Charon's Claw
Page 43

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 wavered, 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.