The Last Threshold

Chapter 5

At Drizzt’s insistence, the five companions left Neverwinter early the next morning. Though he had not slept at all the night before, Drizzt was determined to be on his way. Many times did he glance to the east, to the forest where he had found the cursed Thibbledorf Pwent, and many times did that sad reality throw him back in time, to the fall of Pwent and Bruenor.

He kept shaking the darkness away, and moved with purpose now, leading the five companions up the coastline before the onslaught of winter, which came early and hit hard, burying the land around the forest in deep snows and bringing sheets of dangerous ice all along the northern Sword Coast. Many times during their short journey Dahlia asked Drizzt what he was planning, and many times Entreri inquired about his dagger, but the drow remained quiet and wore a calm and contented grin.

“Port Llast?” Entreri asked when their destination became obvious, for they turned onto a trail that led down from the rocky cliffs to the quiet seaside town. Once a thriving quarry and port city, Port Llast hardly resembled anything that could be called a village any longer.

“Ye slurring yer words for a reason?” Ambergris asked.

“Not a slur,” said Drizzt. “That is the town’s name. Port Llast. Two Ls.”

“Similar to the Hells,” muttered the ever-sarcastic Entreri.

“I’m not knowin’ the place,” the dwarf replied, and Afafrenfere shrugged in accord.

“A thriving city, a century ago,” Drizzt explained. “These cliffs provided many of the stones for the greatest buildings of Waterdeep, Luskan, and Neverwinter, and towns all along the Sword Coast.”

“And what happened?” Ambergris asked, glancing around. “Looks like good stone to me, and can ye ever really run short o’ the stuff?”

“Orcs … bandits …” Drizzt explained.

“Luskan,” Entreri put in, and Drizzt winced reflexively, though he was fairly certain that Entreri had no idea of Drizzt’s role in the catastrophe that had taken place in the City of Sails, which was just a few days’ ride farther up the coast.

“Port Llast was overrun and worn down,” Drizzt explained. “It went from a city of nearly twenty thousand to just a few hundred, and in short order.”

“Still substantial, then,” said Afafrenfere. “A few hundred, and that in a port city?”

“That was before the Spellplague,” Entreri said. He looked at Drizzt and added, “Tell them of our paradise destination.”

“Land rose up out there,” Drizzt said, pointing to the west, to the open sea. “Some effect of the Spellplague, it is rumored, though whatever the cause, the land is surely there. This new island changed the tides, which ruined the harbor and finished off any remaining hopes for the city.”

“Finished?” asked the dwarf.

“We circumvented this place several times,” Dahlia said, confused. “There are people there still.”

“Some, but not many,” Drizzt explained.

“It’s Umberlee’s town,” Entreri said, referring to an evil sea goddess with a reputation of sending in horrid sea monster minions to wreak havoc along the coasts of Faerun.

“And still, the people hold on and fight back,” Drizzt countered.

“Noble,” said Afafrenfere.

“Stubborn,” said Ambergris.

“Stupid,” Entreri insisted, with such clarity and confidence that he drew the looks of the other four. “Hold on to what? They’ve no harbor, they’ve no quarry. All they’ve got are memories of a time lost, and one that’s not coming back.”

“There’s honor in defendin’ yer home,” Ambergris argued.

Entreri laughed at her. “Without hope?” he said. “How many villagers remain, drow? Three hundred? Two? And less each year, as some give up and move away and others are slain by the devils of Umberlee, or the orcs and bandits that dominate this region. They’ve no chance of defending their home. They’ve nothing of value to lure new settlers, and no reinforcements for their diminishing ranks.”

Dahlia wore a knowing smirk as she looked at Drizzt. “They have us, apparently.”

Entreri stared hard at Drizzt, and asked incredulously, “Truly?”

“Let’s see what we might learn of the place,” Drizzt answered. “The winter will be no more dangerous for us here than anywhere else.”

Entreri shook his head, more in abject disbelief than in resignation, but said no more. His look at Drizzt spoke volumes, though, mostly in reminding Drizzt that Entreri had only come along for the sake of retrieving his prized dagger.

The trail wove down through high walls of dark stone. Several carved plateaus showed the ruins of old catapults, all trained on the harbor far below. After a myriad of angled hairpin turns down the steep decline, the five companions came at last to the city’s southern gate, to find it closed and well-guarded.

“Halt and hail!” a soldier called down from the rampart. “And what a strange band of deckhands to be knocking at our door. A drow elf in front and a motley crew behind.” The man shook his head and called back. Another pair of soldiers joined him at the wall, their eyes going wide.

And not surprisingly, for not only was a drow leading the party, but he sat astride a unicorn, and with a man behind him astride a nightmare of the lower planes!

“Not a sight ye’d see every day, eh?” Ambergris called up at them.

“Well met,” Drizzt said. “And pray tell, does Port Llast still name Dovos Dothwintyl as First Captain?”

“You know him, then?” the guard replied.

“Not so well. Better did I know Haeromos Dothwintyl, in days long past, when I sailed with Deudermont and Sea Sprite.”

That had the three speaking amongst themselves, and when they turned back, a second guard, a woman, called down, “Who would you be, dark elf? A fellow by the name of Drizzt, perhaps?”

“At your service,” Drizzt said, and he bowed a bit, constrained as he was upon Andahar’s back.

