Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 585
With Arun and Beorna at least temporarily out of the fight, and the Voice helpless before one of the glabrezus, the tactical situation had turned decisively against the favor of the companions. Together they still outmatched the two elite guardians, but that was not the problem that preoccupied Cal. The gnome felt the passing of seconds acutely, but could not help a quick look around.
Above. The gargoyles that they had engaged near the top of the spire were diving, their claws extended in anticipation of rending the foes that had gotten past them. They were just the first wave; behind them came vrocks, succubi, chasme, and other flying demons.
Behind. The demons in the surrounding camps were just stirring, but already at least several dozen were starting to move toward them, belatedly realizing that there were foes here to be torn apart. Cal’s gaze landed on a nalfeshnee ringed by warriors in heavy plate bearing halbards of red steel, but they were not the immediate threat; there were several groups of babau, bar-lgura, rutterkins, hezrous, jovocs, and others that would be on them in less than a minute. Before that minute was out, there would be thousands of demons bearing down upon them, an unstoppable wave that would break against the fortress walls, obliterating anything in its path.
And forward. Cal’s gaze came back around to what lie ahead, pushing past the raging battle with the guardians, to the massive steel doors recessed in the shadowy black tunnel that penetrated into the interior of the citadel.
Focusing himself to ignore the glabrezus, Cal started forward.
The glabrezu standing over the dazed sword archon lifted its massive pincer-claws to crush its enemy mercilessly. It attack was interrupted by the snarling charge of Avellos, who leapt over the fallen form of its superior directly at the demon. The archon carried one of the group’s backup weapons, Arun’s adamantine battle axe, but the glabrezu’s superior reach let it strike well before the archon got close enough to use it. The glabrezu slammed Avellos with a solid blow from its left pincer, knocking the archon roughly aside and slamming him to the ground. The demon brought its other pincer-arm around to finish the job, but Avellos shook his head and leapt up, darting under the demon’s sweep and slamming the axe hard into its hip, the highest point on the fiend’s body he could reach. Black ichor sprouted from the wound, but it was clear that it would take far more than that to bring down this foe.
The other demon, having taken two of its enemies out of the fray, turned to deal with the others. But its attack on Arun and Beorna had given Lok and Umbar a few precious seconds to prepare, and now they each unleashed a full attack upon the foe. Umbar drove Alakast into the fiend’s left leg, smashing its knee with a powerful two-handed strike, and then following that up by snapping the weapon up into its calf. The glabrezu’s armored hide cracked as the staff, specifically enchanted to harm fiends, unleashed its power in complete harmony with the righteous strength of the cleric.
And then Lok, standing by the creature’s other leg, laid into it.
The genasi unleashed a full attack, hewing at the demon’s leg like a mad lumberjack hacking down an offending tree. Lok abandoned subtlety, throwing his strength into the powerful swings. The first blow carved a deep gash in the glabrezu’s armored knee joint, followed at once by a backswing that tore fully through the armored cap plate, exposing the pulsing red tendons of the joint. The genasi spun around, letting out a mighty yell as he brought the axe into the knee with the full force of his momentum and the strength of his arm behind it. A cacophonous retort erupted as the thundering axe unleashed a blast of sonic energy to accompany the force of the steel. Lok fell back, amazed himself by the perfect force of that blow.
The glabrezu was also impressed, as it suddenly felt its leg give out under it. The demon toppled over to the side, while its leg, no longer attached to its body, remained rooted where it had been standing.
Dannel landed gently on the turf fifteen feet away from his foe, another arrow already drawn and aimed at the other demon. The moment his feet touched the ground he released, the shaft joining the two others that already sprouted from the fiend’s upper body. The missiles themselves did little damage through the glabrezu’s damage reduction, but each hit was infused with the fiendbane power of the elf’s bow, driving a tendril of magical hatred through the demon with each impact. The demon snarled and turned toward the elf, recognizing him as a greater threat than the hound archon hewing at its legs. Its long reach meant that only a single step would bring the elf within range of all of its attacks, and there were few creatures that could withstand a full assault from a glabrezu.
