Night of the Hunter

CHAPTER 24

In life, stealth had never been Thibbledorf Pwent’s greatest strength. Quite the contrary, the ferocious battlerager usually took great pride in announcing his presence to his enemies long before battle was joined, even if that meant a few arrows or spears flying his way during his inevitable charge.

Not so in death, however, for Pwent’s vampirism afforded him a congruence with the shadows that he could use as a great advantage, along with a lightness to his step enhanced by his coexistence within two forms, solid and gaseous, and two planes of existence. He was hunting among and against the dark elves, the masters of darkness, the silent killers, whose domain was the eternal night of the Underdark, and so the vampire had honed his craft to perfection now, so he believed. He wove around the drow and the goblins and the half-drow, half-spider abominations with impunity. They couldn’t find him, couldn’t begin to even sense him, save the shivers that coursed their spines from the chill of his proximity or the tiny hairs standing along their arms or at the back of their necks as he passed just below their conscious senses.

Pwent had murdered a score of drow, and taken nearly half of those as undead minions, and he had feasted liberally on the blood of goblin slaves many times.

Yes, this was his domain now, for none alive knew the ways of Gauntlgrym better than he. Every corridor, every broken crack, both from the sheer age of the complex and from the volcanic eruption when the primordial had found a decade of freedom, was known to him.

Never was he out of place here, for this was his place. He fancied himself the Steward of Gauntlgrym, the protector of the dwarven homeland.

He knew that to be half of his existence, at least, even while he hated the other half, the darker half, the half that could turn him against even Bruenor, his king of old.

He wanted to suppress that darkness now, he reminded himself as he crouched at the corner of a four-way intersection. His king was close, he knew, along with the others, and they, too, were friends of Gauntlgrym, though he knew not how or why or where he had once known them, if he had at all.

“Me king,” he silently mouthed, but he ended with a sneer, and it was all he could do to stop that twisted scowl from becoming an audible, feral snarl.

He couldn’t take a deep breath, of course, since he no longer drew breath, but Pwent settled himself more comfortably on his feet, as if allowing the gaseous aspects of his form to solidify. He eagerly rolled his fingers together, his ridged and spiked gauntlets squeaking slightly with the rub.

He knew where they were and understood where he could set an ambush with his dead drow minions.

“Me king,” he mouthed again, pointedly reminding himself that he didn’t want to set an ambush.

Or did he?

He glanced back, thinking how clever it would be to summon his undead drow minions, and he noted movement as he turned just slightly, just out of the corner of his eye, and so close that he knew he could be struck before he could react.

How had the dark elves gotten so close? What scout was this?

He turned around to face the would-be assassin and allowed a growl to escape his lips, and moved as if to pounce.

But he did not, for Drizzt Do’Urden stepped out before him.

Pwent eyed him carefully, shocked that he had gotten so close so easily, so invisibly, so silently. The dark elf ranger hadn’t drawn his scimitars, the magical blades resting comfortably at his hips.

The vampire’s roving eye met Drizzt’s gaze and Pwent let another soft growl escape his lips.

“I left you in a cave,” Drizzt said. “As a friend. In trust.”

“Then yerself’s a fool,” the dwarf replied.

“Am I? The Thibbledorf Pwent I once knew was no coward.”

As the insult registered, Pwent threw himself at the drow.

Out came Drizzt’s blades in a flash, cutting and stabbing, it seemed, before they had even lifted from their respective scabbards. Despite his rage, despite his condition, Pwent surely felt the bite, and that sting slowed him, but only for a moment as he reset his feet, roared, and leaped ahead.

But leaped to the side of his intended target, he realized to his surprise, and it took him a moment to understand that his aim had indeed been true, but that Drizzt had moved aside, so quickly and effortlessly.

The scimitars slashed hard at Pwent as he tried to slow and turn, driving him along. He stumbled as he disengaged, and swung around, ready to lower his head and charge back to impale the fool, but Drizzt was already there with him, beside him, hacking away, driving Pwent back down to the side.

His defensive movements couldn’t catch up to the barrage; everywhere he managed a swing, Drizzt was already gone, the scimitars ringing in against him from another angle.

Finally, the vampire leaped and twirled around, roaring and landing solidly, feet wide apart, arms swinging in left and right.

But Drizzt was already far away from him, standing comfortably, blades swinging easily.

“Must it be like this, my old friend?” Drizzt asked.

Pwent turned half-gaseous, leaving a trail of swirling fog, so swift was his sudden charge in that curious ghost step of the greater undead. But Drizzt had seen it before, both from Pwent and from Ebonsoul, and the drow appropriately dodged aside and even managed to meet Pwent’s return to his full corporeal form with another stinging stab of a curving blade.

Then off Drizzt scampered, to the side once more, and an angry Pwent turned to face him.

“Ye’re not hurtin’ me, elf,” the vampire growled. “And yerself’s sure to get tired, but not for me, no.” He wore a wicked grin and came forward menacingly.

“I never knew you to be a coward,” Drizzt stated flatly.

Pwent pulled up short. “Eh?”

