Right in Catti-brie's sights.
He died quickly, at least.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sheila Kree had him dead, obviously so, and her sword dived in at Wulfgar's exposed flank.
But the pirate leader had to pull back before ever hitting the mark, for a pair of legs wrapped around her waist, and a pair of daggers stabbed in viciously at the sides of her neck.
The veteran pirate bent forward, flipping the cunning assassin over her.
“Morik, ye dog!” she cried as the rogue went into a roll that stood him up right beside Wulfgar, bloody daggers in hand.
Sheila stumbled backward, taking some comfort as more of her fighters passed her by.
“Kill 'em both!” she screamed as she staggered back into the cave complex.
“Like old times, eh?” Morik said to the stunned Wulfgar, who was already back to fending the ogre attacker.
Wulfgar could hardly respond. He just shook his head at the unexpected reprieve.
“Like old times?” Morik said again, as he fell into a fight with a pair of dirty pirates.
“We didn't win many of the fights in the old times,” Wulfgar poignantly reminded him, for the odds had far from evened.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Drizzt worked his scimitars in a flurry of spinning parries, gradually turning them and altering his angle, moving his defensive posture into one more offensive, and forcing the elf back.
“Well done,” the elf congratulated, skipping over one of fallen Bloog's legs.
“I do not even know your name, yet you bear me this hatred,” the drow remarked.
The elf laughed at him. “I am Le'lorinel. That is the only name you need to hear.”
Drizzt shook his head, staring at those intense eyes, somewhat recognizing them, but unable to place them.
And he was back into the fray, as Le'lorinel leaped forward, blades working furiously.
A sword came at Drizzt's head and he picked it off with an upraised scimitar. Le'lorinel turned the sword under the drow's curving blade and came ahead with a left-hand thrust of the dagger, a brilliant move.
But Drizzt was better. He accepted the cunning turn of the blades and instead of trying to move his second blade in front to deflect the dagger, he rolled to his right, driving his scimitar in toward the center, pushing the sword across and forcing his opponent to shift and alter the dagger thrust.
The drow's second blade came around with a sweep, driving against the elf's side.
The blade bounced off. Drizzt might as well have tried to slash through stone.
The drow rushed out, eyeing the turning and smiling Le'lorinel. He knew the enchantment immediately, for he had seen wizards use it. Was this elf a spellsword, then, a warrior trained in both the arcane and martial arts?
Drizzt hopped fallen Bloog's bloody chest, making a fast retreat to the back of the room, near to the hearth.
Le'lorinel continued to smile and held up one hand, whispering something Drizzt did not hear. The ring flared, and the elf moved even faster, hastened by yet another enchantment.
Oh, yes, this one was indeed prepared.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Regis dropped Aegis-fang down onto the burning logs, then scrambled as low as he could, rolled over so that he was going down head first, and caught the lip of the hearth and swung himself out. He was glad, as his feet kicked through the flames, that he was wearing heavy winter boots instead of walking in his typical barefoot manner.
The halfling scanned the room, seeing it much as Drizzt had described. He reached back and pulled Aegis-fang from the fire, then started across the room, to the partially opened door.
He went through silently, coming into a smaller chamber, this one some sort of alchemical workshop. There loomed the other door, with daylight streaming in around it.
The halfling ran for it, grabbed the handle, and tugged it open.
Then he was hit by a series of stinging, burning bursts against his hip and back. With a squeal, Regis scrambled out onto a natural balcony, but one that left him nowhere to run. He saw the fighting almost directly below him, so he threw the warhammer as far as he could, which wasn't very far, and cried out for Wulfgar.
Regis scrambled back, not even watching the hammer's bouncing descent. He saw the sorceress then, her invisibility enchantment dispelled. She stared at him from the side of the room, her hands working in the midst of casting yet another spell.
Regis yelped and ran out of the room into the main chamber, heading first for the hearth, then veering for another door.
