Archmage

CHAPTER 18

Every patrol led back to this central corridor, one that ran to a great gap in the floor of the upper complex, and more important, ended in a thick door that opened to a landing set just below the ceiling of a vast cavern of the deeper levels.

In darkness and silence Bungalow Thump was down at the end of that corridor, lying flat on the landing floor and peering over the rim into the deep gloom below. Quietly, young King Connerad crept up beside him and similarly gazed into the vast darkness. The two dwarves exchanged looks and a shrug, then Connerad motioned Bungalow back.

They went a long way along the tunnel and down a side passage before they broke their silence.

“Get yer Harpell friends and put some light down there?” Bungalow Thump asked.

“She’s a vast one,” Connerad said. “Got to be a hunnerd ogre feet from here to the floor, if there’s even a floor to be found.” He considered Bungalow’s request for a bit, but couldn’t agree. “We drop a magic light down there and sure that every drow in the lower levels’ll be ready for us. Shinin’ bright in deep tunnels brings them all in for a what-to-do, and not sure I’m liking that with just this one way down. Ropes and slides and all we can put in are still to be leavin’ us hanging high and open if they’re waiting for us.”

“Aye, figured as much, but I had to ask,” said Bungalow Thump.

“Suren that yer duty’s to put it all out afore me, and for that, ye got me gratitude,” Connerad replied.

“Are we knowing where the stair’s at?”

“Right below and folded over in half,” Connerad replied. “That’s what Athrogate telled me o’ the place, at least. The durned drow’ve done a great job in building themselves a stair that can be taken down fast, but not so fast to put back up, so I’m hearin’. So no, me friend, we won’t be slippin’ a few fellows down to the stair and getting it set up for us, if that’s what ye were thinking.”

“All of us fast down on a slide rope then,” said Bungalow. “I’m not feelin’ good about puttin’ me boys on ropes to rappel a hunnerd feet and more to the dark floor. Not with a horde o’ damned drow below shootin’ at us all the way.”

“Silence and darkness and two set o’ three ropes abreast,” Connerad replied. “And know that I’ll be right beside ye.”

Bungalow Thump patted Connerad on the shoulder, never doubting for a heartbeat that his king wouldn’t send him and his boys into a danger that Connerad wouldn’t face right beside them. Connerad’s family name was Brawnanvil, but for all that he was Battlehammer, through and through.

“We got them young Harpell wizards, too,” Connerad reminded.

“Wishin’ we had the old one,” said Bungalow. “And the woman who’s leadin’ ’em. Both can throw a bit o’ lightning and fire, so I’m hearin’.”

“The one girl with this group-said her name’s Kenneally,” Connerad replied, “she’s a flyer and a floater, and with more than a few tricks for such. Might be that she can give us wings, me and yerself, and so we’ll chase our boys down the hole, eh?”

“Kenneally Harpell,” Bungalow reminded him, emphasizing that legendary family name. “So she’ll likely turn us into bats, what!”

“Ha!” said Connerad. “Aye, her and the skinny fellow. . Tuck-the-Duck?”

“Tuckernuck,” came the correction from the doorway and the two dwarves turned to see the two in question, Kenneally and Tuckernuck Harpell.

“Rest assured, King Connerad, that we two and the others will be of great assistance in getting your force swiftly to the bottom, if that is your wish,” Kenneally Harpell said.

“I’ve a new spell to try for just this purpose,” Tuckernuck added, and the dwarves looked to each other doubtfully, having heard, and seen, much of the leftover effects of “new spells” tried at the Ivy Mansion in Longsaddle, including more than half the statues in the place. More than a few brilliant Harpell wizards had mastered a spell to turn himself or herself into such a statue, and of course, did so knowing the words to reverse the spell but without realizing that as a statue, he or she wouldn’t be able to mouth those words.

“Do tell, boy,” Connerad gingerly prompted.

“Field of Feather Falling,” Tuckernuck replied.

“You fall into it, you float out of it,” Kenneally replied. The dwarves exchanged skeptical looks once more.

“We put it down near the floor, perhaps,” said Tuckernuck. “A long and fast fall into the field and a short float to the fight!”

“Or quick surprise turned into a quick splat, eh?” Bungalow Thump said dryly.

