R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Missing him, but hitting his mount, and more specifically, hitting one of the straps securing Jearth’s saddle, and as that strap severed, Jearth’s right leg came free, too suddenly for him to adjust himself properly to cleanly fall free.

Instead, he just fell, or half-fell, from the saddle, hanging awkwardly, his left foot twisted and thus locked into place, holding him there, inverted and staring into the eyes of charging dwarves.

With a shake of his head and a sigh, the inverted drow drew out his swords.

Back at the furious battle line, still on the ceiling and batting aside the reaching picks and shovels of the dwarves, Tiago managed a glance down the corridor. He saw Jearth’s weapons working brilliantly, fending off dwarves from all angles. The Weapons Master of House Xorlarrin parried a mining pick with one blade while cutting a dwarf’s throat with his other. Jearth got that second blade back in close to his own torso in time to meet the heavy swing of a hammer, and used that push to go into a spin-a spin, Tiago realized in just that heartbeat-that would help him free his trapped foot.

He saw Jearth fall, but it was a good thing, the drow dropping from the ceiling and flipping over as he went to land lightly on his feet before the press of the dwarf miners.

Tiago smiled and nodded as he faded back behind the drow line, confident that Jearth would dispatch the group, or at least hold them at bay, until this line could be breached and the foot soldiers could run to his aid.

To facilitate that point, the Baenre noble rode back down to the floor and drove his mount between a pair of drow infantry, shoving them aside that he could join in the fight properly. His lizard pressed ahead, maw snapping, and Tiago had to pull it back just a bit as it tried to pursue those dwarves as they fell back.

The lizard, like all of Tiago’s mounts, was superbly trained, though, and pulling it back for Tiago meant nothing more than a clicking sound and a proper press of his left heel, leaving his arms free.

He swept his shield across at the dwarf to his left, and before the blocker had gone fully past the intended target, the dwarf eager to come in at him behind the swipe, Tiago called upon that shield to diminish in size. It did so instantly, rolling in on itself, and thus allowing the drow to strike first with his sword, to stab his fine blade out at the unsuspecting dwarf from under the edge of the diminishing shield.

He pulled the bloodied blade back in and cut it across to the right, rolling it over a swinging pick. He turned the sword back the other way brilliantly, and with enough leverage and strength to send that pick flying away. Hardly pausing to admire the flight of the weapon, Tiago plunged his sword straight ahead, straight into the dwarf’s chest.

He prodded his lizard mount into a charge then, but rolled off the lizard’s back as it leaped away-rolled off with a complete somersault that landed him back on his feet and moving forward, throwing himself with glee into the midst of battle.

Better armed, better armored, better trained, the drow had clearly turned the tide of battle. One-against-one, few warriors in the Realms could match a dark elf, but even among the ranks of these elite warriors, Tiago Baenre stood tall. His blade and shield worked in a concerted blur, sweeping and stabbing, blocking and parrying. His fight was not straight-line, moving ahead, but became a dance all around, the drow commoners gladly surrendering ground as he crossed before them, the dwarves wishing they had!

The fight in that corridor had already favored the dark elves, but with Tiago among them, the fight became a rout and the dwarven line quickly shattered.

Tiago brought his shield up fast to catch a chop of a dwarf’s pick, and he enacted the magic of the shield, whose name was Spiderweb, to hold the weapon fast as he pulled it out to the side. The movement invited the dwarf to press in, and so the bearded fellow complied, leading with a fist.

But Tiago was ahead of his move, and that punching fist met the tip of a fine weapon, a sword that cut through gauntlet and knuckles, and drove up through the dwarf’s wrist and split the bone of the dwarf’s forearm.

The dwarf howled-oh, how he screamed! — and Tiago pressed out fast with the shield, freeing the pick before retracting his arm. In the same movement, the drow warrior turned his sword down and under with a sharp jerk, tearing it free of the muscled arm and shooting it ahead only briefly before turning his shoulders to retract the sword and throw the shield out before him, to bull ahead over the dwarf as the poor fool fell backward and to the ground.

But fell without a scream, for that quick strike of the sword had taken out its throat.

Crossing over the falling Battlehammer, Tiago broke free, leading the way, his wicked smile wide indeed.

He saw Jearth, battling far ahead. Up came the weapons master’s blade, shining with dwarf blood, and down it went, repeatedly.

But only one blade, Tiago realized even as he eagerly started forward.

Only one blade!

And one of Jearth’s arms hung limply at the weapons master’s side!

One blade against a horde of dwarves pressing in from every angle. Jearth spun and struck, leaped aside and darted ahead, then back, brilliant in every movement.

But the dwarf net closed, a relentless barrage of picks and fists.

“To me!” Tiago called to the warriors, now all in a full charge to get to Jearth’s side.

A charge that would not arrive in time, he realized.

“Ravel!” he cried to the mage behind him as he saw Jearth pulled down in the teeming mass of dwarf muscle.

On they charged, and the mage’s spell flew over them in the form of an amorphous green glob. It soared into the midst of Jearth’s desperate fight and exploded into a cloud of virescent gas, the stench rolling back to make Tiago crinkle his nose in disgust. He could hardly see the tangle ahead through the ugly fog, and even the sound of the fight seemed to diminish, dulled by the thick haze.

And hopefully, he thought, the fight had diminished, the combatants crippled by the stinking cloud.

But then out of the fog came some of those fighters, a line of angry dwarves, spitting and snorting, but hardly slowed, it seemed, by the nauseating fumes.

“Jearth,” Tiago mouthed in shock as he drove into their ranks.

Those dwarves fought valiantly, but like their comrades at the blown door, they could not win out against the superior force that had come to their tunnels. Several drow died in that corridor, but three times the number of gallant Battlehammer dwarves met their end there, and a similar number were taken as prisoners.

Tiago Baenre could not consider it a victory, though, because the fight for Kelvin’s Cairn had just begun, because at least one dwarf had escaped the assault to run ahead to warn his bearded kin.

And because Jearth, Weapons Master of House Xorlarrin, Tiago’s friend and companion, lay bloodied in the corridor before him.

Tiago watched intently as the priestess Saribel rushed to Jearth and began frantically calling upon the powers of Lolth to heal the fallen warrior.

But to no avail.

Jearth Xorlarrin, Tiago’s most trusted companion among the ranks of the rival House, lay dead.

“You should not have let him run ahead alone!” Ravel scolded when Saribel stood up from the dead Xorlarrin noble and shook her head.

Tiago’s threatening stare reminded the wizard that he was scolding a Baenre, and one that could cut him into pieces.

“What fool would cast such a cloud of noxious fumes over a bevy of dwarves?” Tiago retorted. “Their food and drink is fouler than your pathetic spell! Likely you crippled Jearth and no others-or was that your intent all along?”