“I left you in a cave, awaiting the sun,” Drizzt explained. “I trusted that you, that the Thibbledorf Pwent I knew, would prove strong enough and courageous enough to meet his better fate with his eyes open. But no, you disappoint me, my old friend. In death, you are nowhere near the dwarf you were in life.”

“Bah, but what’re ye knowin’?” Pwent snapped back. “I found me way and found me place.”

“A place to agree with the principles of who and what you once were?”

“Aye.”

“Protector of Gauntlgrym, then?” asked Drizzt.

“Aye!” Pwent said with great exuberance. “Steward!”

“And defender of the grave of King Bruenor?”

“Aye, and ye’re knowin’ as much!”

“And so you attack me? An ally to your beloved king?”

“Get out!” Pwent roared and took another step forward.

“Because you’re hungry,” Drizzt said, and he sheathed his scimitars.

That motion froze Pwent in place once more and he stared at the drow, clearly at a loss. “I’m tryin’, elf,” he managed to mouth.

“We’re going for Entreri and the others.”

“Lots o’ drow,” the dwarf vampire warned. “But there are ways to get in.”

“You know these ways?”

“Aye.”

“Then help us,” Drizzt offered.

Pwent trembled; his face twitched and twisted, upper lip raising in a snarl to reveal his long canine teeth. “I … meself … I, I can’t be with ye, or near ye,” he said in a pleading tone. “The smell …”

“Smell?”

The vampire growled.

“Pwent!” Drizzt said sharply.

“Yer blood!” Pwent explained. “Ah, but the sweetest o’ smells.”

“Then go ahead of us!” Drizzt said, his voice raising in a bit of desperation and his hands going to his blade hilts again, as he clearly saw that Pwent was about to throw himself into battle once more.

“Go ahead and mark the way for us!” Drizzt continued. “Scrape the wall at every intersection! Lead us to the drow, to Entreri and Dahlia and the others!”

“Girl’s gone,” Pwent managed to grumble. “Drow killed her to death, I’m guessin’. Fed her to the spiders …”

Drizzt felt an enormous lump in his throat, but he managed to say, “Lead us,” right before the area lit up with the magic of an enchanted light.

Pwent went into his half-gaseous, half-corporeal swift step once more, rushing at Drizzt so quickly that the drow could not react and thought himself surely doomed.

But the vampire went right past him, hustling away down the corridor and around a bend, and a moment later, Drizzt heard Bruenor call out, “Elf?”

And a moment after that, Drizzt heard a metallic scrape against the stone wall from the other direction, and knew that Pwent was guiding them.

“I envy you,” Artemis Entreri said to Brother Afafrenfere, who hung motionless beside him.

Despite his words, though, the assassin could not bring himself to join Afafrenfere in the long sleep of death. He could have easily accomplished that end if he truly so desired. He could pick the lock and hold the door just a bit open and let the lightning magic of the glyph eat him. Or he could just sneak out and murder another drow, take his weapons and battle until they overwhelmed him. Yes, that would be a fitting end, he thought.

Several times, Entreri told himself to do it.

Several times, he lifted his hand and the small metal scrap he had secured near the cage’s lock.

But every time, the hand came back down.

Dahlia was out there somewhere, and she needed him to find a way, Entreri told himself. He couldn’t give up. Not yet.

Even as he tried to convince himself of that, though, his hand drifted back up toward the lock. What did it matter? Dahlia wouldn’t even talk to him-how could he begin to convince her to leave even if he discovered the impossible and found a way to facilitate such an escape?

But no, he decided. There was no way. So he’d get out and find a weapon and kill a few drow and be done with it all. His hand actually made it to the lock this time and he had just slipped the metal scrap in when a sudden noise made him instinctively retract.

He looked out across the way, to see the great drider, Yerrininae, rushing along, his eight legs scraping loudly against the stone floor. He carried Skullcrusher in one hand, his great trident in the other. A trio of driders followed him along the opposite wall of the long and narrow room, moving past the portal to the primordial chamber, the now-ornate mithral door with its new adamantine border, then past Entreri’s position. They paused to confer with some drow, blacksmiths and guards, the great drider issuing orders, it seemed.

The driders moved on, turning out of the last side corridor exiting the room, diagonally and far to Entreri’s right. That tunnel ran behind the primordial chamber, he knew, and to the outer tunnels of this low level. In the Forge, the dark elves scurried about, motioning to goblins who rushed to close the forge oven doors and smother the open fires.

The room darkened, then grew blacker still as dark elves cast their magical darkness where the hot orange light slipped through the creases about an oven door.

“Dahlia?” Entreri asked quietly, wondering if perhaps she had somehow managed to escape.

He heard a sound, a scuffle, off the other way, back toward the near end of the room. He craned his neck to see, but it was too dark. He heard a goblin shriek, and with such terror that it surely startled the assassin.

The ugly little creature came by him then, very near, near enough for him to make it out, and to note the drow draped around it, tearing at it, biting at it.

Biting? Entreri couldn’t make sense of it, but there it was, right in front of him.

More noise erupted back from where the two had come, the sound of fighting, of goblins crying out in fear, of dark elves calling out for help and damning their enemies. Had the goblins revolted, Entreri wondered?

