Stones rushed up to meet her, and Asper tucked herself around her sword, trying to roll. There was no time, and with numbing force, she crashed into what was left of a wall, and then reeled back helplessly. Mists swirled in front of her eyes, and a new wetness on her chin told where she'd bitten through her lip.
Mirt was roaring out her name and sprinting toward her, arms spread to embrace her. Would his failing shields protect them both?
Not from this death.
The beholder's large central eye was a rent, shriveled ruin, milky liquid dripping from a slash in the sightless bulge, but the smaller eyes on their stalks glittered with maddened rage. They stared at her, growing swiftly nearer. The charging monster would either ram her into the stones and crush the life from her, or roll over at the last instant to shred her with its fangs- teeth adorning a jagged mouth quite large enough to swallow her.
Asper shuddered, shook her head to clear it, and raised the gore-streaming blade she still held. Mirt came gasping up to her, stout sword raised-and the beholder's eyes vanished behind its own bulk. It rolled over to reveal the gaping maw that would devour her.
A giant among its own kind and armed with spells that they lacked, magic enough to overmatch many a human mage, Xuzoun had been contemptuously overconfident. It was always a mistake with humans, he vaguely remembered an older tyrant telling him once.
It would take many spells and long, long months in hiding to regain what had been lost in a few moments of red, reaving pain… but first to still the hands that had done this, forever!
Mirt fetched up against Asper, panting. 'Are ye mad, lass? Yon-'
Asper shoved him away, hard, spun about, and dived away. Mirt staggered backward and, with a roar of pain, sat down hard on bruising stone. The beholder crashed into the stones where they'd stood, snapping and tearing with its teeth.
Rubble sprayed or rolled in all directions as the beholder raked the heap of stone apart, teeth grating on rock. The impact sent it cartwheeling helplessly away through the air-and uncovered a battered, unsteadily reeling tavernmaster.
Durnan found his feet and climbed grimly out of the heaped stones, growling at the pain of several stiffening bruises. He'd been buried long enough to know the first cold touch of despair and was in a mood to rend beholders.
'Urrrgh,' Mirt snarled, waddling awkwardly to his feet. 'What's this the earth spits forth? Tavernmasters gone carelessly strolling through Skullport?'
'Well met, old friend,' Durnan said, grinning and clapping Mirt on the shoulder with fingers that seemed made of iron.
Mirt's mustache made that overall bristling movement that betokened a smile. 'I saw the little minx ye came seeking, sitting as cool as ye please in Bindle's Blade, tossing down amberjack-so I came in haste, knowing ye'd be avidly hunting down a trap!' He cast a look at the beholder as it thudded into the wall of a stronghouse, where pale faces had just suddenly vanished from view. 'So what did ye do to get a tyrant mad at ye? Refuse to kiss it?'
'Your wit slides out razor sharp, as always, Old Wolf,' Durnan said with a sly smile that belied the light, innocent tone of his words.
Mirt gestured rudely in reply, and added, 'Well?' 'Nothing,' Durnan said flatly, as they watched the beholder reel, steady itself, and begin to drift their way with menacingly slow, careful speed. 'I came out of the Portal to aid a noble lady-and strode straight into a spell that snatched me here.' He grinned suddenly. 'Well, at least it saved me a bit of walking.'
Mirt harrumphed. 'Pity it didn't do the same for me.' Rock shifted behind him, and he whirled around, sword out and low-only to relax and smile. 'Lass, lass, how many times have I told thee how much I hate being sneaked up on from behind?' he chided Asper halfheartedly. She gestured past him with her sword.
'You'd better turn around again, then, my lord,' she told him calmly, as a plucking at his belt told him that Durnan had snatched one of his daggers. Mirt grunted like a walrus and heaved himself around, puffing-in time to see the beholder rushing down at them again, beams of reaving light lancing out from its eyes.
'Keep behind me, both of ye!' the fat moneylender roared. 'I'm shielded!'
