The Morning Becomes an Ambush

The unicorn lowered itself beside the Spires’ steps. Rishi mounted first and helped Maeril settle behind him. She secured the Stone’s satchel across her body, then finished unwrapping Manshoon’s staff and handed the cloth to a novice.

Mereth stood in the doorway with Hazarak. Beyond them, people were carrying the first injured citizens into the hall.

“The Rivenbeam yard,” Rishi told the unicorn. “We need Erik.”

It turned into the street before he had found a comfortable place for his wounded thigh.

Maeril’s arm closed around his waist. He bent with the first turn, and they passed the stranded cart, the ladder against the damaged shop, and a line of people carrying blankets toward the temple.

At the next crossing, Watch officers were stopping traffic. One pointed them away from a road where water had begun bubbling through the paving. The unicorn took the other turning. Rishi heard a deep crack behind them and felt Maeril’s grip tighten.

They found Erik two streets from the yard.

Water from a collapsed cistern had washed mud and timber into the lane. He stood beside the sunken edge, leaning on his work hook while two men raised a support against a threatened wall. “Bring the foot toward you. It needs stone beneath it, not that mud.”

His horse waited beside a cart farther up the lane. A bow and quiver were lashed behind its saddle.

Rishi dismounted while Maeril remained on the unicorn. Erik looked from the creature to the crystal Rishi drew from his robes.

“Lysaerra is safe,” Rishi said. “Vajra recovered the route to the Vault.”

He opened the map against the cart’s side. “We think Xanathar is cutting toward it. The newest collapses are following this line. We need a passage that gets us ahead of it.”

Erik rested his hook against the wheel and held the map flat. “There is an old service cut here. Near Waymoot. You enter through the cellar of an abandoned house.”

“Can we reach the Vault from it?” Maeril asked.

“It goes toward this ground. I can show you the entrance. After what happened to this lane, I will promise no more than that.”

He turned to a woman working beside the support. “You have this. Keep everyone on the sound side until the wall is braced. If that seam opens farther, leave the timber and bring them out.”

She nodded and called the two men back from the mud. Erik collected his satchel from the cart.

Maeril watched him draw the horse closer. “You are still hurt.”

“I can ride to a cellar. Go ahead. I need to fasten this before it falls under the horse.”

He gave them the turnings while securing his tools to the saddle. Rishi put the crystal back beneath his robes, then folded the map and put it away.

When he climbed back onto the unicorn, Maeril shifted to make room without putting weight on her left leg.

“Waymoot,” she told the creature. “Quickly, but I would value retaining my spine.”

It set off. Her arm tightened around Rishi again. “I see we are negotiating.”

Four blocks farther on, the road narrowed between warehouses. A narrow alley opened on their left; opposite it stood a wider arch where carts could enter a yard. Beyond both openings, the street continued toward the next turning Erik had named.

Rishi saw a pale-haired man in the left-hand alley.

The unicorn stopped beneath him.

Its hooves slid, caught, and held. Rishi folded forward into the mane. Maeril’s arm tore free of his waist.

She went over its shoulder to his left. Her shoulder struck the upper edge of something hard and invisible, tipping her headfirst beyond it. She caught the street with her forearm, but her bad leg folded underneath her. She kept hold of the staff as it struck the cobbles beside her.

For a moment she could hear only the impact inside her skull.

“Maeril, stay down.” Rishi vaulted over the obstruction and landed beside her.

Behind him, dust from the unicorn’s hooves settled along a clean horizontal edge across the road, no higher than its chest. Maeril lay just beyond it. The creature lifted a forehoof, then set it back rather than bring its weight down on her.

The man in the alley came closer.

White hair held by a black clasp. A staff scored with blue hooks. A masked swordsman stepped in front of him, already raising a crossbow.

Maeril pressed her good foot against the street. “Nar’l Xibrindas.”

The drow stopped beneath the alley’s arch. Behind him, a closed loading door ended the narrow passage. “Then your hunter survived.”

Rishi moved between the crossbow and Maeril.

“Give me the Stone,” Nar’l said. “Waterdeep has enough troubles this morning.”

“You tripped Elisa,” Maeril said.

Nar’l’s gaze moved to the satchel across her body. “She should not have been near the bowl.”

“You put her through it.”

“I am finished keeping that creature sane. I broke the Dream Nullifier myself. Its people will need someone who can think. The Stone will give them a reason to listen.”

Rishi raised his staff. “They need their homes to remain standing. Let us pass.”

Nar’l stepped back into the alley. “Leave the satchel.”

Maeril drew one knee beneath her. “Come and take it.”

The crossbow snapped toward her before Rishi could close the angle. Green light broke over Maeril’s raised hand. The bolt struck it, splintered, and fell against her knee.

Pain ran from her shoulder into her neck. She held the ward while the swordsman pulled his loading lever. Something cracked inside the stock. He dropped the weapon against its sling and drew two narrow blades.

Rishi broke toward the left-hand alley.

Nar’l lifted his staff. Orange light gathered between the blue marks.

“Rish, the staff!” Maeril shouted.

Rishi reached a shallow doorway beside the left-hand alley. The swordsman turned toward Maeril, cutting off the space in which she might have risen.

Nar’l sent the fire past him.

Maeril tried to drag her trapped leg clear. Her back struck the invisible obstruction. She could neither rise nor roll far enough before the spark reached her.

The unicorn stepped over the low wall, placing its forehooves to either side of her. Its horn descended. Silver-green light spread across its chest and curved down over Maeril’s raised arms.