“Passing through?” she asked. Drizzt noted a bit of an edge to her voice, and he understood, for when Captain Deudermont had overstepped the bounds of reason and tried to tame wicked Luskan, the resulting revolution had put evil men in charge of the City of Sails and that in turn had cast a long shadow over the struggling town of Port Llast. Drizzt had been part of Deudermont’s failure, so went the common lore, and the fact that he had tried to turn the captain from his dangerous ambitions long before the catastrophic events wasn’t widely known.

Drizzt had been through Port Llast a couple of times over the last decades, but had not found a particularly warm welcome there since the debacle in Luskan. More often, he avoided the city in his travels north and south.

“We hope to winter in your fair town,” he replied.

Two of the guards disappeared, the third turning around, apparently to join in a conversation the companions couldn’t make out from below. Before they ever got a verbal reply, the gates creaked open.

“Well met to you, then,” the guard who had been third up on the wall said with a nod as they passed by. “There’s an inn, Stonecutter’s Solace, under the shadow of the east cliffs. You’ll find good accommodation there, would be my guess. Be smart, and stay east, and go nowhere near the docks.”

Drizzt nodded and slid down from his seat, then dismissed Andahar. The guard’s eyes widened as the powerful unicorn leaped away and seemed to diminish to half its size. A second stride halved it again, and again a third and fourth time, where Andahar simply vanished into nothingness.

“You’ve been to Neverwinter of late?” the guard asked, trying to appear calm, though he was obviously awestricken. “How does she fare?”

“Growing strong,” Drizzt replied. “The immediate and greatest threats to the city have been driven off.”

The man nodded and seemed quite pleased by that news, and Drizzt understood the reaction well. Port Llast needed a strong and secure Neverwinter to help keep the pirates of Luskan away, and perhaps to bolster them in their continuing tribulations against the creatures of Umberlee’s ocean domain. The City of Sails would have little trouble in overwhelming this once thriving, but now nearly abandoned city, and Drizzt was keenly reminded of that when he looked to the sheltered harbor, where but a dozen or so small ships bobbed in the tides, and several of that meager fleet hardly appeared seaworthy. Catapults set on the eastern cliffs overlooking the city, still operational and manned, were a more imposing sight. But slinging a stone at a moving ship was no easy task. If the high captains of Luskan came calling, Port Llast would almost surely fall with barely a whimper.

“Doesn’t seem a friendly place,” Afafrenfere remarked as the five wound their way down the road past the dilapidated stone houses and shops. Indeed, most of the shutters were pulled tight, and others banged closed as the unusual troupe passed.

“These are troubled lands of wild things,” Drizzt replied. “The citizens are cautious, and for good reason.”

“I expect that simply by walking in here, we have doubled their defenses,” Dahlia quipped.

“I expect that you underestimate the strength of settlers,” Artemis Entreri unexpectedly put in, and the other four turned to regard him, still astride his nightmare. “They survive here, and that alone is no small thing.”

“Well said,” Drizzt remarked, and started off once more. “This will be a fine place to spend the winter.”

“Why?” the assassin asked, and when Drizzt stopped and turned back, he added, “Do you ever plan to tell us?”

“Tonight,” Drizzt promised, and on he went.

The road forked, but the left way was blocked by a stone wall manned by a trio of guards. That road led to the lower reaches of the city, the harbor and coast, and scanning around, the five could see that many new walls had been erected, virtually cutting the city in half, east and west. The right-hand fork led almost directly east, toward the cliffs and the higher sections of the city, and even from this distance, the companions could easily spot their destination, a newly constructed central building, free of moss and of stones not yet weathered to dark gray.

The common room at Stonecutter’s Solace was wide and deep and well-attended, with several hearths burning brightly and dozens of townsfolk sitting about the circular tables that filled the floor before a grand bar. A half wall behind it revealed the bustling kitchen.

“I might be gettin’ used to this place,” Ambergris offered at the promising sight. She sauntered by the nearest table, flashing a smile at the trio sitting there, a man and two dwarves, all three with faces weathered under a seaside sun, hands calloused by digging stones and arms thick with muscles.

“Well met,” Ambergris said to them.

“Aye, lassie, and sit with us, why don’t ye?” one of the dwarves replied.

Ambergris skidded to a stop, looked back to her four companions, winked, and then did just that.

“No fighting,” Drizzt remarked to Afafrenfere as they walked past the table. “I’ll not have us thrown from this inn or this bar.”

“Never my choice,” the monk replied. “Ambergris always wants her coins jiggling as she walks, you see.”

“I see and I saw, and I’ll have none of it now,” Drizzt answered. “We have important work to do here.”

“Perhaps you’ll tell us sometime soon,” Afafrenfere replied rather harshly, and he moved toward the bar.

Drizzt stopped and turned to Dahlia. “Stay with him,” he bade her quietly, glancing back at the distracted dwarf. “Get to know our monk companion. I need to understand his demeanor and loyalty.”

“He can fight,” Dahlia remarked.

“But does he know when to fight, and against whom?”

“He’ll do what the dwarf tells him,” Entreri said.

Drizzt glanced over at the table, where Ambergris was putting back shots of potent liquor with her three new friends.

“You think you know her?” Entreri remarked. “You’re putting Bruenor’s face on her. Take care with that.”

“Artemis Entreri warning me about those I choose to walk beside,” Drizzt muttered. “The world has gone mad.”

Dahlia laughed at that as she skipped away, following Afafrenfere to the bar. Drizzt and Entreri, meanwhile, found an empty table in the corner opposite the door.

“This is a doomed town,” the assassin said as soon as they took their seats. “Why are we wasting our time here?” He considered those words for just a heartbeat before changing them subtly. “Why are you wasting my time here?”

“Not doomed,” Drizzt replied. “Not unless we give up on it.”