But only briefly, for there came a cry, a dwarven cry, and it was followed almost immediately by the scream of a dark elf, one quickly muffled.

Another pair of combatants rolled past Entreri, actually banging against his cage and sending him into a swing. His hand went up immediately to the lock, thinking that he might have to quickly get free here, but he froze in amazement as he noted the combatants, a pair of dark elves. And one seemed unarmed, while the other slashed at her wildly.

Again and again, the fine sword struck, drawing deep gashes. But the victim didn’t seem to care. She just grabbed at him and bit at him, her hands raking deep wounds in the male’s face. He hacked mightily, frantically, and an arm fell to the floor, but still she came on, throwing herself over him and bearing him down and biting hard at his face as they rolled away into the darkness.

Entreri didn’t know what to do, or what might be going on around him.

It made no sense.

A bright light exploded back the other way, past the Great Forge that centered the chamber, filling that far area of the room with its brilliant shine. The dark elves in that illuminated region threw their hands over their eyes and fell back-one waved her hands in spellcasting, squinting with every word, clearly stung by the light. Her darkness spell countered the brightness, but only briefly as another burst of light appeared.

The drow female fell back, and was assailed by an attack that Artemis Entreri surely recognized, as the sizzling, blue-white streak of a lightning arrow chased her back into the shadows, and stole those shadows with a flash as it blasted into the drow and sent her flying away.

Another arrow flew off, and Entreri anticipated it and so could follow it to its source. He noted the archer in the form of a drow crouched near the mithral door. For a brief instant, Artemis Entreri wondered how he might have possibly gotten there in the midst of his wary and deadly enemies. But the assassin dismissed that question before it could even register, for he knew this drow, Drizzt Do’Urden, the Hunter, and with that recognition, the assassin could not be surprised.

Another burst of light erupted, and this time Entreri managed to better note the attackers: a dwarf, a halfling, and a giant of a man, forming a wall before an auburn-haired woman who twirled in spellcasting movements, her white gown and black shawl flying out with each turn like ghostly wisps of a partly ethereal form. Blue-glowing mist swirled out of the voluminous sleeves of her gown, curling around her arms like some physical manifestation of the magical energies she collected around her.

“No,” Entreri breathed as all three raised their hands and threw forth some small objects, tiny stones, they seemed. But no, they were ceramic balls, which broke open when they crashed down, freeing more globes of magical light to fill the room.

“It cannot be,” Entreri mouthed silently.

A pea-sized lick of flame flew from the woman’s hand off to the side of the room, where it exploded into a tremendous fireball, immolating a group of goblins and sending a couple of dark elves running off into the small bits of remaining darkness, covering their heads and diving into rolls and frantically patting at the biting flames.

And on came the invading foursome, their determined advance led by a sudden barrage of lightning arrows that tore through the defensive line being formed to block them.

They were using the light as the dark elves might use the darkness, Entreri realized, blinding their foes as surely as a drow’s darkness dweomer would steal the sight from a surface dweller.

And this small group was not alone in the fight, obviously, for back the other way, a wilder battle had joined, drow against drow, goblin against drow, and with a single dwarf thrashing furiously among the wild tumult, a dwarf wearing a huge head spike and gauntlet spikes and spiked armor all around, a dwarf covered in blood and reveling in it.

Back the other way, the cry of “Tempus!” echoed off the stones and the forges, and a spinning warhammer sent a dark elf flying, dead long before she hit the ground.

“It cannot be,” Artemis Entreri whispered again, now watching as the warrior trio met their foes.

A great horn sounded, melodic and rumbling, harmonic and cold, as if it had bellowed from the very halls of a barbarian god.

“It cannot be,” he said a third time, and then came the rumbling growl of a giant hunting cat and he knew that it was indeed.

The others had come down here at the behest of Drizzt, more than willing to help him in his quest, even if that mission meant rescuing a man who had been a nemesis to the Companions of the Hall, indeed, a cruel man who once long ago had cut a finger from Regis’s hand!

Yet Regis was here in the line, fighting bravely, for the sake of Artemis Entreri, for the responsibility of his friendship to Drizzt.

Bruenor did not miss the significance of that, reinforcing the bond of this troupe, the true measure of friendship. He thought himself a fool once more for ever thinking of abandoning his oath to go to Kelvin’s Cairn on the appointed night, and he was glad to be here for the Companions of the Hall, for his dear friend Drizzt.

But there was indeed another reason, another impetus, powering the dwarf ahead, and he centered the line between Wulfgar and Regis and drove them on furiously, his many-notched axe cracking through goblin shields and goblin skulls, tossing aside the fodder that he could catch up to the dark elves who had taken this place.

This was Gauntlgrym, the ancient home of the Delzoun dwarves. These were the forges, particularly the Great Forge, which had brought Bruenor’s people wealth and commerce and high reputation.

The damned drow did not belong here!

