The City of Splendors

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Beldar's jaw clenched in fury. So Golskyn could control the Statues through him, without his knowledge.

Well, he didn't want this power, but by all the gods, he'd not let the mad priest use it!

Beldar growled aside the burning pain in his eye and hurled his will into a silent command. Overhead, the Statues took a single step back.

Mrelder looked up, hearing and feeling the Walking Statues moving. That was it; this battle was lost. He put a firm hand on his father's shoulder and steered the old priest firmly toward a side tunnel and escape.

But Golskyn pulled away, giving his son a scornful glare. Once it would have wounded Mrelder deeply, but he no longer desired his father's approval or believed the insane plans of Lord Unity could be made real.

"We can leave-or we can die," he said bluntly.

Golskyn raised hands that flickered with deadly magic, in clear warning. "I go no farther without the successor! Use your spells to bring us Beldar Roaringhorn!"

Mrelder wasn't sure that was still possible, but he nodded curtly and began to weave the sorcery that would roar commands inside the nobleman's head.

Terrible pain lanced through Beldar's skull. He tore off his eyepatch and sank to his knees, trembling. The beastman he'd been about to slay stopped his lurching retreat and trotted forward, spiked mace rising for an easy kill.

Beldar's beholder eye responded, forcing up the head that held it, to let it glare.

The noble watched a sore erupt on the beastman's face, oozing and spreading with incredible speed. It was rather like watching a wax party decoration tossed across a flame-if that wax figure melted, screaming, into greenish ooze and exposed bone.

The pain in Beldar's head ebbed, and he stared in revulsion at his dying foe. No one and nothing should die like this! He swung his blade across the beastman's throat and turned away as the gurgling scream faded.

Something stirred in his throbbing head: the faint echo of someone else's surprise.

So his watcher hadn't expected that mercy-slaying. Good. Then he knew that Beldar Roaringhorn was not yet a helpless puppet. His choices were still his own.

And by the gods, he would choose well!

Taeros coughed smoke and staggered to his feet. The foulness was billowing from burning corpses. Nearby, Starragar clung to his dead love, still sobbing. Roldo's tunic hung in slashed rags, but he stood wincing as Faendra worked to staunch the blood running from the gashes across his chest. Naoni knelt over Korvaun, who lay sprawled on the floor. Lark stood guard between her mistresses, eyes alert and dagger ready. Her gaze touched his, and Taeros blinked at the realization that she stood ready to leap to his defense, too.

A soft murmur came from the floor, and Taeros looked again at Naoni and Korvaun.

A good pair of Helmfast breeches had been slit away, revealing a row of round, red welts on his thigh. Naoni was lying beside Korvaun now, her head on his chest and her face deathly pale. Korvaun held her with one arm, but his other twitched, often and sharply.

Fear swept through Taeros in an icy tide. "Up, man," he said gruffly. "We're far from done yet."

Korvaun's smile was faint. "True enough… for you."

Taeros glared at the welts. "Venom," he said grimly. "That snake thing that took us down must have been-oh, blast it all, it matters not!"

He drew his dagger and dropped to his knees beside Korvaun. "This'll hurt, but lacking magic or the right poison-quell… I'll have to cut open each of those and suck the venom out."

"Too late," Korvaun said. "Look at my arm: 'Tis in my blood." He smiled faintly. "If you were a flock of stirges you might drain me dry, but that'd hardly be an improvement."

They stared into each other's eyes until Taeros shook his head angrily and snapped, "Faen, Lark: help me! Let's get Korvaun into yonder cellar-end."

"And what?" Roldo demanded. "Just leave him there?"

"Lark can stand guard. We'll go get a healer, and return as fast as we can."

Roldo looked to Korvaun.

"Listen to Taeros, my friend," the youngest Lord Helmfast said, his eyelids drooping. "He knows what must be done."

His eyes drifted shut. "Advising sage," he murmured. "The role you seek… suits you well. Take it up again when you can. For now, you must lead."

Taeros found himself choking back tears, for he knew no healer could come in time. "I'll take it up in Torm's halls," he said roughly, "when again I find myself at Korvaun Helmfast's side."

Korvaun smiled faintly. "I'll keep your seat warm and your ale cool. Go now, and see this through!"