Matron Mother Zeerith sat on the altar stone in the chapel of Q’Xorlarrin, fidgeting nervously. More than once, she imagined taking just a few steps and leaping from the ledge to the fiery maw of the fire primordial.

It was just a passing thought, and nothing she seriously considered. Not yet, at least, but she could well envision a day not too far off when such a suicidal leap into utter oblivion might prove to be her best course. She spun around on the altar stone then and leaned forward to peer into the pit, its sides swirling with water elementals rushing about in their cyclonic frenzy.“Matron Mother?” she heard from behind her, and she turned to see

High Priestess Kiriy and the wizard Hoshtar entering the chamber. “I do not wish to disturb your communion, Matron Mother,” Kiriy said respectfully, and she bowed low.

“What do you want?” Matron Mother Zeerith snapped in reply. She turned a threatening glare over Hoshtar, who similarly bowed, and had the wisdom to remain low.

“They near the lower positions,” Kiriy explained. “I thought it important that you greet them personally.”

Matron Mother Zeerith winced. “Already?” she whispered under her breath, though she knew she shouldn’t be surprised, for demons were tireless creatures.

“They are to be allowed nowhere near this room,” she said to her daughter. “Or the forge room.”

“It will take one of your supreme station to deter them, Matron Mother,” Kiriy explained. “Mighty Marilith herself leads the throng."

“A marilith. .” Matron Mother Zeerith said with a sigh. She was hoping that a nalfeshnee, with its strange sense of law and order, would be at the head of the demonic column, or perhaps even some weaker type of major demon, one that she could easily dominate. The six-armed mariliths, though, were exceedingly cunning, and could warp any command to their advantage.

“Not a marilith,” Kiriy said, interrupting Zeerith’s train of thought.

“Marilith herself.”

“Under the suffrage and domination of Archmage Gromph Baenre,”

Hoshtar added, and Matron Mother Zeerith felt as if he were twisting a knife in her back. By all reason, Gromph Baenre should be a friend to the Xorlarrins, a family so strong in male wizards. But whether it was his jealousy, or his fear that one of the Xorlarrins would usurp his high station, such an alliance had never come to pass.

Zeerith sighed again. “Let us go,” she said. “I wish to greet our. . reinforcements as far from this room as possible.”

Deep in the mines, past the slave miners from Icewind Dale and those few remaining that had been taken from Port Llast, the drow contingent met up with the lesser demons in front of the march from Menzoberranzan.

Matron Mother Zeerith barred their way, and ordered several back to gather Marilith.

Demons continued to press, looking for a way past Matron Mother Zeerith. It wasn’t until she cast a spell of banishment, sending a large vrock back to its Abyssal home, that the others fell into order-at least, as much order as chaotic demons could manage. Still, they all knew that they might soon wash their bodies in mortal blood, and the threat of banishment proved incentive enough to keep them at bay until at last the giant Marilith slithered up to face the Matron of Q’Xorlarrin. “I am here by the word of Archmage Gromph Baenre,” Marilith stated flatly. “Sent to kill dwarves.”

“There are thousands to kill, I am told,” Matron Mother Zeerith replied. “Show me,” Marilith said, and her voice sounded very much like a purr, while the fingers of her six hands eagerly tickled the hilts of her belted weapons.

“There are many tunnels,” Zeerith replied, and she turned and motioned up the sloping corridor. “The first right-hand passages lead to Q’Xorlarrin. The place is secure, do not doubt, and any demons you send down that way will be destroyed or banished, at the least, by my defenses.” Marilith let out a little growl, clearly wanting to go down those tunnels simply because of the overt threat. “And where do the others lead, Matron Mother Zeerith?”

“This way and that,” the matron mother of Q’Xorlarrin replied. “This most ancient dwarven complex is indeed a vast compound, much of it still unexplored by my family. Any time you are climbing nearer the surface, know that you are moving closer to the dwarves who have come to this place, for they have not gained the lower corridors.”

“Then they shan’t,” Marilith decreed, her red eyes flaring, and now her six weapons slid free.

Matron Mother Zeerith wisely used that moment to begin her return to Q’Xorlarrin, her entourage hustling beside her, and with other dark elves ordered to collect the slaves-who would surely have been devoured by the demonic procession-and retreat within the main compound area. By the time Matron Mother Zeerith had returned to her altar room, Q’Xorlarrin had more sentries guarding the lower entrances than those in the areas where the dwarves might come down.