Bruenor felt the spirits of the dwarven gods within him, the wisdom of Moradin, the strength of Clangeddin, the secrets of Dumathoin. In his last battle in this place, he had become as those gods and had battled a pit fiend, among the mightiest devils of the Nine Hells, a great monstrosity that should have been far above his ability. But he had won. With the wisdom, the strength, and the secrets, he had overcome that foe, and so it would be now, he decided flatly.

A goblin came up before him and up went his axe, and up went the goblin’s shield.

The power of Clangeddin flowed through Bruenor’s arms as he brought that axe down, and though the goblin’s shield, forged in this very room, held firm, the sheer weight of the blow stunned the creature and drove it to its knees.

And Regis was there suddenly, beside Bruenor, stabbing the goblin through the ear.

Bruenor kicked the dying creature aside and charged at a pair of dark elves.

A hammer flew in over him, a magical arrow shot in from the side and a barrage of bolts of magical energy swerved around the dwarf’s stout frame and stabbed ahead at his enemies to lead him in.

“Bah!” he snorted in disappointment, with one drow struck dead by Wulfgar’s hammer, the other hustling back the other way, calling goblins in around her to defend her limping retreat.

“Bah!” Bruenor shouted again, swatting aside a pair of goblins. “Ye’re stealing all me fun!” His axe cut deep into the side of one goblin and drove the victim hard into the other, knocking it aside. Still focused on the dwarf, that goblin squeaked in surprise when it found the waiting grasp of Wulfgar, who hoisted the flailing creature up above his head and launched it hard into the side of the nearest forge.

“Get me something big to hit!” Bruenor cried, and no sooner had he spoken the words than it seemed as if his wish would be granted, as a quartet of monstrous driders came onto the battlefield. They seemed to want nothing to do with Pwent and his vampire minions, and rushed past that skirmish, heading straight for the Companions of the Hall.

“Well now!” Bruenor said, enthusiastically.

When magical darkness countered the light of his thrown pellet, Drizzt knew that his position had been compromised. He got off one last aimed shot, the arrow screeching across the metal mail of the dark elf standing before Bruenor, then turned to the middle of the battlefield, the drow and goblin position between Pwent’s force and the advancing companions, and let fly a barrage of bolts, one after another.

He took no pause to aim, though more than one goblin and even another drow went down under his explosive assault. He was more interested in causing confusion, preventing any coordinated movements by the enemy.

Somewhere in the background of the thunderous battle sounds, the ranger heard the click of hand crossbows and he reflexively covered, and just in time against a concerted volley aimed his way.

Still, Drizzt felt the sting of a quarrel, then another, and a third, finding seams in his armor and crouch to bite at his flesh. The wounds were not serious, nor, Drizzt hoped, would be the poison.

He silently thanked Regis when his arms did not go heavy. The halfling had given them all potions to drink before entering this room, magical elixirs that would counter drow poison, so Regis believed, and so they all had hoped.

Drizzt broke from his crouch and came up strong, scimitars flashing into his hands to meet the charge of a pair of dark elves, and he felt no sluggishness, no weight of sleep poison at all, as his blades worked in and out, ringing with parries against all four swords that came in at him.

He ducked fast before he had even disengaged to avoid a javelin flying between his foes and straight for his face.

“Guen!” he called as that drow woman behind the fray lifted another javelin his way.

Her arm went back to throw, but did not come forward. Nay, it went fast to the side instead, as she went fast to the side instead, buried under the raking claws of six hundred pounds of fighting panther.

Drizzt had no time to watch that show, his scimitars snapping all around, working across before him and back out wide on sudden backhands. He tried to take a measure of his opponents, to see which was the weaker, the more vulnerable. But these drow were not strangers to battle, he soon realized, and had fought side-by-side before, likely many times, and it was all Drizzt could do to keep them at bay.

He needed help to break away, he realized, and he looked to Guenhwyvar and started to call out for her to be quick to his side.

But then he saw the driders, one in particular rushing for Guenhwyvar, and his call transformed into one of warning.

The chamber door banged open, startling the drow females inside. As one they jumped and turned around, spells already begun, but they saw that it was one of their own, the priestess they had sent scouting. “The Forge, lady!” that young drow cried to Berellip.

Berellip Xorlarrin chewed her lip and silently cursed her ambitious brother and that fool Tiago. They had taken too many on their hunt. They had left Q’Xorlarrin vulnerable.

“Gather the guards from the mines and all the goblin workers,” she ordered. “Where is Yerrininae?”

“He has gone to the fight with his driders,” the young priestess reported, and Berellip nodded.

Berellip started to respond, ready to order her sisters into a proper fighting group that they could charge in to support their allies. But before she could even get started, she noted the young cleric’s lips moving, as if she were struggling to convey something.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“The rogue,” the young priestess explained. “It is Drizzt Do’Urden, come to Q’Xorlarrin!”

Berellip’s eyes went wide as she sucked in her breath, nearly knocked from her feet by the startling news. She looked around at her sister priestesses and saw them equally at a loss.

She could claim the prize, she dared to think, and would not Tiago Baenre suffer then for his choice of Saribel?

“Gather the guards!” she started to yell, but a sharp intrusion stung her brain, a watery voice sounding in her thoughts.

