R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“Matron Mother?” the priestess replied with a clear tremor in her voice.

“It is fitting that my blood is first to seal the chapel. Lift your scourge!”

With trembling hands, Berellip complied. She didn’t snap her snake-headed whip at the matron mother, but she didn’t have to, for it was an instrument of Lady Lolth’s wrath, and the snakes understood their purpose here.

They lashed and tore at Quenthel’s skin, and she reveled in the glory of Lolth as her blood dripped to the stones. She began to twirl and to dance, and Berellip kept pace, her four serpents biting again and again.

After many steps and much blood it ended, and the matron mother cast a spell of healing to close her wounds, regain her strength, and neutralize the poison of Berellip’s vipers.

Then she took her own five-headed instrument from her belt. Now it was Berellip’s turn to dance for the Spider Queen.

Some time later, Quenthel, Gromph, and Methil left Berellip lying on the floor of the primordial chamber in a pool of her own blood. Dazed and disoriented, the priestess would surely die if she could not find the clarity to collect her thoughts and her powers enough to heal herself from the venom of Quenthel’s vicious serpents.

In that tragic event, the matron mother figured, it would be the will of Lolth, and Matron Zeerith would have no one to blame but herself for raising such impotent daughters.

Artemis Entreri twisted and turned, trying to upright himself before his descent. He had no idea what had hit him, and everyone around him, but only that they were all flying now, bounced a dozen feet into the air by the rolling ground.

He came around and saw his opponent similarly reacting. He glanced at the globe of darkness, behind him and to the side, and noted Brother Afafrenfere bouncing down then lying still along the ground beside the darkness globe now, and twisted around, having landed awkwardly.

This fight was over. He had no chance. He might defeat this noble drow of House Baenre, but to what end?

So he half-turned in his descent and landed with his legs already moving, sprinting back for the building down and to the right of the burning Stonecutter’s Solace. He waved his heavy cloak out behind him as a shield against the hand crossbow bolts. He heard Tiago Baenre’s protest. “Coward!” the drow cried.

Entreri ignored him and sprinted around the edge of the building, sheathing his weapons as he went. He leaped and caught a handhold, and with exceptional strength and agility, spun himself up and over, throwing his legs above him and onto the low roof. He rolled over and came up in a crouch.

And saw again Tiago Baenre, floating in the air just beyond the roof’s edge.

With an evil grin, the drow banged his sword against that translucent shield and stepped onto the roof. He lifted his blade in salute, bidding Entreri to come on.

The assassin glanced around, seeking an escape route. He could run, perhaps, moving to the lower sections of the city-surely the pursuit would become distracted by the many other targets …

Entreri shook the thoughts from his mind and focused instead on this one drow stalking him.

With a shrug, he drew his weapons and charged.

They came together in a blur of movement, turning and leaping out to either side, diving back in. Sword and shield met sword and dagger, blades ever turning and re-angling, particularly from Entreri who took great care not to let either of his weapons become entangled again in the web-like properties of that strange shield.

The combatants turned and rolled as readily as their weapons, each seeking an advantageous angle, for they were surely well-matched here.

Other dark elves rose up as spectators, levitating around the roof line. Somehow that spurred Entreri on, and he began to drop his trailing foot back just a bit more with each riposte and each turn. He wanted to win now, even at the cost of his own life. So be it, he thought, as long as he could bring this one, this Baenre, down before him.

But he was running out of time as Tiago’s allies positioned around them, and as this young drow warrior, superbly skilled and trained, matched his every move. Entreri dropped his foot back just a bit more as he spun out to the left, coming around with a backhand that Tiago ably ducked.

And in came Tiago, clearly understanding Entreri’s desire to flee. The jeweled dagger flashed, taking aside the drow’s sword thrust, but that thrust was merely a feint, Entreri realized, and he leaped up as the real attack, a sidelong slash of that shield, cut in at his knees.

He went up in a turn, and kicked out, but pulled short on the kick, his own feint, and let his leg fling out to the side as Tiago’s sword vainly tried to catch up. And around went the leaping Entreri, and now his right leg came around instead in a circle kick, and the drow could not recover before getting Entreri’s boot slammed into his face.

Tiago staggered backward. “Oh clever!” he yelled, his voice slurred as he spat blood.

“Get used to it,” Entreri growled and came on. He pulled up short, though, and twisted around to avoid a hand crossbow bolt, diving in over Tiago’s right shoulder and flying for his face. A click from the other side had him turning fast back the other way, and the second dart skipped past.

And in came Tiago with a shield rush, bulling toward him, and the drow’s sword flashed out beside the blocker.

Entreri hit it with his own blade, and stabbed in behind it, and just over Tiago’s shield, with his deadly dagger.

The drow ducked the thrust and lifted his shield to lift Entreri’s arm, and the assassin felt the buckler grabbing at him, pulling at his clothes with its web-like stickiness. So Entreri didn’t fight it, and instead pressed ahead, pressed into the shield and bulled into Tiago, driving him back and standing tall to drive him down.

The bite of a hand crossbow dart got him in that leading left shoulder. A second grazed his face, and as he fell down atop Tiago in a heap, he saw the other dark elves moving for the roof to intervene. More than spectators after all, he realized, and knew he was doomed.

He tried for the kill, desperately wanting to see Tiago’s last breath before he breathed his own, but even caught by the sudden reversal and the surprisingly aggressive move, the drow noble proved up to the task of defending, keeping Entreri’s dagger arm stuck and up too high, and working his sword in tight against Entreri’s at the proper angle to keep the blades out to the side.

Entreri couldn’t gain any leverage here, and he felt the drow noble wriggling out from under him even as he felt the drow poison seeping into his body.

Never in her experience had Dahlia felt the sheer power and magical strength contained with Ravel Xorlarrin’s lightning web. It floated down over her and her son, chasing her to the ground, it seemed, as she transformed back from her cloak’s crow form. Immediately, she drew forth her flail, slapping it together and straightening the whole in a single motion to have the fully reconstituted Kozah’s Needle in hand, and she prodded up the end of that staff to catch the center of the descending lightning web.

“Fly away!” she heard Effron cry to her, and there was great fear in his voice, she knew, and she understood as soon as her staff touched the drow dweomer. The energy of the gathered storm crackled within her-her hair flew wildly.

The web descended, sparking and exploding, shaking the ground. Teeth chattering, unable to speak, Dahlia tried to cry out to Effron to take her hand, hoping that somehow Kozah’s Needle would shield them both. She barely managed to glance his way out of the corner of her eye, and saw that he was a charred thing already, sinking to the ground.