A man with serpents as long as spears sprouting from his forearms dodged out of a sewer-tunnel behind one of Elaith's hurrying jackcoats.

The man whirled, sword flashing, but by then three or four snakeheads had sunk their fangs into him, and a fifth made short and savage work of his face.

Taeros Hawkwinter crouched grimly watching, one hand raised in an imperious "all keep silent" signal, his sword ready in the other.

Roldo whispered, "Are we just going to watch? Why aren't we-"

The beastman left the writhing, foaming jackcoat to die and ran on, calling some sort of wordless signal. Side-passages erupted with streams of monster-men, running up into the winecellars of the Purple Silks.

"That's why," Taeros muttered, eyes fierce and face hard. "If we throw our lives away trying to be glorious heroes, Waterdeep won't get warned in time, and all of those will be out in the streets, lurking and awaiting every nightfall, to slay at will!"

A tunnel rang with a sudden clash of steel, and a beastman staggered out of it, body transfixed by the blades of half a dozen of Elaith's jackcoats. Groaning, the man-monster fell on his face. The jackcoats jerked forth bloody blades and ran on-back up into the winecellars.

"It seems the Purple Silks is filling up again," Taeros observed caustically. "Ready for more festivities, everyone?"

More jackcoats and a few beastmen darted out of various tunnels to ascend into the wine cellars. The sewers were growing quieter-and darker, too, with almost all the lanterns and torches gone out. Soon there'd be none left but the dead… and whatever might come along to feed on them.

"Everyone's ready," Roldo announced grimly.

The Hawkwinter nodded curtly. "You step out that way, facing down into the sewers, and I'll face that way, toward the cellars. Everyone else come out between us. We form a ring of steel and go up, everyone looking to the sides as we go. Roldo, keep watch behind, and shout the moment you see any movement, even if it's something very small coming at you."

Roldo stared at his hitherto easy-going friend. "You sound like a veteran warcaptain of Hawkwinter Hall!"

For once, Taeros wasted neither time nor wit on a sharp response. If he fell short of a warcaptain's wisdom this night, there were graves waiting for them all.

Lord Ulb Jardeth staggered wearily into the feasting hall, face blood-streaked and leaning on a notched and blunted sword. He blinked in surprise at all the bright light.

There was a little cry of relief, and a familiar, long-gowned woman burst through its archway and came running to him, arms spread.

"Allys," he growled, throwing his free arm around her as she embraced him fiercely, sobbing. "I'm-I'm all right. Steady, pet, steady. What by the Harbor Deep has befallen up here, while we were all killing each other down below?"

Lady Allys Jardeth pointed with the hand that held her little jeweled belt-dagger. "Men who look like monsters have been coming up-just a few of them-and when they saw us all looking, they went through those doors there, and there-and there!"

"The big bedchambers," Lord Jardeth said grimly, not caring if he was revealing his familiarity with the festhall to his wife. "Well, they can only get out of there through a stair up onto the galleries or a tunnel back down to the sewers… or right back out yon doors to face us again, so they'll keep for now. Gods, lass, 'twas butchery down there-who else has come up?"

Allys Jardeth stiffened in her husband's arms. This time words failed her, so she contented herself with screaming.

Lord Jardeth swung them both around-in time to see an army of monster-men running across the shattered forehall toward him. "Oh, blast," he growled, "I'm getting too old for this! Allys, get out of here!"

Shoving his wife behind him, he hefted his sword and planted his feet to await the doom charging so swiftly down upon him.

Screams burst from the watching women in the feasting hall as the beastmen raced toward them.

"For the Amalgamation!" a huge, caterpillarlike monster-man thundered, rearing up amid the running throng as tall as two men.

"For Waterdeep!" someone shouted from behind the running beastmen, as Lord Jardeth swung his sword and prepared to die.

Then a bolt of lightning crackled between two drawn blades, searing the hands of the astonished jackcoats who wielded them and dealing death to a score of beastmen caught between.

"We're under attack!" a stag-headed man snarled, whirling around, and the loping, wolf like creature who was about to pounce on Lord Jardeth turned as swiftly as most of his fellows.

