The question remained: Was Teldin Moore an appropriate choice? After observing the human for many days, she'd become quite impressed with him. People tended to like and trust him, which was a mark in his favor. He had an honest, decent core to him, and she had little doubt that he'd stick with whatever bargain they struck. She'd had a hard time dragon-charming the man, which, though annoying, was another huge mark in his favor. The dragon was very close to offering him a deal, but something held her back. To her way of thinking, an aspirant to the captain's chair of the Spelljammer should have a deep, true love of adventure and a bold spirit. Teldin Moore did not lack strength, nor was he timid, but he didn't seem inclined to take charge. To her eye, he was drifting in the stream of events. She suspected that unless things changed, he would never survive the challenges that awaited a potential captain aboard the great ship. She knew a little of these things, enough to make her fear for the man she had chosen to be her surrogate. Guilt was out of the question, of course. Such trivial emotions were utterly foreign to a radiant dragon.
The scraping of rocks against the bottom of the longboat brought Raven's attention back to the mission. She wasn't exactly thrilled with her crew. Gaston Willowmere, the first mate, had an unreasonable grudge against moon elves. The other elf, a gorgeous female warrior of sorts who was named after some plant or other, had a nasty habit of upstaging her. Om was a gnome-enough said-though remarkably taciturn for the species, Bahamut be praised. Fear and cold had reduced the voluble Rozloom to silence, which was just fine with Raven. The aperusa had crossed the line between adulation and familiarity once too often.
The odd search party came ashore without incident and skirted the hot springs, not wanting to alert the bugbears to its presence. The night was uncommonly clear, and the winds were calm. After wading through the snow for an hour or so, the party members found two sets of bearlike tracks and followed them to the base of one of the two large mountains. Beneath a rocky overhang was a tunnel into the frozen ground. The search party exchanged uncertain glances.
"I say we go in," Raven voted, stooping down to peer into the opening. "That boring wizard of yours says the goblin people live underground."
"Agreed," Rozloom said firmly. He struck a heroic pose, one meaty fist clasped over his heart. "I will stand guard here."
With an amused smile, Raven nodded to the aperusa. A coward he undoubtedly was, but even if he were as brave as a dracon, he'd have to stay behind. Rozloom stood several inches above six feet and was prodigiously broad; she doubted he'd fit the tunnel ahead.
Rozloom forgotten, Raven turned her attention back to the tunnel. It sloped downhill at an alarming angle and rounded a sharp corner after a few feet. It was wide enough, but none too tall. Either the orcs on this world were a petite variety, or they'd stumbled upon the servant's entrance, noted the disguised dragon.
She slipped into the tunnel, followed by the elves and gnome. Fortunately her elven body came equipped with night vision, so she was able to discern patterns of heat in the rock. There was little heat to be had anywhere on Armistice, but a faint red glow gradually increased as they made their way along the winding path.
Finally they came out on a walkway that overlooked a vast, natural cavern. Raven grabbed Gaston's arm and pulled him down behind the cover of a large boulder, then she motioned for the others to do the same. Thus hidden, she turned her attention to the bizarre scene that sprawled out before them.
A large hot spring bubbled and gushed in the center of the chamber-that would account for the heat, Raven supposed, not counting the scattering of dung-fueled fires. Phosphorescent fungi grew along the base of the walls and lent a sickly green glow to the cavern. This light was augmented by a few oil lamps made from large mollusk shells. The lamps emitted more rancid smoke than light, but after the darkness of the tunnel the chamber seemed as bright as highsun.
Although the scenery was as dismal as any Raven had seen, more disturbing was the chamber's occupants. The place was littered with goblinkin of every description. There were the squat, deeply furred bugbears the first elven party had mistaken for yeti, packs of tiny, pale gray kobolds, and slightly larger goblins. The orcs were the most grotesque mutation. Although they still had the tusks, wolflike ears, and upturned snouts common to orcs, centuries of living underground had compacted more orc into less space. They appeared to be no taller than five feet, and their barrellike chests and large arms brought to mind dwarven warriors. They had no fur, but their hides appeared to have thickened to an unnatural degree. All of the creatures ranged in color from pale gray to dirty white, and almost without exception they were unclothed. Most of the weapons Raven saw were crude mallets: carved stone lashed to a long bone with a length of dried sinew. A few orcs carried deeply pitted blades or axes-family heirlooms or war trophies, Raven supposed. Armistice was metal-poor and lacked fur-bearing animals, so the goblin races didn't have much to work with. The "culture" that had evolved was squalid, brutal, and apparently chaotic.
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.