Ellery managed to glance back and offer an appreciative nod to Mariabronne.
The ranger didn't notice, for he was already sighting his next target, bow drawn and arrow ready to fly.
Beside him, Pratcus breathed a sigh of relief.
Athrogate could not get to the globe in time, and Entreri watched helplessly as the four gargoyles disappeared into the darkness. Howls and shrieks erupted immediately, a flurry of claws slapping at flesh and a cacophony of opposing screeches, blending and melding into a macabre song of death.
"Jarlaxle," Entreri whispered, and he knew again that he was alone.
"They do make a mess of it," remarked a familiar voice, and Entreri nearly jumped out of his boots when he noted the dark elf standing next to him.
Jarlaxle held a thin metallic wand tipped with a ruby. He reached out and spoke a command word, and a tiny pill of fire arched out at the globe of darkness.
Noting the angle of the fiery pea and the approach of Athrogate, it seemed to Entreri almost as if the drow was tossing it to the roaring dwarf. Entreri thought to yell out a warning to Athrogate, but he knew that his call could do nothing to deter the committed warrior.
The pea disappeared into the darkness.
So did the dwarf.
A burst of flame lit the night, erupting from the globe, and when it was done, the darkness was gone and six gargoyles lay smoldering on the ground.
Athrogate ran out the other side, trailing wisps of smoke and a stream of colorful curses.
"Tough little fellow," Jarlaxle remarked.
"More's the pity," said Entreri.
Across the way, Canthan poked his head out of his extra-dimensional pocket and watched the goings-on with great amusement. He saw Ellery and Mariabronne charge to the aid of the dwarf cleric and the two half-orcs and was distracted by the roar of Athrogate—that one was always roaring! — as the dwarf bounded toward a globe of darkness.
It was a drow's globe, Canthan knew, and if the dark elf was inside it, the wizard could only hope the gargoyles would make fast work of him.
A familiar sight, usually one leaving his own hands, crossed into his field of vision, right to left, and he backtracked it quickly to see the dark elf standing beside Entreri, wand in hand.
A glance back made Canthan wince for his gruff ally, but it was one of instinct and reaction, certainly not of sympathy for the dwarf.
Athrogate came through the fireball, of course, smoking and cursing.
Canthan hardly paid him any heed, for his gaze went back to Jarlaxle. Who was this drow elf? And who was that deadly sidekick of his, standing amidst the inedible carrion of dead gargoyles? The wizard didn't lie to himself and insist that he wasn't impressed. Canthan had served Knellict for many years, and in the hierarchy of the Citadel of Assassins, survival meant never underestimating either your friends or your foes.
"Why are you here, drow?" Canthan whispered into the night air.
At that moment, Jarlaxle happened to turn his way and obviously spotted him, for the drow gave a tip of his great plumed hat.
Canthan chewed his lip and silently cursed himself for the error.
He should have cast an enchantment of invisibility before poking his head out.
But the drow would have seen him anyway, he suspected.
He gave a helpless sigh and grabbed the rope, rolling out so that he landed on bis feet. A glance around told him that the fight was over, the gargoyles destroyed, and so with a snap of his fingers, he dismissed his extra-dimensional pocket.
"The castle is alive," Olgerkhan said.
He was bent over at the waist, huffing and puffing, and it seemed to the others that it was all he could do to hold his footing and not sink down to his knees. At his side, Arrayan put a hand on his shoulder, though she seemed equally drained.
"And already more gargoyles are… growing," said old Wingham, coming up the northern side of the hill. "On the battlements, I mean. Even as that force flew off into the night, more began to take shape in their vacated places."
"Well now, there is a lovely twist," Canthan remarked.
"We must tear down the castle," declared Pratcus. "By the will o' Moradin, no such an abomination as that will stand! Though I'm guessing that Dumathoin'd be wanting to find out how the magic o' the place is doing such a thing."
"A high wall of iron and stone," Mariabronne said. "Tear it down? Has Palishchuk the capability to begin such a venture as that?" From his tone, it was clear that the ranger's question was a rhetorical one.
"We are fortunate that this group flew our way," said Wingham. "What havoc might they have wrought upon the unsuspecting folk of Palishchuk?"
"Unsuspecting no more, then," the ranger agreed. "We will set the defenses."
"Or prepare the runnin'," put in a snickering Athrogate.
"King Gareth will send an army if need be," said Ellery. "Pratcus is correct. This abomination will not stand."
"Ah, but would we not all be the fools to attack an armored turtle through its shell?" said Jarlaxle, turning all eyes, particularly those of Entreri, his way.
"Ye got a better idea?" Athrogate asked.
"I have some experience with these Zhengyian constructs," the drow admitted. "My friend and I defeated a tower not unlike this one, though much smaller of course, back on the outskirts of Heliogabalus."
Athrogate raised an eyebrow at that. "Ye were part o' that? A few days afore ye—we left on the caravan to Bloodstone Pass? That big rumble in the east?"
"Aye, good dwarf," Jarlaxle replied. " 'Twas myself and good Entreri here who laid low the tower and its evil minions."
"Bwahaha!"
Entreri just shook his head as Jarlaxle dipped a low bow.
"The way to win," the drow said as he straightened, "is from the inside. Crawl in through the hard shell to the soft underbelly."
"Soft? Now there's a word," remarked an obviously flustered and suspicious Entreri, and when Jarlaxle glanced his way, he saw that his friend was none too happy. And none too trusting, his dark eyes throwing darts at the drow.
"We're listening, good drow," Mariabronne prompted.
"The castle has a king—a life-force holding it together," Jarlaxle explained, though of course he had no idea if he was on target or not.
Certainly the tower back in Heliogabalus had crumbled when the gem had been plucked from the book, and the sisters told him that killing the lich would have served the same purpose, but in truth, he had no more than a guess concerning the much grander structure—and if the structure was so much bigger, then what of its "king"?
"If we destroy this life-force, the tower—the castle—will unbind," the drow went on. "All that will be left will be a pile of stone and metal for the blacksmiths and stonemasons to forage through." He noted as he finished that both Arrayan and Olgerkhan shifted uneasily.
That told him a lot.
"Perhaps it would be better to alert King Gareth," a doubting Mariabronne replied.
"Master Wingham can send runners from Palishchuk to that end," Commander Ellery declared. "For now, our course is clear—through the shell then and to the soft insides."
"So says yerself," blustered Athrogate.
"So I do, good dwarf," said Ellery. "I will enter the castle at dawn." She paused and glanced at each of them in turn. "I brought you out here for just an eventuality such as this. Now the enemy is clear before us. Palishchuk cannot wait for word to get to Bloodstone Village and for an army to be assembled. And so I go in. I will not command any of you to follow, but—"