“And you haven’t,” Entreri surmised.

Drizzt shrugged. “There is a chance for us to do good here,” he explained, and he stopped abruptly when a serving girl came over to offer drinks.

“Do good here?” Entreri echoed doubtfully when she had gone.

“The people of Port Llast deserve the chance,” Drizzt said. “They have held on against all odds.”

“Because they are stupid,” Entreri interrupted. “I thought we had already settled on this.”

“Spare me your sour jokes,” Drizzt replied. “I am being serious here. You have lived a … questionable life. Does that not itch at your conscience?”

“Now you pretend to lecture me?”

Drizzt looked at him earnestly and shook his head. “I’m asking. Honestly.”

The serving girl, a young and pretty brunette of no more than fifteen years, returned with their drinks, set them down, and scampered away to the call from another table.

“Sounds like you’re lecturing,” Entreri replied after a long swallow of Baldur’s Gate Red Ale.

“Then I apologize, and again, I ask, do you feel no regret?”

“None.”

The two stared at each other for a long while, and Drizzt didn’t believe the answer but found little room for debate in Entreri’s steadfast tone. “Have you ever done anything for someone simply because it was the right thing to do?” he asked. “Need there always be a reward for you at the end of the task?”

Entreri just stared at him and took another drink.

“Have you ever tried it?”

“I came north with you because you promised me my dagger.”

“In time,” Drizzt said dismissively. “But for now, I would know, have you?”

“Do you have a point to make?”

“We have a chance to do some good here, for many people,” Drizzt explained. “There is a level of satisfaction in that exercise I doubt you’ve ever known.”

Entreri scoffed at him and stared incredulously. “Is this how you heal your wounds?” he asked. When Drizzt looked at him in puzzlement, he continued, “If you can reform me, then you need not feel so guilty about letting me escape your blades in the past, yes? You could have killed me on more than one occasion, but didn’t, and now you question that mercy. How many innocents died because you hadn’t the courage to strike me down?”

“No,” Drizzt said quietly, shaking his head.

“Or is it something else?” Entreri asked, clearly enjoying this conversation. “I once met a paladin king-in his dungeon, actually, where I was his guest. Oh, how he loathed me, because he saw in me a dark reflection of his own heart. Is that it? Are you afraid that we two are not so different?”

Drizzt considered that for a moment, then returned Entreri’s confident look with one of his own. “I hope that we are not.”

Entreri’s expression quickly changed. “And so you must redeem me so that you can feel your own life justified?” Little certainty rang out in his tone.

“No,” Drizzt answered. “Our paths have crossed so many times. I don’t call you a friend-”

“Nor I, you.”

Drizzt nodded. “But a companion … of circumstance, perhaps, but a companion nonetheless. Let me lead you down this road. Consider it a chance to see the world through a different perspective. What do you have to lose?”

Entreri’s expression hardened. “You promised me my dagger.”

“And you will get it, or at least, I will show you where it is.”

“If I indulge you here?” he asked with a sarcastic edge.

Drizzt took a deep breath and tried to let the assassin’s stubborn ripostes fall off his shoulders. “Whether you indulge me or not. I didn’t offer you a bargain, but merely suggested a road.”

“Then why would I help you?”

Drizzt was about to argue, but he caught something, in the background of Entreri’s callous question, that clued him in to the truth of this discussion. He smiled knowingly at his old nemesis.

Entreri drained his mug and banged it on the table, signaling for another.

“You’re paying,” he informed the drow.

“You’ll owe me, then,” said Drizzt.

“What? A few silver coins?”

“Not for the ale,” Drizzt answered.

Entreri tried to look as if this whole conversation had bored him and annoyed him, and perhaps there was some truth in that. But Drizzt couldn’t contain his grin, for he knew, too, that he had intrigued his old nemesis.

That grin disappeared a moment later, though, as the common room’s main door banged open and a group of citizens burst in. A woman and a male elf flanked a man, and indeed held him up, his arms across their shoulders, his head lolling about uncontrollably.

“Help here!” the woman cried. “Fetch a priest!”

They came in nearly sideways to fit through the door. When they straightened out, the problem was clear for Drizzt and everyone else to see. The man’s shirt was torn and soaked in blood, a line of wounds stretching from hip to ribs.

“Get ’im here!” Ambergris yelled, as others ran for the door, one heading out and crying for a cleric. Ambergris swept her table clear of drinks, mugs splashing to the floor, and the three with her jumped back and started to protest until they saw the dwarf pull forth her holy symbol and lift her broad hands in supplication, whispering the name of Dumathoin as she did.

Drizzt, Entreri, Dahlia, and Afafrenfere all got to the table about the same time as the wounded man’s companions laid him down atop it. The monk, quite familiar with the dwarf’s work, rushed beside Ambergris and bent low, holding the wounded man still.

All about them, questions filled the air, along with shouts of “Sea devils!” and curses at the wicked god Umberlee. In the midst of that turmoil, Drizzt pulled the elf aside. He followed after a short hesitation, surely confused by the sight of a drow in Port Llast.

“How did this happen?” Drizzt asked.

“As they are claiming,” the elf replied, and he continued to look at Drizzt suspiciously.

“I am no enemy,” Drizzt assured him. “I’m Drizzt Do’Urden, friend of-”

He didn’t have to finish, for the name sparked recognition in the elf, revealed his welcoming smile and nod. “I’m Dorwyllan of Baldur’s Gate,” he said.

“Well met.”

“Sea devils,” Dorwyllan explained. “Sahuagin, the scourge of Port Llast.”

