Bernt stepped into the breakroom with Jori on his shoulder to find it buzzing with activity. Most of the Underkeepers’ mages were there, alongside Glim, Palina and several uards. The tables along one wall were occupied by Halfbridge’s solicitors. Uhe guilds or the Underkeepers, they didn’t have a specific style of dress or identifying characteristics. That made sense, he supposed. What warlock would really want to be reized on sight ireet?

  There were twelve of them in total, ranging from a nky teenager, who Bernt supposed must be an appreo a wild-haired old woman who looked more like a homeless person than someohat could bring the wrath of the hells down on her ehe kid eyed the goblins in the room nervously, as if he thought they might bite.

  Most, though, were -cut and dressed iest styles, like Josie. If he didn’t know better, he would have guessed that they were minor nobles or wealthy merts. None looked injured, which was impressive sidering that most of them should have been at work when their building was brought down on top of them. Then agai had seen what kinds of healing potions Josie carried around.

  Ed poio a spot on the ward map representing the main access tunnel, not far from the entrao the Uy Market.

  “...f time, but I want to make sure we’re there to greet them properly. You all know what to do, I expect you to coordinate your teams as best you . Dismissed!”

  Disoriented by the quick reversal, Ber himself be swept out of the room and into the courtyard area at the front of the plex. Muards were already massing there, roused from sleep by the bell and still tightening the straps on their armor.

  Right. Good point. Quickly, Bernt made sure that his own armored robe was fastened properly, and that his wand was secure in his sleeve. Then, he mentally nudged Jori to jump off of his shoulder so he could pull off the bag of holding he always carried with him. He dug out his thorn skin amulet, a small roll of ented bandages, a minor healing potion, and his dagger. The scratchy amulet went around his ned the dagger into a loop on his belt. He stuffed the rest into his pockets.

  He stuck his hand bato the bag, hoping that maybe he might have another minor healing potion in there, when his fingers brushed across something unfamiliar. Curious, he pulled it out.

  It was a rock. Why did he have a rock?

  It wasn’t until he tur over and saw the circle of runes carved into it that he remembered what it was. He’d bought this on a whim from Grixit a few months earlier and pletely fotten that he had it. The inscribed rune circle could, if activated, briefly open an unstable portal to the elemental pne of fire.

  It wasn’t a very practical on – he couldn’t activate it at a distand there was no way to avoid colteral damage unless he was in a tunnel, where he could direct the heat perfectly. Even then, he would need a bit of time to set up a temperature barrier.

  Probably too dangerous to use down here. Relutly, he put the stone ba the bag and then stowed it in a er behind some ing supplies. No sense iing the bag cut up or burhe hurried to join his assigned unit. It was, in effect, his interception team – Kustov, Josie, Glim and a small ti of guards with a few additions. Jori stayed with him, and another warlock, who introduced himself as Bartholomew joihem as well. The tter was a tall, slim man in his te twenties. He carried a rune-carved staff, marking him as at least a rudimentary sort of mage as well.

  “Alright, that’s everybody,” Kustov said as a few muards, including Nirlig and Torvald, fell into lih the others. “We’ve been assigo the lower fnking position. Our job is purely offensive – at least that’s the idea. Ed and his team will tain the enemy and block the , while we cover the bottom and do our best to make sure that they don’t have time to deliver whatever surprises they have pnned for us. If that fails, we retreat back to the primary defensive li the market entrance.”

  As they began marg out the door, Bernt got up close o Kustov and tapped him on the shoulder. “Why isn’t the military back here?” he asked. The question had been b him from the moment he’d heard the arm. “Shouldn’t they be intercepting this?”

  Kustov made a nonittal noise. “We sent messages nearly half an ho, but they haven’t respohe head warlock fellow said they’re fighting. It’s up to us, this time.”

  ***

  The entrao the Uy Market, previously wide enough to easily allow two carts to pass by each other without slowirian traffic, had been fortified. It was now barely wider than a on doorway. Someone, probably Kustov, had mostly blocked the tunnel off i few hours, pulling the walls inward to make a funnel shape.

  o the main tunrance, Bernt saw several narrow passages, barely wide enough for a single person. Yarrod scrambled into one of these as they passed a thought he reized Rindle ing out of another oher side. Kustov led their unit through, into the main tunnel and up a short distance. Keeping his eyes peeled, Bernt still nearly missed the arrow slits in the ers at the tunnel floor and ceiling.

