While the two went back to the camp-building, more determinedly and convincingly this time, Drizzt quietly slipped the Heartseeker into position and set his magical quiver on a web of branches in easy reach. Even as the first arrow went to his bowstring, the drow picked out the advancing forms again, noting at least three of the gray-skinned pursuers.
Their determined and clever movements told him that they knew of his companions at least.
Drizzt whistled again, this time a longer chain of wren-song, to communicate this new observation, and ended with three short tweets to let the others know the enemy count.
He tweeted a short fourth whistle, then a fifth and sixth, as more Shadovar, or at least, as more movement indicative of approaching Shadovar, came visible to him.
The drow licked his lips, his eyes scanning intently. If these enemies meant to attack from afar, by spell or by missile, then he would provide the only warning and the only initial defense for Entreri and Dahlia.
Behind the approaching shades and beside the magical gate that had brought them to this place, Herzgo Alegni paced anxiously. He badly wanted to lead this charge, but he had not yet fully recovered from the beating on the bridge. He could not lift his left arm, and he knew no healer with the power to restore his right eye. He wore an eye patch over that broken orb now.
Another trio of shades came through the gate, and Alegni directed them forward-and it took all of his willpower not to rush off after them.
How he hated these enemies! How he hated Dahlia and her heinous betrayal! How he hated Barrabus and his treachery!
He hoped that those two would be captured alive, so he could torture them until they begged for the sweet release of death.
Another shade came through, a wizard, and one very loyal to Effron, Alegni knew. With a curt and almost dismissive nod to the tiefling warlord, he hustled away to join the impending battle.
A low growl escaped Alegni’s lips. He needed to get the many priests working harder, needed to be back in the fight, back in command, in short order. Out of stubbornness, he tried to lift his arm, and growled louder through his grimace.
He looked to the distant hillock, atop which his enemies prepared their camp, and muttered, “Soon, Dahlia, very soon,” and then again, substituting the name of Barrabus.
The first shades burst into the opening, two charging in with leveled spears, the third with an axe spinning up above his head.
But the elf and human were not unprepared. As the shades had appeared, both turned, weapons in hand, to meet the charge.
From up above, Drizzt watched as Entreri swept aside the spears with a sudden rush across from Dahlia’s left to her right, and Dahlia waded in behind him expertly, her flails smacking at the weapons, so that the spear-wielders had to retreat a step and reorient. As her spinning weapons drove the blades out wider with backhanded movements, the elf warrior spun them around and over, then in fast figure-eights before her to hold the axe-wielder at bay.
Drizzt lowered his bow, looking for a clear shot to take out the woman holding the spear to Dahlia’s unprotected left flank, but he pulled up fast when he saw movement from a bush not far away. It was just the flicker of a hand that had come visible, but a telling one.
It was a spellcaster, he realized, and up came Taulmaril and off went a silverstreaking arrow, then another, and more in rapid succession, each burrowing through the brush like a lightning strike, leaving wisps of smoke, even small fires on the branches as they drove through. Sparks exploded from behind, for the spellcaster had obviously enacted some magical wards against such attacks.
But Drizzt kept up the barrage, confident that Taulmaril would prove the stronger. More missiles whipped through, and the spellcaster staggered out backward, coming into clearer view. Other shouts rose up around him, and Drizzt knew that he’d be facing arrows and spells as well soon enough.
But he kept up his devastating rain of lightning arrows, and the sparks came fewer and the mage’s screams came louder. He staggered back, now with wisps of smoke rising from his robes, and tried to turn and run off, clutching at his belly, clutching at his burning leg.
Drizzt’s next arrow caught him just under the ear and lifted him from the ground, throwing him down on his face in the dirt, where he lay very still.
The drow rolled around to the other side of the tree trunk, and just in time to avoid a line of magical fire from a second sorcerer. He came up shooting again, but not in a concentrated manner this time, for he could not afford that, as shade archers and spearmen began to launch their missiles his way.
In the heat of battle, his own situation worsening by the heartbeat, Drizzt still managed to glance down at his companions. One spearman was down, writhing on the ground with blood spilling from his side, but two other shades had joined the battle.
Entreri, in particular, seemed hard-pressed.
Drizzt started to lower his bow for a shot at one of the shades below.
But he didn’t, and focused instead on the distant enemies.
Their precision and coordinated movements had only grown in the days since the fight at the bridge in Neverwinter, with both of these fine warriors coming to understand each other better, both physically and emotionally.
Artemis Entreri knew when he went spinning across to defeat the initial spear thrusts that Dahlia would be ready to step into the void left in his wake, and ready to take full advantage of their off-balance opponents. And so she had, driving back the axe-wielder and ably keeping the spearwoman over to the left fully engaged.
That left Entreri one-against-one with the other spearman.
He drove the spear out to his right even farther with a backhand slash of his sword. His opponent did well to hold on, and even to cleverly reverse his momentum, lifting his leading left hand up over his shoulder and punching out with the right down low in an attempt to butt Entreri hard with the back end of the spear.
It would have worked, too, except that Entreri’s dagger came across right behind the sword’s backhand to catch the spear’s shaft down low, and with Entreri’s arm at such an angle to hold his opponent’s weapon firmly in place.
