Rubble shifted somewhere in the maze of crumbling walls beyond their refuge as something large padded closer.
"Watch out for illusions," Halisstra said.
She balanced her mace in her hand and tugged at her shield, making sure it was strapped securely to her arm. Behind her, Danifae crouched, a long dagger in her hand. Halisstra wasn't happy about arming her battle captive, but at the moment they needed all the help they could get, and it was plainly in Danifae's best interests to make sure they didn't all fall prey to the denizens of Hlaungadath.
The lamias tried something new. Against the gap in the wall that Jeg-gred guarded, the monsters hurled a wave of lizardlike asabis, savage crea-tures that hissed in anger as they threw themselves against the draegloth with scimitars and falchions clutched in their scaly hands. Three more challenged Valas while a pair of gargoyles streaked over the walls and dropped into the midst of the ruined building behind Ryld, their great black wings raising huge clouds of dust with every beat. The weapons master whirled to face the threat behind him, cursing.
Jeggred howled in rage and leaped to meet the rush of the asabis, batting aside flashing blades and snapping jaws while he tore at the lizard warriors with his great talons. The white-haired demon used his four arms to wreak terrible carnage, but even Jeggred was tiring. Blows he would have eluded with his freakish speed landed awkwardly. He blocked one slashing scimitar badly with his left outer arm, and suffered a long bloody cut halfway from elbow to wrist. Another blade scored his torso, starting a stream of red across his white-pelted chest. The draegloth roared in rage and redoubled his efforts.
Ryld slashed at the gargoyles while Halisstra and Quenthel ran to his side. Quenthel lashed at one with her whip. The snake heads wound around the creature's taloned legs and sank fangs into stony flesh, but the gargoyle beat furiously for height and dragged the priestess off her feet and across the dusty structure. Pharaun raised his wand to blast the monsters with deadly lightning, but spun in a half-circle and fell, a crossbow bolt transfixing his right forearm. The wand flew from his hands.
"The rooftops!" the wizard called.
Halisstra backed away from the gargoyles and squinted at the bright sky, searching for more attackers. Tawny blurs crouched atop a high wall perhaps forty or fifty yards distant, a handful of lamias who carried heavy crossbows and watched carefully for opportunities to shoot into the fray, their beautiful faces twisted into evil grins. Even as she watched, one took at shot at Ryld. The bolt whistled past the weapons master's head, smash-ing a divot from the soft stone wall nearby. Ryld flinched away.
"Someone take care of the snipers!" he snapped, while slashing at the gargoyles.
A second later, two more bolts flew at Ryld. One bounced from his breastplate, but the other caught him on the right side while his arms were raised to wield Splitter. The bolt lodged in the arm-opening of his armor. Ryld staggered back two steps and collapsed in the dust.
Halisstra reached down and snatched up Pharaun's wand.
"Aid Quenthel," she told Danifae.
She leveled the wizard's weapon at the lamias on the high wall. She knew something about using such devices - a talent she wouldn't normally have wished to reveal, but the fight was desperate. She spoke an arcane word, and a bolt of purple lightning shot out at the first lamia, blasting the creature from the wall in a spray of shattered stone. Thunder reverberated in the dusty ruin. She aimed at the next lamia, but the monsters weren't stupid. They abandoned theirlofty perches at once, leaping back behind the wall to avoid more lightning.
From the shadow of the back wall, Pharaun returned to the battle, armed with another wand. This one produced a blazing bolt of fire, which he directed against the gargoyles overhead. With shrieks of pain, the mon-sters flapped off, though the one poisoned by Quenthel's whips didn't get far before its wings folded. It plummeted down among the rooftops some distance away.
Valas dispatched the last of his attackers with a double-handed slash that nearly cut the creature in two, and Jeggred stood amid a virtual heap of asabi bodies, his flanks heaving. The wizard glanced around once, and noticed Ryld on the ground.
"Damn," he muttered.
He knelt by the weapons master and turned him over. Ryld was dying.Blood streamed from the bolt in