Drizzt knew the name, and the monster, for he had battled the evil fish-men on several occasions during his years riding Sea Sprite with Captain Deudermont. He glanced at the wounded man-Afafrenfere had pulled his torn shirt aside and others had splashed water on it to clear the excess blood. The drow saw the wounds clearly now: three deep punctures, as if a trio of javelins had hit him in a straight line. He could well imagine the trident, a preferred weapon of the sahuagin, that had stabbed the poor fellow.

“Where?”

Others were asking the same question.

“The northern boat house,” Dorwyllan answered.

“And so it begins,” Dahlia mumbled at his side.

The elf looked at her and started as he came to fully appreciate this female elf standing before him, her beauty and that curious pattern of bluish dots that adorned her face.

“Good fortune that we arrived this day,” Drizzt said.

“Bah, but this sight’s more days than it ain’t!” one of the dwarves who had been sitting with Ambergris explained. “Sea devils thrice a tenday, or it ain’t Port Llast, don’t ye know?”

Many began filing out of Stonecutter’s Solace then, and shouts for a posse filled the air outside the tavern.

Drizzt looked to Dahlia and Entreri and the three moved to follow, but Dorwyllan grabbed Drizzt by the arm. “No need,” he explained when Drizzt looked back at him. “The sea devils have fled to their watery sanctuary, no doubt, for they know that we got over the wall in our retreat. The folk will go down in a great show of force, lining the docks, lobbing rocks into the dark waters, just to let the creatures know that Port Llast remains vigilant. And the sahuagin will hear the splashes above, safe in their watery homes and ready to return. It has become almost a sad game.”

“Then why were you three down there alone?”

“They are not often ashore in the daytime,” Dorwyllan replied.

“But at night?” Artemis Entreri asked from the side before Drizzt could get the question out.

“They slither from the tide,” Dorwyllan answered. “They near the wall and throw taunts and stones and spears. They are testing us, looking for a moment of weakness that they might raid the upper city and feast on man-flesh. And each day, we send down patrols.” He nodded at the woman and wounded man with whom he had entered the inn. “The sea devils are building defenses in preparation for the coming battle. We go down each day and try to find these barricades and tear them down.”

“But at night?” Drizzt asked leadingly.

“We avoid the docks at night,” Dorwyllan answered. “We man the wall, heavily, but we don’t cross beyond it. We don’t have enough folk with the ability to see in the dark, and carrying a torch makes one a fine target.”

“Then I assume the sea devils come ashore at night, each night.”

Dorwyllan nodded. Drizzt grinned and glanced over at Entreri, who wore a grim expression, understanding exactly where this might be leading.

“Are you almost done with your work, Amber?” Drizzt asked.

“Aye, and he’ll live, but not to be drinkin’ for a bit or he’s suren to leak,” the dwarf answered as she wiped her bloody hands.

“Get your own drinking done early,” Drizzt advised. “Tonight, we work.”

He took a step away, but again Dorwyllan held him by the arm, turning him back. “They will be out in force,” he warned.

“I’m counting on it,” Drizzt replied.

Drizzt gathered the five soon after, and limited their drinking, though they were soon to enjoy a grand meal, it seemed, as the proprietor of the Stonecutter’s Solace wanted to repay Ambergris for her fine healing work on his wounded friend.

“You have enough magic left to help us through a difficult night?” Drizzt asked the dwarf.

“Got plenty. What’d’ye got in mind, elf? And it better be good if ye’re thinking to keep the ale from me lips.”

“The darkness won’t bother you?” Drizzt asked Entreri.

“Long ago, I was given the gift of darkvision.”

“By Jarlaxle,” Drizzt said, for he recalled that fact from long ago.

“Don’t mention his name,” the assassin said.

“So only Afafrenfere will be hindered by the night,” Drizzt reasoned.

The monk snorted as if the reasoning was preposterous.

“Won’t be,” Ambergris explained. “That one’s trained to fight blind, and been living in the Shadowfell for years. Not quite a full shade yet, but he got close enough, don’t ye doubt. Yer night’s a shining beacon aside the Shadowfell day.”

“Perfect,” Drizzt said.

“We’re going over the wall,” Dahlia reasoned. “You’ve made some deal to save this town.”

“We’re going over the wall because it’s the right thing to do,” Drizzt corrected. “We’re going to strike hard at those sahuagin, and maybe convince them to stay away long enough for Port Llast to rally.”

“Sea devils are formidable foes,” Ambergris solemnly warned.

“So are we.” As he made the declaration, Drizzt looked to Entreri, whom he thought would be the most likely to reject the plan. But the assassin seemed quite at ease, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. He offered no objections.

“We’ll let the moon come up,” Drizzt explained.

“Not much of one this night,” said Dahlia.

“I’m thinkin’ that’ll help us,” said the dwarf.

Drizzt nodded and said no more, as the staff of the Stonecutter’s Solace came over in a line, each bearing a tray piled with fine morsels. And it was food all the more precious because it had been collected under duress, Drizzt and the others realized. The trays were full of fish and clams, seaweed salad and huge red lobsters, which had once been considered the greatest delicacy of the Sword Coast North. Few in Luskan trapped them now, and of course, any venture to the seaside in and around Port Llast was fraught with danger.

“We get down to the sea for our fishing,” said the proprietor, a tall and thin man who walked with legs set in a permanent bow, and a face so leathery it looked like it could be cut from his head and used for armor. “One day soon, I’m serving sea devil, and here’s hoping the foul things taste better than they behave!”

