He turned to the scro to his left, the first mate of the Tarantuk's Trident. The pale-skinned scro appeared almost fat, his girth straining against his spiked black armor. The general knew that all of that "fat" was muscle. The first mate glanced back, his huge boar's tusks shining dully in the bright sunlight overhead, and he winked, Vorr gave a curt nod. The first mate looked back at the pyramid, seemingly relaxed, his hands open and hovering near the hilt of the broadsword and the handle of the axe that hung from his thick belt.

Almost there, thought the general. Almost there. The false lich didn't seem to suspect a thing about the request for a short conference before making the dose assault on Teldin and his allies. Usso had done her work well with only hours to spare; she'd get a nice reward out of this one, even if she was a bitch otherwise. The Trident coasted toward its unknowing prey, only seconds away from the gravity plane of the deceptively small stone pyramid. The ziggurat had twice the mass of the much-larger squid ship, and a miscalculated move would smash the two ships together, leaving the squid ship sitting in front of several batteries of catapults and ballistae at dead-zero range, its ram jammed into stone.

But there would be no error. Vorr slowly took a breath through his nose, held it for a few moments, then slowly let it put through his lips. No error at all. It was good to be back at war again.

The Trident jerked and shifted. They'd hit the pyramid's gravity plane dead on.

Vorr grasped the railing with one hand and turned to the speaking tube that led to the helm. "Roll over!" he shouted. Then he threw his head back, drew a swift breath, and roared at the top of his lungs at all the universe. He felt his power go put as he screamed, unstoppable, born into fire and death.

Dozens of muffled screams answered his own, and pounding feet thundered three steps at a time up from the ship's cargo deck, where Usso had hidden the scro and ogre warriors after teleporting them in from the other ships, Howling soldiers in full battle gear, black leather gleaming, poured out from their hiding places. Weapons clanged against spiked armor; eyes glowed green with rage.

The view of the universe around the Tarantula's Trident immediately spun in a tight circle as the ship shot forward, crossing the pyramid's gravity plane and approaching from below. The ship lifted slightly to clear the edge of the bottom of the pyramid, then slid to a full stop as its hull scraped across the rough stone of the base. If there were any hatches or bay doors on the pyramid's bottom, they were jammed shut now. Screaming battle cries and curses, the scro and ogres on the main deck snatched up ropes hidden by the railings, then hurled themselves over the sides of the ship, rappelling to the stones below.

Vorr was the first one over the side, ignoring the ropes for the twenty-five-foot fall. He tumbled when he hit but was up at once, and he began waving on the horde. Tight units of ogres and scro, led by war priests, thundered on metal-shod boots for the sides of the pyramid.

"Move it! Move it!" Votr shouted, now heading for the edge himself amid the screaming mob. "Send the bastards back to the Hells! Almighty Dukagsh watches you!"

Vort knew they were already luckier than they deserved. Usso said she had found at least one scro aboard each ship who been charmed into the lich's service. The fox-woman had used up nearly all of her precious scrolls and spell books in undoing the charms and freeing the scro from the lich's domination. It had been easy thereafter to piece together the lich's plot to spy on his scro allies and set up saboteurs in their midst, traitors who would slay the helmsmen of their own ships and send their fleet into a thousand-mile dive to the ground below. The once-charmed scro were now the most frenzied of those leading the attack, berserk in their desire for vengeance. Not even skeletons would be spared; the war priests would destroy them, rather than command them into service with their powers. Skarkesh had gone too far. Dukagsh, wherever he was, would look down and be proud this day.

Vorr gripped the stones at the edge of the pyramid's base and climbed down. Moments later, he felt a rush of nausea come and go as he crossed the pyramid's gravity plane, now greatly altered with the landing of the squid ship. He turned around on the stone wall and began climbing up the stonework of the pyramid's face, surrounded on all sides by his troops on hands and knees.

Luck was still with him: He was on a face leading to the pyramid's cargo doors. The massive, ancient bronze gates were sealed, as were the weapons' bay doors farther up the pyramid's slope. There was no point in trying to force the latter open; it would only waste time.

"Satchel!" a war priest shouted. Moments later, a scro scrambled up the slope to the bronze doors and tore off his thick backpack. The war priest began a short chant, then finished by slapping his bare right hand against the base of the doors at their separation. The wat priest then seized the backpack and jammed it against the doors. The scro in the area moved away from the doors as fast as they could go, then hunkered down, shielding their faces with their armored arms. No one stayed below the doors.

The spell, a minor fire-lighting magic, went off. A burst of flame erupted around the backpack for a moment before the smokepowder in the backpack ignited. The white-hot blast blew a fountain of rock and twisted metal into the air, with shrapnel screaming over the scro backs. With a wrenching metallic sound, one of the two cargo bay doors fell forward and blanged down the side of the pyramid, falling free to bounce through the ship's gravity plane like a flat yo-yo.

Vorr was on his hands and feet on the instant, crossing the stone face for the opening. He had claimed the right of first entry into the lich's pyramid. He had reasons other than sheer glory for wanting this particular honor. When he got to the entryway, he grabbed a bag from his side and emptied its orightly shining contents into his hand, then flung them into the space beyond. The two-dozen pebbles each had permament light spells on them. Without further delay, Vorr pulled his huge sword free, gripped it with both hands, and jumped down into the space where the left cargo bay door had once stood. He looked into the pyramid.

The dead were waiting for him inside.

Another maddened war cry erupted from his lips, and Vorr leaped into the thick of the sword-wielding skeletons before him. His sword whipped out and around, shearing through skulls, spines, and rib cages. The filthy stench of decay and rot assailed his nostrils and filled his lungs. The dead surged for-ward, fearless, mindless, reaching at him with bone fingers and thrusting with dulled sabers and long swords. In a parody of the living, the animated nightmares came on by the dozens, perhaps by the hundreds. The lich had packed the cargo bay with them.

Wild screams sounded behind the general as scro and ogres poured into the room and joined battle with the undead. Earsplitting shots rang out in the bay as starwheel pistols and heavy arquebuses were fired at point-blank range into the skeletal army. Bone fragments ricocheted from the walls and door, scattering across the room.

Vorr's sword swept tirelessly through the dead, severing hands and arms, chopping through their old weapons like a razor through flesh. He spun as he advanced, hewing at every side, eschewing any tactic except slaughter. I'm killing the dead, he thought, and laughed even as the white dead continued to come at him in droves.

A bright tongue of flame flashed into being to Vorr's right. It was the war priests again, he knew, and fought on. The hoard of spell scrolls captured from the elven world of Spiral had been unexpectedly rich. Flame-strike spells burst up from the rear of the room, enveloping the skeletons packed there and incinerating them at once. Waves of searing heat washed through the room and across Vorr's exposed face, but he hardly noticed them.