The first good news of the day greeted Matron Mother Zeerith in that altar room, for she found her nephews, the powerful Masters of Sorcere Jaemas and Faelas, waiting for her.

“Well met again, Matron Mother of Q’Xorlarrin,” they said in unison, both bowing deeply and respectfully.

“It has been too long since your beauty has graced our eyes, Matron Mother Zeerith,” Faelas Xorlarrin added.

“Menzoberranzan is a lesser place without you,” Jaemas added. “Enough of your insipid flattery,” Matron Mother Zeerith replied, though it was clear from her tone that she was indeed a bit flattered.

Behind her, High Priestess Kiriy caught that little fact, too, it seemed, for she chortled, drawing an evil glance from her mother.

“Have you spoken with any since your arrival?” Zeerith asked. “Out in the forge room,” Jaemas said, pointing past her. “Then you know that I have been off to greet a column of demonic reinforcements. One led by Marilith, who serves. .”

“The archmage, yes,” said Faelas. “He brought her to Menzoberranzan after her defeat at the blades of Malagdorl Armgo, and so shamed House Barrison Del’Armgo, or cast doubts upon the tale woven by their weapons master, at least.”

“Matron Mother Baenre chose Marilith to lead the column above even the goristro that now serves her. .” Faelas started to explain, but Zeerith cut him short.

“To further irk Matron Mother Mez’Barris,” she said with a shake of her head-one that wasn’t full of the glee expected from one of her high station when learning of such diabolical intrigue, but rather, one of disgust. The two wizards didn’t miss it, and they glanced at each other, puzzled. “Help to organize the attack groups,” Zeerith bade her nephews. “Take Hoshtar with you. When the demons engage the dwarves and wound them as I expect, we must be ready to finish the task, and so not allow Gromph and the matron mother all of the glory.”

The wizards nodded.

“That would be wise,” Jaemas agreed, “but first. .”

He let that hang ominously for a moment, until Faelas added, “We have been to the great stair in the main lower hall, Matron Mother, and have witnessed the tunnels directly above it. You have more immediate problems.”

“You are sure it will work?” Kenneally asked Tuckernuck.

The other Harpell nodded. “It won’t be large, perhaps a score of strides to a side, but all who fall through it will float gently to the ground. You know how long I have been preparing this.”

Kenneally couldn’t miss the flash of anger in his tone, or defensiveness at least.

“It is well over a hundred feet to the floor of the lower cavern,” she reminded him, and indeed, Tuckernuck had flown beside her, invisibly, to scout the room, and so this was not new information to him. “Even a dwarf. .” She shook her head and let that unsettling thought hang in the air for a moment. “They’ll be down from the landing to your feather fall field in under a three-count, and will be falling fast.”

Tuckernuck nodded. “I know.”

“How high will you put your magic field?”

“Twice my height, no more,” he answered confidently.

“They will be falling fast.”

“And floating the moment they touch the enchantment,” Tuckernuck assured her. “If we put it up too high, the dwarves will be helplessly floating about in the air for too long.”

Kenneally brushed her long brown hair back from her face. She seemed as if she were about to say something, but cut it short before she made a sound.

Tuckernuck smiled at her reassuringly, even reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “It will work,” he said quietly. “We’ll get five hundred battle dwarves in that cavern in short order, including the whole of the Gutbuster Brigade.”

“I should anchor-”

“No!” Tuckernuck said to his powerful cousin, for indeed, Kenneally Harpell was considered among the greatest of their wizards, with mastery of some of the most powerful spells known at the Ivy Mansion. “No. They will need you in other ways, of course. We’ll find battle soon after the first dwarven boots are on the cavern floor, do not doubt.”

The two heard the rumble of marching dwarves then, and so Kenneally nodded and motioned for Tuckernuck to go and prepare the battlefield. The younger cousin pumped a clenched fist and ran off to find his trio of cohorts. After a short confirmation of the positions and plan, they began checking their components and rehearsing the words of the magical ritual.

The youngest of the group cast a spell of flying on herself, became invisible, and flew off for a quick scouting of the cavern to mark the spot.

