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…"
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.