Halisstra cried out in pain and flung her arm up to shield her eyes from the flaring light of the bolt, cowering against the wall and cursing the wizard for blinding her and making her vulnerable to the soldiers' attacks. Her vision swam for several moments with the afterimage as she groped along the wall, trying to listen for the sound of imminent attack, but nothing came. Ahead, she heard one last gasp as someone was wounded, and the sounds of battle faded.
When her vision finally cleared, she saw Danifae and Quenthel looking as dazed as she felt. Pharaun appeared proud of himself, and the entire host of House Zauvirr soldiers lay on the ground to either side of her.
"Damn you, Pharaun," Quenthel snarled, her hands on her hips as she glared at the wizard, who was a few inches shorter than the high priestess. "You warn me next time you intend to cast a spell like that!"
Pharaun bowed, and Halisstra wasn't sure if it was meant to be mocking or not, but he said, "My apologies. There wasn't time to warn anyone. They would have been upon us if I hadn't acted as swiftly as I did."
Quenthel sniffed, apparently not completely satisfied with his explanation, but she said nothing else. After a moment, Halisstra realized that the Mistress of the Academy was looking at her.
"Well?" Quenthel said, "Lead on. I don't want another horde of Ssipriina's lackeys finding us still standing around their comrades' corpses."
Halisstra nodded curtly and turned toward the door. She was careful not to stare overly long at any of the bodies of the soldiers Jeggred had dispatched. She reached the door and waved her brooch in front of it, allowing the magic to do its work and unlock the portal. The priestess stepped inside and beckoned the others to follow her.
The interior of her mother's chambers was gaudy and out of style for Halisstra's tastes, but she paid the decorations no mind. As the rest of the group filed inside, she gestured toward the rest of the room and the different doorways.
"Mistress Baenre's things are here somewhere," Halisstra said. "If we spread out, we can find them more quickly."
As if to punctuate the need for urgency, another rumbling vibration bounced through the House, and Halisstra thought she heard the fracturing of solid rock.
"Never mind that," Quenthel said brusquely. "They're in there."
She pointed through one of the doorways.
"That's the bedrooms," Halisstra said, slightly puzzled at how the high priestess would know they were in there. "Come on," she said, and the entire group followed her into the interior chamber.
The oversized bed sat to one side, a huge, round affair that could accommodate five or six drow and probably had on more than one occasion, Halisstra supposed. In addition to that, there were a number of couches, chests, dressers, and tables for furniture, and rich tapestries covered every square foot of the walls.
Quenthel trudged across the room to a point between two tall armoires, where a tapestry woven of black fabric glowed in phosphorescent hues of green, purple, and yellow with an image of a drow priestess. Halisstra knew it was supposed to be her grandmother, and she wondered why Drisinil had kept it. Halisstra certainly didn't intend to keep anything to remind her of her own mother.
"Here," Quenthel said. "Everything's behind here."
"Well don't touch it, yet," Pharaun admonished, striding up beside her.
He studied the tapestry for a moment then nodded to himself as though satisfied. He took hold of a corner of the weaving and yanked it off the wall. Behind it was only bare stone.
Quenthel's scowl deepened, but the wizard simply produced a wand from inside the folds of his piwafwi, waved it about, and uttered an arcane phrase. He pocketed the magical device and went back to studying the space as the others gathered around. Danifae stood near Halisstra, and the priestess felt her attendant press something against her hand. Looking down, Halisstra saw that the battle captive had procured a pair of daggers and was handing one to her, on the sly.
Oh, you clever girl, Halisstra thought. She quickly palmed the weapon and tucked it into the folds of her piwafwi, out of sight. Then she returned her attention to what the wizard was doing.
"Yes, of course," Pharaun said, as though he had recognized something that should have been obvious to him. "All right everyone, step back. I can disarm the protective wards and sigils that are here, but I cannot deal with the more mechanical trap that I suspect is also present."
"That's all right," Valas said. "If you can remove all of the magical protections, I might be able to manage the rest."