Unfortunately, as it took that step, pain exploded through the limb, knocking it off balance, the demon roared and shuffled to the side, crashing up against the armored wall of the adjacent fortress. Jagged abyssal iron cut into its thick hide, further enraging it. It looked around for what had hurt it, but only saw a tiny, streaking form that darted out of reach, tumbling backward in a series of effortless backwards somersaults.
Cal strode forward, ignoring both glabrezu, heading straight for the doors of the citadel. The one still standing spotted him, and a black memory of a whispered command penetrated the battle-rage that filled its mind.
NONE SHALL PASS…
Pushing itself off from the wall, the demon slashed at the gnome as he passed with a pincer-claw. Cal was at the edge of the demon’s reach, but nevertheless was clipped hard on the shoulder, hard enough to hurt even through his stoneskin. The gnome staggered and fell forward, clutching his magical rod.
But when he lifted the weapon and summoned its magic, it wasn’t toward the demon.
Callendes had not joined Dannel and the others; the avariel had instead flown back upward, intending to recover Beorna and Arun. The two dwarves, hovering at the top of the reverse gravity effect some fifty feet above the ground, grabbed the hands that the winged elf extended to them, pulling them toward the edge of the area of effect.
A harsh cry drew his attention up briefly; the gargoyles were diving fast, now less than sixty feet above them.
“I cannot carry both of you down!” the avariel said.
“Slide us out of the effect, and drop us!” Arun ordered.
“That way… toward the glabrezu!” Beorna added.
The elf nodded, and complied, dragging the two to the edge of the effect. The success was immediately clear as the three of them plummeted straight down. Callendes held them for a second longer, directing them toward the demon, slowing their flight slightly as the air beat at his wings, then with a grunt he released them and followed them down.
Dannel fired more arrows at the glabrezu, scoring a pair of hits that slammed hard into its body. The demon, enraged by the painful pinpricks, turned and stabbed a pincer around the elf’s torso. Dannel cried out as the demon dragged him up, tearing at him with the smaller claws protruding from its chest. The arcane archer, still holding his bow, tried to fit one last arrow to his string, but the demon reached out with its other pincer, and seized his left arm just below the elbow, crushing it in a tight grip. A scream was torn from Dannel as the demon crushed his bracer and the bones beneath it, and pulled. For a moment the limb held, then there was a sick pop as his shoulder was wrenched out of its socket.
The glabrezu’s huge jaws opened, and the demon lifted its victim toward that waiting maw, intending to snap the elf’s head off.
Chapter 586
“Aaaaahhhhrrrrr!”
The scream brought the glabrezu’s attention up from its victim, in time to see Beorna coming straight down toward it, Aludrial’s Shard a shaft of silver fire in her hand. The demon brought its free arm up to intercept the decending dwarf, but was too slow to stop the templar, who slammed hard into it with the full force and weight of her adamantine-clad body, smashing through its iron helm and driving the blessed blade down to the hilt into the center of the demon’s forehead.
The glabrezu fell hard, slamming into the wall, and going down like a discarded ragdoll.
Cal was taking fire as he pulled himself up, surrounded by a buzz of arrows as dark figures fired from beyond the arrow shafts that flanked the entrance of Graz’zt’s citadel. A few struck him, chipping off from the stoneskin. While the spell held, protecting him from the hits, some had additional magical effects laid upon them that penetrated the magic. His arms burned from where corrosive acid had exploded from the point of two of the impacts, and he felt a sick twisting in his gut from a violated arrow had pricked the left side of his torso. But he ignored them, and the glabrezu that had struck him a moment ago. Lifting his rod, he channeled his power through it, unleashing a green ray of disintegration that struck the great steel doors about six feet above the ground.
The doors began to glow green, and then a round opening about eight feet across simply vanished, the destroyed metal turning into a coarse powder that drifted down across the gap.
“Go, now!” he urged, moving for the gap. Something shot past him toward it, which he sensed rather than saw to be Mole; the other gnome was moving too fast for his eye to clearly follow her. The roar behind him was becoming deafening, as demons drew nearer to them; a dazzling searing burst marked a chaos hammer that went off behind him, engulfing several of the warriors.