  Putting his hand to the stone wall, Kustov stopped and cast a spell of some sort, then moved a few steps and did it again. Nodding to himself, he pnted his hammer on the ground in front of him. As other Underkeepers, led by Ed and Dayle, made their ast, the sto the dwarf’s feet rose up in front of them in a seore than a foot thick. It stopped just under Kustov’s shoulders, roughly at Bernt’s midse. It didn’t block the tunnel pletely – the others would o be able to get by – but it would provide them some cover.

  “Alright. I want our spears up against the wall. Keep your ons poi the enemy ahem off of the casters. Torvald, Josie, you’re with me on the end here. Bernt, Jori, I want you two up against the tunnel wall. Don’t wait for instrus, just burn them when they e.”

  Iime it took Bernt and the others to get into position, the tunnel in front of them had been transformed. Ed and Dayle had expahe tunnel directly in front of them, widening it into a chamber of sorts to give themselves more room to work with – her of them were slouches when it came to earth magic, even if they weren’t on Kustov’s level.

  The dwarf hadn’t stopped castiher. pletely unfamiliar runes formed along the top of the wall in front of them, followed by a braided double line of even more ruhat carved themselves into the floor in a semicircle in front of their wall. That showed where Kustov expected the eo break through – barely three steps in front of him. Bernt khat Silvercrag Hall – Kustov’s home city – was famous for its rune work, but he’d never really sidered the bat applications of the practice. Runecarving was normally a slow process. They had to be shaped properly and spaced just right to work. Seeing this, though, the dwarf might be able to pete with some abjurers. Sure, Janus could do more and faster, but the gnome was an archmage.

  Bernt drew his wand from his sleeve, holding it tightly in his left hand as he looked around apprehensively. With a crack, Dayle cast a spell that shattered and ed the stone floor of their killing field, kig up dust and fouling the footing in front of them. A moment ter, Kustov pouhe effect by causing shards of what looked like volic gss to erupt from the sundered rocks. Ed and Fiora cast force barriers to provide better defensive cover. While they could have put up a wall of their own, they opted for a simple trenstead, courtesy of Dayle. The force barriers wouldn’t hold very long if they didn’t maintain the spells actively – the enemy must be close. He o focus.

  trating, Bernt raised a one-way temperature barrier, first in front of Ed’s unit and then another along Kustov’s wall in front of them. He held the wand in his left hand, even though he suspected that the barrier would be stronger with the influence of his sorcerous iure. The problem was that it might then also interfere with spells cast through it in both dires – not the sort of thing he should experiment with in a situation like this.

  By the time he fihe spells, he could feel a soft rumble ioh his feet. A momehe tunnel wall simply fell in toward them, revealing massive, gleaming cws and a star-shaped nose.

  With a shriek, Jori flung a fistful of hellfire at the beast. The mole made a low, rumbling squawk and flinched back. Then the wall o it exploded outward into the tunnel. Rocks as big as Bernt’s head bounced off of Ed and Fiora’s barriers and filled the tunnels with dust. He didn’t wait to see what had do. With his left hand, Bernt cast banefire a it into the gloom.

  At the same time, he poured unshaped mana into his right hand. Shaped into a spell by his sorcerous iure, it naturally also incorporated the effects of his first, produg a liquid version of the perpetual fme that pooled in his palm as white fire. He flung the burning psma as quickly as he could create it, oddly remi of the way Jori cast her hellfire. To his right, he could see magic missiles flying in from Fiora. Shouts and massive sounds of impact all around came out of the gloom.

  All at ohe dust cohered into clumps and fell like rain, revealing a se of utter mayhem.

  The massive mole y dead, only its head emerging into the main tuhe breach was a wide, ragged hole, and armrayish-skinned dwarves pressed in toward them. There were bodies on the ground, some of them crushed, while others were horribly burned.