The others crouched on the platform, staring, looking for the signal. Tuckernuck flexed his fingers repeatedly to allay his nerves.

Back from the group, through the door and in the hallway, Kenneally stood with Connerad and Bungalow Thump at the head of the dwarven force. “You are sure?” she asked the young king, and not for the first time.

“Will the damned spell work?”

Kenneally glanced back at the four Harpells on the landing and nodded. “I do believe in Tuckernuck, yes. But there might be many enemies waiting for you.”

“Then we’re sure,” Bungalow Thump answered for Connerad. “Ye just get us down there, girl, and get out o’ our way so ye’re not slippin’ in drow blood!”

Out on the landing, Tuckernuck and his assistants cast spells of flying and fell from their perch, disappearing from sight.

“You tell your warriors not to run and leap,” Kenneally warned him. “Just walk off and fall straight down. We marked the spot carefully. Don’t miss it!”

“Aye, we telled ’em,” said Connerad.

“Gutbusters!” Bungalow Thump added. “Crazy as ye might be thinking ’em, none’re fightin’ smarter!”

Behind the two leaders, the next dwarves in line turned and passed down the reminder.

Kenneally led the way onto the platform, lay down, and peered over, awaiting the signal.

“Groups o’ ten at a time, boys,” she heard Bungalow Thump whisper, and the first leap team moved into position. “Three count and the next’re off!”

Connerad and Bungalow Thump were among that first group, and it occurred to Kenneally that if Tuckernuck’s spell didn’t work, his failure would splatter a dwarf king and the leader of the famed Gutbusters all over the stone.

She saw the signal then, a brief pulse of red light, and heard herself saying, “Go!” before she could even think about the grim possibilities.

And so they did, fearlessly, ten dwarves simply stepping off the landing and plummeting blindly into the darkness of a cavern whose floor was more than a hundred feet below.

Kenneally held her breath as they disappeared from sight, hoping, praying, that she didn’t hear a crash. Already the second group hustled into position around her, and before she could be sure the first group had even reached the bottom, those ten dwarves fell fearlessly away.

From the moment he stepped off the ledge, Connerad Brawnanvil feared that he was being foolish, his confidence inflated by the Throne of the Gods and his fine work in the entry cavern up above.

And inflated by the whispers, the young dwarf had to admit. Many were talking about him as the First King of Gauntlgrym, and the fact that he was being considered by some to be worthy of even being mentioned as a possibility for that title along with Emerus Warcrown and Bruenor Battlehammer, overwhelmed Connerad.

Had his pride overplayed his hand?

Those nagging doubts followed the dwarf down into the darkness, plummeting from on high. The cavern was not well lit, with only marginal illuminating fungi nearby, but he saw then the floor, hard stone, rushing toward him.

He noted the Harpells, too, though, the four standing as the corners of a square some twenty paces across, and even as he and several others started to yell out, he noted a shimmer in the marked-off field between them.

Then, before that could even fully register in his thoughts, Connerad was floating, touching down gently a moment later with nine Gutbusters beside him.

“Move out!” Bungalow Thump ordered and the group leaped away, two to each side of the square, with four, including Bungalow and Connerad, at the side nearest the circular stairwell. Barely had they made their positions and caught their collective breath, when ten more warrior dwarves came down behind them, breaking immediately, as practiced, to properly reinforce the perimeter.

Out moved the dwarves with ten more down, then another group and another, and with fifty battle-hardened Gutbusters now beside him, Connerad couldn’t suppress his grin.

Another ten landed.

Huzzah for the Harpells and the clever Tuckernuck!

Brilliantly played, Jaemas signaled to Faelas in the silent hand code of the drow.

Or would be, had we not discovered their intent, Faelas’s fingers flashed back at him.

Enough? Jaemas asked, and Faelas nodded.

Jaemas lifted his hands and clapped loudly. In response to the signal, stones scraped and doors slid open and a host of enemies leaped out from concealment to charge at the dwarves. Slaves, mostly, goblins, orcs, and kobolds by the score.

More than a hundred dwarves were down by that point, with several times that number of monstrous foes flooding in to do battle.

But these were battleragers, with fine arms and armor, and neither of the Xorlarrin wizards held any notion that the slave force could overwhelm the dwarves.