Umbar and Lok grabbed the stunned sword archon, carrying him between them as they rushed toward the gap in the door. Arun, limping slightly, had picked up Dannel, who lay where he’d been dropped by the glabrezu. He was followed by Beorna, who finally freed her sword from the glabrezu’s skull with a mighty lurch, and Avellos, who brought up the rear.
Cal reached the opening in the door, and looked into the blackness beyond. He could already hear fighting ahead; it seemed that Mole had run into more guardians. Well, they’d expected this to be a hard slog…
As he looked back, he saw the warriors rushing forward, carrying their burdens. Behind them came a wall of demons, hundreds of them at least, with the promise of thousands more behind that. Gargoyles swooped down under the overhang that led into the tunnel, and dove at them with a loud screech. Avellos started to turn to face them, his axe coming up, but Arun barked a command, and the archon turned and ran for Cal’s exit.
Cal moved through, and stepped aside to make room for the others. A pair of misshapen rutterkin armed with halbards with serrated edges were dancing with Mole; that was the only word he could think of to describe their futile efforts to come to grips with the gnome. As he watched another pair of the creatures, accompanied by four half-fiend humanoids clad in red metal breastplates and armed with longbows, emerged from around a curving tunnel that appeared to lead in the direction of the arrowslits he’d run past earlier. Lok and Umbar appeared through the opening just a moment later, and after laying the stunned archon down they rushed to engage the guards.
“Hurry!” Cal urged, as Arun, Beorna, and Avellos came rushing forward. Callendes dove above them, avoiding a gargoyle that still managed to tear a series of long gashes in his back. The avariel folded his wings, landed, and darted through the opening, followed a second later by Arun with Dannel, and the Beorna. Avellos was the last, harried by several gargoyles that tore relentlessly at the archon as he ran.
Cal knew that it had be now; the first ranks of onrushing demons had already reached the threshold of the entry tunnel, and they would be on them in just a few seconds. As he called up his magic, he thought, How much did you know, of what we would face? There had been three spells inscribed in the small blue leather book, and now he cast the second, and wondered at the meaning behind the last one, which still burned in a dark corner of his mind.
A gargoyle’s claw clipped Avellos solidly across the face, gashing his forehead and stabbing into his right eye. The archon howled and toppled forward, half-diving, half-falling into the gap in the doors. A gargoyle, perhaps the same one that had crippled the celestial, appeared in the doorway just behind it, screeching in fury as it regarded them with a hateful stare. It clung to the edge of the six-inch-thick metal, and tensed to hurl itself forward, with a thousand demons just behind it…
Chatper 587
Magic poured out from Cal, coalescing into a barrier of bright, shimmering colors that blocked not only the gap in the door, but stretched across the entirety of the tunnel to seal off the side exits to the chambers that flanked the entrance of the citadel. Immediately the sound and sight of the onrushing demons were cut off completely.
Their side of the prismatic wall, however, was far from quiet as the companions did battle with a handful of guards that had emerged from the side chambers prior to the casting. The rutterkins were tougher than their usual kin, but they were easily taken down by powerful blows from Umbar and Lok. The armored half-fiend archers were a bit more durable, but they found themselves quickly outnumbered as the rest of the companions joined the fray. Mole tumbled behind one, coming up behind its knees as Lok bull-rushed it, toppling it head over heels to splay awkwardly upon the stone. Its momentum pushed its left arm into the prismatic wall; the creature let out a scream that suddenly and abruptly ended as a flash of colors exploded around his body. When they could see clearly again, there was nothing left of it other than an ugly splotch on the ground.
One of the other archers tried to grab Mole and toss her into the wall, but it may as well have been trying to catch quicksilver in its hands. As Mole leapt on its forearm and vaulted over its back, Arun smashed the fiend in the chest with his hammer, knocking it down and leaving a round hole three inches across and a full inch deep in the middle of its breastplate. The archer tried to get up, but an arrow slammed into its throat, and it collapsed in a gurgle of blood and air.
Within a few more seconds, the corridor was quiet, save for a few momentary disruptions in the middle of the prismatic wall.
“They’re trying to get through,” Beorna said.
“Will they succeed?” Arun asked.
