jerked his head back and in an instant was on his feet, dashing for shelter.
'They're crawling down the passage, they're already at the door,' he called to the others. He raced for a broken table with a tilted top, looking for shelter and stones for his hoopak.
'Let them have a low volley,' Tolem shouted to the other dwarves. They sent six more quarrels down the passage and could be satisfied with the howls that returned.
A low-voiced command from farther down the dark passage reached them and suddenly more than twenty humanoids rushed into the chamber. Some were still in a half crouch.
Ripple and the six dwarves were ready with their missiles. They could see their targets and four bugbears fell dead before they had taken three strides into the lighted hall. The others leaped over their dead companions and were on the dwarves and kender before the crossbows could be loaded and cocked again.
Trap, off to the side, picked up a large, jagged piece of rock and fitted it into to the pouch of his hoopak. He swung the weapon twice around his head before he let fly, and caught a goblin in the back of the neck, crushing its spine. He knelt behind the broken table and felt for another stone, his eyes on the battle in front of him.
He found nothing, but he still had stones in his pouch, he remembered. When he dug in the bottom of the bag at his waist, he felt a ring. It slipped onto his finger and he was lost from his own sight again.
He paused momentarily. Should he keep it on? Why not? The six dwarves and four companions were still far outnumbered, and they faced a wizard as well.
Did he have any more flame balls? He wondered. He reached into his pouch again, but he faced the same trouble he had before. He could not distinguish a flame ball from a smooth stone without seeing it. The small missiles he was carrying would do no more than irritate the huge bugbears, so he opted to skip around the table and attack with his hoopak.
He picked a likely target, a bugbear that seemed to be after the two cowering gully dwarves. Then he changed his mind. Tolem was holding off two goblins with mighty swings of his heavy axe, but behind him a third human-oid was dancing on the balls of his feet, working in position to attack from behind. The goblin found his opening and rushed forward, his spear ready. The kender, out of position to deliver a fatal blow, thrust his hoopak between the goblin's legs and tripped him up.
The humanoid's stone-headed spear went flying out of his hand just as Tolem stepped aside to avoid a thrust from the goblin in front of him. The goblin that the dwarf faced took the accidental spear thrust in the center of the chest.
Trap was bumped from behind and turned to see a goblin staring at something he had felt but could not see. Trap speared him with the sharp, metal-tipped point of his hoopak.
Two other goblins had seen their companion mysteriously fall and then die by some unseen agency. They backed away and shouted to the wizard that they were facing magic.
Trap ignored them as he looked around for his sister. He was just in time to see her backing away from a bug-bear that was twice her height. As the large creature stalked her with a raised, stone headed club, she caught the butt of the iron wood whippik in her left hand and the leather loop in her right. In a lightning move she skipped to the side, jumped onto a stone bench, and then the table it flanked. She let the leather thong go and flailed the bug-bear across the face. He screamed and dropped his club as he put his hands over his eyes.
Not to be outdone, Trap raised his hoopak and whacked another bugbear across the face. He missed the eyes but connected with the creature's snout-like nose, breaking and shoving it back into his skull, a fatal blow.
'Trap?' Ripple asked. She had seen the bugbear fall without any visible force. 'Are you wearing a ring?' Ripple asked, her glances darting as she looked for her brother and any close enemies at the same time. 'Isn't this fun? I was beginning to think we'd never do anything interesting.'
She ducked a thrown spear and when it bounced off the wall she picked it up. Grabbing the butt end, she swung it around her head let go, sending it whirling into the melee.
Three of the dwarves were surrounded by goblins, but they were holding their own and even driving the creatures back toward the passage when the wizard stepped into view. He cocked his head as if listening to something beyond the battle.
His eyes burned in anger and he muttered an incantation. When he finished, an icy storm swept down onto the defenders and attackers alike. Icy pellets struck the humanoids and demi-humans as if they had each been shot from a sling. The force of the magic storm drove them back toward the far door of the chamber. Behind the wall of stinging ice the black-robed wizard passed unchallenged.
