(Not even Thall! He's not thrilled about the entire concept of Hellknights, but it's not like abandoning his friends would make things better.)

Right then, off they go.

The dim light of evening fades as they march. They have to push themselves to their limits if they want to match Yaker's unarmored pace, and they're spending some of the support clerics' channels just healing off the tiny injuries their bodies accrue from trying to sustain that pace, but they can manage it. It's all their paladins (and support clerics with convenient domains) can do to make sure no one starts to fall asleep on their feet.

(The Count commandeered a Mount from a caster who isn't accompanying them; when people make disparaging remarks, he observes that his presence here is a privilege they ought to be grateful for.)

It's still a couple hours before dawn when they make it to the outpost. There are fatalities lying unburied on the ground outside, lucky or unlucky enough to have escaped being taken prisoner, though none that Yaker seems surprised by; most seem to have been wounded by the gargoyles, but two, lying on stretched cloth, are missing their heads, the wounds clean enough that they seem to have been dealt with a sword rather than with pure brute force.

It's because Daeran was on a horse and rode ahead it is not because that. Are the gargoyles still in evidence?

They're still present, currently occupied by attempting to tunnel into the outpost from the other side. They are evidently not smart enough to be keeping watch for reinforcements.

Great. Time to kill some fucking gargoyles.

The gargoyles do not like this! They will attempt to respond in kind!

This specific gargoyle is going to attempt to pick up Blai and fly away with him, how does he feel about that?

Negatively! He's got combat spells today though and that means he has an Order's Wrath and that's three-dimensional and he can hit a lot of gargoyles with it including the one that's got him before it gets much higher!

The gargoyle carrying him drops him to the ground, momentarily dazed! The other gargoyles in the blast area are similarly unhappy!

Some of the ones outside the blast seem to have had similar ideas, though. That one's got the strongest archer-paladin, that one's got the physically smallest person in the group (she's a halfling cleric), that one's got Ember — the archers are focus-firing those ones, falling from a height is often survivable—

(Some of the gargoyle clerics are casting sensible buff spells. Some of the gargoyle clerics are casting kind of stupid buff spells. Some of the gargoyle clerics are channeling negative into groups that include their allies.)

He will politely ask the lyrakien azata he just summoned to tag one of the gargoyles flying away with prisoners with a Lesser Confusion.

Hypothesis: due to the gargoyles' low intelligence, it may be possible to use illusions to deceive them into believing that a Wall of Stone has just appeared above them.

The gargoyle holding Ember attempts to punch himself in the face with her fist, dropping her in the process! One of the other gargoyles with a prisoner turns to fly in the other direction!

"Stupid creatures! Nulkineth will destroy you, just you wait and see!"

Let's get everyone a Prayer and be on the lookout for if Ember needs emergency assistance when she hits the ground.

She's badly injured, but still conscious. 

What a fine time to make use of his strange new ability to heal at range.

This one is pretty sure that means "grab me next."

She puts it to sleep.

His spell layout was really not designed for enemies that can fly but he'll do his best!

She only has two smites but she'll do her best!

(Lann and Finnean are not in danger of running out of arrows anytime soon, or ever.)

Speaking of smites: one of the fiendish gargoyles spends an instant focusing very intensely on Blai, then tears at him with its claws and horns, which apparently are significantly sharper than they look. 

Well if he's already in melee with it then it has no grounds to object to being maced.

It can still object! It doesn't mind being a hypocrite!