Then came the first bolts of lightning, crackling above the heads of dwarf and orc alike. The drow were not aiming at the dwarves, but at the four wizards they knew to be in the air above them, the four human mages that Hoshtar’s spell had revealed.

Faelas looked at his cousin and smiled and nodded, and the two began their spellcasting in unison.

A few heartbeats later, a pair of small flaming orbs sailed across the darkness, arcing over the monstrous horde, and settling in the area where the leaping dwarves were touching down, right in the midst of the dwarven perimeter.

Two fireballs stole the darkness.

“Oh, no, no!” Kenneally Harpell cried out when she saw the lightning, when she realized that the lightning was not aimed at those dwarves already on the ground.

“Stop! Stop!” she cried at the dwarves on the landing, but these were battleragers, and they weren’t about to listen with a fight so near and their kin being hard-pressed by monsters and magic.

Ten more came rushing through the door. Kenneally leaped up to block them, screaming for them to halt.

And at that moment, they heard the crashes as the first group of unfortunate dwarves passed through the level of the flying Harpells-just three now, with the fourth having been driven off by a lightning stroke-and the now failed Field of Feather Falling.

The second group, the ones Kenneally had futilely tried to stop, hit next, crashing and groaning, and still several of the newcomers to the platform leaped away.

“Oh, no, no,” Kenneally Harpell lamented. She knew that she had to do something here, but had no idea at that moment what it might be.

“Get yer ropes!” the dwarves around her cried down the line through the door, and more than one cast a disparaging glance Kenneally’s way.

“Oh no, no,” she whispered yet again, staring into the darkness. And with a resolute shake of her head, she leaped away.

The sword of King Connerad felled the first orc to approach the perimeter, a swift and deadly strike right between the creature’s ugly eyes. Not Connerad, nor any of the Gutbusters around him, cried out with worry when the monstrous hordes appeared and charged in at them. Nay, they welcomed the fight, and when they noted the monsters as goblinkin, relished it all the more.

The trio of goblins following that orc met the gauntleted fist of Bungalow Thump, a wild head butt-one that would have made Thibbledorf Pwent himself proud! — by the same, and a twist, kick, trip, and stab movement by Connerad.

All around them Gutbusters fought wildly, and goblins died horribly. And more dwarves descended, touching down and leaping wildly into the fray. Within heartbeats, though they were outnumbered, the dwarven perimeter widened.

Then came the lightning bolts, and Bungalow Thump laughed at them and chided the enemy wizards for missing the mark.

But a wounded cry from up above warned Connerad that such was not the case, that he and his boys weren’t the targets. With the immediate threat in front of him writhing and dying on the ground, Connerad managed to step back and spin, determined to take command.

Another group of dwarves touched down, several with armor smoking from the lightning bolts-but such a tingle as that would hardly slow a Gutbuster!

Still, Connerad hoped that it had been one of the dwarves on the ground who had cried out.

A heartbeat later, when ten good dwarves crashed down in free-fall to the floor, the young king knew better.

The field of magic had been eliminated.

“No!” Connerad yelled out to a pair of dwarves who turned and rushed to their fallen comrades. The young king grimaced and looked away as the next ten came crashing down, burying those two under them in a tangle of broken bones and spraying blood.

Another dwarf hit the floor, and several more behind him.

“Form and fight!” Connerad shouted to his boys, for what else could he do? More than a hundred were down on the cavern floor, with no way to retreat, and with no further reinforcements coming. . at least, he hoped not.

“Stop them!” Tuckernuck screamed, soaring back up, even as Kenneally came flying down from the landing.

“We have to get them out of there!” the woman shouted, moving in close. Two of the other Harpells came soaring up beside them.

“They hit Toliver!” one exclaimed.

“They broke the ritual!” said the other.

Kenneally looked to Tuckernuck, who could only shake his head, his expression horrified.

“Is Toliver dead?” she started to ask, but the answer came not from one of the three flying about her, but from below, where a lightning bolt split the darkness-one originating in the air above the battle and not the recesses of the cavern.

“Toliver!” Tuckernuck said.

“Fetch him,” said Kenneally. “We have to get the dwarves out of there. Fetch him and fly back up near the landing and prepare to set your feather fall once more.”