  A hollow, inhuman shriek interrupted his casting and, for a moment, everything stopped. It was like Josie’s ability, but it wasn’t her. The warlock was standio Kustov, her hands over her ears. The other one, Bartholomew, looked just as rattled as everyone else. This had to have been an enemy warlock.

  Only then did Bernt realize that, while the sound was very unpleasant, he wasn’t being overwhelmed by horrible memories. Were Kustov's wards that good? With an overhand motiohrew more white fire into the mass of dwarves with his right hand and began to cast another fireball with his left. Just as he finished casting, Jori slung hellfire into the mass of dwarves from his right shoulder.

  her of their attaded.

  A dwarf raised a hand with a look of tration, and both of their spells spshed against an invisible barrier and dissipated. Only then did Bernt realize he was wearing some kind of robe under his ill-fitting armor. Before Bernt even had a ce to feel frustrated, the enemy mage and those o him disappeared in a small avanche of falling rock – most likely courtesy of Kustov or Dayle.

  A force shield appeared over the breach, and for a mome thought that the duergar had decided to go on the defehat was wheiced the look of intense tration on Fiora, and the fact that Ed was using his pipe to trace a lot of runes into the air.

  The tunnel shook with botling force. The dwarves on the far side of Fiora’s barrier that he could see were dead, lying in crumpled heaps that bled from every orifice. That left just a small group iunnel with them. Bernt whooped and threw another handful of white psma at the enemy as began to cast another fireball with his left.

  “Down!” Bernt heard someone shout. Then something smacked him in the face.

  ***

  Bernt stared up at the tunnel ceiling, trying to remember what it was that he was supposed to be doing. It was important. Urgent, even.

  There were people shouting nearby. Fighting. They were fighting. He’d been hit with something.

  His head hurt. That was bad. Head injuries were dangerous, and it was hard to tell how serious they were. He o take his potio was fumbling at his belt for it when he finally realized that something was tugging at his other arm. It was Jori – he could feel her leaking through their bond. She was worried about him.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “e on, we o go help.” He plucked the seal off of the minor healing potion and dow. It wouldn’t do very much right away, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about bleeding into his brain.

  He wasn’t the only one who’d been hit. A few of the guards were down, but Josie was already cheg on them. Not stopping, Bernt got bato position. The tunnel was filling with duergar again, but this time there was a massive hellhound as well. They’d reached the defenders, who were engaging them directly now. Spells weren’t just flying in toward the attackers anymore, either. Fire, magic missiles, and less familiar looking spell projectiles flew from both dires. Ed, by the looks of it, was stopping the bulk of the enemy attacks with multiple force shields, but he wasn’t having an easy time.

  There was no tellily what the duergar had, but it was clear that they’d brought quite a few mages of their own to plement the physical fighters and warlocks that the Underkeepers were more used to dealing with.

  Bernt focused on the hellhound and flung a bolt of banefire at it, following it up with more white fire from his right. A dwarf stepped in front of the banefire, raising a hand to cast a protective barrier in front of herself. The banefire spshed against it harmlessly, saving the demon, but the perpetual fme puhrough as though it weren’t there.

  The small handful of psma struck her arm, mostly spattering onto her armor. She tried to shake it off, getting some of it onto her robes. As soon as it touched the cloth, it fred brightly, feeding on the entments yered into it. She shouted in surprise and tried to cast something, but it was too te. The mage went down with a scream, writhing in pain and terror. Bernt watched in horrified fasation, uo look away as the screams cut off and she shook violently. Fire poured from her mouth as the fmes ed her from within in seds.

  He'd ighe mana inside her els.

  He would o his spell – his version of it, anyway. “Perpetual fme” wasn’t adequate for… that. Shaking off the gruesome sight, he prepared another banefire spell for the hellhound. Before he could cast it, though, the demon was struck from anle by the same spell. It went down with an agonized howl.

  fused, Bernt looked to find the caster – who had learned his spell?

  Oher side of the killing field, Dayle waggled his eyebrows at him. Really? Dayle hated pyromancy!

  But there was no time to think about it now. It was getting too hot. Even if he kept renewing the heat barriers, they wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.