Not much more than a dozen of Elaith's jackcoats had come up out of the cellar on their heels, but until that war-cry, they'd been stabbing, tripping, and slaying with swift and stealthy ease, leaving a trail of half-beast bodies.

Seeing their own losses, the monster-men of the Amalgamation turned their backs on the feasting hall in an instant to face their dark-clad foes.

The cavernous forehall became a furious battleground in the space of an angry breath, as beastmen howled, trumpeted, roared, and died. Jaws, claws, and tails, both scything and stinging, made short work of unarmored jackcoats, but many of Elaith's men bought with poisoned blades, and there was fearsome slaughter.

When all the jackcoats were dead, less than a dozen monster-men remained to turn and rend the lone old lord who stood in their path-which was when the Gemcloaks came racing up out of the cellar to plunge in among them, hacking and stabbing with neither war-cry nor hesitation.

With shouts and roars of rage and dismay, the monster-men whirled around again-to find a foe already in their midst.

"Die," Taeros gasped furiously, as he chopped aside eyestalks and fangs, his hands as black with blood as his sword. "Stop being so bloody stubborn and just die!"

"Starragar?" old Lord Jardeth roared, catching sight of a face he knew in the fray. "Starragar? To me, boy! For Jardeth and Waterdeep!"

That war-cry was echoed from Ulb Jardeth's flank. He turned in astonishment as his wife, tangled hair flying around her, burst in among men with scales and horns and barbed arms. She stabbed with her dagger, grunting with effort. Tearing it free, she gasped, reeled, and struck again.

Other elderly nobles and merchants were advancing from the feasting hall now, unsteadily or uncertainly or both, with canes and belt-knives and table legs in their hands. "That's young Hawkwinter!" someone shouted. "And the Thongolir heir, by the Mountain!"

Lord Eremoes Hawkwinter shot to his feet from where he'd been bandaging and comforting the injured among the tables. He dragged out a wicked warsword, cast aside its jeweled scabbard, and bellowed, "A Hawkwinter? Where?"

His lumbering run brought him into the forehall in time to see Taeros Hawkwinter smash aside a lion-headed man's sword with his own, snarling as fiercely as if he himself had lion-fangs, and sink his dagger hilt-deep in a leonine throat.

"Blood and valor! Taeros!" Eremoes cried in pleased wonder. He pointed at his son with his sword and roared in a voice that echoed around the shattered hall, "Rally to Hawkwinter, men!"

"I hate this," Piergeiron raged. "To stand here doing naught, while brave folk of Waterdeep fight and die before my eyes! Friends, this is killing me!"

"Nay," Mirt growled, "any attempt on an over-foolish paladin's part to get out there will result in me killing ye. Take your brains out o' your sword-scabbard for once and sit tight. Your staying inside the shielding here is all that stops whoever's behind all these man-beasts from burying us all! If they can make the Statues Walk, they need no blasting-spells to bring the Silks down on our heads! Only knowing this magic is protecting your head stops them, as 'tis your head they want!"

"Mirt's right," Madeiron Sunderstone said quickly, seeing the lack of logic in the moneylender's words but praying the First Lord would not. Stones had bounced from the golden shield-hardly the actions of a foe who wished to take Piergeiron alive! "So sit down again and belt up. For once."

The wizard Tarthus was doing more than sitting down: he was lying down, face pale and sweat streaming from it. Holding up the shielding under a succession of swift, hard probing spells was exhausting. It was flickering on the verge of collapse. "We're… we're going to have to risk it," Tarthus gasped.

"Right," Mirt growled, lurching as far away from the others as he could get. Drawing a little carved gem from its own inner belt-pouch, he set it on the floor, joined it with a good deal of huffing and puffing, and touched it with his outstretched arm, muttering, "Fancylass, I need ye."

There was a flash, the shielding pulsed with a throbbing groan that made them all wince-and there was suddenly a fifth person standing under the golden dome.

She was female, of mature years, and wore a revealing ruffled nightgown and a startled, less-than-pleased expression.

Most mages of the Watchful Order were frankly scared of "Mother" Amaundra Lorgra. There was something forbidding about a woman who refused all rank but gave no polite word to anyone and whose glares and simple utterances could cow noble lords and senior Guard officers alike. Her bare feet were covered with corns, her thin legs a-crawl with blue veins, and her eyes were already beginning to flash in exasperation.

