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Mrelder kept his face expressionless, trying not to shiver.
The hall shook under ever-louder impacts, sending more flowerpots toppling from the galleries in a deadly rain. Many revelers were cowering under tables now or lying dead or senseless.
"This avails nothing," Starragar snapped. "Let's go hunt beastmen-after we find a way out of the hall and get the ladies to safety."
"No!" Four angry women cried as one.
"We're in this with you," Naoni added, "until the end for us all, if that's what the gods grant."
"Naoni," Korvaun said gently, "I don't think-"
"Precisely. If you did, you'd not speak such foolishness. Why would I want to be anywhere in all the city but beside you right now?"
Unexpectedly, it was Starragar who laughed and replied, "Why, indeed?"
"We've got to do something," Taeros muttered. "The longer this goes on, the more of our kin will get hurt-or worse."
The thunderous shakings were heavy enough now to throw some of the guests in the hall off their feet, and one of the drinks-fountains toppled over with a mighty crash. Starragar winced.
"That's a lot of good gullet-fire wasted," he murmured. "Whoever these beastmen are, they-Watching Gods Above, what's that?"
From the gallery just above them came an approaching series of heavy crashes, as if something wooden and very large was bouncing down stairs, toward "Come on!" Delopae snapped, bursting between Korvaun and Taeros and racing to the nearest ascending stair. Ornate wrought-iron clawed at her gown as she whirled around its spiral, and she impatiently tore herself free and ran on, the others at her heels.
They burst up onto a gallery littered with bodies lying slumped in dark pools of blood just in time to see what was descending so ponderously toward them: a wardrobe the size and height of four armored men abreast, its corners already battered to splinters, that was rolling and crashing its way down an openwork stair from the floor above.
The shudderings of the impacts outside the Purple Silks were magnified up on the galleries-the floors flexed visibly, and pillars and walls swayed. The Gemcloaks exchanged worried looks, spreading apart to let the wardrobe crash past, and Roldo spun around to shout down into the hall below, "Get back! Get out of the way!"
The wardrobe gained the bottom of the metal-shod stairs and sprang down onto the gallery with a crash that drove it deep into buckling floorboards-and buried it there, its ornate doors shattering and springing open.
Out through the greatsword-sized splinters and wood-shards spilled two limp, senseless bodies. The noble lass in the fine gown who was on the top of that ardent embrace was whimpering softly-but the gore-drenched, half-collapsed head of the lad in servants' livery beneath her lolled loosely, broken and forever silenced.
Faendra retched and turned hastily away-to find herself in the path of a tall, lurching nobleman who was feeling his way along the shuddering gallery, sword drawn and patrician face pinched with anger and disapproval.
"Young Helmfast and Hawkwinter, I see," he snarled, as he came closer. "Can't you striding young codpieces put your doxies behind you for even one night? Must you bring them here, to so soil our salute to Lord Piergeiron?"
He pointed with his sword at Faendra, and then at Naoni and Lark beyond her.
Taeros Hawkwinter stepped in front of them, gently striking aside that ornamental rapier with his own blade. "Lord Dezlentyr," he said firmly, "you are as mistaken as you are rude. I must demand a full apology, upon this instant, or your honor is forfeit."
The eyes of the patriarch of House Dezlentyr flashed fire, and he growled in disbelief. "Why, you young pup! D'you know who I am?"
Another thunderous impact made the gallery shake deafeningly around them, as if in reminder that family pride was far from the most urgent matter at hand.
"I know," Taeros said coldly, "that you're a bloated pig-bladder of a man whom someone should have let the air out of years ago!"
The Hawkwinter sword darted out, sending the patriarch's rapier clanging out and down into the hall-and then its flat struck Dezlentyr's broad rump, sending him staggering with a roar of pain.
He fetched up on against the gallery rail not far from Delopae Melshimber, who gave him a sweet smile, knelt before him as he sneered uncertainly at her-and then caught hold of both his legs under his knees and thrust him up and over the rail.
Lord Dezlentyr's landing was marked by a satisfying crash of rending wood, as he demolished no less than three chairs… and in its wake the Gemcloaks and their ladies became aware something had changed in the hall.
Thunderous impacts were still shaking the great chamber-more and more loudly, as boards and ceiling-tiles fell-but the fighting, shouts, and capering had died away, leaving bewildered faces everywhere. It was as if folk were awakening from a dream-or a mind-magic that had seized them all.
"W-what befell?" a graying merchant in rich emerald silks asked roughly, staring at the blood all over his hands. None of it was his own.
A noble lying under the sprawled bodies of two others asked weakly, "I-is it time for the unmasking yet?"
The Gemcloaks and their ladies traded frowning glances.
"Is it time for the unmasking yet?" the noble asked no one in particular again.
Someone burst into sobs as they discovered someone dear to them messily dead. Everywhere bewildered folk in bedraggled finery were emerging from under tables and behind tapestries, to mill around and stare at each other, asking what had happened.
"Is it time for the unmasking yet?" an unregarded voice demanded dazedly.
Beyond them, the golden radiance of the shielding-spell grew brighter. Piergeiron, the Open Lord of Waterdeep, was striding unsteadily into the room, leaning on the mighty strength of Madeiron Sunderstone. The dark-robed wizard Tarthus and the flopping-booted Mirt the Moneylender came in their wake.
"Nobles of Waterdeep!" Piergeiron called, his magnificent voice rolling out across the hall. "The city needs your valor and your blades! Great evil attacks Waterdeep from below!"
"Is it time for the unmasking yet?" the quavering voice asked no one again.
"Yes!" Piergeiron roared. "Arise, just as you are-fancy-costumes, finery and all-and go out through yon arch into the other hall and down into the winecellars! For your proud names and your forefathers, strike hard and strike true! Smite and slay those you know not, who seek to ascend into this hall and slaughter us all!"
The nobles stared at the Open Lord, as the pale-faced Paladinson drew his own sword. The shielding-spell made it flare golden as he swung it on high and cried, "For Waterdeep!"
All over the hall, monocles dangling on ribbons and faces flushed, old Lords of Waterdeep brandished their own blades, or belt-knives, or chair legs and roared back, "For Waterdeep!"
Lord Brokengulf was the first to start ru
"How does he know foes of the city are attacking?" Naoni demanded with a frown. "You said Beldar didn't warn-"
"Mayhap someone else did," Korvaun replied. "Or perhaps no warning was needed. I doubt yon shielding stops Tarthus from hearing the spell-sent words of other Watchful Order wizards. They always work scrying magics when the Open Lord appears in public, and no doubt saw something sinister."
"Speaking of which…" Delopae Melshimber said urgently, pointing across the hall at the gallery above theirs.