They are beyond you, the voice warned, and Berellip looked all around in confusion. Do not engage the rogue, daughter of House Xorlarrin. He is beyond you.

“Methil,” Berellip whispered.

“Lady?” the young priestess and another of the clerics asked in unison.

Berellip blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the room once more. She wanted to argue with the illithid, but had no idea of how to even return his communication-and it was him, she knew, and his warning echoed in her thoughts.

“We go,” Berellip said to the others.

“To war!” one cried.

“No!” Berellip cut her short. She turned to the oldest and most powerful of the bunch. “Gather back whatever of our soldiers you can find,” she ordered, and to the others, she said, “To the mines, all of us. To the mines and below.”

“You are fleeing the apostate?” one priestess dared to argue.

But at the same time in Berellip’s head, the illithid’s watery voice warned, They will win the room before you arrive. They are beyond you.

“He has come alone?” Berellip asked the young priestess, her voice halting as she considered Methil’s assertions.

She shook her head. “With-with allies,” she stammered. “And Mistress, our missing kin are there in the battle, fighting on the side of Drizzt!” She lowered her voice. “They are undead, Mistress, and being led by a vampire dwarf who controls them.”

Berellip silently cursed her brother and Tiago again, although it occurred to her that perhaps the hunting army had indeed come upon Drizzt and had been defeated. Had the rogue arrived in Q’Xorlarrin through Tiago’s march? It was too much for her to comprehend, and she could not make sense of it without more information, clearly.

And whether that was the case or not, Berellip’s duty now was to the city, to the Xorlarrin forces still within Q’Xorlarrin. What would be left of her family if she stayed and fought, and lost, as the illithid had assured her would be the case? What would Matron Zeerith find upon her arrival to the lost chambers, to the ruin of all her dreams?

Berellip sucked in her breath hard. If she went to the battle and lost, Matron Zeerith would likely walk right into a trap!

Nay, she had to survive, had to warn Matron Zeerith, had to warn Menzoberranzan.

“To the mines,” Berellip said again, and she swiftly led the way out of her private chambers.

Madness, Entreri thought, looking left at the advancing companions and the drider trio rushing to intercept them.

But even that word seemed too trite somehow, somehow unworthy of the chaos to the assassin’s left, where drow undead battle living drow and goblins, and where that wild dwarf-it was Bruenor’s former shield-dwarf, Entreri believed-continued to wash in the blood of enemies.

And if that weren’t enough to scramble Entreri’s sensibilities, out of the air, from a cloud of smoke that rolled in the reverberations of the winding horn, appeared a contingent of new warriors, barbarian warriors, leaping down or falling down from above, to hit the floor running into battle.

Any battle, it seemed.

They each carried a pair of hand axes, and put them to use wherever they could, whether on a goblin or a drow-alive or dead-it seemed not to matter.

Berserkers, Entreri realized, and perhaps they had come from Warrior’s Rest, indeed.

The assassin didn’t know whether to hang there and let it all play out or find a way to join in the melee. He brought his metal scrap up to the lock and slipped it in, easily managing the tumblers. But when the cage was unlocked, he held it tightly closed, still unsure of his course and not wanting to get stung by Berellip’s lightning glyph.

His leg and his ribs ached from the beating the drider had put upon him. He put more weight on that particularly injured leg, ensuring that it would hold his weight. Then he settled his thoughts and reached into his warrior core, determined to ignore the pain if the need arose.

He watched the unwinding battle and waited and figured he’d sort it out.

And indeed he did, almost immediately, when he saw Drizzt in trouble across the way, squared up against a pair of skilled drow warriors, and more so when he saw a third enemy approaching him, swords in hand.

“To the lower tunnels!” he heard a fourth dark elf call to that one, and the swordsman nodded but did not veer to follow.

Nay, that third drow came for Entreri, his hands wringing eagerly around his weapon hilts, his intent clear in his red eyes.

Entreri set his cage to swinging.

“They’ll not have you, iblith!” the drow said, rushing in fast to stab at him. He thrust his sword through the bands of metal, or tried to, but Entreri deftly rotated the hanging and swinging cage so that as the sword came through, the band of metal went against it and turned it.

And at that same moment, Entreri opened the cage, back across from the thrusting sword, and threw himself backward and up. The lightning glyph charged into him, but he was expecting it, and used to it, though his foe was not.

Indeed, as that shock went up the blade of the sword, to the hilt and into the grasping hand, the drow yelped in pain and surprise and dropped the weapon.

And around came the cage in its swing, its door, arcing with lightning magic, opened like a biting maw.

The drow was too quick for that, though, and he fell back, but first fell down to the floor to retrieve his blade.

Except that his blade was not there.

And the swinging, sparking cage was empty.

Down low, caught by utter surprise, and against Artemis Entreri, the drow had no chance. He managed to block the first stab, even to deflect the second, and he almost got his legs back under him to stand.

Almost.

He felt the blood fountaining from his collar, felt the human pull the second sword from his grasp, felt the stone floor, which suddenly seemed so cold.

So cold.

Wulfgar tangled with a horde of goblins, several bloodthirsty enemies leaping all over each other to get at him.

