And he bulled forward, undaunted. The dazed tiefling fell in front of him and Athrogate ran right over the half-blood thing to get to the next in line, his morningstars spinning furiously.
A stream of daggers flew over the dwarf’s right shoulder, clearing that flank, then over his left to similar effect.
Then came Dahlia, running, planting the end of her staff and using it to vault right past Athrogate. By the time she’d landed, she had pulled the staff in and broken it into the twin flails. Around and over they went, out to the side and straight head, clipping scepter and clipping arms and cracking skulls when any got too near.
Not to be outdone, Athrogate paced her, though her fury was truly no less than his own.
The ground bucked, the floor rolled and cracked. The wall split on one side of the anteroom, and dust and stones fell from the ceiling.
As they neared the edge of the pit, the Ashmadai broke ranks and fled across the walkway, Dahlia and Athrogate giving chase, for that was the only way to go.
Jarlaxle came last, and he stubbornly paused and waited for the hot, billowing steam to clear enough so that he could see down to the lava.
So that he could stare into the face of the fire primordial.
He understood then the source of the power for Gauntlgrym’s famed forge. He understood then the magic of the Hosttower, bringing in great elementals of water from the ocean to serve as a harness for that godlike beast. That magic had been gradually dissipating since the tower’s fall, obviously, given the earthquakes that had wracked the region for so many years.
And Athrogate had shut the magic down entirely.
The elementals were fleeing, and the beast would be free.
Jarlaxle glanced back toward the lever, though he couldn’t see it through the steam. They could reverse it, perhaps, and put the beast back in its harness.
He yelled out to Athrogate, but his voice couldn’t rise above the wind and hiss of the rushing steam.
Then flames mixed with steam, rising up all around the walkway and the drow, and Jarlaxle had to run away, pulling tight his piwafwi and cowl to shield his eyes and skin.
He caught up to Dahlia and Athrogate in the forge room, facing off against the half-dozen remaining Ashmadai, who had no choice but to stand their ground before the portcullis, which was closed again. Beyond that gate huddled the angry ghosts of Gauntlgrym.
“If you surrender, we can guide you out of here!” Jarlaxle yelled to them, putting a sword in one hand as he took his place flanking Athrogate.
“They’re Ashmadai,” Dahlia explained. “Zealots of Asmodeus. They do not fear death, they welcome it.”
“Then let’s oblige ’em,” Athrogate growled, and charged.
It struck Jarlaxle profoundly that the dwarf made no rhyme there, with battle so clear before him. But indeed, the dwarf was trembling with outrage at that point, and channeling all of his power to those devastating morningstars.
The Ashmadai howled and met the dwarf’s charge with glee. Dahlia flanked out to the left, her twin weapons spinning to match Athrogate’s morningstars, and Jarlaxle rushed up from the right. One against two, and two to each, they engaged.
Jarlaxle’s free left hand snapped out a line of spinning daggers, down low at first as he neared the closest opponent, a tiefling bearing a strange symbol branded into his dusky flesh. But then he switched them up high with the last throw, forcing the cultist to lift his forearm to deflect the missile. And in that evasive movement, the tiefling lost sight of the drow for just a heartbeat.
A heartbeat too long.
Jarlaxle slid past on one knee, using the tiefling to block his own companion.
A stab to the back of the leg left that Ashmadai stumbling and skidding down, hamstrung.
Across came the other, stabbing his spear-staff for the drow’s head.
But a second sword appeared in Jarlaxle’s grasp, and swept up and around, parrying perfectly. And when the first followed behind that parry, the cultist had no defense.
Athrogate waded in, disregarding again the stab of one cultist and the heavy swing of the other. He took hits to trade the hits, and his weapons were better by far. A human Ashmadai stabbed him deep in the front of his shoulder as he brought his arm around, but that didn’t deter the blow, for the dwarf was beyond feeling pain at that terrible moment, at the realization that he had destroyed the most sacred and ancient of dwarven homelands.
He felt his muscles tearing, but didn’t care, and completed the rotation. The morningstar crashed down upon the human’s lowered, leading shoulder with such force that it threw the cultist face down to the floor.
Athrogate stomped on the back of the Ashmadai’s neck as he turned to face the second, and accepted a crack on the hand holding his other morningstar, the price of a missed block. Normally such a hit would have taken the weapon from his grasp, but not with Gauntlgrym exploding around him.
He plowed on with fury, both weapons swinging, driving the cultist back toward the lowered portcullis.
The Ashmadai ran out of room to retreat, so he worked his staff furiously to deflect and block. But a blow got through, crunching him in the side, driving him into a lurch. A second blow from the other side straightened him again, only to be hit again on the first side, higher up.
Then from the second side again, battering him, crushing his bones to dust, tearing his skin and sending his blood and brains flying wide to one side, then the other.
He crumpled to his knees and Athrogate kept hitting him-the only thing holding the dead cultist up were the dwarf’s blows.
Dahlia was far more cautious. She worked her weapons defensively, picking off every thrust and swing, still fighting two enemies-a human woman and a male half-orc-long after Athrogate began to bull his remaining opponent backward.
She played for her opponents’ mistakes, and as good as they were, Dahlia was better.
The Ashmadai to her left, the half-orc, moved to flank her, and the woman to her right predictably used her turn to come ahead boldly with a stab for Dahlia’s turning hip.
But Dahlia reversed, and her swing indicated that she would send her left weapon all the way across to try to hook the spear aside.
The half-orc braced for the ruse, and was caught by surprise as Dahlia’s right-hand weapon came up and under instead, yanking the spear-staff nearly from his grasp-and indeed, it would have taken that weapon away had that been Dahlia’s intent. She disengaged with a subtle twist instead, and allowed herself to overbalance and fall to her leading, right knee, where she reversed the spin of that weapon and swept it low, taking the human’s legs out from under her.
Dahlia rotated fully to bring her second weapon to bear, though she had no angle for such a spinning flail to do any real damage.
Except it was no longer a flail in her left hand, but a four-foot length of spear, and a slight twist stabbed it down hard into the woman’s face, driving right into her opened mouth as she tried to scream. A burst of lightning exploded with the impact, and it seemed to jolt Dahlia back to her feet, where she broke the staff once more into twin flails, and waded into her remaining opponent.
She had the half-orc cultist backing up, though the ugly brute was skilled and managed to hold his ground well as Dahlia played out her momentum.
A flicker of silver flashed over Dahlia’s shoulder and she dodged away and glanced back at the same time. She turned right back to her opponent, though, when she realized the flash was from one of Jarlaxle’s endless daggers, which he’d buried deep into the half-orc Ashmadai’s left eye.
Dahlia spun back as her last opponent fell aside, to see Jarlaxle rushing for the portcullis. Athrogate had amazingly hoisted the gate up to his shoulders once more.
Under went Jarlaxle, and Dahlia was quick to follow, fearing that those two would drop the gate and leave her to die-and who could blame them?
Jarlaxle rushed to brace his shoulder under one end, Dahlia the other, and Athrogate managed to scramble through.