10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

“We’ll get out through the back'” said the caravan master who doubted that they would. The wall beside where they hunched under cover of the walkway was crumbling as gray claws harder than the stone emerged from it.

Across the reception room, the other sidewall was disintegrating m a shower of bits and blocks They hid but did not disguise the cause of the destruction One of the demons was clasping a dismembered human leg Samlor figured he knew where Setios and his servants had gone.

Six of ’em, Star’d said Likely five more than they’d need, but you didn’t quit Just because you couldn’t win.

The three humans rose and scuttled for the room’s back wall and the door there They were bent over because the walkway’s partial roof was no protection against blocks bouncing from the floor at crazy angles.

The front half of the house staggered forward into the street with a roar. The sound did not seem loud until Samlor realized that he could not shout with enough volume to be heard by the two companions he had dragged with him into the temporary safety of the door alcove.

Skeletal, inhumanly tall figures minced toward the trio, shrugging off the tons of rubble that had thundered down on them. There were four, and the mound of stone and timber covering what had been the floor of the reception room heaved as the creature in the room beneath rejoined its fellows.

Sheets of pain flapped across Samlor’s body from a center where his right hip had blocked a ricocheting chunk of stone that weighed as much as he did. The crosswall dividing the house was built as solidly as the exterior. It remained essentially undisturbed when the emerging demons had shattered the front of the house. That portion of the building had demolished itself as brittle stone shifted in a vain attempt to find new foundations.