Regis faced just one opponent, but he would have gladly traded places with his large friend. For this was a drow, a dark elf warrior, supremely armed and armored and trained, and it only took the halfling the first exchange-his rapier thrust easily knocked aside and his dirk barely clipping the thrusting sword in time to move it aside of his face-for him to realize that he was sorely overmatched.

On came the drow with a dazzling flourish, and Regis retreated fast and thought to simply warp-step as the first movement in a full retreat!

But no, a snake was in his hand, re-grown on the dagger, and as the drow pursued, the halfling threw it at him. Up it crawled, the leering spectral face appeared, and the charging drow’s feet came out from under him as he was yanked backward.

“Heigh-ho!” Regis cheered and leaped ahead to stab at him, but he skidded to a fast stop as the drow twisted around and stabbed back over his shoulder into that leering face, which disappeared in a heartbeat.

Still twisting and rolling, the formidable drow was back on his feet before Regis had taken another step.

“Wulfgar!” Regis cried, throwing the second snake, and again the drow was tugged back, and again he stabbed and broke free and came back up.

And charged, and Regis shot him in the face with his hand crossbow.

The drow staggered forward, Regis fell to the ground, and a great sweep of Aegis-fang swept the air above him and sent the dark elf spinning away.

“Well fought!” Wulfgar congratulated.

Regis nodded as he stood once more, not disagreeing, but surely glad that he was surrounded by such fine allies … and carrying such unusual and powerful toys.

And doubly glad when he saw the next enemies charging fast into the fray, a trio of horrid abominations, huge half-spiders that the halfling knew were far beyond him, with or without his toys.

The drow battled wildly, stabbing up with her knife, but Guenhwyvar caught her arms in curling claws and held her firmly as the panther’s back claws went into a swift rake. One feline foot caught hold and the sheer power of the cat pulled the drow from her defensive curl. Fine armor, this one wore, but the claws caught hold repeatedly and tore at the supporting leather straps, loosening the various mail pieces and allowing Guenhwyvar’s next rake to take a bit more flesh.

The drow tried hard to break free, throwing herself to the side, and Guenhwyvar did retract the claws of one paw.

If the drow thought it a small victory, the hope was short-lived, though, as that paw came down upon her face, claws extending, hooking.

A heavy blow struck Guenhwyvar in the flank, throwing the cat around sideways. She went with the weight of it, roaring in pain and anger, and tugged her claw free, taking the drow’s face with it. Before she had even settled, Guenhwyvar slashed across, snapping the long spear that had embedded in her flank, and sprang away fearlessly, flying into the torso of the intervening drider.

The creature closed up to accept the hit and brought its half spear in to batter the cat.

The panther drove on, kicking and clawing and biting, her maw always snapping for the drider’s face, forcing it back, back, until Guenhwyvar could scale a bit higher and drive a bit harder, and the tangled combatants rolled over in a thrashing heap.

The drider cried out for help, but no goblins would go near this deadly cat, and suddenly there seemed to be few dark elves around.

The drider cried out again, but found that it was yelling right into Guenhwyvar’s mouth as the panther bit down powerfully upon its face.

“Split them, girl!” Bruenor called, and Catti-brie was already deep into her spellcasting. She stepped up between Bruenor on her right, Regis on her left, and with Wulfgar to the left of him, and sent a line a fire running out from her extended hands, right at the drider in the middle of the approaching trio.

The targeted drider screeched and tried to go to its right, for the fury of the wall of fire burned out the other way, but just as the spidery creature came free of the blinding flames, Aegis-fang crashed against it, jolting it and stunning it and driving it back the other way, back into the conflagration.

Catti-brie fell back and moved behind Bruenor as he broke out to the side, and she began casting immediately.

On came the drider on that side, the hot side, of the fire wall, and out charged Bruenor to meet it. The dwarf slid in low on his knees, under the creature’s stabbing long spear, and he cracked his axe against the hard exoskeleton of the monster’s front leg.

Up came his foaming-mug buckler, turning aside another spear stab, and Bruenor hit it again.

Then the dwarf leaped back, blinded and surprised as a lightning bolt sizzled over his head, slamming his opponent and staggering the drider backward.

Catti-brie had forked that bolt, Bruenor realized, for behind his opponent came the middle drider, batting at the stubborn flames that curled and ate its skin. The force of the lightning bolt jolted the distracted creature backward, its trailing legs collapsing, and down it went, halfway to the floor, the hungry flames still biting.

Bruenor put his feet under him and reversed his momentum, thinking to charge right back in. He felt Catti-brie’s hand on his shoulder, though, and heard the woman casting another spell.

Then he felt light on his feet-so light! And Catti-brie easily lifted him into the air and threw him like a living missile, the levitating, floating dwarf soaring in at the still-staggering drider.

Now Bruenor was up close, above the spidery body, and too near for the drider to properly bring its spear to bear.

The abomination bit at him instead, but tasted only the edge of a sturdy buckler, followed quickly by the notched head of Bruenor’s swinging axe.

