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 towar
d 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.”
THE BATTLE OF PORT LLAST
THE CHEERING FOLLOWED THE FIVE COMPANIONS ALL THE WAY BACK TO Stonecutter’s Solace, and even inside the tavern, where their table was visited repeatedly by proud
Port Llast villagers, clapping their backs and promising that their gold would never be good in the seaside town.
“They’ve been starved for such a night as we have given them,” Drizzt remarked in one of the few moments when the five found themselves alone. “And starved for a bit of hope. For too long, this town has been in retreat, the minions of Umberlee in advance.”
“Bah, but won’t it go right back to that?” Ambergris asked.
“Only if we allow it,” Afafrenfere interjected before Drizzt could, and the drow nodded and smiled at the monk in agreement and appreciation.
Others came over to them then, each bearing a fistful of foamy, spilling mugs, and the conversation widened to swallow the many notes of “huzzah” being thrown their way. The dwarf took it all in with a gap-toothed smile, enjoying the accolades, but not as much as she enjoyed the ale.
Afafrenfere, too, reveled in the glory, though he wouldn’t partake of alcohol, pushing the mugs placed in front of him to the dwarf, which of course only made Ambergris all the happier.
Truly, Drizzt enjoyed watching his companions’ reaction to the celebration more than the joy of the townsfolk, which he found satisfying, and the libations, of which he would only modestly partake. It did his heart good to watch Ambergris, who reminded him of so many old friends he had known in his decades in Mithral Hall, and Afafrenfere, who appeared to be validating the dwarf’s belief in the goodly bent of his disposition. What warmed Drizzt most of all, though, was the reaction, the sincere smile, of Dahlia. She deserved that smile, he thought.
The journey to Gauntlgrym had battered this woman. Even attaining her most desired victory in killing Herzgo Alegni had taken more from her than it had given, Drizzt knew. On the road to Gauntlgrym, before they had known that Alegni had survived the fight at the winged bridge, Entreri had posited that perhaps the expectation of revenge had sated Dahlia’s unrelenting anger better than the realization of that revenge. The way Entreri had explained it to Drizzt was that a person could always pretend that some future event would solve many more problems than the realization of such an event could ever bring.
The Last Threshold: Neverwinter Saga, Book IV Page 11