B'Laath'a bowed his head as Coh scurried past him. Then the leader turned. "Prepared are you. The agent prepared is?"
"Of course.'' B'Laath'a said. "My assassinmeal ready has been since arrival. Meat smuggled to the tower has been… time for one last."
Coh smiled evilly. "Plan of ours action must be put to. Now time is!" He raised a claw to the series of colorful, interlocked circles tattooed on his forehead and concentrated. Come, he commanded silently.
In a few moments, the door to the temple opened and I closed silently. The agent stepped quietly forward on bare feet, a ritual of neogi enslavement.
"Here your precious Cloakmaster almost is, meat," the neogi master said. His black, hairy body was a proud swirl of colors and designs, radiating his power and status among his slithering brethren, and he puffed out his chest to impress the slave. "Well it may not go killing the Cloakmeat during our initial attempt. You will, of course, if caught as we have commanded do. Correct." It was not a question.
The agent seemed to stammer, as though B'Laath'a's spells and mind-wiping were being fought. Coh grunted in anger, and a sharp pinprick of white-hot pain erupted in the agent's mind. The agent fell to the floor.
"Correct," Coh said. B'Laath'a stood over the agent and spoke a spell of pain. The agent's skin grew bright red with fiery pain. "Correct," B'Laath'a said.
"Y- yes," the agent stammered. "Yes- the Cloakmaster will be yours, Master… Teldin Moore must d- die…"
The neogi, clasped in the arms of its umber hulk, snapped out at the Cloakmaster with its needle-sharp teeth.
Teldin's hand went to the hilt of his short sword at the neogi's scream, but the blade of its enslaved umber hulk was j a silver, deadly arc, curving down toward Teldin's head, and Teldin realized in a flash that he had no time to deflect the blow.
The Cloakmaster lunged forward, angrily grabbed the snapping neogi by its long, eellike throat, and wrenched it from the umber hulk's grasp. The hulk's sword hurtled down in an unstoppable arc and neatly sliced through one of the neogi's legs.
Teldin stomped on the flat of the umber hulk's blade and threw a powerful kick into its chest. The hulk stumbled backward, hardly affected, as it was protected by thick layers of hide. With a shout, Teldin slammed the neogi to the ground and drove his foot into its fat neck. The neogi gurgled a cry of pain. Its claws scrabbled the air, vainly attempting to block Teldin's assault. Its needle-sharp teeth bit at the air, coming far short of injecting their sickly venom deep into Teldin's veins.
The Cloakmaster's sword was a blur as it arced high, then dropped swiftly down, deep through the neogi's skull and into its evil brain.
Teldin jerked out the sword. Great gouts of blood spurted from the wound. The dead neogi's umber hulk stood and stared as its master's blood pooled around its feet. Teldin wasted no time. He leaped forward and sliced into the umber hulk's thick shoulder.
It fell to one knee and screamed in rage. One great arm went up to block a second blow, and the arm was cleaved away at the shoulder with an eruption of hot, ugly blood,
The umber hulk collapsed at Teldin's feet. He spun to face squarely the oncoming horde of neogi, but a series of loud shouts echoed behind him, and the neogi horde was met from behind by an angry band of human warriors, which rushed from across the landing field at the Spelljammer's bow.
There were at least twenty of them, Teldin thought, a motley assortment of humans in armor, wielding weapons that had been collected from all the known crystal spheres. Armed with huge broadswords and battle-axes, the humans swarmed over the reptilian hordes and engaged them fiercely.
Teldin dove into the fray, swinging his sword from side to side and carving a path through the waves of black neogi flesh. The reptiles chattered and snatched out at him with their razor teeth. His sword cleaved their heads from their necks; his cloak swatted at them unconsciously, protecting his limbs from sword cuts and blows, and even the tiniest scratch from a venomous neogi fang.
Around him, the swarm of humans broke the neogi line. One small male, clad in a long, plaid cloak, shot barbed projectiles at the neogi from a deadly silver slingshot. When a neogi was hit, even with a minor scratch, within a minute it would begin to twitch horribly, then collapse into a spasmodic heap, screaming in searing pain.
Other humans were not so lucky. One warrior went down, trapped between the sharp axes of two umber hulks. Another fighter battled back-to-back with a female warrior. The woman was the first to fall, caught in a thigh by the snapping j jaws of an angry neogi. The man was left to fend off two more of the venomous beasts, then was pulled down as the woman's murderer leaped upon him from behind. Another woman kept the neogi at bay with wide swings of her battle-axe, but one of the umber hulks cast a heavy spear with ease and impaled the woman through the chest.
The battle shifted without warning. As their comrades began to fall, the surviving humans became determined to win and pressed on with increasing fury. Teldin heard the neogi scream in pain and rage, and he watched as umber hulks staggered away without guidance, their masters lying dead in their own dark blood.
A human behind him shouted "Cloakmaster!" and Teldin spun around.
A ferocious neogi had crouched and sprung from the deck and was rushing down at him from midair.
Teldin brought up his sword and thrust the blade deep into the neogi fighter's pulsing heart, then slammed the spiderlike body to the ground and kicked it off his sword.
He turned to spy a huge man, almost broader across his shoulders than he was tall, swing his broadsword in a huge arc to slice through the thick necks of two advancing umber hulks. They fell at his feet, and as their blood sprayed onto his legs and boots, he laughed loudly at the reptilian hordes and their slaves.
"Thanks," Teldin said. The warrior kicked one of the hulks in the side. His foot bounced harmlessly off the thing's thick carapace.
The man's long, thick beard was tied in a cord that dangled 1 to his waist. He bent and lifted one of the hulks' swords, and Teldin could see that this man, though small in stature, was I barrel-chested and muscular, and his armor had seen a lot of damage.
The warrior turned. "So, you're the Cloakmaster?" he asked, panting.
"I- " Teldin did not know how to react. "Well, yes, I suppose I am. How did you- "
He was cut off as a huge umber hulk ran up behind the warrior and grabbed him from behind. The human's swords clattered to the deck, and the warrior squirmed to get away. The hulk's grip was like an iron vise, and as its sharp, clacking mandibles moved inches closer to the warrior's neck, a fat neogi scurried out of the surrounding battle and bared its fangs, preparing to sink them deep into the human's flesh.
Teldin balanced his short sword in his hand, then aimed quickly and hurled it at the ugly neogi. The umber hulk lashed out with one hand, caught the sword, and cast it to the deck. The human lashed out with one, thick hand, but the hulk swatted it away and quickly replaced its hold on him. Its mesmerizing eyes seemed to glimmer with dull amusement.
The neogi laughed at Teldin as it bared its yellow, needlelike fangs. Venom dripped from its mouth and spattered the deck. The neogi turned to the warrior again.
It raised its blunt head, ready to lunge.
Teldin felt his rage building, and his skin began to shiver with energy. The cloak whipped wildly about him. He felt its warm energies pulsing through his veins. He cried out "NO!” and twin bolts of blue, magical lightning lanced out from the folds of the cloak and speared the neogi and its hard-skinned servant.
Arcs of mystical energy pulsed from the cloak to engulf the Unhuman enemies. The warrior fell from the hulk's arms and scrambled away.