“Too high,” Tuckernuck argued. “The dwarves will float for a long while, easy targets. .”

“Do it!” Kenneally yelled at him. “And allow no more dwarves to come down. Not on their ropes and not with your magic. Be quick!”

She flew off then, diving down to the cavern floor. As she moved lower, she only confirmed her idea-Connerad and his Gutbusters were being sorely pressed by monstrous hordes of goblinkin.

And soon to be joined by demons or devils or some other extraplanar menace, Kenneally saw, noting a band of lumbering four-armed, dogfaced beasts moving through the slave horde, tossing aside the goblinkin with abandon.

The woman stopped and hovered, surveying the area, noting mostly the movements of the two Harpells flying down to retrieve Toliver.

“Hurry,” she whispered under her breath, and then, having no choice in the matter, Kenneally began to cast a powerful spell.

Another pea of flame arced in. Connerad and Bungalow Thump dropped to the floor and covered just in time before the fireball erupted, immolating several goblins they were battling and igniting a dwarf behind them.

“Put ’im out!” Bungalow Thump shouted to the others, but all nearby were too engaged in desperate battle to break off to the aid of their burning friend.

“Go!” Connerad told his friend, and he shoved Bungalow Thump along. The dwarf sprang over the burning fellow, bearing him to the ground and rolling him about, smothering the flames.

Behind them, Connerad met the incoming enemy, bracing himself to the charge of a pair of orcs.

But those creatures never made it, caught suddenly by monstrous pincers, to be so easily hoisted and flipped aside.

In waded the gigantic glabrezu. Connerad got his shield up in front of a snapping pincer. He slashed across with his sword, but the glabrezu’s reach was too great and the blade cut across short of its mark.

In came the second pincer and Connerad had to throw himself backward and to the side, executing a perfect shoulder roll to come back to his feet just in time to spin and duck behind the shield as the pincer came in once more.

A familiar voice sounded then, a magical call from above. “Get to the landing area! Now!”

The dwarves didn’t know what to make of it, and weren’t sure the call was even aimed at them, or from where it had come.

Connerad couldn’t begin to react to the command anyway. The demon pressed him hard, pincers snapping all around him. He got his shield up to block one, but the powerful demon pressed in with the claw anyway, and Connerad winced as the shield cracked ominously under the great weight of the press.

The demon held on and twisted and the young dwarf king found himself easily yanked off balance, and thought his life at its end as the second pincer came across for his midsection.

A living missile intercepted it as Bungalow Thump flew into the glabrezu, knocking aside the arm and driving the beast backward. It let go of Connerad’s shield, and the overbalanced dwarf king tumbled back and to the ground.

Bungalow’s cry of pain had Connerad back up immediately, though, and seeing Bungalow Thump hugged in close, the demon’s maw chewing at the dwarf’s neck, he fearlessly charged in.

Connerad Brawnanvil leaped high, both hands gripping his sword for a mighty two-hand chop aimed at the glabrezu’s neck. At the last moment, the demon stood taller, though, and so the cut came in low, driving just below the shoulder.

Not a mortal blow, perhaps, but a vicious one, so much so that the glabrezu’s top left arm fell free, cleanly severed.

The demon’s howl echoed across the cavern, and many combatants- dwarf, goblin, demon, and even drow-paused to consider the sheer horror of that shriek.

The glabrezu threw Bungalow Thump at Connerad, the dwarves colliding and tumbling in a heap.

But Connerad went up and hauled the bleeding Bungalow Thump up beside him. Before the Gutbuster could argue or resist, Connerad shoved him hard and sent him stumbling back to the landing area.

“Ye heared Kenneally Harpell!” Connerad called to all the dwarves. “To the landing area, I say!”

Easier said than done for Connerad, though. The wounded, outraged glabrezu leaped in at him.

“Go! Go!” he roared at Bungalow Thump even as the demon began knocking him back. He knew the Gutbuster wouldn’t leave him. “I am right behind! Form the defenses!”

But Connerad Brawnanvil wasn’t right behind. The glabrezu’s pincer caught him by the shield again, and this time the compromised buckler folded under the tremendous pressure.