'Against teeth like those? That's a spell you'll have to show me some time!' Durnan said, standing at Mirt's shoulder with a dagger in either fist. He'd lost his blade under all the rocks, and one eye had swollen almost shut, but the tavernmaster seemed content-even eager-as death roared down at them again.
With the ease and fluid grace of a prowling serpent, Asper slid up to stand at Mirt's other shoulder. 'It seems strange to be worrying about a beholder's teeth,' she said, 'and not its eyes, for once.'
'Get back, lass!' Mirt roared. 'As if I haven't worries enough to-'
The beholder crashed into them, snarling and snapping. They hacked and slashed ineffectually against its bony body plates.
Its hot breath whirled around them as they jumped and hewed vainly and ducked aside-only to be struck and hurled away by what felt like a fast-moving castle wall. Durnan grunted as the tyrant smashed him down like a rag doll, and then rolled away into a gully as the beholder tried to crush him. Asper could not keep her feet when the jaws reached for her. She slid out of sight beneath the monster, only to duck up again, stab at it- and be thrown end over end across the ruins, sword flying from her numbed hands to clang and clatter to its own fall. With a gasp and a moan, she fetched up against a broken-off pillar, but Mirt was too busy to hear her.
He was scrambling and cursing and flailing away against persistent fangs, sword ringing off bony plates and fangs alike. In the end, he managed to avoid losing an arm only by setting his sword upright against the closing jaws and letting go. The eye tyrant's jaws caught on the blade, bent it, and spat it out. By then, the three battered, wincing companions were rising out of the rubble widely scattered about the ruin. The bettors yelled fresh wagers in the distance.
'Oh, by the way: this is Xuzoun,' Durnan said formally, indicating the eye tyrant with a flourish.
'Ill met,' Mirt growled, struggling to his feet. 'Damned ill met.'
Then the faint, everpresent singing of his shields fell silent: his defense against the beholder's eyes was gone.
'Gods blast it,' the old moneylender muttered. 'To die in Skullport, of all places, and win someone's wager for him…'
'Keep apart,' Asper said warningly from the rocks off to his right, 'lest it take us all down at once.'
'Cheerful advice,' Durnan commented, watching Xuzoun as it turned slowly to survey them all, unaware no shields remained to foil its magic. 'Anyone still have magic to hand?'
'That'll help us against this? Nay,' Mirt growled, watching death slowly come for them. All it would take now would be for the beast to lash out with one eye, on a whim, and discover they were defenseless.
Xuzoun had sent forth much magic against these humans and seen it all boil away harmlessly, or come clawing back to harm its hurler. Lords of Waterdeep were tougher than most mortals, it seemed. How to defeat these two-perhaps three, if the woman was one, too-without destroying their bodies?
The doppleganger was dead, so preservation of these humans-their bodies, at least-more or less intact was important. They foiled all magic with ease, and there seemed no way to overcome their wills. And yet, to flee from battle with them now, before an audience of Skulkans, galled.
The beholder's advance slowed, and then stopped. It rose a prudent distance above the ruin and hung there, considering.
'Right, then, I'm off,' Mirt said heartily, turning to go. 'It's not the season for beholder-hunting, anyway, and I've business to see to, that I left-'
One of Xuzoun's eyes flashed. A stone the size of a gauntleted fist rose from the rubble and flashed toward the old moneylender, flying as hard and straight as any arrow. These humans might have shields to foil magic, but what if the stone were flying fast enough, and aimed true, when the magic that flung it was stripped away? Turning slowly end over end, the stone shot on.
'Old Wolf-down!' Asper screamed, seeing it. Mirt had heard that tone from her a time or two before in his life, and flopped to his belly without delay. The stone whistled past close overhead and shattered with a sharp crack against a wall beyond.
The beholder was descending, and at the same time a slab of stone the size of a small cart was rising above Durnan. He ducked away, but it followed, lowering itself with care, chasing him. The Master of the Yawning Portal spat out a curse and started a sprinting scramble across the rocks of the ruin. The beholder smiled as it drifted after
