Near Dolgan, Azriim plied his own wands, alternately firing lightning and a transmogrifying beam at anything that moved: duergar, human, or troll. Dolgan did likewise. They didn't care which side won the fight, only that it continued for a time and involved powerful magic.
The combat quickly turned into a series of pitched battles scattered all across the cavern floor, with mages and archers supporting from a distance. Spells and counterspells flew. Lightning bolts sizzled from the wands of the duergar mages, leaving a spray of stone splinters, burned flesh, and screams in their wake. Xanathar mages answered, and fireballs blossomed in spherical infernos all over the cavern. Some exploded near the cart, roasting the pack lizard, two duergar, and setting the cart aflame. Giant spiders summoned by the duergar mages prowled the battlefield, pouncing on the wounded and dying.
Wedges of multi-colored magical force ripped through the air, knocking warriors from their feet. Beams of green and red energy laced across the cavern. Globes of darkness formed and were dispelled. Walls of ice and fire appeared from nowhere to burn and freeze. Waves of magic turned stone to mud, set flesh melting and flowing like water.
Throughout, roaring trolls and shambling spiders rampaged across the battlefield, claws and fangs dripping blood and shreds of flesh. Duergar axes and hammers rose and fell as the doughty dwarves fought in isolated groups of two and three. Sword and shield clashed in answer. Archers patrolled the perimeter of the melee, picking targets. Their crossbows twanged again and again. Quarrels sprouted from the flesh of combatants with the suddenness of lightning strikes. Ahmaergo himself stomped through the battlefield, wielding his huge axe and bellowing challenges in the name of the Xanathar.
This ought to serve to draw the Skulls, Dolgan projected to Azriim.
Even as he completed the thought, a series of magical bolts seared into his flesh. He grinned, reveling in the exquisiteness of the pain.
And Cale and his companions as well, Azriim answered, discharging a lightning bolt into a troll. It's nearly time to take our leave. Be ready Serrin. You know the location.
* * * * *
From ahead, Cale heard the shouts of men and the clash of metal.
"A battle?" Magadon said.
"A big one, to judge from the sound," Jak said.
All four of the comrades readied blades, holy symbols, and bows.
"We move quickly and quietly," Cale said. "No one gets involved except on my say-so." He looked pointedly at Riven as he said that last. The assassin made no response and Cale decided to take the silence as agreement. "The slaadi want us caught up in this, and that's reason enough to stay out," Cale continued. "Mark the slaadi as quickly as you can. Mags, I'm going to need you to show me what Azriim sees, so stand ready."
The guide nodded.
"Let's move," Cale said.
Hurrying through the darkness, the four approached the scene of battle. Cale intensified the darkness around them slightly as they drew closer. From the tunnel ahead came the flash of fireballs and lightning. Metal rang on metal. Sounds echoed down the corridor: men shouting, beasts roaring, and stone cracking. It sounded as though the ceiling was falling down.
Stay out of it, Cale reminded them again, and all of them nodded, even Riven. Crouching low and hugging the wall, they hurried forward.
Before them opened a wide, open cavern. All around it, a battle roiled. Trolls, men, and duergar fought in pockets, fierce little battles of horrible violence. Hammers, swords, shouts, curses, and roars rose toward the ceiling. Corpses lay scattered across the cavern like so much driftwood.
The caravan's wagon lay on its side, burning. The pack lizard lay on its side too, still yoked to the wagon and hissing in pain, crossbow bolts protruding from its charred flesh. Magical energies arced across the cavern from the side tunnels, the casters hidden by darkness and distance. Duergar mages answered with shots from their wands or spells of their own. The amount of magic flying in the cavern caused the hairs on Cale's arms to stand. Weaveshear fairly hummed in his grasp, bleeding shadows.
"Follow me," Cale said.
He darted off to the side of the cavern a good distance away from the combat. There, Cale saw a protruding ledge of rock sticking out of the stone about eight paces up on the wall. It would offer a good view of the battle, and some small cover from the missile fire and spells.
"There," he said, pointing.
The others nodded and they raced to the wall and began to climb. Behind them, a troll roared in pain. A ricocheting lightning bolt ripped into the wall near them, sending splinters of stone spraying. They reached the ledge, breathing hard, and crouched low.
"Trickster's toes," Jak said. "This is chaos."
"Find the slaadi," Cale said, scouring the battlefield for any telltale sign of their quarry.
He saw only indistinguishable duergar, mercenaries, and trolls.
"I can't see well enough to find anything," Riven growled.
"There!" Jak said.
Cale followed the halfling's pointing finger and saw a large fat human and a duergar slipping toward the far side of the cavern.
Could be them, Magadon projected. I can confirm.
Cale replied, Do it.
Motes of light flared around the guide's head and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. For a moment, Magadon said nothing and Cale, Jak, and Riven waited in anticipation. Below them, the battle raged, reaching still greater heights of violence.
"It is Azriim," Magadon said.
"Stay with him," Cale said. "When they leave, we follow."
"Leave?" asked Jak.
Cale nodded. He thought he understood the slaadi's play.
"The slaadi engineered this entire battle," he said. "And now that it's going full on, they're backing out of it. It's a distraction."
"Who are they trying to distract?" Riven asked. "Us?"
Cale shrugged, but before he could form a reply, an orange luminescence formed at the mouth of the main tunnel that led back toward Skullport. It grew brighter and brighter, as if someone or something carrying a giant torch were moving closer to the cavern.
"What is that?" Jak asked.
"Find a hole," Riven said, "and stay low. This is bad."
Cale and Jak shared a look. Weaveshear fairly shook in Cale's hand. The shadows around the blade whirled as if in excitement.
The luminescence grew brighter still and the combatants in the chamber seemed to notice it for the first time. Duergar, troll, and human backed away from each other.
Weapons were lowered, and gazes turned toward the tunnel mouth.
Cale pulled down Magadon, who was still connected to Azriim, and willed the darkness around them to deepen.
A murmur of curiosity ran through the chamber, and quickly turned to one of concern, then fear. The combatants saw what was coming. Cale and his companions, off to the side of the tunnel mouth, could not yet see the source of the light.
Stay with Azriim, Cale projected to Magadon. No matter what occurs.
"Goddess," Magadon oathed.
Through Azriim's eyes, he too saw what was coming.
A voice louder than a thunderclap and deeper than the Moonsea shook stalactites from the ceiling as it pronounced, "Cease!"
Other than the moans of the wounded and dying, an eerie silence reigned.
"The Skulls," Riven said softly, as six glowing human skulls whizzed in through the tunnel and rapidly circled the battlefield.
All eyes followed Skullport's enigmatic guardians. Duergar, man, and troll visibly cowered under the inscrutable gaze of the Skulls. Finished with their flyover, the Skulls positioned themselves around the combatants, fencing most of them in. A nervous rustle ran through the chamber. Some of the casters and crossbowmen outside of the ring of Skulls began to back away down the side tunnels.
Cale and his companions were outside the circle. Cale sensed the power in the room, as did Weaveshear, to judge from its hungry vibrations. With six of the Skulls present in the chamber, and presuming that five or six of them were still lurking about in Skullport, as Cale thought typical, most all of the guardians were accounted for.