But someone had brought order to it. After she watched for a while, Raven could make out certain patterns. Amid the chaos, the creatures went about tending their motley vessels in an inefficient but purposeful manner.

"Ships?" she asked in a whisper. "If this is their fishing fleet, I'll put good odds on the fish."

Om shook her tiny brown head. "Spelljammers. Working spelljammers."

The first mate rounded on the gnome. "Impossible," Gaston hissed.

In the longest speech any of the others had ever heard from her, the gnome insisted that the ships, despite their appearance, were spaceworthy and ready for flight. Om concluded her argument by pointing up. The others looked. Far overhead was an opening big enough to reveal all three moons. The cone-shaped cavern apparently was the interior of a long-dead volcano. Raven guessed that any ship in the motley fleet easily could make it through.

"I've seen enough," Gaston announced. The others nodded, and they made their way out as quickly as possible, fighting both the steep incline and the punishing gravity force.

Rozloom was where they had left him, half-frozen and edgy. He claimed he'd seen nothing, which struck Raven as odd. She would have expected him to invent a battle with fearsome creatures, a story that cast him in the hero's role. Dismissing the aperusa, she headed back toward the shore. She would have liked to stick around for a better look, but Gaston Willowmere was nearly turning himself inside out in his anxiety to return to the swan ship to report.

By the time they reached the longboat, Rozloom had regained his usual ebullient nature. As he rowed, he sang an obscene aperusa ditty in his deep bass voice, punctuating it with an occasional wink or leer. By the time they reached the swan ship, Raven was ready to throttle him.

Vallus received their news with alarm and insisted that they must send word of this development to elven high command as quickly as possible. The elves redoubled their efforts to repair the swan ship, but not for this reason alone.

The three moons of Armistice were almost in alignment.

*****

"Well, where is it?" snapped Grimnosh.

The bionoids of Clan Kir, now back in their elven forms, exchanged uncertain glances. They barely had docked their shrike ships aboard the Elfsbane when the scro general came striding into their midst, followed by his surly, gray-green adjutant. Wynlar, who usually dealt with the insectare and scro, had not yet arrived.

"Sir?" one of the bionoids ventured.

"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.