R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Three were down, then five, and when a hobgoblin in the third rank began barking orders, Regis warp-stepped to its side and promptly silenced it.

Recognizing the maneuver, Wulfgar pushed on before the halfling had even reappeared, and as soon as Regis struck, his rapier sliding under the side of the hobgoblin’s skull, the barbarian caught the halfling by the shoulder and hauled him back.

He needn’t have bothered. Their leader so abruptly cut down, the smaller goblins scattered, falling all over each other to be away from the murderous duo. Some fled back through the door, while others ran farther down the corridor, only to be met by Drizzt and Bruenor coming back the other way, rounding from the left where this corridor ended in a T junction.

Caught between two powerful pairs, the goblins scrambled for the lone open door, creating a tight grouping in the hall before it.

A ball of flame appeared in the air, roiling for just a heartbeat before suddenly striking a line of killing blaze down in the midst of that group.

And on came Wulfgar and Regis from the south, and on came Bruenor and Drizzt, Catti-brie right behind them, from the north, the vice closing.

The goblins dying.

“What was that explosion?” Drizzt asked when they had joined together once more.

Wulfgar looked to Regis, who shrugged and replied, “Oil of impact. A healthy batch.”

“Ye shook the place to its roots,” Bruenor said, trying to sound stern, but unable to hide his grin. “Ye wantin’ to tell everythin’ in the place where we be?”

Somewhere back behind them, Guenhwyvar roared.

Drizzt motioned for Wulfgar and Regis to chase the goblins that had retreated through the door, then he and the other two sprinted back to the end of the corridor and disappeared to the right.

“Once I didn’t hit hard enough, and now, I fear, I hit too hard,” Regis lamented.

“Too hard?” Wulfgar laughed. “No such thing, my friend. No such thing!”

And off they went, side-by-side, a rambling catastrophe.

“Ye sure we’re meetin’ up with ’em, then?” Bruenor asked, and he lifted his axe up high, tucked his shoulder under his buckler, and charged at the next door in line.

“The two courses are side-by-side runs to the same corridor,” Drizzt assured him, and up came Taulmaril.

“Now, girl!” Bruenor roared, and even as he finished, the lightning bolt sizzled past him, cracking into the ancient wood, followed immediately by Drizzt’s lightning arrow, similarly driving against the door’s planks.

Bruenor hit the portal right behind the bolts, axe splintering wood and his lowered shoulder pounding through. He crashed down to the floor, by design, and the two enemies in the room, a pair of hobgoblins, eagerly leaped at the prone form.

Guenhwyvar leaped over him first, though, flying through the broken portal, touching down in the room just long enough to spring again into the face of one of the hobgoblins, sending it flying backward.

The other hobgoblin made the mistake of glancing back at its tumbling friend. It turned back just in time to see another enemy leap in over the dwarf, just in time to see the deadly drow touch down just a stride away, just in time to see a pair of magnificent scimitar cutting an X before its eyes, cutting an X across its face.

“I’m callin’ half that kill as me own!” Bruenor roared, running past Drizzt and sending a backhand chop into the hobgoblin’s side for good measure. He rambled up to the door directly across the room and kicked it open, revealing a long corridor, lined on the right side by a multitude of doors.

“Not liking that!” Bruenor declared. He glanced back to see Catti-brie close behind. She took a quick survey of the corridor, then began spellcasting, and Bruenor moved aside.

A wall of fire reached out from her, rushing down the corridor, splitting it down the middle. The flames roiled and roared, but all seemed to be biting out to the right, toward the doors.

“Stay left,” she explained.

Bruenor started in hesitantly, for even though the magical flames of the wall were directional, burning away from him, he couldn’t deny the heat.

“Liked ye better with the damned bow,” he muttered, sliding along the wall as quickly as he could.

The group eased its way along. At least one door did open, and a goblin shrieked and fell back when faced with Catti-brie’s fiery wall.

Drizzt turned and fired off a series of arrows into the roiling flames in the direction of the sound, and from a distant cry, it seemed clear that at least one had gone through the open door and struck home.

They reached the far end of the corridor, which forked right and turned left, and paused there, turning back.

Catti-brie dropped her wall of fire, and sure enough, stubborn goblinkin came rushing out, though many foolishly turning the other way, back the way the companions had come.

Drizzt put some shots down the corridor and Guenhwyvar roared.

Goblins turned and goblins died, Taulmaril’s arrows driving through them two or three at a time.

Some came on into the fury of Guenhwyvar and Bruenor, but most scrambled back into the side rooms. One goblin almost got a stab at Bruenor with its spear before Drizzt blew it dead and to the ground.

Almost.

Aegis-fang spun end-over-end, blasted through the bugbear’s shield and struck it dead, simply dead.

“Lots of fighting to the side,” Regis called to his companion.

Wulfgar nodded, for he, too, could hear the lightning strokes, and the roar of Guenhwyvar and of magical fires.

Drizzt had anticipated that his course would be through more populated areas of the goblin nest, which was why he kept the bulk of the force beside him. For Wulfgar and Regis, the run had been much clearer, with only a few enemies here and there, and most of those more intent on running away than in coming in to fight.

The pair weaved around the dead bugbear, Aegis-fang returning to Wulfgar’s hand. Under an archway, they came into a wide corridor, running diagonally back behind them to the left, or forward to the right, toward their friends.

They went right, trotting along, but a portion of the right-hand wall ahead of them slid aside and out scrambled a group of hobgoblins.

Wulfgar wasted no time in sending Aegis-fang flying devastatingly into their midst.

“Let them come to us,” Regis bade him, and he glanced at his halfling companion to see Regis with his hand crossbow leveled.

The hobgoblins regrouped and charged, the nearest catching a quarrel in the face. Regis dropped his bow and lifted a ceramic jar from his pouch.

“Let them come to us,” he reiterated, and he held his throw a bit longer, then flung the jug. It smashed to the floor at the feet of the charging monsters. Shards and liquid burst forth, splattering the stone and the feet of the hobgoblins.

And that liquid, Regis’s next trick, slicked the floor as surely as water thrown on stones on an Icewind Dale’s winter night. Like floating seaweed in an irresistible wave, the hobgoblins pitched and crashed, tangled into each other, and spilled to the floor.

Wulfgar went up to the edge of the greasy splash and pounded down at the tangle with heavy hits of Aegis-fang, the warhammer shattering shields and bones, crushing through feeble hobgoblin armor.

Regis rushed up beside him and seemed to simply disappear, warp-stepping across the slippery splash zone, stepping back securely and stabbing ahead before the surprised hobgoblins in the back of the tangle even realized he was there.

He scored a series of hits, most on one unfortunate creature that spun down spurting blood from a dozen holes.

The remaining creatures ran off, and Regis turned to follow.

He thought his friends had joined him when he saw that group of hobgoblins collectively shudder, one monster flying up to crunch heavily into the wall, another sailing back the way it had come, bowling aside its companions to fall in the middle of the corridor, only a few strides down from Regis, where it convulsed and twitched in its death throes.