“Ining!” shouted a goblin’s voice. Bernt turo look just in time to see Rindle e running from one of the small side tunnels.

  “They got the vines,” he called, looking dismayed. “They just withered away!”

  “Form up!” Glim bawled. “Keep them bottled up iunnel if they break through. Somebody get inside and sound the arm.”

  “Kustov, Bernt, Josie, into the tunnels!” Fiora called somewhere behi. “We’ll slow them down as much as we .” Bernt plied without a thought, running up to the tuhat Rindle had just e out of. He slowed unsciously for a sed to allow Jori to stick the nding on his shoulder as she dove down from a pilr. Behind him, he heard more shouts as the defenders worked to get themselves into position. As he ducked into the tunnel, he could hear the bell in the Underkeepers’ headquarters start t with urgency.

  It was a narrow passage that rose at a shallow angle, barely as wide as his shoulders and he had to shuffle through sideways at an awkward angle. Fortunately, it wasn’t long. In seds, he arrived at a narrow horizontal slit, barely wide enough to slip a hand through.

  His vieartly obscured by a shriveled vihat had grown across it, but he could clearly see the n of dwarves standing below him. They looked fresh, with gleaming, polished armor and armed with identical one-handed axes and shields.

  At the front, Bernt could just make out a few dwarves carrying staves – mages of some kind. It still seemed odd to Bernt that they wore the same armor as the regur soldiers. He supposed it was logical, but it still felt wrong. Mages weren’t normal soldiers, so why would they dress the same? Only on closer iion did he realize that they did wear robes – they just wore a coat of mail over them along with a helm, likely to prevent easy identification as much as for direct prote.

  It didn't take a genius to guess what what they were dealing with – geomancers. The tunnel was wider in front of them, hemmed in by Kustov’s rune wards, but he could see the stone crag in front of them and crumbling away. It was slow going, retively speaking, but they would get through in just a few minutes.

  “Are you ready?” Josie asked from behind him. Bernt turned his head and saw her squeeze io him. Jori chirped a greeting at her and she gri the demon. “You might want to plug your ears for this part.”

  Bernt just barely mao cmp his hands over his head as Josie put her mouth right up to the slit and screamed.

  He shuddered. Muffling the noise helped a little, and this wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with this particur ability, but it was still an unfortable experiehe soldiers below were affected much more strongly, though. Their formation had dissolved, and quite a few of them were sitting down while others shuddered violently.

  Before Bernt could collect himself enough to act, Jori poured hellfire into the tunnel in a wide, diffuse e, totally uhe liquid fmes she usually produced. A momehe tunnel rumbled and rocks came crashing down from the ceiling – Kustov’s work from his position oher side of the tunnel. It wasn’t a total colpse, though. Maybe Kustov’s own earlier wards were w against him, or one of the enemy geomancers had mao ter the stoneweaver.

  Just to be sure, Bernt cast a fireball toward the geomancers at the front. It was difficult to aim through the narrow slit, but it wouldn’t matter too much. The entire space was filled with enemies.

  In his haste, he used his right hand to cast the spell, but his hours of practice finally paid off. The spell maed correctly, burning a merry yellowish e as it shot dowunnel. He heard screams. Below he could see more soldiers burn in Jori’s fmes, screaming in pain and fear as they were shocked out of their stuate. His eyes watered as the smell of sulfur and burnt dwarf filled the air.

  A boom souo his left and hot wind pushed into his face from ihe tunnel. Was that Fiora?

  The tunnel rumbled, and suddenly everythi dark. He could still hear screams, but they were muffled now. It took Bernt a moment to realize what had happened. One of the enemy geomancers had realized what was happening and mao seal their access points. Raising his left hand, Bernt cast ah shaping trip. Maybe he could simply open it back up.

  The spell activated, but nothing happened wheried to push the stone in front of them aside.

  “It’s dark!” Jori said. A stinky, whirling fme formed in the narrow tunnel right o Bernt’s head and he flinched away from it.

  “Jori! Put that out, it’s dangerous.”

  “No!” the imp said. She roud of her light spell.