Fire struck.

She felt the street through the back of her head as the blast drove her flat. The creature’s protection bent close enough to brighten the seams of her coat. Heat found her neck and shoulder. Above her, the unicorn screamed, its knees bowing beneath the force.

Then the pressure loosened.

Smoke lifted from the white mane. The light broke into fine grains that settled through Maeril’s scorched sleeve. Coolness entered the burn along her neck. She could move her shoulder again.

The unicorn stayed over her.

At the alley mouth, Rishi pushed out of the doorway where he had taken the edge of the blast. He drove one foot against the brick beside Nar’l and rose past the staff’s descending point.

The swordsman was coming for Maeril.

She caught his eyes above the mask and closed her hand. “You will stay where you are.”

His next step stopped before his foot reached the ground. The blades shook in his hands. Maeril held him there while Rishi dropped into the alley beside Nar’l.

Blue-white light flared around the drow. Rishi’s first blow struck it and rebounded. He turned with the impact, shortened his grip, and drove the other end beneath Nar’l’s breastbone as the shield thinned.

Nar’l folded. His staff fell against the wall, caught by the carrying sling across his shoulder. Rishi followed him down and pressed two fingers hard beneath his jaw. The drow’s limbs went rigid.

The low barrier behind the unicorn disappeared.

From the arch across the street came a growl.

Maeril saw red light move in its shadow. Two enormous hounds pushed past a broad man in dark mail, a greatsword balanced against his shoulder. Smoke leaked between their teeth. The man pointed at the unicorn.

“Move left,” Maeril told the unicorn. “Take me with you.”

She caught the mane as the unicorn shifted toward Nar’l’s side of the road. One stream of fire crossed the place she had lain. The other caught its flank and washed around her legs.

Maeril lost the swordsman.

His lifted foot struck the street. He turned at once toward the alley where Rishi held Nar’l.

One hound leaped for the unicorn’s foreleg. Its jaws closed above the joint. The creature struck the other with its horn and dragged the first sideways. Maeril laid the staff across the base of its neck and pulled herself up behind it. Her right knee caught behind its shoulder. She clung there while it shook the hound loose.

In the alley, Rishi heard steel scrape against brick.

He released Nar’l and turned his staff across the first blade. The swordsman drove him against the wall with the second. Rishi twisted, but the point entered behind his left shoulder and came through beneath the collarbone.

The blade withdrew. Cold ran down his arm.

He struck the swordsman’s wrist before the next cut reached his throat. One weapon fell. Rishi drove his staff into the man’s ribs and forced him back far enough to breathe.

The cold was climbing toward his neck. He felt it in the weakening fingers around the wood, too swift to be the wound alone.

Rishi drew the heat within him toward it.

For a moment the pain in his shoulder brightened until it filled his chest. The poison loosened. He tasted bitterness, swallowed it, and felt his fingers answer again.

Blood still ran beneath his sleeve.

The swordsman bent for his fallen blade. Nar’l lay beside the wall, eyes open, trying to move his hand along the sling toward his staff.

Rishi kicked that hand clear and caught the front of his robes.

The unicorn had reached the alley mouth. Maeril sat low against its neck with Manshoon’s staff braced across her thighs.

“I am bringing him,” Rishi said. “He may know where the door took them.”

Her gaze went past Rishi to Nar’l. “Then bring him now.”

Rishi hauled the drow upright. He reached for the sling, but the swordsman’s returning blade forced his hand back to his own staff. He turned the cut into the wall and dragged Nar’l toward the street, keeping the drow between himself and the next attack.

A bowstring sounded beyond the unicorn.

An arrow struck the handler beneath his raised arm. Erik rode past the vanished barrier, his braced leg held straight in the stirrup. His horse shied from the hounds, carrying him wide toward the right-hand gutter.

The handler lowered his sword and advanced on the unicorn. A second arrow struck his mail, turning him enough for the greatsword to miss Maeril. The blade opened the creature’s flank instead.

The unicorn lurched. Maeril caught its mane with her free hand.

Rishi reached its left side with Nar’l across his chest. He passed his own staff forward to Maeril, then lifted the drow over the narrow space behind her. She caught Nar’l’s sleeve and held him while Rishi gripped the mane with his good hand and climbed up behind them.

The swordsman came to the alley mouth.

Maeril thrust her palm toward the arch. He struck empty air between its stone sides and fell back into the passage. He got up, slashed at the barrier, then tried the edge where it met the wall. The blade would not pass. Behind him, the loading door shook under his shoulder and stayed shut.

Maeril returned Rishi’s staff. He wedged it beneath his right thigh, leaving that hand free to hold Nar’l’s wrists against his chest. His injured arm supported the drow across his lap.

Erik’s horse carried him level with the handler. The man turned his greatsword toward it, opening the wounded side beneath his arm. Erik’s third arrow entered there. The handler fell against the gutter, and the sword slipped from his hand.

“Take the street! I am behind you!” Erik shouted.

The unicorn kicked at the hound nearest its injured leg and broke past the arch.

Nar’l’s fingers moved beneath Rishi’s grip. Mist gathered around the black clasp in his hair. Maeril looked back as the first word left his mouth and reached into the gathering spell.

It broke into cold droplets across her hand. Nar’l remained between them, his eyes fixed on her.

“You are staying with us,” Maeril said.

The unicorn lengthened its stride. Erik followed along the right-hand side of the street. Behind his horse, the two hounds ran past their fallen handler and came after them.