Connerad grimaced and growled as the pincer came in hard across his forearm, pressing in through his fine mail. He tried to bring his sword to bear, but the demon caught his arm and held him at bay.

In came the biting maw, and Connerad timed his headbutt perfectly to intercept the toothy jaws with the crown of his helmet.

The glabrezu staggered, and Connerad wriggled free his sword arm and stabbed straight ahead. He felt his fine blade sink into demon flesh, and felt the hot Abyssal blood spurting out over his arm.

Not far from the floor, Kenneally Harpell watched the dwarves scrambling, trying to get back to the landing area-which was easy to locate with nearly thirty broken dwarves lying in a tangled heap.

The woman forced the gruesome image out of her thoughts and looked up, trying to see if Tuckernuck and the others were in position, and with their spell enacted once more.

But to no avail, for they were in darkness too complete. But Kenneally knew she couldn’t wait. She began casting her spell, a powerful dweomer known to only a few at the Ivy Mansion, aiming it right at the dwarves clustered about their fallen kin.

“No, you hold!” Tuckernuck shouted at the dwarves on the landing. He had figured out Kenneally’s desperate plan and knew what would soon be coming his way. “They’re coming back, all of them, and you need to be ready to catch them and pull them to safety! Grapnels, I say! Ropes and grapnels!”

Many dwarves shouted questions back at the flying wizard, and many more shouted curses.

Tuckernuck ignored them. He had to lead the ritual-nothing else mattered. He understood the carnage that would ensue should he fail Kenneally, should he fail the dwarves now.

The other three Harpells returned to him, and he motioned them into place. Clearly injured, Toliver barely managed to get near to his spot diagonally across from the leading wizard, and Tuckernuck wasn’t sure that one could bring forth his part of the ritual.

The dweomer needed four participants.

With no options available, Tuckernuck continued his casting, then reached his arms out left and right, forming his corner of the square. From his fingertips shot tiny filaments of light streaming out to be caught by the casters at those corners, the two of them then redirecting the energy to Toliver.

But Toliver only had one arm up to receive the light. He remained lurched over to his left. There was nothing Tuckernuck could do-he couldn’t even shout out for Toliver or he would ruin his own casting.

But how he wanted to, and even more so when he heard the sudden commotion below him, and glanced down to see the tumbling, spinning charge of a score of dwarves flying up at him.

No, falling up at him, he realized, for they were caught in Kenneally’s spell of inversion, where up was down and down was up.

“Flip!” he did yell at the other wizards when the dweomer reached them, and they did, except for Toliver, righting themselves upside down, which was now upright!

The falling dwarves drew near, but the Field of Feather Fall wasn’t complete, and the ceiling, now the floor, loomed just above.

“Toliver!” Tuckernuck and the other two shouted, for now their spells were complete.

And from the landing, which was not in the area of effect, the dwarves began to scream and curse.

Dead dwarves tumbled upward beside living dwarves. Pursuing goblins were caught in the spell and went falling upward in the line. More dwarves came in, leaping, then flailing as they were caught in a free fall as surely as if they had leaped off a cliff.

But many other dwarves weren’t going to make it, Kenneally realized. Nearly a hundred and fifty of the sturdy folk had leaped down, the last three groups falling to their deaths almost to a dwarf. But the Harpell wizard realized that of the six-score who were already on the floor, less than half were going to find their way back. Yet another group of several Gutbusters were pulled down by the goblin horde, overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Kenneally spotted King Connerad of Mithral Hall staggering away from a skewered demon, the beast spouting blood from its gut but still stubbornly pursuing.

And more monsters-like great bipedal vultures-swept in from the sides, cutting off the young dwarf’s retreat.

Connerad fought valiantly, but Kenneally shook her head in despair. She began casting a spell, a fireball, thinking to put it high enough to catch the heads of the tall monsters. She took hope when one of those vulture-like demons screeched and staggered back, its beak shattered by a mighty stroke of Connerad’s sword.

But the four-armed behemoth leaped in, pincers leading, and Kenneally lost the spell in her throat as the beast extracted Connerad from the commotion and lifted him up into the air, both pincers grasping tightly around the poor dwarf’s midsection.

“Bah, ye dog!” she heard Connerad cry, and he lashed out with his blade and managed to clip the huge beast’s canine muzzle.