Even though he was still invisible, Trap backed away with the others, trying to stay out of range of the stinging hail.
The gully dwarves, who had stayed at the back of the gold trimmed hall were the first to reach the passage, the dwarves and kender backing along in their wake. They were followed by the goblins. The larger bugbears had to stoop to pass under the lower ceiling. A tacit truce existed as humanoid and demi-human alike tried to escape the storm.
The pelting ice followed them down a long corridor. The torches on the walls were extinguished one by one as the storm reached them. They retreated in light and behind them the darkness flowed before the storm.
Everyone followed the course set by the Aghar, so Trap was not surprised when he backed through a doorway and found himself in Chalmis Rosterig's laboratory. A brief look showed him it was only slightly different from Orander's, with shelves of books and scrolls, bubbling liquids and strange objects in glass jars.
At the far end of the chamber, Halmarain stood holding the gate stone in one hand, and Beglug's arm with the other. She was singing a note that sounded vaguely familiar to Trap. She could not seem to get off one discordant note and Trap would have liked to help her with her tone. Chalmis stood by her, intoning a spell that seemed to affect her voice, since it was deeper and louder than usual.
The ice storm had stopped just inside the door, and was sweeping around, curving so the dwarves, kender, and humanoids were all trapped against the left wall.
The kender saw Chalmis start as Draaddis Vulter appeared in the doorway. Chalmis bent over Halmarain. He moved his lips in speech, but the howling of the humanoids, the threats and shouts of the dwarves, and the rattle of ice on the floor kept Trap from hearing the white-robed wizard's voice. Then Chalmis straightened and muttered, his hand raised. The ice storm disappeared, and Trap discovered he was no longer invisible.
The white-robed wizard continued his chanting and a glow rose around the tiny human female who stood with the gate stone in one hand and held Beglug's arm with the other. She kept up the discordant note.
Freed from the fear of the ice pellets, the humanoids attacked the dwarves and the kender again. The dwarves' axes hacked at the spears and clubs. Trap was hard pressed to slip away from a goblin that was intent on pinning him to the stone wall with a stone-tipped spear.
Ripple was holding her own against a bugbear twice her height. While backing down the passage she had pulled a small barbed steel ball from her pouch, removed the protective covering and had attached it to her whippik. Her mini-morningstar could hold off creatures much larger than herself.
In the doorway of Chalmis' workroom, Draaddis Vulter cursed as his ice storm was dispelled. He began another chant. The ear-splitting reports of cracking stone filled the chamber and reverberated off the walls. Directly in front of the black-robed wizard, the floor moved and up heaved a stone creature with four legs, six arms, and no head. The stone golem ignored the battle between the dwarves and kender and the humanoids and charged the white-robed wizard.
Chalmis was already chanting, from the floor came another roar of breaking rock. A series of tentacles, also of flexible stone, grabbed at Draaddis's crawling golem and lifted it off its feet. The four-legged creature slammed down to the floor with a force that shook everyone in the chamber.
Ripple fell and was nearly speared by a goblin. Umpth, equally off balance, had tried to support himself with the wheel. It slipped out of his hands, bounced up, and caught the goblin on the side of its head. The half-stunned goblin rose to its feet, glared at the gully dwarves, and shook its head to clear its already slow wits.
Seeing the humanoid's attention turned toward them, Umpth grabbed the wheel and stepped back, holding his artifact in front of him as if it were a shield. Grod, similarly threatened, seemed to suddenly remember that he carried an axe and pulled it from it's sheath. He attempted to raise it over his head, but he lost his grip and it struck the wall behind him. As the steel blade ricocheted off the wall, it caught the goblin a stunning blow with the handle.
That was enough battle for the gully dwarves. Umpth grabbed the wheel, Grod picked up his sodden blanket, and they raced around the stone monsters who were still battling in the center of the chamber. Three of the
