"Follow the king!" he shouted. "I'll hold them." The orog charged. You're only an apprentice paladin, Zaranda wanted to scream. And Armenides must be a puissant fiend indeed: even with the aid of Cyric, lord of deceit, it would require mighty magics for a servant of evil to produce the spurious miracles with which Armenides had bolstered his claim that Ao had grown active in this plane.

But she knew she couldn't handle the monster. Any delay the great orc could inflict would increase the others' chances. Of success, if not survival.

Stillhawk cut down the last of the king's guards who still showed fight. The rest had fled, and the sight of Armenides's horrid transfiguration only made them run the faster. Zaranda flipped up the tapestry's corner with her sword. A door yawned behind. A damp, cool breeze, touched with grave mold and brimstone, blew out of darkness into their faces.

Zaranda saw one of Shield's blades lop a short-clawed nipper off Armenides's jointed forelimb. Her heart leapt. The creature has plenty more, she re-minded herself. She bundled Chen through the door-way and down a steep stairwell. An instant later Stillhawk followed them into darkness.

Zaranda's fireball had killed or incapacitated most of the men Armenides had brought with him to the throne room. But not all. Four swarmed over Shield of Innocence from behind, one jumping on his broad back, the others trying to pin his arms.

He roared and swept his arms forward, dashing two assailants' heads together before him. A third clung to his left arm. He split his skull with his right-hand scimitar.

The man on his back produced a single-edged dagger and began sawing at the Grog's corded neck. Without relinquishing grip on his swords, Shield grabbed the man with both hands and raised him, squirming, above his head.

Another guardsman, hair blackened, crinkled, and smoking from Zaranda's fireball, took a running start and thrust the spike of his halberd into the small of Shield's back.

The orog bellowed and spun, torquing the halberd from the guardsman's grasp. He flung the man he held into the face of the one who had stabbed him. Then he reached back and plucked the weapon from his body.

Armenides caught him from behind by the arms and the legs and hoisted him in the air as easily as Shield had lifted the blue-and-bronze. "You betrayed your people and your gods," the false priest said in the voice he had used in human guise, "and now I'll flay the flesh right off your soul."

Blood spurted as pincers bit. Twisting in the monster's grasp, Shield lashed out with his right hand and opened a gash across Armenides's cheek. The bull-thing screamed in pain and dropped its prey as black blood jetted, smoking, from the wound.

Shield landed on his back. A blue-and-bronze loomed above him, halberd poised for a downward thrust. The orog hacked the man's legs from beneath him. Then he arched his body backward, snapped forward, and so regained his feet.

The monster towered over him. Shield raised his swords and charged.

Pincers caught him by arms and legs, lifted him clear of the floor again. The orog bellowed rage. His muscles heaved with all their awesome strength, but this time the monster had made sure of its grip. Shield was held immovably while other pincers made play. They cut the thick steel of his breastplate as if it were cheesecloth.

The thing that had called itself Armenides of Ao worked on the orog for longer than was strictly necessary. Then it tossed the great limp shape aside and glided forward on many legs, to the secret passageway and down.

28

The stairs led down through the dungeon levels Zaranda knew so well and on, to ever-lower reaches of echoing chambers and twisty corridors. The stonework ceased to be sharp-edged and new. The stones became rounded, lichen-grown, the mortar crumbly. Zaranda found herself wondering whether these catacombs were remnants of buildings razed to make way for the palace, or if they had entered the Underdark for true.

Side passages branched occasionally to the left or right. There was no ambiguity about which was the main pathway, however. Nor the right one-periodically they would catch a glimpse of Faneuil and his golden-haired captive, well ahead and below.

They had just begun descending a short flight of stairs when Stillhawk, bringing up the rear, grunted and fell across Zaranda's back. She screamed and lost her balance, and if she hadn't fallen against the wall she would have pitched headlong down the stairs.

A figure appeared in the doorway they had just quitted, raising a nocked short bow. Chen flung out an arm and screamed a single syllable. Energy darted from her outstretched fingertip and struck him in the chest. With a cry, he fell backward out of sight.

"I did it!" the girl exulted, grabbing Zaranda's arm and dancing up and down. "I hit him with a magic missile!"

Zaranda squeezed her arm and smiled. "Well done."

Stillhawk was on his feet, leaning against the wall. He broke off the shaft in his flesh and threw it down. Let's go, the ranger signed.

At the base of the steps a door stood open. They passed through to find themselves in a hemicylindrical chamber of glazed green brick, fifty yards long and maybe seven high. Lamps hung from hooks set high on the curved walls, their light hued purple by aged glass. The reek of sulfur was very strong.

At the far end a door stood open. They ran for it. Echoes of their own footsteps pursued them.

They had almost reached the door when an arrow grazed Zaranda's right ear. She looked back to see men with short bows kneeling at the chamber's other end and Stillhawk lying on his face with a thicket of arrows jutting from his back. "Vander!" she screamed, and halted.

Chen grabbed her arm. "Zaranda, run! You can't help him."

Arrows moaned past Zaranda's face and with musical pings struck the brickwork above and around her. The short bows weren't very powerful, and their trajectory was high; the low ceiling made it difficult to shoot with any accuracy even at this short range.

Stillhawk stirred, rose to his knees, his feet. He turned, took an arrow from his quiver, drew it, and loosed. A bowman screamed and fell with the shaft in his throat even as a blue-and-bronze arrow struck Still-hawk through the thigh.

Zaranda could stay and watch no more. Weeping, she and Chen darted through the door-and halted.

It gave onto a landing perhaps ten feet by ten. Around its edges was open air-a cavern, so huge its ceiling and sides were only hinted at by reflected glints of the red glare cast by a river of molten lava that flowed past the foot of the stairs, a hundred yards below.

Zaranda shook her head. "Lava?" she asked, incredu-lously. "Who'd expect to find live lava flowing beneath Zazesspur?"

"Look!" Chen called, and pointed. Barely visible for distance, dimness, and eye-watering fumes, the king and Tatrina were running away from them along the lava river.

Without a glance back to where her old friend was conducting what was almost certainly his final stand, Zaranda started down the stairs.

Taking time to aim, Stillhawk shot down three more archers. He was struck four times in return. He backed toward the doorway, hoping to shoot from its cover.

An arrow laid open the right side of his forehead. He reached the door, slipped around and out of the line of fire. At once he discovered that he stood on a tiny plat-form in a great cavern, and that he was out of arrows.

He plucked one from his breast, nocked it, and swung out into the doorway. Guardsmen ran toward him. He shot the foremost, pulled another arrow from his body. As if to replace it, several more hit him.