As he watched, two of the four wings shifted their angle and the vessel began to maneuver. Teldin tracked the glass over to the dreadnought, but the two vessels were too far apart to fit in the device's narrow field of view. He lowered the tube from his eye, understanding why Miggins had given up on the device: the naked eye was the only way to get a sense of the overall battle.

"The wasp's changing course," Miggins shouted.

"Aye," Horvath growled. "Getting edgy, as well it might." Teldin nodded. It must be more than slightly unnerving to have the huge bulk of a gnomish dreadnought bearing down on you.

The wasp changed course again-slight corrections only, but obviously to get it out of the Unquenchable's path. Captain Wysdor was shifting his course, too, keeping his bow pointed directly at his foe. Collision course was maintained. A projectile hurtled from the small ballista in the bow of the wasp, to slam and shatter harmlessly against a metal hull plate.

With an effort, Teldin tore his gaze away from the apparently imminent collision. The other two wasps were changing course, too, just as Horvath had predicted. Their bows were coming up and turning inward, as they maneuvered to close with the dreadnought. Finally Teldin saw the wisdom of the pirates' tactics: even if the Unquenchable destroyed its single target, the other two ships would be maneuvering into position below and behind it, masked by the dreadnought's own hull from any weapons it might be carrying. Presumably the gnomish ship could roll, but by then the wasps could already have landed several damaging shots. And, according to Horvath, the dreadnought was in no condition to sustain prolonged fire from two fully armed wasps.

"Look!" Miggins yelled.

The closing ships were almost on top of each other. Again the wasp fired a ballista bolt-a dean miss this time. The gunner must have been distracted, Teldin mused, grinning wryly. Wonder why. The pirate captain tried a last-ditch move-a hard turn to port-but the Unquenchable matched the maneuver perfectly. There was no chance that the wasp could avoid a collision….

Then the dreadnought's bow dropped into a steep dive beneath the still-climbing wasp. The gnomish ship's heavy mast smashed into the pirate ship's underside, tearing away two of its legs. At the same instant, a barrage leaped upward from the sterncastle, but a barrage such as Teldin had never seen before. Catapult stones and ballista bolts were one thing, but this fusillade seemed to consist of virtually anything that wasn't bolted down: a table and several stools, replacement lengths of spar, lanterns and flasks of oil, boxes and crates of supplies, even a barrel of ale. Teldin couldn't even begin to imagine what contraption the Weapons Guildsmen had fabricated to loft all those projectiles.

Whatever it was, it was certainly effective. The volley rocketed straight into the underside of the wasp. High-velocity foodstuffs tore through fragile wings; furniture smashed into the wooden hull. Something struck the root of the port wings and burst into flame.

The gnomes in the longboat roared their approval. "Good shooting!" bellowed Horvath in a voice three times his size. "And they're away. Look."

Sure enough, the dreadnought was accelerating again along its new course-down and away from the scene of battle. The two wasps that had been climbing to engage the gnomes were now well behind their target and heading the wrong way. They immediately began to come about, but even to Teldin's untrained eye it was obvious they'd be at a grave disadvantage by the time they completed their turn. It would be a stern chase, but this time the range would be much greater. He added his voice to the cheers of the gnomes….

Then he stopped as a thought struck him. "What about us?" he asked.

"Aye," Horvath replied in the sudden silence. "That is a question. Oars, I think we-"

"Wasp ho!" Miggins's cry cut him off.

In the excitement of the Unquenchable's escape, they'd forgotten the third wasp. Seriously damaged-virtually crippled-with sullen red fire licking from a hole in the hull, the vessel was still under power. Its last maneuver to avoid the collision had changed its heading. Maybe a sharp reversal of course was beyond the capabilities of the damaged ship, or maybe its captain and crew had decided they'd had their fill of battle. Whatever the reason, the wasp wasn't even trying to take up the pursuit of the dreadnought. Instead it moved slowly toward the longboat. Teldin could see movement on the wasp's foredeck.

"Oars," Horvath snapped, "take us about and down." Dana responded instantly, but Miggins sat transfixed. "Oars!" Horvath roared.

Miggins jumped guiltily and grabbed his oar, mirroring the angle at which Dana held hers. The longboat turned sharply, and the nose dropped. Teldin clutched at the thwart, expecting some kind of falling sensation. There wasn't one. To his sense of balance, the longboat seemed as steady as ever. It was everything else-the stars, the distant dreadnought, and the closing wasp-that seemed to wheel around him as though he were the center of the universe. Intuitively, it seemed, he grasped what that meant.

Or was it intuitively? Teldin had come to suspect that the cloak he wore was somehow supplying him with information. Was this another example of the process?

No matter what the source of the revelation, it made sense. Apparently, every spelljamming vessel, no matter how small, had its own field of gravity. "Up" and "down" had no significance, except when related to the vessel itself. As he'd seen when the longboat was lowered from the dreadnought, "down" didn't extend forever, or the boat would have plummeted to the surface of Krynn, hundreds of leagues below. There had to be some kind of "gravity plane" near what would be the waterline on an ocean-going vessel. It seemed logical that "down" might be the direction toward that gravity plane. But didn't that mean you should be able to walk on the underside of the Unquenchable's hull?

"Give us a quarter roll to port," Horvath ordered, breaking into Teldin's deliberations. The oarsmen obeyed instantly. Once again the universe moved about Teldin, and the wasp disappeared below the longboat's hull. "Shielding us from bow shots," Horvath explained grimly. "We can't do much about anything heavier but get out of here, fast. Saliman, if you please?" The gnomish priest furrowed his brow in concentration but gave no other sign of having heard.

With a splintering crash, the boat jolted as if struck by a titan's fist. Teldin sprawled in the scuppers, striking his head solidly against a thwart as he did so. His stomach was wrenched with nausea and he struggled to keep from vomiting. With a supreme effort he fought back the black veil that seemed to dim his vision.

The gnomes had fared better than he had, he saw… except for Saliman. The impact had tumbled the priest from his throne, and now he lay huddled in the scuppers, bleeding from a nasty gash on his brow. Horvath crouched beside him, his ear by the older gnome's mouth to listen for breathing. Teldin looked over the gunwale. The ship was surrounded by flotsam: splinters of wood, and a ballista bolt as large as a giant's spear shaft.

After a moment Horvath looked up from Saliman. "He's alive, but not for long if we hang about here." He reached beneath the carved throne and pulled out a leather case about two feet long and half that wide. "Teldin, can you see?"

"Yes."

"Then take this." The gnome threw the case forward to Teldin. "When you see somebody at the ballista, take 'em down, all right?"

Teldin opened the case. Inside was a light crossbow, its walnut stock lovingly polished and its metal limbs buffed, A smaller compartment held a dozen thick quarrels. He looked back at Horvath. "But I can't…"