Across the flame wall came the largest of the three abominations, a heavy mace in one hand, huge trident lifted in the other. Ignoring the small halfling, the monstrous creature veered for Wulfgar, who was apparently unarmed, stabbing with its trident.

The barbarian dodged back, then dived and tried to roll away, but down came the trident, diving into and through his boot, into and through his foot!

He growled in pain and tried to twist around as the spider legs came over him, as the heavy mace lifted above him.

And as Regis flew in from the side, leaping and shooting his hand crossbow, and not with a poison-coated bolt this time, for he doubted that any poison would affect this abomination. He used his prototype dart, from Cadderly’s old design, with a tiny vial of oil of impact set in its center within collapsible bars.

The dart hit, to little effect, then crushed in on itself, smashing the vial. The oil of impact exploded and the drider staggered. But the dart didn’t have quite the effect Regis had hoped, startling the drider more than hurting it, for the explosion was not properly shaped, and the bulk of its force came back the other way, throwing the back end of the broken quarrel across the room the other way.

Regis didn’t slow-Wulfgar couldn’t afford any hesitance on the halfling’s part. He leaped at the drider and lived up to his nickname of Spider, scrambling up the leg to stab at the drow torso with his fine rapier.

This time he did hurt the creature, he learned, and painfully, as the drider yelped and let go of the trident pinning Wulfgar, freeing up its hands so that it could slap Regis aside.

The halfling flew back and tumbled when he landed, avoiding serious injury, and as he came around, he thought to put his feet back under him and charge right back in. That thought flew away, however, for the drider proved much quicker than he had anticipated, and before he ever got back to his feet, Regis found the monstrous beast towering over him, front four legs lifted as it reared, rising up to gain more momentum for a two-handed crushing chop of that huge mace.

Down it came, and Regis fainted away before it ever hit him.

Mercifully.

They came in at him left and right simultaneously, each with two swords leading the way. Worse, the drow on Drizzt’s right stabbed and slashed alternately, while the one to his left sent his swords into a rolling motion.

Drizzt’s hands worked independently, vertical parries to his left, alternate blocks to his right. Every hit of metal on metal rang out as a testament to the skill of Drizzt Do’Urden, for these were no novice fighters before him, and a duo of dark elves who had obviously battled side-by-side many times in the past.

But Drizzt wasn’t gaining any ground here, and it was all he could manage simply to keep those deadly blades away. He looked to his friends for help, but saw the fire wall and the monstrous driders. He looked to Guenhwyvar, but she, too, was locked in mortal combat, a broken spear hanging from her flank, a drider battling her mightily.

Over rolled the blades of the dark elf to Drizzt’s left, but out of the roll came one thrust low, and Drizzt had to lurch and slap Twinkle down low to deflect the cunning attack. And in that lurch, he found an insurmountable disadvantage to the right, as that warrior stabbed low, forcing a similar downward block, then double-thrust, one blade high, one blade low.

Too fast.

Drizzt had no way to block.

He could only dodge, but in the tight press, that meant one option alone, and he threw himself into a back flip, knowing his enemies would pursue, doubting that his position would be any better when he landed than when he had leaped.

And worse, and he knew himself doomed, his leap took him over a third warrior, one that had come skidding in at his back.

Drizzt landed with a flourish, blades spinning in wide circles, expecting six swords rushing in at him.

But no, he found none, for it was no drow he had somersaulted but a human, and one wielding two drow swords, and doing so with the skill of any weapons master who had ever graduated from Melee-Magthere, and doing so with the skill of Drizzt himself!

“Quick, fool!” Artemis Entreri yelled at him as the assassin took Drizzt’s place between the dark elf warriors.

Drizzt leaped ahead, spinning sidelong, yelling “Right!” and at precisely the correct moment, Entreri spun to his left to face up against that drow, while Drizzt rolled in at his back to meet the other.

Now the parries included counters, clever ripostes as Drizzt and Entreri, mirror images of each other, found an easy rhythm against the skilled drow warriors. In separate fights, one-against-one, either of these skilled Xorlarrins might have held firm for some time against either of these opponents, and so of course, they both assumed that with their practiced teamwork, they would still win the day.

They both assumed wrong.

Drizzt and Entreri had not battled together nearly as often as their opponents, but it didn’t matter. Not with these two, so perfectly matched, each with so great an understanding of the other.

Drizzt went into a sudden charge, Twinkle and Icingdeath slashing in a powerful flurry that drove his opponent back. But Drizzt did not follow for long, cutting into a sudden back-step and throwing himself down and around.

Entreri felt the motion as Drizzt moved from his back, and listened carefully for the sudden return. When it came, the assassin struck hard to keep his enemy engaged, then leaped up high, legs flying out to either side. He waited for Drizzt to slide through, before snapping himself around in mid-air to meet the rush of the warrior Drizzt had driven off.

And by that time, though it was only a heartbeat, both of Drizzt’s blades had thrust in beneath the attempted block of the surprised dark elf who had been battling Entreri, whose eyes had lifted with Entreri’s jump, and who had not even noted the sliding charge of Drizzt until it was far too late.

Drizzt retracted his bloody blades, tucked one leg in tight in his slide and propelled himself up and around in a spin, a backhand slash of Twinkle cutting down the wounded drow.