The air around him grew thick with drifting strands of sticky, string like material. The halfling changed course yet again, making for the hearth, hoping its flames would burn this magical webbing away. He never got close, though, his strides shortened, his momentum stolen.
He was caught, encased in magical webbing that was holding him fast and was so thick around him he couldn't even breathe.
And the sorceress was there, in front of him, on the outside of the webbing barely a few inches away. She lifted a hand, holding a shining dagger up to Regis's face.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Another archer went down. Ignoring the burning pain and tightness in her arm, Catti-brie set another arrow to her bow.
More archers had appeared above Guenhwyvar. As the woman took aim on that position, she noted another movement in a more dangerous place, a ledge high up above where Wulfgar was fighting.
Catti-brie whirled and nearly fired.
It was Regis, falling back — and Aegis-fang, falling down!
Catti-brie held her breath, thinking that the warhammer would bounce all the way down to the sea, but it caught suddenly and held in place on a small ledge up above and to the side.
“Call for it!” she screamed repeatedly.
With a glance to the lower archer ledge, where she knew Guenhwyvar was still engaged, she ran along the trail.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Drizzt made the hearth and skidded down to one knee, dropping Icingdeath to the stone floor and reaching into the glowing fireplace. Out his arm pumped, then back in, then out again, launching a barrage of missiles at Le'lorinel. One hit, then another. The elf blocked a third, a spinning stick, but the missile broke apart across the elf s blade, each side spinning in to score a hit.
None of them were serious, none of them would have been even without the stoneskin defense, but every one, every strike upon the elf, removed a bit more of the defensive enchantment.
“Very wise, drow!” Le'lorinel congratulated, and on the elf warrior came, sword flashing for the stooping drow.
Drizzt grabbed his blade and started up, then dropped back to the floor and kicked out, his foot barely hitting Le'lorinel's shin.
Then Drizzt had to roll to the side and over backward to his feet, against the wall. His scimitars came up immediately, ringing with parry after parry as Le'lorinel launched a series of strong attacks his way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The bardiche was falling apart in his hands by then, as Wulfgar worked against the ogre.
To the side, Morik, too, found himself hard-pressed by a pair of pirates, both wielding vicious-looking cutlasses,
“We can't win!” the rogue cried.
“Then why did you help me?” Wulfgar countered.
Morik found his next words caught in his throat. Why indeed had he gone against Sheila Kree? Even when he had come visible again, on the ramp descending from Chogurugga's chamber, it would not have been difficult for him to find a shadowy place to sit out the fight. Cursing himself for what he now had to consider a foolhardy decision, the rogue leaped ahead, daggers slashing. He landed in a turn that sent his dark cloak flying wide.
“Run away!” he cried out, leaving the cloak behind as a pair of slashing cutlasses came against it. He skittered behind Wulfgar, moving between a pair of huge boulders and heading up the trail.
Then he came back onto the small clearing, shouting, “Not that way!” Yet another ogre was in fast pursuit.
Wulfgar groaned as this new foe seemed to be entering the fray—and another, he noted, seeing movement beside Morik.
But that was no ogre.
Bruenor Battlehammer leaped up onto the rock as Morik passed underneath. Axe in both hands and down behind him, the dwarf took aim as the oblivious ogre came by in fast pursuit.
Crack!
The hit resounded like splitting stone, and everyone on the clearing stopped their fighting for just a moment to regard the wild-eyed red-haired dwarf standing atop the stone, his axe buried deeply into the skull of an ogre that was only still upright because the mighty dwarf was holding it there, trying to tug the axe back out.
“Ain't that a beautiful sound?” Bruenor called to Wulfgar.
Wulfgar shook his head and went back into defensive action against the ogre, and now with the two pirates joining in. “Took you long enough!” he replied.
“Quit yer bitchin'!” Bruenor yelled back. “Me girl's seen yer hammer, ye durn fool! Call for it, boy!”
The ogre in front of Wulfgar stepped back to get some charging room, roared defiantly, and lifted its club, coming on hard.
