Swinging his blade at another orc, Sanval sliced it below the knees. The creature lost its balance and toppled into space. Sanval and Ivy pivoted around each other to strike more attacking orcs.

"Ask me what mercenaries and red-roof girls have in common," she said, reaching past him with her stolen halberd to crack an orc across the side of his head.

"Nothing at all," Sanval exclaimed, glancing at her with a most peculiar smile that lit up his dark eyes. He jabbed away at an oncoming hobgoblin.

"Do too," she laughed. "Both always figuring out every move. Both more fun than an entire room full of proper Procampur ladies. Don't for a moment think that I did not have a plan in my back pocket for everything that happened in the ruins."

"There goes Archlis," Zuzzara said, pointing with her shovel. She gave a formidable whack on the top of the head to a poor little goblin sneaking around them, obviously a stray still seeking an escape route off the creaking, groaning wall. Fottergrim had retreated even farther back, so he stood in the doorway of the farthest watchtower, screaming some type of order over his shoulders.

"Look! He really can fly!" said Gunderal.

Incredibly for a creature of its bulk, the tiny wings lifted the demon Archlis off the wall. His feet hung no more than a half a man's height above the surface. As he lifted off the wall, Norimgic and Osteroric took one look at the orcs bearing down on them and then leaped after Archlis, each grabbing a long arm. Archlis gave a roar and shook his hands, but the screaming bugbears held tight. Bobbing and weaving, Archlis began a ponderous flight off the wall. The bugbears dangled off his arms, both paddling their big flat feet like swimmers, as though hoping to keep themselves afloat.

"It would appear that flight is a good choice, with perhaps a touch of magic?" Kid tugged at her waist, and Ivy realized that rather than pulling her out of the way, he was trying to get her attention by dragging the red magic belt out from where it was tucked down behind her weapons belt.

"That's a good idea," observed Ivy, thrusting the halberd's tip through the breastplate of an orc. She bent her knee and pressed the sole of her boot against the orc's armor to pull the halberd free from the dead creature. With a grunt, she stated, "Let's follow him down."

"I am pleased that Osteroric escaped," said Sanval, close on her heels as she headed for the edge. "He and his brother were rather civilized for bugbears."

"And their pockets are still stuffed with jewels, which is more than what we got," mourned Mumchance.

"We'll just add it to the Thultyrl's invoice," declared Ivy. "Come on, we need to get out of here."

Ivy jumped up on the edge of the wall. Looking straight down, she had a clear view of the ground, a long, long way below her. Piles of dead orcs with twisted limbs and shattered heads and bodies testified to the height. Ivy stood on the ledge, teetered forward, then stepped back and beckoned her crew. "Grab my belt!" she yelled.

"I don't understand," Sanval began.

"Trust me," she said, looking down at Sanval. Despite all the dust and rust and assorted grime that they had picked up that day, his upturned face just shone with honesty, bravery, and all those other fine Procampur qualities. The man did not need highly polished armor to dazzle her. Sanval smiled up at her.

"Ivy!" Zuzzara and Mumchance and Kid shouted together, with Kid adding a gentle, "My dear."

Startled, she swung around to look at them, then completed the turn to look in the direction they all pointed.

Archlis as the demon Nalfeshnee beat his wings frantically, trying to distance himself from the battlements. But he was sinking. The huge creature looked like some six-legged, three-headed bat that could not fly very well. The bugbears, dangling from the giant monster's arms, their legs churning, weren't helping. Tossing their considerable weight in their terror, and swinging their weapons and occasionally pricking the demon's hairy body, they howled and screamed and blubbered. The bugbear brothers had been brave fighters when grounded, but flying was not something any bugbear ever yearned to do.

"We need to get out of here!" Mumchance had finally caught Wiggles. Tucking the little dog firmly into his pocket, the dwarf nimbly avoided one of the falling orcs who had just been brained by Zuzzara's wildly swinging shovel.

"Got a plan!" screamed Ivy. "Everyone to me! To me!"

"Coming, my dear," said Kid, as he leaped up and drummed another orc on its snout with his sharp hooves. The creature let out a howl and clapped both hairy hands over its injured proboscis.

"What are you going to do?" Sanval asked, backhanding an orc trying to detain him as he climbed up on the edge of the wall next to her. Ivy was holding herself steady by wrapping one arm around a wooden pillar supporting the burned-out roof.

"Grab my belt!" Ivy screamed at him over the noise of the fight behind them. There was such confusion that Fottergrim's gray orcs and mountain orcs were busy trying to brain each other-each group was convinced that the others had started the fight that now engulfed the top of the wall. The battered Fottergrim was howling orders at all of them, but nobody could hear him over the general hubbub. The hobgoblins who had come late to the fight, following the orange goblins into the fray, jabbed with their spiked shields. The orcs crouched below them, red eyes gleaming, and thrashed their halberds like scythes. The hobgoblins shouted to each other, closing ranks, occasionally saving each other with a sword thrust, and occasionally overreaching and stabbing one of their own kind.

"My belt!" Ivy yelled at Sanval. All the other Siegebreakers had figured it out, but he had not been there for the fight with the destrachans. She could feel Zuzzara's big hand firmly anchored in her weapons belt. The big half-orc had snatched up her little sister and tucked Gunderal under her other arm. Mumchance and Kid each had their hands locked on her legs. Ivy let go of the wooden post and grabbed the silver buckle of the narrow red belt that she wore loosely below her heavy weapons belt. "Pull the wings open three times and then shut," she whispered to herself as her fingers caught the small silver wings. She twisted them and prayed to whatever gods might be listening that the belt's magic would hold them all up. It had worked well underground, lifting her out of the reach of the destrachans, but she had been the only weight to lift. Now there was a lot more weight hanging off her, and she prayed that her weapons belt would hold and that her pants would stay up. That would be all that she needed-to plunge to her death baring her ass to the fighting orcs and screaming hobgoblins behind her. Then again, it wasn't that bad of a final fate, she decided. It would be a way to leave the world with a certain ragged style.

Either way, Ivy just had to trust that her luck (and her belt) would hold.

"Jump!" she screamed at Sanval as she snagged his collar with her free hand and pulled him off balance. His booted feet shot out and up, his arms flew up, his fist tightened around his sword hilt, and his dark curls blew every which way.

Ivy plunged off the wall.