  Josie looked at the odd light curiously, but didn’t ent. She’d seen enough of Jori’s experimental spells already.

  Bernt took a small step away from the fire and shook his head irritably, giving up. “They sealed us in! We have to go bad wait for them to break through. I hope Kustov and Fiora had better lu their end.” Bernt seriously doubted that they would be able to seal Kustov out, even if they could keep him from dropping the ceiling down on them.

  They emerged back out of the tunnel just as a rge craed across the sealed entrance, biseg a line of Kustov’s ruhe guards were positioned directly in front, shielded by a powerful force barrier, courtesy of Ed, who stood just ihe warlocks’ banishment ritual directly behind them. The warlocks iion mostly stood at the back – not all of them would be suited to fighting – but three of them were in borrowed Underkeeper armor standing in a semicircle behind the guards together with the remaining spellcasters. One of them was Bartholomew, the same warlock who’d been iunnel with Bernt’s unit.

  Radast himself stood at the ter of the circle at the very back, quietly ting something to himself.

  The stone began to crumble more quickly as Kustov’s runes were destroyed, oer another. A few seds ter, the damage reached Lin’s script as well and the entire wall began to crumble in toward the defenders. Hurrying behind the front line of guards, Bernt and Josie got themselves out of what was going to bee a killing ground in a moment.

  Nothing seemed to happen at first, but then a warm sensation brushed across the back of Bernt’s neck so suddenly he flinched. A goblin shouted something in their own nguage – Bernt thought it sounded like Lin – and then unched into a short t that she repeated, over and over. The oblins joined in, a felt something stir in the air. It was mana, but it wasn’t moving in any way he was familiar with. It was swirling with purpose, f patterns that he couldn’t quite make out. Many, many patterns. Ambient mana just didn’t do that.

  The stone crumbled down, and then finally melted away as the enemy geomancers mao take full trol of the substance of the warded wall. The goblins’ ting reached a fever pitd Bernt’s hair suddenly stood on end as a slow wind began to swirl around the cavern, mimig the strange mana flows he’d noticed.

  Duergar started to march, pushing past their mages who were pressing themselves to the tunnel walls – they didn’t want to be the first ones ihe moment the first dwarf’s foot crossed the invisible line where the wall had been, the wind gusted forward all at once, flowing around the edges of Ed’s shield and p up into the tunnel with a deafening howl.

  The effect was immediate. Duergar shouted in surprise and fear and some tried to back up, throwing their advao chaos. As Bernt watched, the skin visible on many of their faces ged color, turning pink aing into boils. A few went blind, their eyes turning a sickly shade of off-white as they shouted in panily to be pushed down and trampled by their own panig rades.

  “Now!” Ed shouted, whipping his pipe forward as he cast what looked like an oversized magic missile. It shot over the defenders’ heads and through the space where the archmage’s force barrier had been a moment before, into the duergar. Hellfire, magic missiles, rocks and some kind of screeg shadow magic that came from Bartholomew followed it alongside Bernt’s own fireball spell.

  Ed’s spell might have been enough to clear what they could see of the tunnel on its own, but apparently nobody was willing to take a this situation.

  The tunnel mouth was filled with smoking gore and bits that Bernt absolutely did not want to examioo closely. Before he had a ce to look away, though, an inhuman scream echoed down toward them, followed by a sullen red light.

  Ag on instinct, Bernt raised his left hand and cast a simple heat barrier as quickly as he could, trying to cover the entire mouth of the tunnel. It was a rushed job, but he mao activate the spell in just a few seds, in time to catch the expanding wave of fire that tore down at them.

  Searing hot air and fmes poured around the edges of the barrier, f some of the guards to step bad cover their faces. By the time the fire died down, the demons were on them, p out in a wave. Hellhounds came first, maybe ten of them, followed by a small army of imps, at least one fiend, and several kinds of demons that Bernt couldn’t identify.

  They tore into the guards, scattering them just as Ed’s force shield came back up. Too many had already made it through. Within just a few seds, Bernt saw a goblin and a dwarf guard go down in a spray of hellfire. A moment ter, he saw an imp nd on a screaming Solicitor’s face, where it proceeded to gouge at her eyes with razor cws.

