The specter let out a low groan.

“We exist in two worlds,” Yharaskrik explained. “And a third, because of Crenshinibon, because of the sacrifice of Fetchigrol and his six brethren. How easy it was for you, how easy it is for us all, to reach into the realm of death and bring forth mindless minions, and so Fetchigrol did.”

“Carradoon is in chaos,” the specter’s voice said, though the dark humanoid’s face gave no indication that it spoke. “As the fleeing humans are killed, they join our ranks.”

Yharaskrik waved his hand to the side, to the four undead wizards he had lifted from their death, one even before the flames of a fireball had stopped crinkling its blackened skin. “And how easy it is!” the illithid said, the even cadence of its voice thrown aside for the first time in the conversation. “With this power alone, we are mighty.”

“But we have more than this singular power,” Hephaestus said.

Fetchigrol’s spectral companion floated forward, willed by the Ghost King.

“The fodder of Shadowfell are ours for the calling,” Solmé said. “The gate is not thick. The door is not locked. The crawlers hunger for the flesh of Toril.”

“And as they kill, our ranks grow,” Fetchigrol said.

Yharaskrik nodded and closed his dwarf eyes, pondering the possibilities. This curious twist of circumstance, this fortuitous blending of magic, intellect, and brute power, of Crenshinibon, Yharaskrik, and Hephaestus, had created seemingly unlimited possibilities.

But had it also created a common purpose?

To conquer, or to destroy? To meditate, to contemplate, to explore? What fruit had the tree of fate served? To what end?

Hephaestus’s growl brought Yharaskrik from his contemplation, to see the dragon staring at him with suspicion.

“Where we eventually wander is not the immediate concern,” the dragon warned, his voice thick with pent up rage. “I will have my revenge.”

Yharaskrik heard the dragon’s internal dialogue quite clearly, flashing with images of Spirit Soaring, the home of the priest who had aided in the demise of all three of the joined spirits. On that place, the dragon focused its hatred and wrath. They had flown over the building the night before, and even then, Yharaskrik and Crenshinibon had to overrule the reflexive anger of Hephaestus. Had it not been for those two mediating internal voices, the dragon would have swooped down upon the place in an explosive fit of sheer malevolence.

Yharaskrik did not openly disagree, and didn’t even allow its mind to show any signal of contrary thought.

“Straightaway!” Hephaestus roared.

“No,” the illithid then dared argue. “Magic is unwinding, arcane at least, and in some cases divine, but it has not fully unwound. It is not lost to the world, but merely undependable. This place, Spirit Soaring, is filled with mighty priests and wizards. To underestimate the assemblage of power there is fraught with peril. In the time of our choosing, it will fall, and they will fall. But no sooner.”

Hephaestus growled again, long and low, but Yharaskrik feared no outburst from the beast, for he knew that Crenshinibon continually reinforced its reasoning within Hephaestus. The dragon wanted action, devastating and catastrophic, wanted to rain death upon all of those who had helped facilitate his downfall. Impulsive and explosive was Hephaestus’s nature, was the way of dragonkind.

But the way of the illithid required patience and careful consideration, and no sentient creature in the world was more patient than Crenshinibon, who had seen the span of millennia.

They overruled Hephaestus and calmed the beast. Their promises of a smoldering ruin where Spirit Soaring stood were not without merit, intent, and honest expectation, and of course, Hephaestus knew that as surely as if the thought was his own.

The dracolich curled up with those fantasies. He, too, could be a creature of patience.

To a point.

“Hold that flank!” Rorick yelled to the men on the left-hand wall of the cave, scattered amidst a tumble of rocks. They stood in ankle-deep water and battled hard against a throng of skeletons and zombies. The center of the defensive line, bolstered by the three Bonaduce children and Pikel, held strong against the attacking undead. The water was nearly knee-deep there, its drag affecting the advancing monsters more than the defenders.

To the right, the contours and bends of the tunnel also favored the defenders. Before them, where the tunnel opened even wider, lay a deep pool. Skeletons and zombies alike that ventured there went completely underwater, and those that managed to claw back up were rained on by heavy clubs. That pool was the primary reason the defenders had chosen to make their stand there when at last the hordes had found them. Initially, it had seemed a prudent choice, but the relentlessness of their enemies was starting to make many, including Temberle and Hanaleisa, think that maybe they should have chosen a more narrow choke point than a thirty-foot expanse.

“They won’t hold,” Rorick said to his siblings even as Hanaleisa kicked the head off a skeleton and sent it flying far down the tunnel.

Hanaleisa didn’t need clarification to know what he meant. Her gaze went immediately to the left, to the many rocks along that broken section of tunnel. They had believed those rocks to be an advantage, forcing the undead press of monsters to carve up their advancing line to get past the many obstacles. But since the monsters had engaged, those many scattered boulders were working against the defenders, who too often found themselves cut off from their allies.

Hanaleisa slapped Temberle on the shoulder and splashed away to the side. She had barely gone two steps, though, before Rorick cried out in pain. She spun back as Rorick fell, lifting his already injured leg, blood streaming anew. Temberle reached for him, but a splash sent Temberle tumbling. A skeletal fish broke the water and smacked him hard in the face.

All across the middle of the line, defenders began shifting and groaning as undead fish knifed through the water and found targets.

“Retreat!” one man cried. “Run away!”

“Nowhere to run!” shouted another.

“Back down the tunnel!” the first screamed back, and began splashing his way deeper into the cave with several others in his wake. The integrity of their center collapsed behind them.

Rorick and Temberle regained their footing at the same time. Rorick waved his brother away. Temberle, blood running freely from his broken nose, turned back fast and hoisted his heavy greatsword.

Hanaleisa glanced to the left flank just in time to see a man pulled down under a dozen rotting hands. Out of options, all of it crumbling before her eyes, she could only cry out, “Uncle Pikel!” as she had done so many times in her life, whenever confronted by a childhood crisis.

If Pikel was listening, it didn’t show, for the green-bearded dwarf stood away from the front line, his eyes closed. He held his hand out before him, gripping his magical cudgel, and he waved his stump in slow circles. Hanaleisa started to call out to him again, but saw that he was already chanting.

The young monk glanced toward the left wall and back to the center. Realizing she had to trust her uncle, she bolted for the rocks, toward the group of skeletons pummeling and tearing the fallen defender. She leaped into their midst, fists and feet flailing with power and precision. She kicked one skeleton aside and crushed the chest of a zombie. She immediately went up on the ball of her foot, the other leg extended and pumping furiously as she turned a fast circle.

“Come to me!” she called to the fallen man’s companions, many of whom seemed to be turning to flee, as had several of those from the center of the line.

Hanaleisa winced then as a skeletal hand clamped upon her shoulder, bony fingers digging a deep gash. She threw back an elbow that shattered the creature’s face and sent it falling away.