The birdmen fell to their knees and averted their eyes. Dahlia cawed again, more loudly, trying to sound angry, and succeeding, they all realized, when the dire corbies scampered away.
“Go,” Jarlaxle implored Athrogate.
And the dwarf went, with all the speed he would dare on the dizzying open stair. Dahlia flew around them, darting toward any dire corbies who ventured too near. They crossed by the area of converging walkways and came to a lower landing, where Dor’crae instructed the dwarf to turn left along an open, flat stone walkway.
Finally they came out of the vast open chamber and into another complex of ancient shops and chambers. Barely in, though, and with Dahlia still flying around outside, they ran headlong into a group of the vicious birdmen.
A pair leaped at Athrogate, who took up a battle song and a hearty “Bwahaha!” and swatted them aside with his spinning morningstars. He charged on recklessly, shouldering through another doorway, the impact knocking still more of the dire corbies aside.
“Out! Out! Ye damned freaks!” the dwarf yelled, his devastating weapons swinging fast and hard to shatter bone and throw the bird-men aside. “This is not yer place!”
Jarlaxle ran off behind Athrogate, out to the dwarf’s left, a stream of spinning daggers leading the way and driving back a group of dire corbies. He stopped throwing as he neared, double-snapping his wrists to elongate his latest pair into swords once more and leaping at the stung and dodging birdmen with a dramatic flourish. He stabbed and spun, swept one blade about in front of him then quick-stepped and thrust hard with his other blade behind the sidelong cut.
But more dire corbies rushed into the room, from a multitude of dark doorways.
“Ara… Arabeth!” Valindra cried. “Oh, watch me Arabeth, oh do. I am strong, you know.”
The lich stamped her foot and a burst of fire rolled out in every direction across the floor, beneath the feet of the drow and the dwarf, to roll up in front of them in a circle of scalding flames. Jarlaxle and Athrogate fell back in surprise, and the dire corbies shrieked and fell away, but their cries were drowned by the magically heightened song of the lich. “Ara… Arabeth! Did you see? Are you afraid? Ara… Arabeth!”
Dahlia, still in the form of a huge crow, set down in front of the group of burned dire corbies and cawed her displeasure.
The birdmen ran away.
And the expedition pressed onward.
The second group to move down the circular stair had no such protection as Dahlia had against the agitated and ferocious bird-men.
Stones flew at the dozens of Ashmadai and the red-gowned Thayan wizard as they made their cautious way in pursuit of Dahlia.
The cult warriors replied in kind, with crossbows instead of stones, and while most were shooting at distant, fleeting shadows, more than a few dire corbies screamed out in pain as barbed bolts invaded their black flesh. Sylora held her magic until the situation grew more dangerous, where the many walkways converged below the stairs.
She dropped a fireball in the middle of the convergence, warding the dire corbies away, and when she came level with the walkways, she sent bolts of lightning flashing along each. She snapped her fingers and Ashmadai warriors leaped out from the stairway above, landing on the various walkways, firing off the last of their missiles and rushing eagerly to meet the bird-men in melee, red scepters in hand.
As the battle was joined, Ashmadai and dire corbie alike tumbled to their deaths. Sylora and her main group continued down, at last coming to the tunnels. A few broken bird-men and a room scarred by flames marked their path, and whenever a choice lay before them, Sylora held aloft the skull gem in her open palm and let it point the way toward Dor’crae.
She could even sense how far ahead the vampire might be, for the multi-magical gem had attuned to him well.
A finger to her pursed lips reminded the eager Ashmadai to be silent, and on they went.
Through several sets of broken doors and under a low arch, the five adventurers came upon the remains of varied creatures, most recently those of dire corbies, and when they glanced around the wide, long, pillared corridor before them, they saw the ghosts of Gauntlgrym, watching them.
At the other end of the hall, through another arch and a barred portcullis, came the glow of furnaces, and despite the ghosts, or perhaps in part because of them, Athrogate was compelled to move forward. The others huddled close behind him, warily watching the spirits that mirrored their every step.
But the ward of a Delzoun dwarf proved effective yet again.
No cranking mechanism could be found near the heavy gate, so Athrogate tried his poem a third time.
Nothing happened.
Before Jarlaxle or Dahlia could offer a suggestion, the dwarf growled and leaned against the grate, grabbing a crossbar in both hands. He could clearly see the ultimate goal of his expedition in front of him: a line of furnaces and forges, the great Forge of Gauntlgrym itself, and the heat on his face as he peered through that portcullis surely warmed an old dwarf’s heart.
With a growl and a heave, Athrogate tugged hard at the portcullis. At first, nothing happened, but then the dwarf broke through an old lock, it seemed, and the gate inched upward.
“There must be a lever,” Jarlaxle offered, but Athrogate wasn’t listening, not with the Forge of Gauntlgrym so near at hand.
A fog rolled past him and Dor’crae rematerialized on the other side of the portcullis.
“No ghosts in here,” the vampire reported. “Shall I look for a way to open the gate?”
The sight of the vampire within the Forge of Gauntlgrym only drove the dwarf on harder. He growled and groaned, and lifted with all his tremendous strength, his magical girdle lending the power of a giant to his thick limbs. Up inched the portcullis. He grabbed lower, the next bar down, and heaved again, lifting it to his waist. With a sudden jerk and a roll of his hands, he dropped down into a crouch under it, and straining and groaning with every inch, Athrogate stood up straight once more.
Jarlaxle went under, Dahlia right after him, and she coaxed the distracted Valindra in behind her.
“I’ll try to help,” Jarlaxle offered, moving up in front of Athrogate and grabbing at the bars, “but I haven’t your strength.”
Even as he finished talking, a clicking sound came from the stone surrounding the heavy portcullis, and both drow and dwarf backed off just enough to realize that the heavy grate had been set in place.
“A room to the side,” Dahlia explained, tipping her chin toward a door through which Dor’crae passed.
Athrogate hustled into the forge, stumbling as he moved near the central furnace, the largest of the many within. It had a wide, thick tray in front of the grate of the furnace, and in looking at that, Athrogate felt as if he was peering through the faceplate of the helmet of some great fire god.
Little did he know how close to right he was.
“Ye ever seen such power, elf?” he asked Jarlaxle when the drow moved up beside him.
“How can it still be fueled, after all these centuries?” Jarlaxle asked. On a whim, the drow brought forth a throwing dagger and flipped it through the grate.
It never even seemed to land against anything, just turned to liquid and fell away, dispersing into the flames.
“ ‘To bake the dragon,’ ” Athrogate muttered.
“Incredible,” the drow agreed.
They finally managed to move aside from the blinding image to study the decorated anvil on the other side of the tray, and to note a mithral door set against the wall at the side of the main forge.
“There is more to see back there,” Dor’crae explained, “but I couldn’t open that door when I was here before. I had to slip in around the hatch using other means.”
Athrogate was already at the door. He started his rhyme once more, but paused and just pushed on the hatch, which swung in easily, revealing a short passageway to another gleaming door.
Doubting eyes fixed on the vampire, who merely shrugged.