Pharaun nodded and began to gesture and mutter, finally pointing toward the space between the two tall armoires with a flourish. Halisstra supposed the wizard must have some ability to sense the presence of various spells, wards, and charms, for she could not see what he was working on and had never known of a secret portal anywhere in her mother's rooms. Pharaun gazed at the wall a moment longer after he was finished with his casting then nodded for the scout to give it a try.
Valas moved up closely to the wall and began to inspect it little by little, inch by inch. Halisstra wanted to get in close beside him, to see what he was looking at, but she dared not disturb his concentration. At that moment, yet another in the series of rumbles shook the room, and Halisstra nearly lost her footing.
"By the Abyss!" Valas yelled, waving his arms in an effort to avoid falling against the wall. "This is no good. I can't do this with all of the—"
The scout's words were cut off as the whole room suddenly lurched and began to tilt. Halisstra fell to the floor as the chamber was no longer level but instead tipped to one side, away from the wall they had been inspecting. She realized she was screaming as she rolled along the floor. The movement stopped, but all through the House she could hear the horrendous sound of fracturing rock, loud popping noises that sounded as if the whole world was snapping apart.
"We've no time! We've got to get out now!" Halisstra heard one of the males yell.
"Not without my possessions," Quenthel insisted, sitting up and trying to stand on the yawing floor. "Get that door open—now!”
Pharaun, who had actually begun to levitate to avoid falling down, nodded as the others left their feet—all except Valas, who seemed perfectly capable of maintaining his balance despite the tilt of the floor.
The wizard removed a soft glove from inside his piwafwi. He donned it and began casting again as the floor made several popping sounds and began to tilt even more. A massive, glowing fist appeared, twice as tall as Pharaun, floating in the air in front of the mage. Pharaun guided the magical conjuration with his own gloved hand, turning it so that the knuckles were aimed at the point on the wall.
"Get back!" Pharaun yelled. "I don't know what kind of backlash this will create."
There was more popping from the structure of the House—closer, the sounds deafening—and Halisstra found she had her hands over her ears. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
We're going to die in here, she thought. The whole house is falling apart, and we're going to be crushed.
The magical fist lurched forward and slammed into the wall between the armoires, smacking against the stone with a powerful crunch. The wall cracked in several places. Pharaun directed the fist to back up and go again.
Quenthel was beside Halisstra, grabbing her by the arm.
"When he gets that wall down," the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith said, "we will need to hurry. What's the fastest way out of here?"
Halisstra looked at the other drow helplessly.
"We're in the very heart of the House," she answered. "The most protected point. It'll take us forever to get out, no matter which way we go."
Quenthel scowled, but then she nodded and moved away.
The giant fist had slammed into the wall two or three more times, and the wall was about to collapse.
One more blow should do it, Halisstra thought as she felt the concussions of more cracking and breaking beyond the room. If it's not too late already, she added to herself.
Around Halisstra, the others were wide-eyed, trying to maintain their balance and eyeing the walls, ceiling, and floor warily.
The next slam of the fist finally did the section of wall in, and it collapsed in a pile of rubble. Behind it, a small chamber sat dark and dusty, filled with shelves containing a number of items Halisstra had never seen before. Quenthel pushed ahead of everyone else and strode—or rather hiked, for it was like walking up a hillside—into the chamber, snatching up a five-headed snake whip with a gleam in her eye.
"Yes!" was all she said as she held the weapon aloft, the five vipers hissing and writhing joyously.
Quickly, Quenthel gathered up several other items that obviously belonged to her then eyed the other things displayed on the shelves.
"No time," Pharaun insisted. "We leave now!" Turning to Halisstra, the wizard demanded, "Which way is out? Get us there, before the whole place falls!"
Halisstra shook her head miserably.
"We're as far away from the exits as we can be!" she shouted over the cacophony of popping, shattering stone. The room lurched again. "There's no close way out!"
"Then I'll make one," Pharaun shouted. "Which direction is closest to the outside?"
Part of the ceiling on the far side of the room collapsed, sending a shower of stone fragments and dust into Halisstra's face. She covered her nose and mouth with one hand as she flung her arm up to shield her eyes from the stinging shards of rock that pelted her. She couldn't think. She was going to die. There was no way out, no escape—and no Lolth.
Halisstra felt the wizard's hands grasp her arms.