By the time Drizzt came around, he found the other enemy in full flight, running fast from Entreri, who did not pursue. That drow danced and leaped among the carnage, heading for the doorway in the far corner of the room.

He made it more than halfway, quickstepping past fallen kin, fallen goblins, and the torn bodies of dark elf vampire minions, before a powerful and squat form appeared out of nowhere, flying against him and throwing him crashing to the floor.

Holding fast to his victim, Thibbledorf Pwent began to shake and thrash, his ridged armor tearing the drow to pieces.

Drizzt spun back the other way, toward the wall of fire and the Companions of the Hall. He couldn’t see Bruenor or Catti-brie, or two of the trio of driders that had gone against them. The wall of flames obscured that fight. But he did see Regis, lying on the floor, covering up pathetically as the rearing drider came down, the huge mace-the mace of Ambergris, Drizzt realized! — crashing down in a surely killing blow.

“Regis!” Drizzt cried out desperately.

Above the hiss of the fires, above the ring of swords, above the cries of the wounded, above the growls of Pwent’s undead, came the thunder as Aegis-fang swept up to meet the downward chop of Skullcrusher. Both Wulfgar and Yerrininae roared as their weapons collided, the cries and the crash blending together in a sound of pure power that reverberated off the Forge walls.

Intent on protecting Regis, who was not moving and was not even conscious, Wulfgar tried to skip out to the side, but the fierce drider stopped him with a planted leg and cleverly stabbed in with Skullcrusher. Wulfgar managed to sweep his warhammer vertically to turn the mace aside, but he sucked in his breath as he realized the stab to be a ruse, a way for Wulfgar to help the drider properly angle his weapon for another strike at Regis.

Wulfgar threw Aegis-fang at the beast. He couldn’t get any weight behind the throw to hurt the drider, so he used it as a distraction, a way to slow the strike at Regis, and he launched himself out, catching Skullcrusher’s handle just above the drider’s grip.

The barbarian’s muscles corded and strained against the powerful abomination, and a lesser man would have simply tumbled down atop Regis behind the mace’s descent.

But Wulfgar held on, and when Yerrininae jerked the mace back, the barbarian was ready, rolling around and leaping up, crashing against the drider’s drow torso.

Face-to-face the mighty warriors clenched and struggled.

Yerrininae bit down hard on Wulfgar’s left shoulder, digging in, and Wulfgar felt poison coming from that abomination’s deadly bite.

Regis’s potion had saved him again, he knew.

The duo wrestled and twisted. The drider lifted a spider leg and Wulfgar realized that it meant to stomp Regis. With a great, desperate twist, Wulfgar yanked the drider aside and the two nearly tumbled into the wall of fire.

Yerrininae bit down harder and pushed ahead, bending Wulfgar backward. The barbarian wedged the fingers of his free right hand in against the drider’s cheek.

Wulfgar tightened the muscles of his chest and shoulder, growling back against the bite, hardening the drider’s target and so weakening the drider’s hold.

The two stumbled around on eight spidery legs-they seemed like bipedal combatants fighting atop a giant spider. Back and forth they went, sometimes touching the wall, sometimes hovering dangerously around Regis.

Wulfgar slipped his little finger into the drider’s eye and pressed on, and Yerrininae had to relent.

“Tempus!” the barbarian roared, as much to infuse himself with heightened anger as to call to his god. He pushed out with all his strength, driving Yerrininae’s head to his left, the drider’s free hand tugging at his wrist.

Wulfgar let go of the face suddenly, snapping his arm back with the tug and at the same time replacing it with his left hand, clamping fully on Yerrininae’s face. The barbarian rolled his shoulders forward and bulled ahead and down.

The fire wall fell away then, showing the two dead driders on the other side, with Bruenor atop one, staring back slack-jawed at the titanic battle between Wulfgar and Yerrininae. Catti-brie watched, too, as did Drizzt and Entreri, all four stunned to inaction by the spectacle.

Wulfgar bulled and pushed, his muscles standing taut. Huge Yerrininae pushed back, cords of sinewy muscles straining and glistening with sweat.

The drider stumbled backward and nearly toppled, but kicked its rear legs out and planted them firmly.

Yerrininae had made a mistake. He should have rolled over.

He was locked in place, unable to give, forced to hold back Wulfgar’s push, which he could not. He bent over backward and the barbarian plowed on, driving his left hand forward, bending Yerrininae’s head back.

Down Wulfgar jerked with all his strength, and then again when Yerrininae stopped his press. And a third time and again after that, and the drider could not retreat and could not hold.

Again the barbarian bulled and now Yerrininae did give way, not by backing and not by rolling, but simply because Yerrininae’s muscle and bone could not resist the press.

The crack of Yerrininae’s shattering backbone sounded as loudly as the crash of Aegis-fang against Skullcrusher.

Wulfgar pushed once more, but it was done and he was done, his rage and stamina exhausted. He fell back and stumbled off the drider, who still stood on planted spidery legs, drow torso bobbing weirdly, fully broken.

The Forge was quiet then, and eerily so.