Dyre snarled something incoherent and furious and started racing through the crowd again, towing her along helplessly in his wake. Dust was falling in great drifts, now, and small fragments of ceiling were clattering down here and there. Everywhere, people were running, running…

Boom. BOOM.

With a sudden, shattering roar, chunks of curved stone-ceiling-vaultings!-plummeted down to shatter on the hall floor.

"No!" Dyre roared, snatching up Nalys and starting to really run, lurching and pelting along. "No! Not my daughters!"

Then all was darkness and a flood of tumbling stone, and Varandros Dyre was dashed to the floor, dead or senseless. Nalys tumbled helplessly across spilled wine and shattered glass, seeing a pleasure-lass she vaguely knew beheaded in an instant by more falling stone. The headless body toppled and was promptly half-buried… and then, though the shakings went on, the ceiling-falls abruptly stopped.

Nalys suspected that if she could somehow sweep aside all this choking dust and look up, she'd be seeing the star-filled night sky now, but she couldn't manage to do much more than roll over and wipe her streaming eyes and look along the floor in the direction they'd been hurrying, before… before…

Bodies were lying crumpled everywhere on it, amid scattered shards of stone. Not much had really fallen, it seemed, but folk were fleeing wildly, everywhere, and shouting from the walls- from the doors!-that they couldn't get out.

There were Dyre's daughters, looking terrified but standing unharmed, with the Gemcloaks holding them firmly. As Nalys watched, the young nobles drew their swords in flashing unison.

Boom.

Boom.

BOOM. BOOM.

Every thunderous impact made the Gemcloaks and their ladies sway, now, and cracks were opening here and there in the formerly flawless marble underfoot.

Naoni Dyre clutched the dagger Korvaun had given her in the City of the Dead and went a little pale as she saw Taeros calmly draw two smaller knives from his boots and pass one hilt-first to Faendra, who clutched it so hard her knuckles went white, and the other to Lark, who hefted it thoughtfully.

"Delopae?" Starragar snapped. "Are you-?"

"I'm fine, Lord Jardeth," the tall Melshimber noblewoman replied briskly, momentarily lifting her gown to reveal a total lack of undergarments-and a high-thigh sheath from which she calmly drew a dagger of wicked length.

Letting her skirts fall again, she hefted it and added, "Just fine, and ready to take care of myself-or rather, of all the rats Waterdeep may choose to send against me!"

"Oh," Taeros chuckled, as he as Korvaun watched a distant Beldar Roaringhorn salute them with drawn sword and then race into the winecellars, "our fair City of Splendors seldom has a shortage of those!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

"Tarry," Korvaun told Taeros firmly. "Beldar and his allies will tend to business below. Our task is to hold the portal if the fight goes badly, and keep the foe from gaining the hall."

"The roof is falling! The ROOF! Get out of the hall!"

"How the tluin d'you expect me to do that? The tluining doors are jammed! Just look at those splinters!"

"Go 'tother way, you fool! Up through there, into the feasting hall! Haven't you ever been here before?"

"No, Lord Anteos, I've not! Unlike some, I try to remain faithful to my wife!"

"Oh? So who's this on your arm, then, Brokengulf? Your long-lost daughter? In that dress? Ah, nice brighthelms, by the way, lass!"

The highcoin-lass in question had never much liked the blustering Lord Anteos or his glowerings of open disdain as he bruisingly handled her or her fellow lasses on his frequent visits to the Silks, so she contented herself with replying, "Why, thank you, discerning Lord!" as she plucked his ornate codpiece aside and lifted her leg in a whole-hearted kick up into the region thus revealed.

BOOM.

As the Purple Silks shook and shuddered around them, Lord Anteos emitted a chirp that might have impressed a giant canary and crashed to the floor, eyes bulging.

"And for your information, Anteos," the highcoin-lass told the agonized noble, as she tucked her charms back into the dress, "Lord Brokengulf hired me to dance with him this night-just dance! The gown tore when the ceiling came down and he tried to shield me-which is far more than you'd have done!"

"Ah-hem-yes," Brokengulf ventured hesitantly. "Shall we go into the feasting hall? I don't much like the look of what's left of yon ceiling, and…"

His hired escort gave him a bright smile and her arm. "I'd be delighted to accompany you into the feasting hall, Lord Brokengulf. Though we may have to go elsewhere to dance, after all."

"I-ah-yes!" the old noble agreed awkwardly, hurrying her away through the roiling dust as fresh fragments fell.

Not far away, in the midst of the Gemcloaks as they hastened over against a wall, Faendra was gasping, her voice on the tremulous edge of tears, "Can we get out? What's causing that? We're going to die, aren't we?"

BOOM.

"We all die sooner or later," Phandelopae Melshimber snapped, "but I'll be able to do so in much greater ease if you'd still your tongue for a breath or two! Let the men think!"

"Why the men?" Lark asked, her voice as sharp as the knife in her hand.

"Because they've probably been here before, Sweetness, and if they're like my kin, they'll know a few back ways out, that's why!"

"That's being caused by something striking the ground." Korvaun Helmfast peered into the dust that was all but hiding the rest of the hall from them now. "Something very large and heavy. And I'm afraid I know what it is. Beldar was right, and there's-"

"There's light yonder!" Roldo shouted, pointing. "That's the feasting hall. Let's get there! Now!"

"Oh, I like that not," Starragar muttered, as they started to move along the wall, rubble shifting underfoot. "Whatever's causing that, 'tis getting worse."

"Or there's more of whatever's causing it," Roldo offered, kicking fallen stone aside. "Some sound very close and others farther off."

"Come on," Starragar snapped. "The rest of the ceiling in here could come down any time."