That brought a round of “huzzah” from all about the tavern, and it reached a second crescendo when the man who had taken the trident propped himself up on his elbows and joined in with relish.

“Huzzah for Amber Gristle O’Maul,” they cheered.

“Of the Adbar O’Mauls!” the three who had been sitting with her before the disturbance added.

“A fine meal,” Ambergris said and belched a short while later.

“Last meals usually are,” Entreri said.

Drizzt and the others looked sourly at the man.

“What?” he said innocently, looking up, and holding a lobster claw in each hand.

“Ye always so full o’ hope?” the dwarf asked.

“I don’t fear for myself,” Entreri explained innocently. “I know I can outrun you, dwarf. And that one,” he added, pointing a claw at Drizzt, “is sure to stay behind, valiantly fighting to the bitter end so that his companions can escape.”

Afafrenfere and Ambergris both turned curiously to Drizzt at that statement, and Entreri added, “Why else would I remain beside the fool?”

Drizzt couldn’t even begin to answer, so stupefied was he to think that the levity of Artemis Entreri would help to settle his nerves before a dangerous endeavor.

They crept through the dark avenues of the lower city, moving with precision from structure to structure and staying mostly along the city’s southern reaches, under the shadows of the same high rock walls they had traversed when first coming down to Port Llast.

Entreri, Dahlia, and Drizzt did the “frog-hopping,” as Ambergris called it, taking turns in the point position, scouting and securing, then motioning for the next in line to hop past. Afafrenfere remained with the dwarf, always settling into position beside the trailing member of the frog-hopping trio.

Drizzt came to the northwestern corner of a low stone building and peered around. He crouched at the end of one long and fairly straight street, stretching far into the heart of the lower city. Just east of his position, back to his right and barely a block away, loomed the wall, where torches burned at regularly-spaced intervals. To his left, at about the same distance, this section of the city fell away steeply to the rocky coast.

The drow glanced back to Entreri, the next in line, and instead of signaling him to move past, motioned instead for him to join Drizzt at the spot. Almost as soon as he arrived, the assassin nodded, seeing the same potential Drizzt had noted in this particular location.

Drizzt pointed to Entreri, held up two fingers, and motioned to the southeastern corner of the building where they crouched, and the parallel road beyond. Then he held up two fingers again and pointed to the building opposite this one to the west, across the street.

Entreri slipped back the way he had come and collected the others. He and Dahlia went to the east of Drizzt, the dwarf and monk settling in at the road parallel and west.

There the five crouched in the shadows and waited, but not for long. A cry from the city’s dividing wall alerted them.

Drizzt looked to Entreri and Dahlia, who were nearest that wall, and the assassin glanced back at him and pointed to the north and nodded. With that, Drizzt eased an arrow onto Taulmaril’s string and moved around the corner of the building, crouching low in the shadows against the structure.

To the east, Dahlia whistled, the sound of a night bird. To the west, Afafrenfere answered, as they had previously planned.

At the first sign of motion down the avenue, Drizzt drew back and held firm, Taulmaril leveled. He saw some forms moving about for cover in the shadows of a building far down the road, and heard the crash as stones flew at them from the city wall. Still he held his shot, wanting to be sure.

A humanoid form moved back from the pack, into the center of the road and hoisted a javelin to throw.

Humanoid, but no human, Drizzt could discern clearly even from this distance in the dark night. At least as tall as a man, and with a small, spiny ridge running from the top of its head down its back, it moved with jerking, reptilian motions.

The creature hurled the javelin as Drizzt let fly his arrow, the silver flash streaking down the street and bringing forth a myriad of flickering images and shadows as it sped.

The creature staggered back several steps under the weight of the blow, and half-turned to look back Drizzt’s way. It continued turning around, though, circling lower and lower with each movement, finally collapsing into the street.

Other forms scrambled and Drizzt sent off a line of arrows, not at anything in particular, but mostly to hold the attention of the creatures.

He saw a pair dart across the street, rolling to the safety of a building on the other side. He heard curious squeals, high-pitched and filled with sharp whistles that faded off into discordant hissing sounds.

More arrows flew off, Drizzt sweeping Taulmaril right to left across the street and back again.

He caught sight, just for a heartbeat, of one sea devil on the rooftops, leaping from building to building to his left, working its way toward him. A moment later, he spotted it again, once more just for a heartbeat.

Long enough.

In the silvery brilliance of Taulmaril’s arrow, he noted the creature’s surprised and horrified expression right before it went flying away with such force that Drizzt noted its webbed feet as it tumbled head over heels.

There were more of them up there, he guessed, and likely some coming along the buildings on his side of the street as well.

He rolled out from his position to the middle of the road and began spraying shots down the lane once more, demanding attention. He didn’t follow the trajectory of the shots, didn’t bother to aim at anything specific, and kept glancing up, right and left, ready for the inevitable melee.

As soon as they noted the flash of Drizzt’s first arrow, Entreri and Dahlia moved off quickly. They rushed around the first building and into the narrow alleyway beyond, then out and about the second, as well, and so on down the line.

After several such jaunts, Entreri started out again, but Dahlia grabbed him and held him in place. For she had noted the drow’s shot across the way, the arrow flying up to the roof to take out the sea devil.

Dahlia motioned upward with her thumb, and even as she and Entreri glanced up, a sea devil passed right over them, leaping to the roof of the building they had just passed.