"Mirt, what by all the lusts of Sune have you and these idiot lads gotten themselves into this time? Can't a woman get some sleep in Waterdeep these nights? Must you little boys always be waving swords and shouting around the place?"

"Fancylass," Mirt growled back, not a whit abashed, "I'd not have disturbed ye had the present threat not been too great to deal with by lesser means. Consider yourself our sharpest blade, if ye will."

"How so?"

"Ye have the strength and the skill to join with Tarthus, here, and keep the shielding up. They've made the Statues walk and are trying to bring this festhall down on all our heads."

Amaundra shook her head, went to the floor with the fading remains of graceful agility, and clasped hands with Tarthus. "You can tell me who 'they' are later-and why young Piergeiron here can't just send the Statues back to their places. Right now, let me dispute something more immediate with you. Are 'they' sane? That is, do they intend to still have a city left to rule, once they've prevailed?"

Mirt shrugged. "I presume so. Why do it, else?"

"Well, then, if our foes are sane and have enough wits to know anything about magic-and they must do, to move the Statues- they won't want to bring this place down."

"Oh?"

"Don't act the wide-eyed innocent with me, Mirt-you do it poorly indeed. You are a Lord of Waterdeep, no matter how secret you little boys like to keep such things, so you know about Ahghairon's wards-and all the embroidery Khelben and others have added since."

Mirt nodded. "The phantom city walls, the dragon-wards, aye."

"Aye, indeed. Such castings have multiple anchors. One is a stone in this building's foundation. If this place falls and those stones get shattered or shifted, spell after spell will collapse in a rolling, ever-increasing chaos only Khelben or Laeral can fix-unless Azuth or Holy Mystra herself happen to be strolling by."

"Barring that, the collapse comes, and what then?"

Amaundra shrugged. "Nothing much, perhaps. Wards that won't work when we call on them, later, city walls that won't appear when the orcs come howling… that sort of thing. On the other hand, the breaking spells might shatter others nearby, in magical mayhem none can predict-mayhap awakening spells any of Waterdeep's defenders can use or causing old enchantments to fail here and there."

"Making buildings fall, and all that."

"And all that, indeed. The problem isn't so much the wards we know about. It's all the ancient, half-forgotten, lingering Ahghairon-cast-this magics everywhere."

"Oh, tluin," Mirt growled.

"Oh, tluin, indeed," the magist agreed tartly, "which is a fine word for a woman to be using while she's lying flat on her back wearing only a bit of rag with three lusty men about!"

Madeiron Sunderstone promptly stood up, unbuckled his ornate revel-cloak, and laid it gently over Amaundra. "I believe the appropriate phrase is: 'The things I do for Waterdeep.'"

"That, young sir," came the tart reply, "is the appropriate phrase for us all."

"I thought they were just young ne'er-do-wells, wasting our coins and their days wenching, mocking and breaking things," Ulb Jardeth growled. "For once, I was wrong, and I don't regret my error one whit."

"Likewise!" Eremoes Hawkwinter laughed. "Gods, but that was splendid! Our new young lions, fighting for Waterdeep!"

"And some older lionesses, too," Lord Jardeth added, looking down at his wife.

There was dried blood all over Allys Jardeth's hand and bodice and dagger, none of it her own, but she was nestled in the crook of his arm quite happily, with none of her usual fussing about how she looked or who was wearing a better gown.

She grinned up at him. "So is it all over?"

"You sound disappointed," her proud husband observed. Lord Eremoes Hawkwinter gave the handful of surviving monster-men a hard look-where they were spread out bound on the floor, with swords held to their throats-and shook his head, frowning.

"We're still prisoners in here," he said quietly, "with the Walking Statues blocking all ways out, and there's something wrong with Piergeiron, or he'd be commanding them elsewhere. Moreover, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, who could do the same with a wave of his hand, seems nowhere to be found. I've been hearing rumors no one's seen him for days-including some powerful outlander mages who came a long way to climb the steps of Blackstaff Tower. I'd say we're far from out of the shadows yet."