“No,” Cal said.
“What about a dispel?” Lok asked.
“That won’t be of any help to them, not with this. No, we’re safe for the moment, at least from this direction.”
“How long?” asked Arun.
“Just under four hours. But I wouldn’t depend on that; there may be other ways into the citadel that we don’t know about.”
“We’d better get going then,” the paladin said. He turned to Beorna, who was helping Dannel. With a cure critical wounds poured into him, he looked a lot better, although he was still favoring his savaged right arm.
“Are you okay?” Cal asked.
Dannel nodded. Through it all, he had not relinquished his grip on his bow, and as he switched out a new string, Cal could see the marks where the arcane archer’s fingers had actually left a slight impression on the dark wooden shaft.
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about arrows anymore,” Mole said, bringing him two quivers stuffed with arrows she’d taken from the slain half-fiends. Dannel took them, offering one to Callendes, who shook his head.
“I will not use violated weapons,” he said. “Those are beyond foul; their corruption makes me feel dirty just being near them.”
“I think some of them are corrosive, rather than specifically evil,” Cal said. He held up an arm, showing where holes had been eaten through his sleeves by the acid-tipped missiles. “In any case, take what you want, leave the rest, but let’s get moving.” He turned to the Herald’s Voice, who was being helped to his feet by Avellos. “Are you okay to go on?”
The celestial nodded. “I am prepared.”
The Voice eased some of their hurts with a mass cure moderate wounds; since all of them had taken at least some damage in the desperate surge to get here, that relief was welcome. Dannel tested his new string, and shoved a handful of arrows into one of the fiends’ quivers, which he slung across his shoulder. Checking their weapons, the companions moved into the dark tunnel which they knew wound steeply upward in concentric circles, up into the center of the mountain. As they walked, those wearing boots made a soft clang on the iron floor with every step.
“It even covers the floors,” Umbar remarked. “The quantity of metal here used in this place…”
“It wasn’t this way last time we came,” Mole said. “Remember last time, with the pulsing waves? Zenna said later it was like we were in the inter… intest…”
“Intestines,” Cal said.
“Yeah, the insides of a giant monster or something. Creepy stuff. I don’t know if I like all the iron any better, though. Hey, did you see how I took down that glabrezu, out there? Pretty darned impressive, if I do say so myself… set it right up for ol’ Beorna to take out…”
“Quiet,” Dannel said.
“Well, sheesh, just because you don’t…”
“No, quiet, he hissed, holding up a hand. “Do you hear that?”
They came to a stop, listening. There was a faint groaning noise that had been evident since they’d entered the citadel, as if the metal that encased the entire place was twisting under some strain. But then they heard what had alerted the elf, a rattling noise, as though someone was dropping pebbles upon the metal, from very far away.
But it was getting louder.
“Incoming,” Arun said, lifting his hammer. The sharp and constant bend in the corridor made it impossible to see more than fifty feet or so ahead of them, but it also meant that any foes coming from that direction would not see them either, until they were right on top of them.
“Form a defensive wall,” Lok suggested. “Spellcasters and archers to the rear.”
The clattering noise grew louder as the companions took up defensive positions, forming a line across the entire width of the tunnel. Avellos took up position in the front rank, up against the right wall, while the Voice came up behind him. Lok, Beorna, and Arun made up the rest of the front rank, with Umbar just behind the paladin. Spells were cast, wards were laid.
“Damn, it sure sounds like a lot of them,” Mole said, hopping up to get a better look than she could get peering around Lok’s squat frame. “Maybe I should go take a look…”
“NO!” Beorna, Arun, and Umbar said as one. “Hold the line,” Arun added. “We’ll see what’s coming soon enough.
The paladin’s words seemed borne out as the noise intensified, accompanied now by a gibbering din that seemed to amplify off the iron walls, until it echoed about them like the rumble of an avalanche. The companions waited, staring at the dark place where the corridor ahead rose and bent out of view.
They did not have to wait long, although the fifteen seconds after Arun’s comment seemed to last an interminable expanse of time.
And then, just as the pounding roar of sound seemed to reach an almost deafening crescendo, the wave broke over them.
