The neogi screamed in white-hot pain. The umber hulk fell to its knees, covering its beady eyes with its thick claws. At once, fingers of crackling energy erupted from the assailants' eyes and mouths. Their bodies seemed to blaze blue from within.
Their screams were high-pitched wails of pain and seemed to echo in Teldin's ears long after they had stopped. In an instant, the unhumans were nothing more than lifeless, burned-out husks, and their charred black Ixxlies crumbled to the ground like the broken, blackened hull of Teldin's nautiloid.
The bearded warrior stood slowly. The fighting had stopped around them as Teldin's cloak had fought back, and as their brother fell to the Cloakmaster's magic, the remaining neogi; started running for the safety of their tower. One female warrior carefully leveled her crossbow and nailed a scurrying neogi through its neck. She screamed a triumphant battle cry, and soon the unhumans were gone.
The burly warrior picked up Teldin's short sword and handed it to him. His eyes twinkled with the exhilaration of a I battle well fought.
"Yes, I guess you are the Cloakmaster," he said.
Teldin shrugged, smiling. "My name is Teldin Moore. How I do you know me?"
The warrior stroked his long beard. "I suppose you could I say we've all been expecting you. I'm CassaRoc. CassaRoc the Mighty, they call me. And I think you can say…" He paused I to appraise Teldin with his clear, cool eyes, then nodded once and smiled back. "I'm a friend," he said.
Teldin stared after the retreating neogi. In the distance, they I were clambering off the wing, up the Spelljammer's side, toward the protection of their tower. "Thanks," Teldin said. "I need all the friends I can get."
"Don't we all, boy?" CassaRoc said. "Don't we all."
CassaRoc ordered his warriors to help move Djan and the I fallen Corontea. As a dozen ran to help, the remaining humans gathered around the two warriors, sheathing their I swords. CassaRoc shouted, making sure he could be heard by all. "Well, that should teach those damned neogi not to mess with the collective, at least for a while. All right," CassaRoc I yelled. "Who's up for a round of ale?"
The humans laughed and shouted agreement. Many stood with their weapons poised, waiting for another possible attack. CassaRoc placed a hand on Teldin's shoulder. "Come on," CassaRoc said. "Your people will be well taken care of. We should leave now, before somebody else decides they want a piece of you."
A tall man strode up to them, neatly outfitted in shining I armor of silver and white. A heavy white cloak billowed I behind him, and the warrior wore his thick, reddish blond I hair in a wild mane that suggested to Teldin that the man was far less tame than his paladin armor suggested. "The centaur tower," the warrior said, casting his gaze over the others' heads. "Mostias can protect us there for a while. We can smuggle the newcomer into the Chalice tower after things settle down."
CassaRoc nodded approvingly. "You're right, Chaladar," he said. He leaned to Teldin and winked. "Besides, the centaurs make some excellent ales."
The woman armed with the crossbow came up beside CassaRoc. Her curly brown hair was held back with a band of shining steel, and she held herself proudly, like a self-assured warrior. "What about Chel? And Gar? Do you want to just leave them here?"
CassaRoc frowned and looked toward the bodies of his fallen comrades. "I know they were friends of yours, Na'Shee," he said. "They were friends to us all, but we have to worry about the living now. Let's get the Cloakmaster here to the tower first. You can round up some men later and bring the bodies to the Tower of Thought." lie laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled softly. "Don't worry. They won't be forgotten."
Na'Shee nodded silently and looked back at her friends' bodies.
Chaladar called out "Let's go!" and the group started jogging toward the outermost tower on the Spelljammer's right wing, with Djan and Corontea each carried by four warriors in the center of the group. Chaladar, the paladin, took point, while CassaRoc ran at the rear. Teldin ran protected in the center, and continually glanced over his shoulders at the tall spires of the citadel sprawled across the Spelljammer's back.
As they ran, CassaRoc pointed out some of the towers and explained a little of the ship's layout. The light of the flow flickered gold and violet across the variegated collection of towers and turrets. Multipatterned flags flew at the pinnacles of several buildings, and the ship's tail, towering above the rooftops and battlements, was a constant reminder of the majesty of the vessel, of the wonder of a living myth. To Teldin, the gleaming towers, the graceful sweep of the Spelljammer's hull, represented nothing but the fulfillment of a dream-a dream of extraordinary adventure that he never could have conceived while a simple melon farmer on Krynn.
But the simple life of Krynn was a lifetime ago and a universe away-or at least it seemed like that to Teldin. Krynn was now little more than a memory, both good and bad. The nights on his land had been sweet, especially in summers, when the hidaglia blossoms were in full bloom and the air was scented with their perfumed musk. But there were bad times that he could never forget, no matter how hard he tried.. the things he had seen during his treks in the War of the Lance, and the oppressive abuse heaped upon him by his father.
A gleaming glint of gold caught his eye, high atop the Given High Command. He focused on it and smiled at the sight, realizing that his long quest was now at an end, that his answers were here, and nowhere else-especially not on Krynn. Krynn was forever gone, for him; it was a way of life to which he could never return, and now did not want to.
The centaur tower was low and asymmetrical, a guardian twin to the dracon tower strategically situated on the port wing. The centaurs were the ostensible wardens and gunnery officers for the tower's fifteen huge catapults, but to Teldin, the building seemed dark and in terrible disrepair, and he wondered if the centaurs should hold the great responsibility for manning the Spelljammer's starboard weapons.
CassaRoc closed and bolted the main doors of the tower behind the humans. His band of warriors instantly relaxed inside the safety of the tower and started unbuckling their tight, heavy armor. Some told jokes and insulted the neogi hordes, calling their eellike mothers "beholder whores" and their fathers "Torilian maggot lovers" (though neogi had neither mothers nor fathers). A few centaurs popped their heads out from their stables and joined in the good humor, wondering if beer would later be poured for free.
CassaRoc ordered Djan and the female helmsman taken to a healer. Teldin stopped them as they carried Djan away. The half-elf was still unconscious, and Teldin placed his hand upon Djan's breast. "They'll take care of you," Teldin said. Then he turned to Corontea. She was bleeding heavily from a nasty gash to her forehead, and her legs and arms were seriously burned.
He closed his eyes. CassaRoc said, "Go on, now," and the warriors took Teldin's people away.
CassaRoc said, "You can't do anything for them, now, Cloakmaster. There's no sense in feeling guilty. We all know the risks of spelljamming. So did they."
CassaRoc and the others started off, and Teldin turned to survey his surroundings. His nose was filled with the underlying scents of farm odors that he had grown up with: of hay and sweat, of earth, and above that, the heavy aroma of horse manure. But here in the dim light-he could see that even light panels in this section of the tower were faulty and fading-the stables seemed cramped and unkempt. Wooden walls were rotting, some with ragged holes where angry centaurs had kicked them out, perhaps in drunken rage. Teldin could also make out the sweet, cloying scent of old ale permeating the walls and floor, almost like fermented honey.
"These are their quarters," CassaRoc told him. The two of them walked side by side through the stable common, then entered a cramped garden, somewhere in the central portion of the tower, Teldin decided. The feeble light panels in the walls and ceilings made what few grains the centaurs were cultivating seem pale and sickly. Gray mushrooms sprouted from the other half of the garden, some growing in rows, others in natural rings. "If they offer you any of the fungus, just say you're not hungry. It wasn't made for human consumption."