Dahlia planted her staff and Entreri spun around and crouched, setting his hands to help her in her leap. Up she went, inverting at the top of the eight-foot pole, throwing herself over the lip of the roof. She landed crouched, almost on her belly and facing back into the alleyway, but wasted no time in whirling around and bringing Kozah’s Needle to bear with a great sweep across that sent a sea devil staggering.

Up leaped Dahlia, thrusting repeatedly to keep that sahuagin and a second at bay, buying time.

Up came Entreri, climbing the wall with ease, and coming over the roof’s lip with sudden ferocity. He charged past Dahlia, past the tips of the two tridents matching stabs with her. Inside that reach, the assassin halted and spun to the right. The sea devil on that side tried to bite him as he came in close, but it changed its mind, or Entreri changed it, as a dagger jabbed up under the creature’s chin, through its lower jaw and into its upper. Never letting go, Entreri rolled around to the side and behind his foe, and tore free his blade as his sword came around to slash the creature across the back, cutting it down.

The second sahuagin stayed with Dahlia, who stumbled as it pressed its attack. Sensing a kill, the sahuagin bore in with the trident, which Dahlia side-stepped with ease.

The sea devil wasn’t as nimble when the elf countered, Kozah’s Needle thrusting into its upper chest and stopping short its advance. Dahlia retracted and struck again, driving it back a step, then struck third time, in the throat, and the creature staggered and continued to backstep.

The fourth strike launched it from the roof, flying down to the street to land hard on its back.

“More,” Entreri called, and led Dahlia’s gaze to the next rooftop in line.

Dahlia broke her staff in half, then into flails, and she and Entreri sprinted at the incoming threat. They leaped the next alleyway side-by-side, landing in a run and charging into the coming monsters.

Dahlia turned sidelong, avoiding a thrust, and her right hand slapped across, her spinning weapon wrapping the handle of a trident. She pulled it back and up, continuing forward under the lifting weapon and snapped her second flail out hard into the sahuagin’s face. The creature wobbled, clearly dazed, and Dahlia turned, bent at the waist, and rolled into it, still tugging with her wrapping flail.

The creature bit at the back of her neck, but Dahlia continued to bear in, pulling the sea devil right over her. It let go of the trident as it tumbled, and Dahlia sent the weapon flying with a snap of her wrist. As the creature tried to turn and rise, she hit it again with her other flail, a heavy blow to its forehead. Stubbornly it stood, just in time for Dahlia to leap into a flying double-kick and send it, too, soaring from the roof.

She landed and bounced back to her feet to meet the charge of another sea devil, this one without a weapon, but hardly unarmed, clawed hands rending the air as it came at her.

Her flails went into a blur before her, slapping at those hands, and banging together repeatedly, as well, building a charge of energy.

Beside her, Entreri battled a second creature, and Dahlia managed to glance his way and flash a smile-which disappeared when she looked behind him, to realize that he had already cut down two others.

Now it was a competition, and one Dahlia planned to win!

Ambergris bumped into Afafrenfere, who had stopped his movement along the western wall of a building halfway down the street. The dwarf almost said something, but wisely held her tongue.

The monk had his left hand up to a boarded window, the tips of his fingers barely touching the wood, almost as if he sensed vibrations within. His eyes were closed and he seemed frozen in place.

Except for his right hand, which slowly lifted up before his breast, fingers bent like an eagle’s claws.

Or a snake’s fangs, Ambergris understood as Afafrenfere struck, his hand snapping out with the speed of a viper, smashing through the wooden boards and against the side of the skull of the sea devil within. The monk managed to grab on to the sahuagin’s piscine ridge as he retracted, pulling the creature’s head through the hole. Afafrenfere turned as he did this, his left arm going up high, and with the sahuagin’s neck planted on the splintered edge of the broken wood, the monk drove his elbow down hard, like the falling blade of a guillotine.

The creature made a strange watery gurgling sound to accompany the sharp crack of its neck bone.

Ambergris rushed past the monk at the sound of stirring within the building, timing her arrival and sweeping two-handed strike of Skullbreaker, her four-foot mace, perfectly as the next sea devil burst out the cottage’s back door. The sahuagin went flying to the side at the end of that powerful stroke and pitched down to the ground, sitting on the cobblestones.

It rose tentatively, lurching and with one arm hanging, and apparently wanted no more of the dwarf, for it turned and ran off.

But a second leaped out of the door onto the distracted dwarf, clawing and biting and bearing her down to the ground under it.

The dwarf’s mace flew from her grip. She struggled and twisted, freeing up one hand enough to pin the sea devil’s arm in tight. But still, the claws on that hand dug painfully into her upper arm.

And worse, the sahuagin managed to get in line, its face hovering right above Ambergris’s. With a hiss, the sea devil opened wide its maw, showing lines of sharpened teeth.

Wide, too, went the dwarf’s brown eyes, and she spat in defiance, right into that opened maw.

More a statement than a defense.

Drizzt noted a sea devil flying from the roof down the street to his right side, but he couldn’t bring Taulmaril to bear to finish the creature. One appeared immediately above him to the left, arm lifted and ready to throw a javelin.

The drow let fly and fell back, his arrow taking the sahuagin in the chest and lifting it into the air. The creature’s aim was not as good, or perhaps too good, for the javelin drove into the ground and stuck there, right where Drizzt had been crouching.

Drizzt had won that duel, but another sea devil took that one’s place, and the drow heard, too, another behind him, on the roof to the right. He planted his foot and dug in his heel, turning around. Two strides and a dive sent him behind the cover of the north wall of that left-hand building, and up close so that the sea devil on the roof would have to lean right over to get a throw at him.

It did, foolishly, and Taulmaril’s arrow blew right through its skull.