With Arun and Beorna at least temporarily out of the fight, and the Voice helpless before one of the glabrezus, the tactical situation had turned decisively against the favor of the companions. Together they still outmatched the two elite guardians, but that was not the problem that preoccupied Cal. The gnome felt the passing of seconds acutely, but could not help a quick look around.
Above. The gargoyles that they had engaged near the top of the spire were diving, their claws extended in anticipation of rending the foes that had gotten past them. They were just the first wave; behind them came vrocks, succubi, chasme, and other flying demons.
Behind. The demons in the surrounding camps were just stirring, but already at least several dozen were starting to move toward them, belatedly realizing that there were foes here to be torn apart. Cal’s gaze landed on a nalfeshnee ringed by warriors in heavy plate bearing halbards of red steel, but they were not the immediate threat; there were several groups of babau, bar-lgura, rutterkins, hezrous, jovocs, and others that would be on them in less than a minute. Before that minute was out, there would be thousands of demons bearing down upon them, an unstoppable wave that would break against the fortress walls, obliterating anything in its path.
And forward. Cal’s gaze came back around to what lie ahead, pushing past the raging battle with the guardians, to the massive steel doors recessed in the shadowy black tunnel that penetrated into the interior of the citadel.
Focusing himself to ignore the glabrezus, Cal started forward.
The glabrezu standing over the dazed sword archon lifted its massive pincer-claws to crush its enemy mercilessly. It attack was interrupted by the snarling charge of Avellos, who leapt over the fallen form of its superior directly at the demon. The archon carried one of the group’s backup weapons, Arun’s adamantine battle axe, but the glabrezu’s superior reach let it strike well before the archon got close enough to use it. The glabrezu slammed Avellos with a solid blow from its left pincer, knocking the archon roughly aside and slamming him to the ground. The demon brought its other pincer-arm around to finish the job, but Avellos shook his head and leapt up, darting under the demon’s sweep and slamming the axe hard into its hip, the highest point on the fiend’s body he could reach. Black ichor sprouted from the wound, but it was clear that it would take far more than that to bring down this foe.
The other demon, having taken two of its enemies out of the fray, turned to deal with the others. But its attack on Arun and Beorna had given Lok and Umbar a few precious seconds to prepare, and now they each unleashed a full attack upon the foe. Umbar drove Alakast into the fiend’s left leg, smashing its knee with a powerful two-handed strike, and then following that up by snapping the weapon up into its calf. The glabrezu’s armored hide cracked as the staff, specifically enchanted to harm fiends, unleashed its power in complete harmony with the righteous strength of the cleric.
And then Lok, standing by the creature’s other leg, laid into it.
The genasi unleashed a full attack, hewing at the demon’s leg like a mad lumberjack hacking down an offending tree. Lok abandoned subtlety, throwing his strength into the powerful swings. The first blow carved a deep gash in the glabrezu’s armored knee joint, followed at once by a backswing that tore fully through the armored cap plate, exposing the pulsing red tendons of the joint. The genasi spun around, letting out a mighty yell as he brought the axe into the knee with the full force of his momentum and the strength of his arm behind it. A cacophonous retort erupted as the thundering axe unleashed a blast of sonic energy to accompany the force of the steel. Lok fell back, amazed himself by the perfect force of that blow.
The glabrezu was also impressed, as it suddenly felt its leg give out under it. The demon toppled over to the side, while its leg, no longer attached to its body, remained rooted where it had been standing.
Dannel landed gently on the turf fifteen feet away from his foe, another arrow already drawn and aimed at the other demon. The moment his feet touched the ground he released, the shaft joining the two others that already sprouted from the fiend’s upper body. The missiles themselves did little damage through the glabrezu’s damage reduction, but each hit was infused with the fiendbane power of the elf’s bow, driving a tendril of magical hatred through the demon with each impact. The demon snarled and turned toward the elf, recognizing him as a greater threat than the hound archon hewing at its legs. Its long reach meant that only a single step would bring the elf within range of all of its attacks, and there were few creatures that could withstand a full assault from a glabrezu.
