A third creature clambered over the rail and a circle kick suddenly filled its grinning maw. Danica remained up on her right leg and went up to the ball of her foot to execute a complete spin and slam a fourth crawler.
Yet another beast climbing up the side was met with a flurry of fists, a rapid explosion of ten short punches that turned its face to mush. Before it could fall away, Danica hooked it under the armpit and turned powerfully, launching it across the wagon to bowl over and dislodge another of its companions.
The woman turned fast and fell into a defensive crouch, seeing a pair of monsters up front on the jockey box. One jerked weirdly and the other followed, then fine drow swords exploded out of their chests. Both crawlers were jerked off opposite sides of the wagon and the swords slipped free. Jarlaxle stood on the seat alone.
With a smile, the drow snapped his right wrist up, and his magical blade transformed from sword to dirk. With a wink, Jarlaxle launched the dagger toward Danica—right past her, to impale a crawler and knock it off the wagon’s backside.
He tipped his hat, flicked another dagger from his wrist, and turned to rejoin Drizzt, who had defeated a quartet of crawlers as they had tried to attack the mules.
“You three, with the wagon,” Drizzt told the dwarves as they arrived.
As Jarlaxle leaped down beside him and gave a nod to his fellow drow, Drizzt led the way forward toward the screeching, pecking, stomping diatryma.
“You lead, I secure,” Jarlaxle said, the command ringing clearly to Drizzt Do’Urden.
In that short charge and retreat, in that moment of desperation to rescue the wagon, the two had found a level of confidence and complement that Drizzt had never thought possible. His beloved wife was in that wagon, helpless, and yet he had stopped to engage the first line of crawlers near the mules, fully confident that Jarlaxle would secure the jockey box and reinforce Danica’s desperate defense of Catti-brie.
So on they went, fighting as one. Drizzt led the way with his leaps and slashing cuts while a series of daggers reached out behind him, flew out around him. Every time he lifted a scimitar, a dagger whistled under his arm. Every time he dived and rolled right, a dagger shot past his left—or a stream of daggers, for Jarlaxle’s bracers gave him an inexhaustible and ready supply.
To their side, the crawling beasts finally pulled down the diatryma, but it didn’t matter, for behind the drow, Bruenor tugged the mules and wagon along while Pwent and Athrogate flanked him, throwing themselves at any monsters venturing too near. Danica held the wagon bed, striking with devastating effect at any who dared try to climb aboard.
Finally they were rolling along, their enemies thinning before them. Drizzt darted left and right, taking great chances, diving into rolls and leaping into spins, confident every time that a dagger would fly his way in support if any monster found a hole in his defenses.
Inside Spirit Soaring, word of the allies’ charge began to spread among the priests and wizards, and they began to call out their support and to cheer with great relief the unexpected reinforcements. And from more than one came a cry of relief at the return of Lady Danica!
All around the library, the calls went out and the defenders took heart, none more so than Cadderly. With his hand crossbows and devastating darts, he had methodically cleared most of the second story balconies of invaders, and had left a dozen dead before the front door for good measure, shooting down from on high.
But with his wife in sight, flanked by heroes of great renown, the priest was so overcome that he forgot how to breathe. He stared at the wagon, creeping across the courtyard toward Spirit Soaring, where Drizzt Do’Urden and Jarlaxle—Jarlaxle! — sprinted back and forth, working as if they were a single, four-armed warrior, Drizzt leaping and spinning, mowing down crawlers whose arms went up to grab at him always a heartbeat too late.
And Jarlaxle came behind like god-thrown lightning, stabbing the beasts with short, deadly strokes and nimbly dancing through them as they fell to the ground, mortally wounded.
There were dwarves, too, and Cadderly recognized King Bruenor from that legendary one-horned helm and the foaming mug shield, working his axe with deadly efficiency and tugging the mules along, while two other dwarf warriors flanked the team. Any beasts that ventured too near were crushed by a blur of spinning morningstars on one side, or torn apart by the multitude of spikes and ridges adorning the wild dwarf on the other.
There was Danica, and oh, but she had never looked more beautiful to Cadderly than at that very moment. She had been battered, he could see, and that stung his heart, but her warrior spirit ignored her wounds, and she worked her dance magnificently about the wagon bed. Not a creature could get close to clearing the rails.
Below the balcony where he stood, Cadderly heard his fellow priests shouting to “Form up!” and he knew they meant to go out and meet the incoming band. When he took a moment to stop gawking at the magnificence of the six warriors in action, he realized that help would be sorely needed.
Many monsters became aware of fresh meat on the approaching wagon. The attack on the building had all but ceased. Every ravenous eye turned toward easy prey.
Cadderly realized the awful truth. For all the power of those six, they would never make it. A horde of monsters stood poised to wash over them like breaking waves on a low beach.
His beloved wife would never come home.
From the balcony, he turned into the cathedral, thinking to rush to the stairwell. He skidded to an abrupt stop, hearing a distant call—as he had in that previous moment of desperation when he had been caught alone on the upper floors with the attacking crawlers.
He turned, his eyes guided to a cloud in the sky above. He reached for that cloud and called to it, and a portion of it broke away. A chariot of cloud, pulled by a winged horse, raced down from on high. Cadderly climbed atop the balcony’s rail and the speeding chariot swooped down before him. Hardly even thinking about his actions, for he was leaping onto a cloud, the priest jumped aboard. The winged horse followed his every mental command, sweeping down from the balcony right before the astonished eyes of the priests and wizards who were gathering to charge out the front door. As one, they gasped and fell back into the cathedral. Cadderly’s chariot soared out above the frightened crawlers.
Some of the undead, Menlidus among them, turned to intercept the new foe, but Cadderly looked upon them and channeled the divinity flowing within him, releasing a mighty burst of radiance that knocked the undead monsters back and blasted them to ash.
He grimaced at the destruction of his dear friend, but Cadderly pushed away the sadness and continued on, fast nearing the wagon and the six warriors and the host of crawlers battling them. Again he cast a spell, though he knew not what it was, simply trusting the power he felt within. He looked at the largest mob of monsters and shouted a single word—not just any word, but a thunderous word, an explosion of vocal power aimed at enemies alone, for it did not affect the spiked-armored dwarf, who thrashed wildly in the middle of the throng.
But the wild dwarf was struck dumbfounded and confused when all the monsters clawing and biting at him were yanked away. Through the air they went, flailing helplessly against the weight of the priest’s thunder. They landed hard some thirty steps distant, bouncing and tumbling, scrambling away, wanting no part of the godlike priest and his words of doom.
Cadderly paid them no more heed, bringing his chariot up beside the wagon and bidding his friends to climb aboard. He spoke another word of power and a great light ignited around him and the wagon. All of the crawlers caught within it began to thrash and burn, but the others, the drow, the dwarves, and the two women, felt no pain. Instead, they were washed with healing warmth, their many recent wounds mending in the brilliant yellow beams of magical light.