With a yelp of protest and rage, the demon thrust its arms out wide, and Connerad Brawnanvil, the Twelfth King of Mithral Hall, was ripped in half at the waist.

Kenneally’s fireball spell was lost in her throat then, and all she could do was fly up for the ceiling, her eyes wet with tears, and gasping for breath she could not seem to find.

She took some heart as she rose, though, to see her four kin maintaining their dweomer. Toliver had straightened and completed the square just in time. Upward fell the dwarves, then upward they floated, to land lightly on the ceiling.

And dwarves on the landing threw them ropes, which fell up to them, that they could be hauled to safety.

And upward fell the pursuing monsters, too, then upward they floated, and not one got to the ceiling before a dwarven crossbow launched a bolt into its torso, and the dwarves already up above were ready for them anyway, cutting the disoriented and confused goblinkin apart in short order.

“Hurry, pull them in!” she heard Tuckernuck commanding. “Kenneally’s spell will not last much longer! We will lose any not on the ledge!”

Kenneally nodded agreement and focused on the task at hand. She was more than halfway to the ceiling, the jumble of falling dwarves and monsters just in front of her. Now she concentrated on that tumbling mess, picking out monsters.

A line of magic missiles shot out from her fingertips, striking a goblin, killing it, and taking out the one beside it as well.

Kenneally chanted the spell for a lightning bolt, and when she executed it, she perfectly angled it to blast several enemies, with not a dwarf singed. The power of the bolt jolted one large demon too, sending it spinning out of the area of her reverse gravity, and as soon as the beast went out of the dweomer, it fell back the other way, more than fifty feet to the floor.

And so Kenneally realized a new and deadly tactic, and one executed by a simple spell she could cast quickly and repeatedly. She picked out her targets with gusts of wind, blowing them out of the reverse gravity field, sending them falling back for the cavern floor, living bombs to drop upon the sprawling horde below.

She would avenge Connerad, she determined, and she narrowed her eyes and sent a dozen goblins flying free of her enchanted area.

Tuckernuck Harpell looked up, or rather down, nodding approvingly of Kenneally’s exploits.

But noting, too, that fewer and fewer dwarves were among the dozens falling upward, and that little fighting continued on the floor.

He glanced the other way to see most of the living dwarves already out of the enchanted area, scrambling on ropes with their crowded brethren grabbing at them and hauling them over the lip of the landing.

He looked back the other way, back to the floor. He saw no dwarves, none living at least, but now more and more monsters were taking the leap.

Tuckernuck could only hope that he wasn’t killing more dwarves then, but he flew backward and dropped his arms, ending the ritual enchantment of the Field of Feather Falling. He flipped back upright, and waved his three fellow Harpells back as monster after monster tumbled past to crash against the ceiling, or, soon, to crash against the bodies of those that had already crashed against the ceiling.

He looked down again to Kenneally, and he gasped and cried out. A pair of ghastly creatures, like giant houseflies with human faces, flew upon her at either side, biting and tearing at her.

“Kenneally!”

He began to dive, but a fireball below stopped him before he ever truly moved.

Kenneally’s fireball dropped right upon herself.

The flames cleared and the chasme demons, their wings burned away, tumbled for the floor, bearing poor Kenneally with them.

Again Tuckernuck began to dive, and again he stopped short, for Kenneally’s powerful dweomer ended then, and a host of monsters and dead dwarves fell from the ceiling, and those falling upward in the field paused, then went tumbling back the other way.

So enthralled by the strange sight was Tuckernuck that he didn’t notice a swarm of chasme demons soaring up at him until it was too late.

Covered in blood, much of it his own, Bungalow Thump was the last dwarf holding the landing, and the one who hauled Toliver, the only Harpell to reach the landing, over the edge. The powerful dwarf sent the wounded man skidding back through the door, then his eyes widened in horror to note the other two nearby wizards caught suddenly by the horrid, insectoid demons.

Bungalow fell back in shock, barely avoiding yet another of the darting chasme. He would have been caught and surely killed, but a dwarf within the doorway grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him back and to the ground-and the pursuing chasme caught a swarm of crossbow bolts right in its hideous face.

The door slammed shut and Comragh na Uamh, the Battle of the Under Way, came to an abrupt and disastrous end.