Unfortunately, as it took that step, pain exploded through the limb, knocking it off balance, the demon roared and shuffled to the side, crashing up against the armored wall of the adjacent fortress. Jagged abyssal iron cut into its thick hide, further enraging it. It looked around for what had hurt it, but only saw a tiny, streaking form that darted out of reach, tumbling backward in a series of effortless backwards somersaults.
Cal strode forward, ignoring both glabrezu, heading straight for the doors of the citadel. The one still standing spotted him, and a black memory of a whispered command penetrated the battle-rage that filled its mind.
NONE SHALL PASS…
Pushing itself off from the wall, the demon slashed at the gnome as he passed with a pincer-claw. Cal was at the edge of the demon’s reach, but nevertheless was clipped hard on the shoulder, hard enough to hurt even through his stoneskin. The gnome staggered and fell forward, clutching his magical rod.
But when he lifted the weapon and summoned its magic, it wasn’t toward the demon.
Callendes had not joined Dannel and the others; the avariel had instead flown back upward, intending to recover Beorna and Arun. The two dwarves, hovering at the top of the reverse gravity effect some fifty feet above the ground, grabbed the hands that the winged elf extended to them, pulling them toward the edge of the area of effect.
A harsh cry drew his attention up briefly; the gargoyles were diving fast, now less than sixty feet above them.
“I cannot carry both of you down!” the avariel said.
“Slide us out of the effect, and drop us!” Arun ordered.
“That way… toward the glabrezu!” Beorna added.
The elf nodded, and complied, dragging the two to the edge of the effect. The success was immediately clear as the three of them plummeted straight down. Callendes held them for a second longer, directing them toward the demon, slowing their flight slightly as the air beat at his wings, then with a grunt he released them and followed them down.
Dannel fired more arrows at the glabrezu, scoring a pair of hits that slammed hard into its body. The demon, enraged by the painful pinpricks, turned and stabbed a pincer around the elf’s torso. Dannel cried out as the demon dragged him up, tearing at him with the smaller claws protruding from its chest. The arcane archer, still holding his bow, tried to fit one last arrow to his string, but the demon reached out with its other pincer, and seized his left arm just below the elbow, crushing it in a tight grip. A scream was torn from Dannel as the demon crushed his bracer and the bones beneath it, and pulled. For a moment the limb held, then there was a sick pop as his shoulder was wrenched out of its socket.
The glabrezu’s huge jaws opened, and the demon lifted its victim toward that waiting maw, intending to snap the elf’s head off.
Chapter 586
“Aaaaahhhhrrrrr!”
The scream brought the glabrezu’s attention up from its victim, in time to see Beorna coming straight down toward it, Aludrial’s Shard a shaft of silver fire in her hand. The demon brought its free arm up to intercept the decending dwarf, but was too slow to stop the templar, who slammed hard into it with the full force and weight of her adamantine-clad body, smashing through its iron helm and driving the blessed blade down to the hilt into the center of the demon’s forehead.
The glabrezu fell hard, slamming into the wall, and going down like a discarded ragdoll.
Cal was taking fire as he pulled himself up, surrounded by a buzz of arrows as dark figures fired from beyond the arrow shafts that flanked the entrance of Graz’zt’s citadel. A few struck him, chipping off from the stoneskin. While the spell held, protecting him from the hits, some had additional magical effects laid upon them that penetrated the magic. His arms burned from where corrosive acid had exploded from the point of two of the impacts, and he felt a sick twisting in his gut from a violated arrow had pricked the left side of his torso. But he ignored them, and the glabrezu that had struck him a moment ago. Lifting his rod, he channeled his power through it, unleashing a green ray of disintegration that struck the great steel doors about six feet above the ground.
The doors began to glow green, and then a round opening about eight feet across simply vanished, the destroyed metal turning into a coarse powder that drifted down across the gap.
“Go, now!” he urged, moving for the gap. Something shot past him toward it, which he sensed rather than saw to be Mole; the other gnome was moving too fast for his eye to clearly follow her. The roar behind him was becoming deafening, as demons drew nearer to them; a dazzling searing burst marked a chaos hammer that went off behind him, engulfing several of the warriors.
