He flew across the adamantine bridge. Blood stained it in several places. From atop the walls,
Dyrr soldiers and the two demons looked through and past him. To them, he did not exist. He was alone with the wards.
Hovering before the gate, he studied the lines of magic crisscrossing its surface. The lines not only prevented physical passage, their pattern formed two magical symbols that would kill anyone whose flesh touched the doors without first speaking the password, having the appropriate item on their person, or the right blood in their veins. A further analysis with one of his wands showed Gromph that the symbols were permanent. They did not vanish upon a single discharge. Instead, they would continue to reset and kill unless they were eliminated.
He spoke the words to a counterspell and focused the magic of the spell into his forefinger.
Gently, he ran his shadowy fingertip over the lines of the first symbol. Though his finger was incorporeal, the magic reached into the physical world. Where his finger touched, his spell erased the symbol. Soon, it was effaced.
Gromph cast another counterspell and repeated the process with the second symbol. It proved more stubborn than the first. Gromph's magic met the magic of the symbol and did nothing. His counterspell had no effect. Biting back his frustration, he prepared another spell, a more powerful, focused version of the counter.
Sudden motion from above drew his eye. A swarm of crossbow bolts rained down at something behind him. Gromph turned to see a half-score of giant trolls charging across the bridge. They wore piecemeal armor strapped haphazardly to their gray-green, warty hides. The smallest stood three times as tall as Gromph, with over-long limbs, a mouthful of fangs, finger length claws, and rippling muscles. In their huge hands, the giant trolls held a mammoth stalagmite, shaped by magic into a fearsome battering ram. Gromph's magic-detecting vision told him that the ram had been powerfully enspelled.
Green disks of magical energy hovered over the huge creatures-cast by distant Xorlarrin wizards-protecting the trolls from the rain of bolts that poured from the walls. In ten strides, the giant trolls had crossed half the bridge.
From the Xorlarrin lines behind them, a platoon of orog crossbow-men and their shield bearers ran up to the edge of the moat-chasm and fired a volley of arrows at the defenders on the wall. An answering volley streaked down at them. Fire and lightning fired from Dyrr wands exploded in the midst of the orogs, and several of the bestial creatures burst into flames or exploded into pieces.
Drow soldiers stood lined and ready fifty paces behind the orogs, ready to charge forward should the giant trolls penetrate the doors.
The huge creatures lumbered forward, the bridge vibrating under their weight. Fire exploded in their midst but did not divert their charge.
A wall of conjured ice, taller than the giant trolls and an arm's span thick, formed before the creatures, blocking their rush across the bridge. They did not even slow. In stride, they swung the magical stalagmite ram into the wall, and the ice exploded in a blast of shards. They charged onward.
Cursing, Gromph started to fly upward. Though incorporeal, magical energies could still harm him, as could appropriately enchanted weapons. He did not want to get caught in any crossfire.
A cloud of vapor-poisonous vapor, Gromph assumed-formed before the doors. The giant trolls gulped clean air and charged in, swinging the huge ram as they did-right at Gromph.
He dodged aside but his incorporeal flight was cumbersome and slow. The magical ram clipped his shoulder, and its enchantments reached through realities to affect his insubstantial body. Agony exploded in his brain. The impact spun him in a circle and knocked him toward the gate and the killing symbol.
He struggled to right himself and contorted his body to avoid contact with the magically charged gates. Gromph regained control a heartbeat before careening into the gate, and he flew upward and off to the side of the bridge, hovering over the moat chasm. His entire right side flared with pain, but his ring began immediately to repair the wound.
Still holding their breath, the giant trolls reared the ram back and slammed it again into the doors. Sparks flew from its tip, flecks of stone showered the bridge, but the adamantine doors showed not even a scratch. More and more crossbow bolts poured down on the trolls, some getting through the magical shields and finding flesh. One of the creatures, struck in the cheek by a bolt, exclaimed in pain and inadvertently drew a breath of poisonous air. He fell writhing to the bridge and was dead in moments.
The rest continued on, futilely battering the gates as bolts poured down. Gromph found the scene surreal. He could hear nothing, smell nothing. He felt as if he was looking at the imperfect illusion of a first year apprentice.
Gromph assumed the giant troll assault to be only a feint, with the real attack occurring elsewhere, but he had no way to confirm his guess. Apparently, he had been mistaken about
Xorlarrin complacency. Matron Mother Zeerith had not yet decided to surrender the glory of sacking House Dyrr. Either that or she simply wanted to keep the Dyrr defenders off guard and force them to expend resources on fodder troops.
To their credit, the Dyrr defenders were using mostly mundane weapons to deal with the giant trolls. They had wasted only two spells and a few discharges from their wands. Crossbows were doing most of the work. Already four of the trolls lay dead. The remaining six continued to swing the ram, though with less force.
An idea struck Gromph.
Moving quickly, he wove his hands in an intricate gesture and spoke aloud the words to a spell. The magic generated a field of force as an extension of Gromph's will. With it, he gripped one of the foremost giant trolls-the creature's eyes went wide, though it did not shout for fear of inhaling the poisonous gas.
Gromph forced the giant troll to loose its grip on the ram and reach forth an arm to touch the doors. The beast seemed to sense its danger and its great strength warred against Gromph's will-
but the Archmage of Menzoberranzan's will was the stronger. The giant troll held out a clawed hand, touched the gate, and triggered the remaining symbol.
Gromph averted his gaze as the symbol flared. The magic entered the giant troll, and the creature opened its mouth in a scream. It fell to the bridge, dead. Gromph gave it no further thought.
The rest of the giant trolls, seemingly stunned at the stupidity of their companion and unable to easily manage the weight of the ram without him, broke. First one, then another loosed their grip, turned, and ran. Crossbow bolts chased them back across the bridge. A sphere of magical darkness formed around the head of one. Blinded, the creature ran off the side of the bridge and fell into the chasm.
Gromph studied the gate and saw with satisfaction that the symbol was gone. For a precious few moments, it would remain so.
Moving quickly, Gromph hovered before the door, in the midst of the poisonous cloud, above the giant troll corpses. With the delicate touch of a skilled chirurgeon, he bent aside the lines of the ward that prevented physical passage and slipped through. He did not like leaving the intact symbol behind him but figured he would be able to leave House Agrach Dyrr much more easily than he would be able to enter it. Wards typically barred entry, not exit.
He flew through the adamantine doors and found himself standing in the gatehouse tunnel of
House Agrach Dyrr, in the midst of two score spear-armed, lizard-mounted drow cavalrymen.
Many of their spear tips glowed with magical power in Gromph's sight, power enough to harm
Gromph, had they known of his presence.
They stood in a cluster around him, not seeing him. They must have been stationed there in the unlikely event of a breach or perhaps in preparation for a counterattack.