"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. The rest of you, prepare yourselves for battle. All of you, meet in my study at four bells to receive further assignments and tactics. Go now."
The scro spun and stalked out of the bionoids' quarters, silently berating himself as he went. He should have known better than to let K'tide out of his sight even for a moment. He should have squashed the insectare like the bug he was.
Grimnosh had no doubt about K'tide's goal; the insectare was obsessed with the destruction of Lionheart. It had not escaped the scro's attention that the klicklikak-the insectare's hideous ship-was no longer aboard the dinotherium. K'tide apparently had taken a crack crew of bionoids with him, and where else would they go but Armistice? The klicklikak had been stripped for cargo, and K'tide and his crew easily could load a secondary marauder and its attendant priest in the hold. K'tide would then chase down the swan ship, use the bionoid warriors to overtake the elven crew, and use the swan ship and the elflike bionoids to smuggle the marauder into the elven base. Not a bad plan, Grimnosh admitted grudgingly, providing one was willing to go one step further.
So far Teldin Moore had escaped every attempt to relieve him of his cloak. The human and his elven allies could not stand against the force that he, Grimnosh, would bring against them. In battle the Elfsbane alone was more than a match for a swan ship. K'tide might have culled the bionoid force somewhat, but a dozen of the monsters still remained under Grimnosh's banner as well as three shrike ships, and soon a fleet of ores would complete his personal navy. To ensure victory, Grimnosh would direct the battle himself.
Once the Cloak of the First Pilot was in his possession, his first act would be to take revenge on the presumptuous K'tide. Grimnosh personally would peel the insectare's exoskeleton away plate by plate, then have the creature slowly flayed to death with its own antennae. The scro's fierce scowl relaxed under the soothing prospect of pleasures to come.
Once he had dealt with K'tide, he would borrow the traitor's scheme to use the bionoids, the captured swan ship, and the Witchlight Marauder to bring down Lionheart. Grimnosh was a practical scro, and he saw no reason why the insectare's plan should die when the spy master did.
Chapter Sixteen
When the first morning rays of sunlight touched the swan ship, they fell upon a frenzy of activity. Only two days remained until the three moons of Armistice would come fully into alignment. According to Vallus, this event occurred every twenty-eight local days, and at such times the planet was racked with earthquakes, volcanic activity, and violent high tides. Getting off Armistice as soon as possible absorbed every member of the crew.
To Teldin's way of thinking, things couldn't get much worse. Turbulent seas already were buffeting the swan ship, and rumblings could be heard not only from the shore, but deep in the seabed beneath them. Blizzards were almost a daily occurrence, many of them punctuated with bone-shaking thunder and lightning.
During one such storm, a random flash of lightning caught Teldin's attention. As he watched, a long, insistent streak blazed above the snow-covered ground, touching down between the shoreline and the mountains. Teldin stood at the upper deck's railing for a long time, squinting in the direction of the vanished light.
Something about the flash stirred his memory. As he thought it over, Teldin recognized the true nature of the light. When last he'd seen the night sky lit by such a streak, a spelljamming vessel had crashed on his farm and had begun the nightmare he now lived. Time slipped away, and for a moment Teldin was a bewildered farmer again, helplessly cradling a dying reigar woman in his arms.
Not again, Teldin vowed silently. It was not likely that he could do anything for the crew of the vessel, but he had to at least try. With a surge of resolve, Teldin strode off in search of his improbable ally: Raven Stormwalker.