And Jarlaxle, of course.
CHAPTER 23
GAUNTLET THROWN
The Ghost King emerged from its cave with a deafening roar and a stomp of clawed feet that sent fleshy crawlers flying. The magnificent creature stepped out without heed to the scrambling beasts. Its great tail, part skeletal and part rotting dragon flesh, swept aside any too near. Its torn leathery wings buffeted those to either side with a great wind.
No plotting guided the attack, no care for minions or any role they might play. Rage drove the Ghost King. Freed of the caution of Yharaskrik, the great beast followed its emotions. The Ghost King could not be defeated by mere mortals, whose magic was failing. The Ghost King need not plot and connive and tread with fearful caution.
Wings wide, the Ghost King leaped from the pinnacle and rode the updrafts to climb above the Snowflakes. With eyes magical, the Ghost King saw across the miles to the symbol of its enemies, the place on which it focused its rage.
Higher it climbed, above the few wispy clouds that dulled part of the starry night sky. And there it circled, gathering speed, gathering its hatred. And like a bolt from on high, the Ghost King folded its wings, tipped down its huge head, and plummeted for Spirit Soaring.
Though Hephaestus’s lips were mostly withered away, any watching would have noted a wicked smile upon the dracolich’s face.
Twenty-one priests and wizards, almost half the contingent of residents and visitors remaining at Spirit Soaring, licked dry lips and clutched stones coated in explosive oil. The other half tried to sleep in the too-quiet night. They checked and rechecked their other implements, weapons and armor, magical rings and wands, scrolls and potion bottles, nervously awaiting the attack they knew would come.
It would be a greater beast, too, Cadderly had informed them after his meeting with the newcomers, the drow and the dwarves. A dragon, an undead dracolich, the master of the many minions they had slaughtered, would lead the next attack, so Cadderly had assured them with confidence.
More than a few of them had seen a dragon before, a handful had even witnessed the awful splendor of a dracolich. They were seasoned veterans, after all, travelers mostly, who had come to Spirit Soaring to try to make sense of a dangerous world gone mad.
Their mouths were dry, to a man and woman, for what sort of previous experiences could have offered them—could have offered anyone—solace at that desperate time?
They stood alert, spread over every vantage point of Spirit Soaring, their counterparts sleeping in small groups nearby, weapons at their sides. The attack would come soon, Cadderly had said. Perhaps that very night.
In the central chamber of the second floor, with easy access to corridors that would deliver them to any wall in short order, Cadderly, Danica, the two drow, and the three dwarves waited as well, none of them finding sleep. All of them expected, with each arrival of Ginance and her roving patrol group, to hear that the beast was upon them.
Spirit Soaring was alert, was ready.
But nothing could have truly prepared the fifty-four souls in the cathedral for the advent of the Ghost King. Some few sentries near the northeastern corner of the great building noted the movement from high above and pointed at the giant missile hurtling down at Spirit Soaring. A few managed to scream out a warning, and one lifted a shield in ridiculous defense.
With strength unimaginable, the Ghost King pulled up from its plummet just before it slammed the building, extending its great hind legs out before it and crashing in.
Not a person, not even King Bruenor, so strong on his feet, not even Athrogate, possessed of the low center of balance of a dwarf and the strength of a mountain giant, remained on his feet under the weight of that collision. Spirit Soaring shook to its foundation, glass shattering all over the structure under the sheer force of the impact and the twist of the magical building’s indomitable frame. Doors popped open and corridors twisted. Bricks fell from every chimney.
The thunderous sound of a dragon’s roar muted every scream, crash, and shatter.
The defenders pulled themselves up and did not shy from the fray. By the time Cadderly and his elite group arrived on the scene, where the wall had been torn away and the Ghost King stood, a dozen rocks had already been thrown, their magical oil exploding at they hit the flesh and bone of the beast.
The Ghost King swiveled its great head on a serpentine neck, fiery eyes selecting a group of annoying rock-throwers, but before the beast could bring its rage to bear on those men and woman, a wizard’s fireball, thrown from a necklace of enchanted rubies, engulfed its face in biting flames.
Lightning blasts followed. A pillar of divine fire swept down from above to scorch the back of the dracolich’s neck.
And the beast roared, and the beast thrashed, and the building shook, and again men and women, elf and drow and dwarf, tumbled. A swipe of the dracolich’s mighty tail slapped the length of the building, shattering more glass, breaking stone facing and cracking thick timber supports.
The room lay broken open, the beast clearly visible to Cadderly’s approaching group. The three dwarves spearheading did not hesitate in the face of that catastrophe, and could not slow. They had to be the focus of the battle, by the plans Cadderly had drawn.
As soon as he had felt the thunder of the initial impact, the wound to the place built of his magic, Cadderly had felt the assault on his own body. As the dracolich came into sight, Cadderly felt the magic building within him. Wrought of his desperation, his anger, his denial of the horror of it, the power of spells unknown began to stir.
Whether sensing that power or just recognizing Cadderly, the Ghost King locked its eyes on the approaching group and opened wide its jaws.
“Dive!” Bruenor yelled, and Thibbledorf Pwent dived into Bruenor and knocked him aside, the two of them falling atop the rolling Athrogate.
Flanking the dwarves, Drizzt, Jarlaxle, and Danica easily sidestepped from the direct line to the beast.
But Cadderly didn’t move left or right. He thrust his hands forward, hand crossbow in one, walking stick in the other, and chanted in words he did not know.
Dragonfire poured forth from the beast, filling the room in front of them. While Spirit Soaring’s magical structure diminished the effect on the walls and floor, the furniture, books, and bric-a-brac went up in bursts of flame, and the gout of immolation rushed across the floor at its living targets, jetting for the open doorway. And there it was stopped by Cadderly’s ward.
As the conflagration lessened, the priest fired his hand crossbow, more an act of defiance and challenge than to inflict true damage to the mighty beast, though Cadderly did smile as the bolt exploded against the dracolich’s face.
Into the burning room ran the seven, meeting the beast head on. Rocks flew in from left and right, smacking the dracolich and exploding with sudden bursts of magical flame. More magic roared in as well, a hornet’s nest of stings, a hurricane of lightning, a god’s wrath of fire.
Wings beat against Spirit Soaring in reply. The great tail slapped left and right, crushing stone and wood and throwing wizards and priests aside. But the beast did not turn its focus from that one room, from those seven puny heroes.
“And so we meet,” the Ghost King said, its voice shaking the smoldering timbers.
Cadderly fired another dart into its ugly face.
Bruenor, Athrogate, and Pwent didn’t pause, bursting through the doorway and charging across the room. Dragonfire drove them back.
“In together!” Cadderly demanded, and the seven tightened ranks around the priest, with his fire ward and his protection from the dracolich’s withering touch.