Wulfgar threw his ruined bardiche at the beast, who blocked it with its chest and arm and tossed the pieces aside.
“Oh, brilliant!” complained Morik, who was back behind Wulfgar, coming around to engage the two pirates.
But Wulfgar wasn't even listening to the complaint or to the threats from the enraged ogre. He was yelling out instead, trusting Bruenor's word.
“What you to do now, puny one?” the ogre said, though its expression changed considerably as it finished the question. A finely crafted warhammer appeared in Wulfgar's waiting grasp.
“Catch this one,” the barbarian remarked, letting fly.
As it had with the cracked bardiche, the ogre tried to accept the blow with its chest and its arm, tried to just take the hit and push the warhammer aside.
But this was no cracked bardiche.
The ogre had no idea why it was sitting against the wall then, unable to draw breath.
His hand up high in the air, Wulfgar called out again for the hammer.
And there it was, in his grasp, warrior and weapon united.
A cutlass came in at him from the side, along with a cry of warning from Morik.
Wulfgar snapped his warhammer down, blasting the thrusting cutlass away. With perfect balance, as if the warhammer was an extension of his own arm, Wulfgar turned the weapon and swung it out hard.
The pirate flew away.
The other turned and ran, but Morik had him before he reached the opening, stabbing him down.
Another ogre exited the cave and glared threateningly at nearby Morik, but a blue streak cut between the barbarian and the rogue, knocking the brute back inside.
The friends turned to see Catti-brie standing there, bow in hand.
“Guen's got them up above,” the woman explained.
“And Rumblebelly's up there too, and likely needin' us!” howled Bruenor, motioning for them.
They ran on up the path, winding farther around the mountain. They came to another level, wide area with a huge door facing them, set into the mountain.
“Not that one,” Morik tried to explain. “Big ogres. .”
The rogue shut up as Bruenor and Wulfgar fell over the door, hammer and axe chopping, splintering the wood to pieces.
In the pair went.
Chogurugga and her attendants were waiting.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Their weapons rang against each other repeatedly, a blur of motion, a constant sound. Hastened by the enchantment, Le'lorinel matched Drizzt's blinding speed, but unlike the drow, the elf was not used to such lightning reflexive action.
Scimitar right, scimitar left, scimitar straight ahead, and Drizzt scored a hard stab against Le'lorinel's chest that would have finished the elf had it not been for the stonelike dweomer.
“How many more will it stop?” the drow asked, growing more confident now as his routines slipped around Le'lorinel's defenses. “We need not do this.”
But the elf showed no sign of letting up.
Drizzt slashed out with his right, then spun as Le'lorinel, parrying, went into a circuit to the right as well, both coming together out of their respective spins with a clash of four blades.
Drizzt turned his blade over the elf's, driving Le'lorinel's down. When the elf predictably stabbed ahead, the drow leaped into a somersault right over the attack, landing on his feet and falling low as the sword swished over his head. Drizzt slashed out, scoring on Le'lorinel's hip, then kicked out as the elf retreated, clipping a knee.
Le'lorinel squeaked in pain and stumbled back a few steps.
The enchantment was defeated. The next scimitar hit would draw blood.
“There is no need for this,” Drizzt graciously said.
Le'lorinel glared at him, and smiled again. Up came the ring, and with a word from the elf, it flashed again.
Drizzt charged, wanting to beat whatever trick might be coming next.
But Le'lorinel was gone, vanished from sight.
Drizzt skidded to a stop, eyes widening with surprise. On instinct, he reached within himself to his own magical powers, his innate drow abilities, and summoned a globe of darkness about him, one that filled the room and put him back on even footing with the invisible warrior.
Just as Le'lorinel had expected he would. For now, with the ring's fourth enchantment—the most insidious of the group— the invisible elf s form was outlined again in glowing fires.
Drizzt moved in, spinning and launching slashing attack routines, as he had long ago learned when fighting blindly. Every attack was also a parry, his scimitars whirling out wide from his body.