As that one fell, so too did another descend from that roof, leaping down at Drizzt, and two came down from the roof across the way as well, both holding javelins.

Out flashed Drizzt’s scimitars as in flew the missiles. Drizzt spun to his left, away from the building, dodging one cleanly and lifting Twinkle just in time to deflect the second, though not enough to lift it cleanly past him.

“Go!” Artemis Entreri shouted, and Dahlia snapped her left-hand flail out at her opponent, driving the sea devil back. As she retracted, she dropped her left foot back and rotated around and out to her right, as Entreri cut before her.

She came up in front of the assassin’s opponent, and the sahuagin was still watching Entreri. Her flail caved in its skull at the same time Entreri’s sword cut the throat out of her previous opponent.

On they ran, side by side. Entreri went down, spinning left and to the ground, his sword coming across to bat aside a flying javelin.

Down Dahlia went, too, spinning right and to the ground at the same instant. She reconstituted her flails into solid four foot poles as she did so, and joined those into the eight-foot-long staff as she and Entreri ran on for the edge of the building.

Too late, though, they both knew as they approached, for a pair of sea devils on the next roof in line were already at the ledge, tridents lowered to block their progress.

Artemis Entreri skidded to a stop as he neared the ledge, his hand going to his belt.

Dahlia came up beside him but didn’t slow, planting the end of her long staff and vaulting out, flying for the creature. The sea devil realigned its trident appropriately and seemed sure to skewer the elf woman, but at the last moment, Dahlia threw her legs up higher, tightened her torso muscles, and pressed out with her considerable strength, lifting her higher into the air. She flew past the rising trident, clearing the scaly humanoid, and turned as she went so that she landed facing back the way she had come. She pulled her staff in close and swept it in line just in time to block the slicing trident as it whipped around.

She glanced at the other sea devil, but it had no interest in her. It clutched at its belly, and at Entreri’s embedded buckle-knife. Still it managed to keep its trident waving out before it, fending off the assassin’s attempts to cross over from the other roof.

Dahlia parried the thrusting trident of her opponent, trying to figure out how to break free of her combat and clear the way for her companion to join her. She glanced at Entreri, to see him slapping futilely at the long weapon with his sword, though he could barely reach it and had no chance of knocking it free, or even aside enough for him to leap across.

Dahlia was about to yell out exactly that to him, but held her tongue as she came to understand that Entreri’s whole play was naught but a ruse, his waving sword demanding the sahuagin’s attention. Lurching and hissing, the sea devil followed the sword’s movements with its trident, and remained completely oblivious as Entreri threw his dagger into its face.

The sea devil staggered back a couple of steps. The dagger hadn’t flipped around properly to dig in and had merely bounced off the sahuagin’s forehead, but still had the creature surprised and off-balance. By the time it recovered and re-focused, Entreri stood on the roof before it and a fine sword dived for its chest.

It tried to turn, it tried to parry.

But all it could do was grunt as the weapon struck home.

Entreri pressed it in all the way to the hilt, moving up close so that the dying creature couldn’t begin to bring its long trident to bear.

Dahlia’s opponent squealed an awful sound and angled its trident to jab at Entreri, but the elf was having nothing of that. She countered with a heavy barrage of thrusts and chops, always just ahead of the trident as the sea devil tried to recover and fight back to even footing with her.

Finally the frustrated creature simply threw its trident at her, which she easily dodged, then threw itself at Dahlia, biting at her and raking with its claws.

Or trying to, for the elf warrior hit it several times, Kozah’s Needle punching hard and repeatedly, and on the last strike, Dahlia released the staff’s lightning energy, the blast hurling the sea devil backward, flinging it from the roof with enough force to send it crashing into the wall of the other building.

Dahlia looked at Entreri, who swung around and flung the impaled sahuagin from his blade so that it, too, would fall dead into the alleyway, his free hand quietly retrieving his belt knife from its belly as it departed.

“Four,” he announced, going for his dagger, which lay on the roof.

Dahlia growled at him and started off.

Started, but didn’t get far, as a stone clipped her across the temple and drove her down to her knees, dazed.

Entreri stared, bewildered, then looked north toward the wall and figured out the sudden turn of events, for the air filled with flying stones, a barrage of missiles from the townsfolk who couldn’t distinguish a sea devil from an ally in the darkness!

The sahuagin bit down at her, and Ambergris snapped her head up to meet its attack, her forehead slamming the sea devil’s upper jaw. She got gashed badly as the dazed creature retracted, but she accepted the pain for the gain she had made.

Then Afafrenfere’s foot flashed in, kicking the stunned sea devil in the side of its jaw. Ambergris saw at once that the monk wouldn’t be her savior here, though, as he leaped away to meet another sahuagin coming out of the cottage.

As the sea devil atop the dwarf lifted up a bit to regroup and collect its spinning thoughts, Ambergris managed to tuck her legs up under her. She kicked out, straight upward, and tugged the monster’s arms as she did, lifting it right up and over her. Her powerful legs drove hard and the strong dwarf lifted her butt right from the ground, rolling up to her shoulder blades, and launching the sea devil right over so that it landed hard on its back.

Ambergris arched her back and snapped the muscles of her upper back, throwing herself right to her feet. She swung around immediately, and realizing that her mace was too far away, pulled her small round shield off her back and leaped at the fallen creature. She took up her small shield in both hands and drove its edge down with all of her considerable strength against the prone sea devil’s neck.

The creature’s legs lifted from the ground under the force of the blow, then began to twitch as the sahuagin thrashed about, gulping for air that would not come.

