Mariabronne threw his cloak upon it for good measure.

Then he leaped forward and the daemon came forth, smoke forming into powerful legs as it stepped free of the brazier. It raked with its shadowy hands and its head snapped forward to bite at Mariabronne, but again the ranger realized at once that he was the superior fighter and that his sword could indeed inflict damage upon the otherworldly creature.

"Gehenna, then," he cried. "But you will go there hungry!"

"Fool, I am always hungry!"

Its last word sounded more as a gurgle, as the ranger's fine sword creased its face. In his howl of triumph, though, Mariabronne didn't hear the second egg drop.

Or the third.

The sound of battle echoed up the corridor and into the main room of the tower. Canthan snarled at the noise but refused to turn away from the tome. He felt certain there were more secrets buried within that book. Energy made his skin tingle and hummed in the air around it. The book was magical, the runes were magical, and he had a much better understanding of how the castle had come about, about the source of energy that had facilitated the construction, but there was more. Something remained hidden just below the surface. The magical runes even then appearing on the page might prove to be a clue.

The ring of steel distracted him. He turned back to see an agitated Pratcus hopping from one foot to the other in the middle of the room. Ellery came out of one tunnel, and cut to the side from where the sound emanated. She looked at Pratcus as Athrogate emerged from a tunnel opposite. Up on the balcony, Olgerkhan and Arrayan leaned over the railing, looking down with concern.

"Who?" Ellery asked.

"Gotta be the ranger," Pratcus answered.

Ellery ran toward the sound. "Which tunnel?" she asked, for the torches in all had gone dark again, and the echoes of the sounds confused her.

All eyes went to the dwarf, but Pratcus just shrugged.

Then from above, Olgerkhan cried out, "Breach!"

The fight had come.

"Just keep them off me!" Canthan growled, and he forced his attention back to the open book.

Another egg fell and broke open, and that made five.

Mariabronne finished the first with a two-handed overhead chop, but he was too busy leaping away from fiery daemon breath to applaud himself for the kill.

He went into a frenzy, spinning, rolling, and slashing, scoring hit after hit, and he came to realize that the creatures could only breathe their fire on him from a distance. So he ran, alternately closing on each. He took a few hits and gave a few more, and his confidence only heightened when, upon hearing more rattling from above, he leaped over and shouldered the brazier to the floor.

The rattling stopped.

There would be no more than the four standing against him. All he had to do was hold out until his companions arrived.

He sprang forward and charged but skidded to a stop and cut to the side. He used the sarcophagi as shields and kept the clawing, smoky hands at bay.

His smile appeared once more, that confidence reminiscent of the young Mariabronne who had rightly earned the nickname "the Rover" and had also earned a rakish reputation with ladies all across Damara. His sense of adventure overwhelmed him. He never felt more alive, more on the edge of disaster, of freedom and doom, than he was in times of greatest danger.

"Are all of Gehenna so slow?" he tried to say, to taunt the daemons, but halfway through the sentence he coughed up blood.

The ranger froze. He brought his free hand up to his neck to feel the blood still pumping. A wave of dizziness nearly dropped him.

He had to dive aside as two of the daemons loosed cones of fire at him, and so weak did he feel that he almost didn't get back to his feet—and when he did, he overbalanced so badly that he nearly staggered headlong into a third of the beasts.

"Priest, I need you!" Mariabronne the Rover shouted through the blood, and all at once he wasn't so confident and exuberant. "Priest! Dwarf, I need you!"

Entreri and Jarlaxle rushed into the room to join the others. Sounds of fighting from above assailed them, and both Entreri and Athrogate started that way.

Then came the desperate call from Mariabronne, "Priest, I need you!"

"Athrogate, hold the balcony!" Ellery ordered. "The rest with me!

Entreri heard Arrayan's cry and ignored the commander's order. In his thoughts, he pictured the doom of Dwahvel, his dear halfling friend, and so overwhelming was that sensation that he never paused long enough to consider it. He sprinted past the dwarf and hit the stairs running, taking them three at a time. He cut to the right, though the door and his companions were on the balcony to the left.

Then he cut back sharply to the left and leaped up to the slanted stairway railing in a dead run. His lead foot hit and started to slide, but the assassin stamped his right foot hard on the railing and leaped away, spinning as he went so that when he lifted up near the floor of the balcony, his back was to the railing. He threw his hands up and caught the balusters, and with the others on the floor below looking at him with mouths hanging open, Entreri's taut muscles flexed and tugged. He curled as he rose, throwing his feet up over his head. Not only was his backward flip over the railing perfectly executed, not only did he land lightly and in perfect balance, but on the way over he managed to draw both dagger and sword.

He spun as he landed and threw himself into the nearest gnoll mummy, his blades working in a scything whirlwind. Gray wrappings exploded into the air, flying all around him.

Down below, Jarlaxle looked to Ellery and said, "Consider the room secured."

Ellery managed one quick look the drow's way as she sprinted toward the tunnel entrances.

"Which one?" she asked again of Pratcus, who ran beside her.

"Yerself to the right, meself to the left!" the dwarf replied, and they split into the two possible openings.

Jarlaxle followed right behind them, but paused there. Athrogate rambled back from the stairs, trying to catch up.

Torches flared to life as Ellery ran through. A split second later, Pratcus's heavy strides similarly lit the first pair in his descending corridor.

"Which one, then?" Athrogate asked Jarlaxle.

"Here!" Ellery cried before the drow could answer, and both Jarlaxle and Athrogate took up the chase of the woman warrior.

In the other tunnel, Pratcus, too, heard the call, just as he passed the second set of torches, which flared to life. The dwarf instinctively slowed but shook his head. Perhaps his tunnel would intersect with the other and he wouldn't have to lose all the time backtracking, he thought, and he decided to light up one more set of torches.

He hit the next pressure plate, turning sidelong so that he could quickly spin around if the light didn't reveal an intersection.

But the torches didn't ignite.

Instead came a sudden clanging sound, and Pratcus just happened to be looking the right way to see the iron spike slide out of the wall.

He thought to throw himself aside but only managed to cry out. The spike moved too fast. It hit him in the gut and drove him back hard against the far corridor wall. It kept going, plunging right through the dwarf and ringing hard against the stone behind him.

With trembling hands, Pratcus grabbed at the stake. He tried to gather his wits, to call upon his gods for some magical healing. But the dwarf knew that he'd need more than that.

Flames licked at Mariabronne from every angle. He drove his sword through a daemon's head, tore it free and decapitated another as he swung wildly. All the room was spinning, though, and he was staggering more than charging as he went for the last pair of daemons.