And he listened, and he heard the shuffle of feet.
He was on the spot in an instant and took heart when his blade rang against a blocking sword, awkwardly held.
The elf had miscalculated, he believed, had altered the fight into one in which the experienced drow held a great advantage.
He struck with wide-reaching blows, coming in from the left and the right, keeping his opponent before him.
Right and left again, and Drizzt turned suddenly behind his second swing, spinning and slashing with the right as he came around.
The victory was his, he knew, from the position of the blocking sword and dagger, the elf caught flatfooted and without defense.
His scimitar drove against Le'lorinel's side, tearing flesh.
But at precisely the same instant, Drizzt, too, got hit in the side.
Unable to retract or slow his blow, Drizzt had to finish the move, the scimitar bouncing off of a rib, tearing a lung and cutting back out across the front of the elf’s chest.
And the same wound burrowed across the drow's chest.
Even as the pain exploded within him, even as he stumbled back, tripping over Bloog's leg and falling hard to the floor against the wall, Drizzt understood what had happened, recognized the fire shield enchantment, a devilish spell that inflicted damage upon anyone striking the spell-user.
He lay there, one lung collapsing, his lifeblood running out freely.
Across the way, Le'lorinel, dying as Drizzt was dying, groaned.
Chapter 28 NOT WITHOUT LOSS
With equal intensity, Bruenor and Wulfgar charged into the large cave. Wulfgar headed to the side to intercept a pair of large, armored ogres while Bruenor went for the most exotic of the three, an ogress with light violet skin wearing a huge shining helmet and wielding an enormous scythe.
Morik came in behind the ferocious pair, tentatively, and making no definite strides to join the battle.
More eager behind him came Catti-brie. She had an arrow flying almost immediately, staggering one of the two ogres closing on Wulfgar.
That blast gave the barbarian all the momentum he needed. He drove har
d against the other brute, Aegis-fang pounding repeatedly. The ogre blocked and blocked again, but the third chop hit it on the breastplate and sent it staggering backward.
Wulfgar bore in, smashing away.
The ogre's wounded companion tried to move back into the fight, but Catti-brie hit it with a second arrow, and a third. Howling with rage and pain, the brute turned and charged the door instead.
“Brilliant,” Morik groaned, and he cried out as a large form brushed past him, sending him sprawling.
Guenhwyvar hit the charging, arrow-riddled ogre head on. She leaped onto its face, clawing, raking, and biting. The brute stood straight, its momentum lost, and staggered backward, its face erupting in fountains of blood.
“Good girl,” said Catti-brie, and she turned and fired up above Bruenor, nailing the ogress, then drew out Khazid'hea. She paused and glanced back at Morik, who was standing against the wall, shaking his head.
“Well done,” he muttered, in obvious disbelief.
They were indeed an efficient group!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The magical darkness lifted.
Drizzt sat against the wall. Across from him sat Le'lorinel, in almost the exact posture and with a wound identical to the drow's.
Drizzt stared at his fallen opponent, his eyes widening. Thin magical flames still licked at Le'lorinel's skin, but Drizzt hardly noted them. For the wound, torn through Le'lorinel's leather vest and across the front, revealed a breast—a female breast!
And Drizzt understood so very much, and knew those eyes so much better, and knew who this truly was even before Le'lorinel reached up and pulled the mask off her face.
An elf, a Moon elf, once a little child whom Drizzt had saved from drow raiders. An elf driven to rage by the devastation of the drow on that fateful, evil day, when she was bathed in the blood of her own murdered mother to convince the dark elves that she, too, was already dead.
“By the gods,” the drow rasped, his voice weak for lack of air.
“You are dead, Drizzt Do'Urden,” the elf said, her voice equally weak and faltering. “My family is avenged.”
Drizzt tried to respond, but he could not begin to find the words. In this short time, how could he possibly explain to Le'lorinel that he had not participated in that murder, that he had saved her at great personal peril, and most importantly, that he was sorry, so very sorry, for what his evil kin had done.
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