Umbar and Lok grabbed the stunned sword archon, carrying him between them as they rushed toward the gap in the door. Arun, limping slightly, had picked up Dannel, who lay where he’d been dropped by the glabrezu. He was followed by Beorna, who finally freed her sword from the glabrezu’s skull with a mighty lurch, and Avellos, who brought up the rear.
Cal reached the opening in the door, and looked into the blackness beyond. He could already hear fighting ahead; it seemed that Mole had run into more guardians. Well, they’d expected this to be a hard slog…
As he looked back, he saw the warriors rushing forward, carrying their burdens. Behind them came a wall of demons, hundreds of them at least, with the promise of thousands more behind that. Gargoyles swooped down under the overhang that led into the tunnel, and dove at them with a loud screech. Avellos started to turn to face them, his axe coming up, but Arun barked a command, and the archon turned and ran for Cal’s exit.
Cal moved through, and stepped aside to make room for the others. A pair of misshapen rutterkin armed with halbards with serrated edges were dancing with Mole; that was the only word he could think of to describe their futile efforts to come to grips with the gnome. As he watched another pair of the creatures, accompanied by four half-fiend humanoids clad in red metal breastplates and armed with longbows, emerged from around a curving tunnel that appeared to lead in the direction of the arrowslits he’d run past earlier. Lok and Umbar appeared through the opening just a moment later, and after laying the stunned archon down they rushed to engage the guards.
“Hurry!” Cal urged, as Arun, Beorna, and Avellos came rushing forward. Callendes dove above them, avoiding a gargoyle that still managed to tear a series of long gashes in his back. The avariel folded his wings, landed, and darted through the opening, followed a second later by Arun with Dannel, and the Beorna. Avellos was the last, harried by several gargoyles that tore relentlessly at the archon as he ran.
Cal knew that it had be now; the first ranks of onrushing demons had already reached the threshold of the entry tunnel, and they would be on them in just a few seconds. As he called up his magic, he thought, How much did you know, of what we would face? There had been three spells inscribed in the small blue leather book, and now he cast the second, and wondered at the meaning behind the last one, which still burned in a dark corner of his mind.
A gargoyle’s claw clipped Avellos solidly across the face, gashing his forehead and stabbing into his right eye. The archon howled and toppled forward, half-diving, half-falling into the gap in the doors. A gargoyle, perhaps the same one that had crippled the celestial, appeared in the doorway just behind it, screeching in fury as it regarded them with a hateful stare. It clung to the edge of the six-inch-thick metal, and tensed to hurl itself forward, with a thousand demons just behind it…
Chatper 587
Magic poured out from Cal, coalescing into a barrier of bright, shimmering colors that blocked not only the gap in the door, but stretched across the entirety of the tunnel to seal off the side exits to the chambers that flanked the entrance of the citadel. Immediately the sound and sight of the onrushing demons were cut off completely.
Their side of the prismatic wall, however, was far from quiet as the companions did battle with a handful of guards that had emerged from the side chambers prior to the casting. The rutterkins were tougher than their usual kin, but they were easily taken down by powerful blows from Umbar and Lok. The armored half-fiend archers were a bit more durable, but they found themselves quickly outnumbered as the rest of the companions joined the fray. Mole tumbled behind one, coming up behind its knees as Lok bull-rushed it, toppling it head over heels to splay awkwardly upon the stone. Its momentum pushed its left arm into the prismatic wall; the creature let out a scream that suddenly and abruptly ended as a flash of colors exploded around his body. When they could see clearly again, there was nothing left of it other than an ugly splotch on the ground.
One of the other archers tried to grab Mole and toss her into the wall, but it may as well have been trying to catch quicksilver in its hands. As Mole leapt on its forearm and vaulted over its back, Arun smashed the fiend in the chest with his hammer, knocking it down and leaving a round hole three inches across and a full inch deep in the middle of its breastplate. The archer tried to get up, but an arrow slammed into its throat, and it collapsed in a gurgle of blood and air.
Within a few more seconds, the corridor was quiet, save for a few momentary disruptions in the middle of the prismatic wall.
“They’re trying to get through,” Beorna said.
“Will they succeed?” Arun asked.