Entreri looked the shade straight in the eye, then pressed upward with the dagger.
The shade should have leaped back to disengage, and likely would have had he understood the skill of his opponent, but he stubbornly pressed on, even trying to reverse once more and bring the spear tip slashing down from on high.
But Entreri had it securely locked with his dagger, rolling the blade deftly to prevent the disengage, and turning it to use the shade’s momentum to his own favor, driving the spear up slightly.
Enough so that he was able to slip the tip of his sword under the butt of the weapon.
Still staring into the shade’s eyes, Entreri put on just the hint of a wicked grin and thrust his sword upward, catching the shade just under the ribs. The shade let go of the spear with one hand, trying desperately to spin away, but the assassin’s sword dug in, tearing through flesh and into a lung.
The shade fell away-and Entreri smiled wider when Dahlia, deep into her spinning dance and keeping the other two engaged, managed to crack the fool across the head as he tumbled, just for good measure.
Entreri understood the level of satisfaction the elf woman took in delivering that blow.
Though he noted two more enemies charging in, he crossed by Dahlia, sword slashing in a wide angle to drive the axe-wielder back a few steps, then crossing down hard to crack into the shaft of the thrusting spear, catching it just below the tip and nearly shearing that blade off.
Dahlia responded perfectly, intercepting the two newcomers with a barrage of spinning flails that surely defeated their momentum-and likely their appetite for this fight.
Entreri noted that, and marveled at it, and silently congratulated the woman for the clever move.
The magical bolt, green energy smoking with anger, whipped in at Drizzt too quickly for him to duck aside. He took it in the shoulder and his grip wav
ered, but only for a moment.
Then he responded back at the mage with a new stream of lightning arrows. One after another, they blasted into the tree behind which the mage had dived, chipping bark and cracking into the hardwood. Drizzt grimaced against the burning pain running through his arm, but he stubbornly held on and kept up the barrage, telling himself that if he let up, the mage would come out and lash at him again.
A slight movement to the side caught his attention and he swiveled the bow reflexively and let fly.
Good fortune more than skill aided him in that moment, he silently admitted, for his arrow flew true, throwing a shade archer to the ground, a line of smoke rising from the hole in her chest.
Back toward the mage went the bow, more arrows flashing away, thundering into and all around the tree, throwing sparks and wood chips.
An arrow clipped the tree very near to Drizzt’s face. He hadn’t even seen it coming, and from the angle of the shot, he recognized that he was vulnerable. He let up on the mage and turned quickly to the new threat, down and to the side and just past the continuing fight on the ground below him. Another arrow whipped in, missing badly, and Drizzt spotted the archer. Off went the silvery flash of Taulmaril’s next arrow, exploding into a large stone.
Up from behind that stone appeared not one, but two archers, both ready to let fly at Drizzt.
But he beat them to it, skipping his next shot off the stone between them, the flash stealing their eyesight, the resounding retort stealing their nerves. One never even got off her shot before she yelped and ducked, and the second missed so wildly that his arrow didn’t even cross within the wide reach of the tree’s branches.
Drizzt couldn’t count that as a victory, though, not with the wizard likely crawling out from behind his tree barricade and preparing the next magical assault. He started to turn, thinking to unleash another volley that way, but paused.
Down below he noted the fight, noted the back of Artemis Entreri, open and inviting. He could lower the Heartseeker but a finger’s breadth and let fly and be rid of Entreri once and for all.
It would be so easy.
And wouldn’t the world be a better place without this murderer? How many lives, perhaps innocent lives, might Drizzt save with just that one shot?
He had actually started to draw back on the bowstring when the magical bolt struck him hard in the side, blasting the breath from him and nearly knocking him from the tree.
And up came the two archers behind the stone, both letting fly.
Drizzt, eyes hardly open as he squinted against the pain, pumped his arm repeatedly, sending a near-solid line of lightning their way. He scored one hit, he believed, from the pitch of the ensuing cry, but he knew not how solid.
He expected that he would die up there, then, in the nook in this tree.
But couldn’t he take Artemis Entreri along with him?
And wouldn’t the world be a better place if he did?
More enemies appeared.
Between parries, Entreri managed to glance at Dahlia and mouth, “Go.”
The elf was already moving, with her hands at first, turning flails into four-foot bo sticks, then, as she rushed forward, deftly striking with them to align them properly for a full joining. Her long staff returned, Dahlia continued her charge, then abruptly planted the end and leaped over the surprised shades, landing lightly behind the pair and sprinting off into the thicker brush.
Reflexively, stupidly, the shades spun around and followed-or one followed, as the other stumbled, Entreri’s belt knife driving deep into his kidney.
The pursuer, apparently oblivious to her companion’s fate, kept running, until the end of Dahlia’s staff appeared, lined up perfectly just below her chin. She couldn’t stop, and Dahlia had reversed direction and was coming at her anyway, and the combined momentum drove the long staff spearlike against the soft skin of the shade’s neck. Her legs flew out from under her as she tried futilely to recoil, and she landed hard on her back, gagging and choking and gulping for air that would not come. She flailed pathetically, but Dahlia just leaped past her, back toward Entreri.