Ambergris glanced over her shoulder to watch her companion in action. He had a sea devil on its knees before him, helpless against a barrage of punches that snapped its head left and right.

“Behind ye!” the dwarf yelled, seeing yet another enemy, trident leading, coming out of the door. She needn’t have bothered, for the battle-skilled monk was quite aware of the creature, obviously, and was even goading it to charge by appearing so distracted.

Afafrenfere rolled backward as the trident prodded for him, going right behind and around the thrusting tip. He grabbed the long pole with his left hand, and down chopped his right, a powerful blow that snapped the trident’s handle cleanly. Afafrenfere wasted no time in bringing his left hand sweeping across, flipping up the trident’s pointy end as he did to throw it into the sea devil’s face.

The monk jumped up in the air behind that missile, snap-kicking the sea devil in the face. He landed and spun on the ball of his foot, leaping again into a circle kick that slammed the sahuagin’s chest and sent it flying backward to slam against the cottage wall.

The monk dropped to one knee, grabbed the fallen trident half, and came up in a full spin, facing the sea devil with the missile lifted up high behind his ear.

Afafrenfere’s hand snapped forward, the broken trident whipping into the sahuagin’s chest. It grabbed at the handle, but Afafrenfere was there as well, tearing the three-headed trident free of the scaly creature then thrusting it again, angling up to put it into the sea devil’s throat. He tore it free again, and thrust it back into the chest, poking three new holes above the three from the throw.

He gave a short cry with each movement, his energy enhanced by the sharp calls of his order, his chi focused like the tip of a spear.

Or the tip of a trident.

Drizzt’s mithral shirt deflected the javelin, lifting it higher so that it couldn’t dig in to his shoulder. Its tip cut across the side of his neck, drawing a painful cut, but one not serious or debilitating.

And not as painful as the hit from the other missile, Drizzt realized as he turned with the blow to see that the previous javelin had driven deep into the thigh of the creature that had leaped down from the roof beside him. Still that stubborn sea devil came on, limping badly, the javelin hanging from its leg.

Drizzt darted at it, kicking out at the javelin. The creature lurched in pain and the drow raced past, slashing with Twinkle. The stubborn creature tried to turn to keep up, but Drizzt skidded to a stop and spun on it directly, his twin blades battering the sahuagin before it began to formulate some defensive posture.

The drow had to jump back as the other two bore down on him, and still, amazingly, the stubborn, wounded sea devil came at him. A dozen deep wounds dripped blood about its arms and torso. The javelin hung more awkwardly from its leg. Drizzt’s kick had widened the wound. But with that pole flapping, trailing several lines of blood, still the sea devil pursued.

Drizzt ran away from it, circling wide to charge in at the other two, meeting their pursuit with a fierce blur of movement, spinning and slashing, sliding down low and turning to cut at their legs, leaping up high and similarly spinning and slashing. To an unskilled onlooker, it would have seemed pure chaos, but to a seasoned warrior, every turn, every dip and rise, every slash and stab by the drow ranger would chime as harmonious as the notes of a sweet and perfect melody. Each move led to the next, logically, in balance and with power. Each strike, whether a straight thrust or a wide slash, found its mark.

And every angled retraction of those blades defeated a sahuagin’s raking claw, or a kick, or a sudden rush. It went on for only a matter of a few heartbeats, but when Drizzt darted and rolled away from that frenzied melee, he left both of the sea devils staggering and bleeding and disoriented, giving him plenty of time to dive down and retrieve his bow.

He rolled around back to his feet, turning and setting an arrow as he rose.

The nearest sahuagin flew away in a flash of lightning.

The second stood straight, piscine eyes going wide.

Drizzt blew it to the ground, its skull exploding under the weight of the shot.

That left the third, still limping for him, impaled javelin waving, blood streaming. Drizzt put up another arrow and leveled the bow with plenty of time to spare. He stared down the length of that missile at the creature, looking for some sign of fear, some recognition that it was about to die, some understanding that it could not hope to get near to him.

He saw nothing but determination and hatred.

He almost pitied the thing.

Almost.

He blew the sea devil away.

“Rest are runnin’ for the sea,” Ambergris reported, the dwarf and monk hustling back around the building across the way from Drizzt. “We might get ye a couple more shots if we’re hurryin’.”

“Let them run,” Drizzt answered. “We’ll come back tomorrow after sunset, and the next night. Sting them and sting them. They’ll grow weary of this and we’ll help the folk reclaim Port Llast to the sea.”

“Heroes,” another voice chimed in sarcastically, and the three turned to the street to see Entreri and Dahlia moving toward them, the elf woman barely upright and leaning heavily on the assassin, who showed wounds of his own, including an eye swollen enough so that the others could see its disfigurement even in the starlight.

Drizzt ran to Dahlia and took her from Entreri’s side, and immediately noted that her hair was sticky and matted with blood.

“Amber!” Drizzt called, easing Dahlia down.

“Looks like yerself might be using a spell or two o’ mine, as well,” the dwarf remarked, kneeling beside Dahlia, but considering the line of blood on Drizzt neck.

When Drizzt regarded the dwarf, her forehead bloody and gashed, he realized that she might be saying the same of herself.

“We should retreat to the higher reaches beyond the wall,” Afafrenfere offered. “The sahuagin might return in force and formation.”

“Yes, let’s,” Entreri offered. “I have a few words to offer those grenadiers.”

His tone had all eyes looking his way.

“Be warned,” Entreri grimly added, “we might be on the road soon after.”