"Tell me," he shouted, "which way is the closest way to the outside, regardless of walls?"
Halisstra shook her head, trying to focus despite the panic rising in her chest. She spied Danifae clinging to Quenthel as both of them held on to the edge of the broken wall leading into the secret room. Jeggred had his claws embedded in the rock of the floor and was clambering along it toward his mistress.
The closest outside wall . . . which way?
An image appeared in her head, a mental map, and she knew that her mother's chambers backed up nearly to an outside wall, which meant that the secret room Pharaun and Quenthel had discovered was very close to the outside.
Frantically, Halisstra pointed to the hidden room.
"That way!" she yelled.
Pharaun nodded. Scrambling on his hands and knees, the wizard headed in that direction, almost slipping and sliding back the other way as the room tilted again. Halisstra began to slide along the floor, herself and decided against trying to stop, instead bracing her feet against the far, lowest wall. She craned her neck around to watch the mage as he began yet another spell. He seemed to have an endless supply of them. He dug in his piwafwi and pulled out something too small for Halisstra to see, then he began to gesticulate wildly in the direction of the wall at the back of the secret closet. Before her eyes, a tunnel formed right into the rock itself, and after about fifteen feet, it broke through into space beyond.
"Come on!" Pharaun shouted to everyone as the whole House seemed to be one solid rumble.
The noise of the cracking stone was deafening, and Halisstra had barely been able to hear the wizard. The room tilted over even more sharply, and Halisstra realized that it was nearly sideways, with the new opening to the outside almost over her head. She began to float, lifting herself magically toward the impromptu exit, as the other members of the group did the same. As she reached the top and was about to pass through into the open air of the city beyond, she saw that Jeggred had a hold of Valas. The draegloth lifted effortlessly toward the hole, and it was at that moment that Halisstra remembered that Danifae could not levitate either.
The House Melarn daughter looked down desperately and saw her attendant, crouched in the low corner of the room, near the collapsed ceiling, scrambling to stay atop the shifting pile of rock as the room continued to tip over. Danifae's eyes were blazing with fury as she gazed angrily up toward where everyone else was escaping the collapsing dwelling. There was another excruciatingly loud snapping sound as more stone buckled and popped, and Danifae, still inside the destroyed remains of House Melarn, was falling away.
* * *
Khorrl Xornbane was bloody and exhausted. His clan, gathered all around him, looked that way too. He had no idea how long they'd been fighting, but it was too long. They needed rest and water. They couldn't keep this up for much longer. Unfortunately, the captain of Clan Xornbane feared that the day would grow much worse before it got better. He hoped he was wrong.
Khorrl had already passed the word that his troops were to abandon their positions defending House Melarn. They had been besieged there for so long and had used up so many of their firepots that he feared the place was growing unstable.
I'm not going to lose my boys that way, he told himself.
The remains of his forces were reforming on the opposite side of the plaza from the House, and for the moment they were being left alone. It was hard to be sure how long that peace would, last, though, because none of them could see very far in the thick smoke of the burning stone.
What Khorrl and his duergar could see told the tale clearly enough, though. The plaza was covered with the bodies of goblins and kobolds. Littered in between them were slightly fewer drow, though the number of dead dark elves surprised, him. More dead gray dwarves than Khorrl would have liked were scattered here and there, too. It had been a hellish day, and it was far from over, the captain feared.
"Sir," one of his aides said, running up to Khorrl, "we've completely abandoned the estate. The last of the troops have formed a line from that corner—" the young gray dwarf pointed through the smoke toward the edge of a dwelling behind them—"across to the flank of our main position, there." He swung his arm across to the far right side of the plaza.
"Good," Khorrl replied, visualizing the battlefield in his mind, since he could no longer clearly see it with his eyes.
"Also," the aide continued, "there's another force of drow coming toward us, from that direction."
He pointed off to the left, where the plaza was joined by a large web street. It was, regrettably, the weakest point of Clan Xornbane's defenses.
"Friend or foe? Did you get a look at their House insignias?"
The aide shrugged and said, "Not in this smoke."
Khorrl sighed. He would have to send scouts out to reconnoiter the new troops. He said as much to the aide, who saluted him and started to turn away.