None of this was lost on the two Entreri battled. The swordsman to the left of the assassin motioned for his companion to hold back Dahlia.
He should have kept his focus on the assassin instead, for as his friend turned, Entreri charged in at him. Obviously startled by the sudden boldness of the move, the shade leaped and scrambled back.
But Entreri veered and caught the turning shade instead, and that axe man heard him coming and whipped around with a mighty sidelong swing.
One that went high as Entreri skidded low to his knees, his sword disemboweling the shade.
The remaining swordsman leaped for the vulnerable assassin, and caught instead a furious Dahlia, now with flails once more, spinning and cracking him all around the head. He got pummeled a dozen times in that flashing moment, but really only felt the first burst of fiery pain as his skull shattered.
Dahlia hardly slowed as she ran past, moving through the camp and out the back side, as Entreri used his sword to drop the axe man off to the right, between him and the new group just coming through the brush. He sprinted almost directly opposite Dahlia, to where she had gone after her vault, bending, not pausing, only to yank his belt knife from the wounded Shadovar male.
He crashed through the brush in a full run, turning left as he knew-just knew-that Dahlia would spin right, that they could link up once more deeper into the woods.
More arrows flew off from Taulmaril. Drizzt scored a hit, a kill, and then a second kill in rapid order as the companion of his first victim tried to get up and run off.
Still the drow grimaced in pain, his muscles clenching against the burns of the two magical bolts, but at least he had lessened the missiles flying in at him. Below him the fight intensified. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dahlia springing away.
Which would leave Entreri even more vulnerable to him, he realized. Another arrow skipped through the branches, narrowly missing Drizzt’s face, and stealing all thoughts of the battle below. He wheeled around to spot the archer, who was diving behind a fallen log, and drew back, but out of the corner of his eye, Drizzt noted the pesky sorcerer, casting yet another spell. Before he could train his bow on the shade, a pea of flame left the mage’s hand, soaring his way.
Drizzt knew all too well what that foretold.
He let fly the arrow, missing badly, for he was already moving, scrambling up from his perch, as he let go of the bowstring. In truth, he let fly the arrow as much to clear it from the bow as anything else.
He rushed out along the branch, nimbly balancing as he flipped the magical quiver and then the bow over his shoulders, and by the time he got out on the limb, the thinner wood beginning to bend under his weight, he had his scimitars in hand.
The tree exploded behind him, the mage’s fireball turning twilight into noontime. It was not a concussive blast, though Drizzt wished it had been, for the air around him instantly began to simmer and sting with licks of flame. Now he used the elasticity of the branch, springing up and away with abandon.
Only his magical anklets had saved him from grievous wounds from the intensity of the blast-no novice, this mage! Without the magic speeding his steps, that fireball would have caught him fully, to no good end.
Though he had escaped the bulk of that blast, he found himself more than twenty feet in the air, flying free and clear of the branches, with nothing to grasp and only the hard ground to cushion his fall.
He took some comfort, or enjoyment, in the look of horror upon the mage’s face as he descended from on high. He noted the terrain, and took heart that it was mostly clear before him.
The drow turned himself over in mid-air, landing in a forward roll, coming up with a desperate swing as he passed by the mage before going into another forward roll, and a third to absorb the momentum. He crashed through some brush, painfully, but managed to come up to his feet relatively unscathed.
; The same could not be said of the mage, who spun around in circles with blood spurting from the gash Drizzt’s scimitar had sliced across his throat.
Drizzt tried to orient himself, to figure out where his companions might be. An image of his blades diving in at Entreri’s back flashed in his mind, and brought forth a surprising amount of anger-rage he quickly focused on the situation at hand. He charged off at full speed, moving from cover to cover, from tree to brush to boulder, then even up into the lower branches of another tree. Shouts rang up all around him as the enemy tried to get a bead on him, tried to coordinate against him.
He reversed his course, then cut out again, springing from the tree branch to a clearing behind some underbrush, then speeding through at full speed to surprise a pair of Shadovar who were still pointing at the tree he had climbed, yelling out directions.
They almost got their weapons up to block.
Drizzt ran on, leaving the two writhing on the ground. Anger grew with his speed, fueled by images of Entreri and Dahlia sharing that intimate moment.
He heard a cry from in front and knew he had been spotted, knew that those ahead would put up a better defense-against his scimitars, at least.
So he sheathed the blades as he sprinted and drew out his bow, and burst into sight of the trio. One, two, three went his arrows, blowing one shade away, lifting him into the air, cutting a second down with a glancing blow that still opened her skin from shoulder to shoulder, and sending the third diving away in panic.
Drizzt rushed through, crossing their position and disappearing into the brush so quickly that the unwounded shade wasn’t even sure where he had gone.
“We cannot catch him,” the Netheril commoner admitted to Lord Alegni when he rejoined the tiefling at the magical gate. “He moves like a ghost-into the trees as quickly as we run along the ground.”
“You have sorcerers,” Alegni replied, and he looked past the soldier to a few other shades now approaching, more than one of them glancing back over his shoulder with clear alarm.
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