"Report!" Aelfred bellowed.

Teldin leaned over the turret rail, glad to turn his back on the carnage. "Two dead," he said, trying to keep his voice level and matter-of-fact, "two injured. The ballista's wrecked."

Aelfred's face had a grim cast, and his eyes were as cold and hard as flint. "If there's anything to salvage, do it," he ordered, "then get below and under cover. This is going to be bloody."

"No!" The vehemence of his own response came as a surprise to Teldin, and to Aelfred as well, judging by his expression. "No," Teldin repeated more reasonably. "You need every able-bodied man you can get."

Aelfred's face clouded over, and he blistered the air with a soldier's oath. Then, suddenly, his frown faded, replaced by an unwilling smile. "Your call," he told Teldin. "Make sure you're armed… and watch your back."

Teldin smiled. He didn't need that last bit of advice. His skin was very precious to him, and he'd do everything he could to make sure it remained reasonably intact. But… armed? He looked around the turret quickly. For the first time, he noticed-or let himself notice-the identity of the crewman who lay broken against the turret wall. It was Gendi, the one who'd lent Teldin his short sword for his practice session with Aelfred. The sword was still in its sheath on Gendi's belt, and it was certain that Gendi wouldn't be wanting it anymore. Carefully avoiding the messy reminders of the other crewman's fate, Teldin crossed the turret. He hesitated a moment-there was something about taking from the dead that gave him pause-then he drew the sword from Gengi's scabbard. He clutched the weapon in his fist tightly, to stop the disturbing tremor he noticed in his hand, and ran his left palm along the flat of the blade. The metal was cool and smooth, and somehow it seemed to shore up his flagging courage. He had nowhere to put the weapon and considered for a moment removing Gendi's sword belt. That would be too much, he decided, and it would mean moving the body. Even though Gendi was past feeling anything, Teldin couldn't bring himself to shift the broken-backed corpse.

Dana was watching him dumbly, her eyes still glazed with shock and pain. He raised the sword and held it before him, forcing a fierce grin onto his face. As he'd hoped, the gnomish woman responded. Her eyes cleared, and she drew the long dagger she had at her own hip. She smiled back at him. Once more she looked like the tough little warrior that he'd always considered her to be.

The Probe was almost upon the deathspider. It looked as though Aelfred was going to drive the hammership's blunt ram full into the head of the spidership. "Prepare to ram!" Aelfred's roar echoed throughout the ship. Everywhere, crewmen grabbed whatever purchase came to hand: gunwale rails, rigging, or fixed pieces of equipment. Teldin shrank the cloak to its smallest dimension, wrapped his left arm around the turret rail, and held on for dear life..

Above and below the Probe, the deathspider's huge legs swung inward like huge levers, preparing to grapple the hammership. To Teldin there seemed no possible way of avoiding their embrace, or the impending collision.

With only instants to spare, Aelfred bellowed, "Down a-port, hard!"

The blunt bow of the hammership dropped, and the ship swung rapidly to the left.

Impact! Even with his grip on the rail, the shock almost flung Teldin across the turret, and his left shoulder felt like his arm was being torn from the socket. He fought to keep his feet. Belowdecks he heard crashing as inadequately secured equipment, and perhaps even people, smashed into bulkheads and decks.

With a rush of fierce excitement, Teldin understood Aelfred's plan. The last-moment maneuver had changed the Probe's course. Instead of driving full into the deathspider's bridge, the hammership's ram had instead smashed into the lower left-hand leg of the neogi vessel's grappling ram, near its root. It was the same leg that had been damaged by one of the Probe's early catapult shots. In its entirety, the impetus of both massive vessels had been concentrated on that single spot. No matter how strong the material that made up the grappling ram, a single leg could only be so thick, and its structure was already seriously damaged. The iron-ribbed crystal had fractured, and the entire leg had been torn away from the vessel.

The massive black bulk of the deathspider slipped by, directly above the deck of the hammership. With a splintering of wood, the top one-third of the mainmast-and the crow's nest, thankfully empty-was carried away. Teldin's eardrums popped with a change in air pressure, and his balance swam as giddily as it had when the pirate wasp passed near the gnomish longboat.

Teldin looked over the turret rail to the forecastle deck. Vallus Leafbower had somehow kept his feet and was weaving intricate patterns in the air before him with delicate fingers. Although the elf was speaking for himself alone, the fluid syllables of the spell he was constructing easily carried through the sounds of chaos. Teldin could feel the power the elf mage was wielding; the hair on the backs of his hands stirred, and the air on the forecastle had the biting odor of a thunderstorm.

The incantation reached its climax, and the elf thrust a rigid finger out toward the underside of the deathspider. A beam of harsh green light lashed out from his fingertip and struck the deathspider in the middle of the thin "neck" connecting the head with the abdomen. Where the beam struck, the crystal of the hull exploded into dust. The dull red light within the spidership shone out through a ragged-edged hole in the hull. The great black ship groaned, as though in torment.

"Down a-port!" Aelfred yelled again. There was no response; the Probe's course didn't change. "Down a-port!" the first mate repeated. "What the hell's going on… ?"

The mind flayer's mental voice cut him off. The helm is down. Vila, is unconscious.

Aelfred's answer was a warrior's curse.

Vallus faced the first mate calmly. "Shall I… ?"

"No!" Aelfred fought his anger under control again. "No," he repeated, more calmly. "We'll need you on deck before long." He thought for a moment, then smiled. "Get that gnome-Saliman, is that his name? Get him on the helm, then get back up here fast, got it?"

The elf nodded his understanding and ran for the ladder to the main deck. Aelfred looked up at the deathspider, still passing by above his head. His expression was grim.

Well it should be, Teldin realized. Liono had counseled against getting into the spidership's rear arc, and that's just where they were going to end up. There was nothing they could do about it, until the gnomish cleric took the helm and got the hammership under control.

The deathspider was almost past. "Take cover!" Aelfred roared.

Teldin looked around him. There was little enough cover here in the turret. He felt a tug on his arm. It was Dana. "Down here," she urged, pointing to the ruins of the ballista. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. They crouched beneath the smashed weapon, taking what little shelter they could. Teldin glanced up.

The deathspider had passed. Through a gap in the underside of the abdomen he saw what looked like a series of small catapults. Figures moved around the weapons, silhouettes against the dim red light within the vessel. Most looked vaguely human, but some were misshapen figures out of nightmares. As one, the multiple catapults fired. Teldin forced his body backward, pressing himself as close to the ballista's swivel mount as possible.

Not a moment too soon. There was a hiss, like sudden, heavy rain or hail, but this hail wasn't frozen water. A momentary deluge of small projectiles lashed against the deck: pebbles, scraps of metal, iron spikes, even some things that looked like fragments of shattered bone.