  As quickly as he could, Bernt cast banefire directly into the melee. The spell wouldn’t harm the guards – at least no more than a bad sunburn – and it might make all the difference here. Oher side, he saw Dayle follow suit and then Yarrod.

  Five of the demo down almost immediately, but it wasn’t enough. Several muards fell, and the rest were being pushed back. The imps scrambled up the walls, just as Jori liked to do, and dove down at the defenders. As Bernt watched, one nded on Bartholomew’s head and raked savagely at him with its feet. The solicitor went down messily.

  Every time a guard mao drive a spear into a hellhound, fmes erupted from the ensuing wounds, ruining ons and f the guards back further.

  Jori screeched at the imps and threw herself toward them, spreading her wings and flinging fire. It took Bernt a moment to realize that she was screaming words.

  “Xoryath! Madzhoth! Back off!” The imp nded on one of the creatures and almost casually killed it as it tried to sneak up behind Yarrod. “I help!”

  Bernt wasn’t sure the other imps could even really uand her. Most were smaller than Jori, and seemed to have no access to hellfire. They were mostly like she’d been before the first time she had evolved. A few rger ones hissed at her, gring, but she paid them no mind, easily dodging as they threw fire her way.

  Casting banefire one more time, Bernt backed up, trying to stay behind the guards as they retreated from the onsught.

  “Back up! Faster!” Someone shouted. “Cover the archmage!” Ed was retreating slowly and maintaining his shield, which was keeping the enemy tained ihe tunnel for the moment. While the imps harassed the spellcasters on the periphery, the hellhounds drove straight down the ter, trying to reach Ed.

  Bag up further, Bernt stepped ihe warlocks’ banishment circle. Most of the guards were there now, trying to protect Ed and Radast, who stood at the ter together.

  Growing desperate, Bernt flung white psma at the hellhound.

  The fmes nded, but nothing happened – the creature pletely ig, diving at a goblin who barely mao repel it by ramming his spear into its chest. Burning blood spurted and it hissed and backed away, but the thing didn’t go down.

  How could it ighe perpetual fme? There wasn’t time to work it out, now. It was getting crowded, and the enemy was closing in. Imps flung themselves fearlessly down on the defenders from the pilrs and from the backs of hellhounds as they advao terrifying effect even as Jori tried to single-handedly stem the tide. Curiously, none of them attacked her, even going so far as to simply let her kill them in at least one case that Bernt saw.

  Then an otherworldly voice called out in Beseri. “Minions, heed the call of Varamemnon. Attend me!”

  Everything ged at once. Sullen purple light filled the entire cavern as the demonic blood that the warlocks had paihe floor with burst ihereal fmes. The demons hissed and screamed. Some went mad, thrashing in defiance even as others simply disappeared in puffs of purple fire that then imploded into itself, vanishing just as quickly as the demons themselves.

  Ber out a breath, looking for Radast in the middle of the circle. This had to be him. He didn’t have a clear line of sight to the warlock, but he did see Ed. The archmage was casting something – trag runes in the air with both hands. Bernt thought ter that it must have been something incredibly plex, something to turn all this around. But he never got to cast it.

  A massive imp flew down out of nowhere and nded on his arm, hissing as hellfire formed in its upraised right fist. The banishment ritual seized it almost instantly, though, and the imp disappeared in a bze of purple. Quicker than a blink, Ed was dragged up by his arm into… something. A new dire that had opened up in the purple fmes for a split sed. Just like that, he was gone.

  Bernt’s heart seized in his chest and he looked around wildly as if expeg the old man to be standing right o him. But he wasn’t.

  There was a shout, followed by more voices calling out in an unfamiliar nguage. Through the dizzying whirl of images ing through his bond to Jori, he caught a glimpse of duergar soldiers streaming into the cavern from a new hole in the wall. Where was it? Bernt couldn’t make sense of Jori’s view, and there was nothing he could do about it right nardless.

  Ed was gohey were doomed.