"How is a blonde not like a hammership?"
The voice was an inhuman scream. It was deafening and mad. Vorr looked straight up.
A thing let go of the ladder fifteen feet over his head and leaped down at him. It had not been there a moment ago.
Vorr had just enough time to swing the harpoon-bombard up and squeeze both triggers. The weapon went off next to his right ear and eye; the explosions maimed hearing and sight with concussions and powder burns. The massive thing landed right on him anyway, its clawed hands larger than anvils and its goat-skull jaws open wide in insane laughter.
Vorr's grip was torn from the ladder by the impact, and he was knocked sprawling to the floor. For a wild second he thought the huge creature was an undead chimera or lion, but it had only one skeletal head within its great, ragged mane. Brass scales covered its hide. Demonic bat wings whipped into the air on either side of the beast. Vorr kicked up into the beast's chest and abdomen, feeling thick ribs snap and flesh tear as his metal-plated boots ground in. He couldn't bring the harpoon-bombard up to strike, as the creature held his arm pinned down with both of its own great forearms, each fully half again as large as Vorr's own. Vorr's other arm was trapped beneath the creature's mass, crushed against his chest. The monster's strength was relentless.
"How is a blonde not like a hammership?" the beast screamed again, bright purple flames dancing in its eye sockets. Vorr now saw the butt ends of the two barbed harpoons protruding from the monster's maned shoulders on opposite sides of its head. The spears had gone straight into the beast, but it had barely noticed them. Purple-black blood spurted from the wounds and spilled down its scraggly mane, dripping on Vorr's face and armored chest.
Suddenly, the monster belched a cloud of white gas from its mouth, the opaque mist blinding Vorr but doing no other harm. Twisting beneath his attacker's weight, Vorr found the leverage to free his left hand. His fingers came up beneath the monster's jaw and found its scaled throat. Vorr's fingers clenched the loose skin tightly, then he quickly raised his legs from beneath the beast and wrapped them around the beast's back, locking his heels together across its spine, just behind its great black wings. He squeezed with his legs, using every ounce of strength to crash the monster's windpipe shut at the same time.
The skull-headed beast jerked its head back and bucked, trying to leap away from the leg-lock, but could not get its footing. The goat-skull face came down abruptly, snapping at Vorr's face but missing by only a foot, held back by Vorr's left arm; it then tried to breath gas on him, but only wisps of white vapor came out. Vorr saw the creature's eyes turn from violet flames into golden ones.
The creature released its grip on Vorr's right arm with both hands, attempting to drag his other arm away from its throat. The bombard instantly came up, propelled by Vorr's right arm, and he jammed its barrel straight into the monster's nearest eye socket and pushed.
A flash of white lightning burned the air for a fraction of a second, spilling from the creature's eye and playing along the bombard barrel into the air in a dozen directions. Neatly blinded, Vorr felt nothing and realized the bolt was magical, so it could not harm him. He pushed on the bombard until something in the monster's skull broke, and the barrel was suddenly thrust out the other eye socket.
"That's not the answer!" the beast shrieked. Without warning, the monster exploded. A huge circle of interlocking bolts of lightning took its place, snaking across Vorr's limbs and chest in a wild dance-and the lightning vanished, leaving no trace of the beast.
Vorr fell back on the floor, his feet thumping into the stone. He half sat up, still exerting himself against the monster's now-vanished throat. After a second to look around, he quickly got to his feet. Nothing was left.
All was quiet again, except for a horrible ringing noise in his ears. He looked up the ladder again and saw that the hatchway was open at the top. If the false lich was anywhere, it was up there.
Slowly and deliberately, the general drew a long dagger from a thick sheath at his belt. He reached for the ladder again, placing the dagger in his teeth, and started up.
"Worked my last defense, hidden no more, has not," said a familiar voice from the top room. "My astrosphinx much trouble to collect was. Immune to spells, I see, the treacherous general is, and I on the helm sit, spells of my own gone for this ship to feed. Bad my condition looks."
Vorr continued climbing. He was halfway up.
"To bargain for my existence I should like," said the voice. "Material items you will take. Knowledge from my head you will not. Perhaps this knowledge valuable is?"
Vorr reached the top of the ladder. Cautiously, he peered into the room beyond. As expected, the room was very small, roughly cubical and barely fifteen feet along each side. No decorations graced the walls, as far as he could see. He crouched slightly, then charged up the last few steps and leaped free of the ladder and into the room, turning to see if enemies stood behind him.
The room was almost empty. An undistinguished helm sat against the far wall. In it sat the false lich, motionless. Next to the helm chair was a rickety table of rough-hewn wood, on which sat a few small items, including a jade bowl, a small cloth sack, and a mirror on a stand. Vorr recognized the mirror at once as the one Skarkesh had relied upon for scrying on Teldin Moore. He supposed the lich's medallion was in the sack. Four torches burned against the walls at eye level, their flames giving off warmth and odor but no smoke.
"Not good enough was our bargain?" asked the robed skeleton. "Not good enough for the scro general to keep his word to an old one? More does the general want-perhaps the Spelljammer as well as the treasure within it?"
"You betrayed us, Skarkesh," said Vorr softly, turning his fall attention to the skeleton. The huge knife turned in his hand. "You set out own soldiers against us. You meant to sabotage our fleet once you got the cloak from Teldin Moore." Vorr took a slow, quiet step forward.
"Lie you do, lie to justify treason," hissed the skeleton, "and unwise it would be to carve on these old bones. Immune to magic maybe you are, but to ignorance not. The Spelljammer find I can. The cloak find I can. Of more I know, much more, but not for telling when this body… dead is."
Vorr came closer. He was six steps away. The knife blade's tip rose. "I weep for you," he said.
"These treasures yours are," said the skeleton, making a brief gesture toward the table. "The seeing disk of the Spelljammer, yes, and a magical mirror, for spying upon Teldin Moore-"
"-and scro allies," Vorr finished, five steps away.
"Norscro allies, fool!" snapped the skeleton. "But good it is for the projecting of my image, to allow the casting of spells to charm or compel action, to plant a traitor among the friends of Teldin Moore and reveal all their plans upon the making! A traitor among them now is, and Teldin's secrets to me it has been sending all along!"
Vorr glanced at the mirror. Four steps. "Who?"
Skarkesh made a tiny gesture with one finger. "Who? One word, then, am I worth, then with galley slop to be put out on a jettison when it I speak? Done it is." A skeletal hand reached out toward the table and made a gesture at the mirror's surface. Immediately, the silvered glass turned black.