked.

Vorr shrugged and gestured at his ruined face, turning to look back out of the cargo bay, the bombard held loosely in his fingers.

“I’ve heard that Usso has located Teldin Moore, who is conveniently dead.” The admiral positively beamed. “We should be able to gain the cloak in one more minute. Do you wish the honors?”

Von stared down into the burning chunks of ceramiclike material that once had been one of the mightiest ships in the known spheres. He nodded, his eyes searching.

He then caught sight of a flash of royal blue among the shattered remains of a vast orange wing, spread out across the green ground. Vorr slapped his hands together to get Halker’s attention, then pointed. The old scro came forward instantly to see, standing fearlessly on the edge of the cargo doorway only a few feet from where Vorr stood. Vorr reached out to steady the admiral, but the scro saw the gesture and recoiled, stepping out of reach. “I can manage!” he snapped. “I’m not a cripple yet!”

Vorr withdrew his hand, giving Halker a curious look before he turned his attention again to the ground. The patch of blue was definitely Teldin Moore and his cloak, sprawled on the smoking ground. Beside him lay a giff in a red military uniform. They were both badly wounded, if not already dead, judging from the amount of blood visible even from this height. Both obviously had been caught in the rain of falling debris from the armada.

The pyramid drifted closer and closer, now only man-height off the ground. Vorr stepped up on the edge of the cargo doorway, preparing to jump down. The pyramid came to a stop a moment later. Vorr dropped over the side of the pyramid, landing crouched on his feet with the bombard held outstretched in one arm. He then straightened slowly and walked over to the pair on the ground.

It took only a glance to see that both of them were dead. A falling armada packed a hell of a punch. The cloak on Teldin’s back appeared undamaged, however. Not a scrap of dust was on it. Nice magic, Vorr thought, and he reached down for the clasp on Teldin’s neck. It popped open at his touch.

With a single motion, General Vorr pulled the blue cloak free and raised it in the gentle wind and smoke. It didn’t feel any different than a regular cloak would feel. Magical things were all the same to him. A shame, really, that he couldn’t just wear it himself. It would have been interesting to have commanded the
Spelljammer,
but it would do just as well to have Admiral Halker do it. It made for a guaranteed job for years to come, a far safer position than if the undead neogi Skarke had been in charge – or Usso, for that matter.

Vorr looked up and saw Halker on the periphery of the cargo doorway. The old scro’s face was alive with naked desire, and his arras were stretched out to Vorr as if Vorr held the scro’s very existence in his hands. Vorr suddenly gave a broad grin, wadded the cloak up with one hand, and tossed it to Halker like a ball. He’d give the old coot Skarkesh’s medallion when he got aboard, and cement his future.

Halker snatched the cloak out of the air, clutching it to his chest in ecstacy. As Vorr stepped forward toward the low stone base of the floating pyramid and tossed his bombard into the cargo bay doorway, Halker made a single thumb’s-up gesture into the air outside the pyramid.

The pyramid lifted rapidly away from the ground.

Vorr slowed his pace for a moment, stunned – then bolted for the pyramid. He leaped at the last moment, mighty hands spread out to catch any pan of the stonework and pull himself aboard. Halker! he thought. Halker, what in the —

He missed and fell, tumbling into a pile of wreckage. As he struggled to his feet, he heard a peal of feminine laughter.

Vorr saw Halker throw his harpoon-bombard somewhere into the wreckage, then continued to watch as the pyramid rose and became a small black square against the patchwork sky, then a square dot, then a mote that faded away as it dropped toward the horizon. For perhaps five minutes, he did nothing else. Then he uttered a word, one that could not have been understood by any listener, through his tortured lips, fused together by slime and torch flame.

“Usso.”

He turned and looked back at the bodies of Teldin Moore and his giff companion.

They weren’t there.