“No,” Cal said.
“What about a dispel?” Lok asked.
“That won’t be of any help to them, not with this. No, we’re safe for the moment, at least from this direction.”
“How long?” asked Arun.
“Just under four hours. But I wouldn’t depend on that; there may be other ways into the citadel that we don’t know about.”
“We’d better get going then,” the paladin said. He turned to Beorna, who was helping Dannel. With a cure critical wounds poured into him, he looked a lot better, although he was still favoring his savaged right arm.
“Are you okay?” Cal asked.
Dannel nodded. Through it all, he had not relinquished his grip on his bow, and as he switched out a new string, Cal could see the marks where the arcane archer’s fingers had actually left a slight impression on the dark wooden shaft.
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about arrows anymore,” Mole said, bringing him two quivers stuffed with arrows she’d taken from the slain half-fiends. Dannel took them, offering one to Callendes, who shook his head.
“I will not use violated weapons,” he said. “Those are beyond foul; their corruption makes me feel dirty just being near them.”
“I think some of them are corrosive, rather than specifically evil,” Cal said. He held up an arm, showing where holes had been eaten through his sleeves by the acid-tipped missiles. “In any case, take what you want, leave the rest, but let’s get moving.” He turned to the Herald’s Voice, who was being helped to his feet by Avellos. “Are you okay to go on?”
The celestial nodded. “I am prepared.”
The Voice eased some of their hurts with a mass cure moderate wounds; since all of them had taken at least some damage in the desperate surge to get here, that relief was welcome. Dannel tested his new string, and shoved a handful of arrows into one of the fiends’ quivers, which he slung across his shoulder. Checking their weapons, the companions moved into the dark tunnel which they knew wound steeply upward in concentric circles, up into the center of the mountain. As they walked, those wearing boots made a soft clang on the iron floor with every step.
“It even covers the floors,” Umbar remarked. “The quantity of metal here used in this place…”
“It wasn’t this way last time we came,” Mole said. “Remember last time, with the pulsing waves? Zenna said later it was like we were in the inter… intest…”
“Intestines,” Cal said.
“Yeah, the insides of a giant monster or something. Creepy stuff. I don’t know if I like all the iron any better, though. Hey, did you see how I took down that glabrezu, out there? Pretty darned impressive, if I do say so myself… set it right up for ol’ Beorna to take out…”
“Quiet,” Dannel said.
“Well, sheesh, just because you don’t…”
“No, quiet, he hissed, holding up a hand. “Do you hear that?”
They came to a stop, listening. There was a faint groaning noise that had been evident since they’d entered the citadel, as if the metal that encased the entire place was twisting under some strain. But then they heard what had alerted the elf, a rattling noise, as though someone was dropping pebbles upon the metal, from very far away.
But it was getting louder.
“Incoming,” Arun said, lifting his hammer. The sharp and constant bend in the corridor made it impossible to see more than fifty feet or so ahead of them, but it also meant that any foes coming from that direction would not see them either, until they were right on top of them.
“Form a defensive wall,” Lok suggested. “Spellcasters and archers to the rear.”
The clattering noise grew louder as the companions took up defensive positions, forming a line across the entire width of the tunnel. Avellos took up position in the front rank, up against the right wall, while the Voice came up behind him. Lok, Beorna, and Arun made up the rest of the front rank, with Umbar just behind the paladin. Spells were cast, wards were laid.
“Damn, it sure sounds like a lot of them,” Mole said, hopping up to get a better look than she could get peering around Lok’s squat frame. “Maybe I should go take a look…”
“NO!” Beorna, Arun, and Umbar said as one. “Hold the line,” Arun added. “We’ll see what’s coming soon enough.
The paladin’s words seemed borne out as the noise intensified, accompanied now by a gibbering din that seemed to amplify off the iron walls, until it echoed about them like the rumble of an avalanche. The companions waited, staring at the dark place where the corridor ahead rose and bent out of view.
They did not have to wait long, although the fifteen seconds after Arun’s comment seemed to last an interminable expanse of time.
And then, just as the pounding roar of sound seemed to reach an almost deafening crescendo, the wave broke over them.
