R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Bruenor put his feet under him and reversed his momentum, thinking to charge right back in. He felt Catti-brie’s hand on his shoulder, though, and heard the woman casting another spell.

Then he felt light on his feet-so light! And Catti-brie easily lifted him into the air and threw him like a living missile, the levitating, floating dwarf soaring in at the still-staggering drider.

Now Bruenor was up close, above the spidery body, and too near for the drider to properly bring its spear to bear.

The abomination bit at him instead, but tasted only the edge of a sturdy buckler, followed quickly by the notched head of Bruenor’s swinging axe.

Across the flame wall came the largest of the three abominations, a heavy mace in one hand, huge trident lifted in the other. Ignoring the small halfling, the monstrous creature veered for Wulfgar, who was apparently unarmed, stabbing with its trident.

The barbarian dodged back, then dived and tried to roll away, but down came the trident, diving into and through his boot, into and through his foot!

He growled in pain and tried to twist around as the spider legs came over him, as the heavy mace lifted above him.

And as Regis flew in from the side, leaping and shooting his hand crossbow, and not with a poison-coated bolt this time, for he doubted that any poison would affect this abomination. He used his prototype dart, from Cadderly’s old design, with a tiny vial of oil of impact set in its center within collapsible bars.

The dart hit, to little effect, then crushed in on itself, smashing the vial. The oil of impact exploded and the drider staggered. But the dart didn’t have quite the effect Regis had hoped, startling the drider more than hurting it, for the explosion was not properly shaped, and the bulk of its force came back the other way, throwing the back end of the broken quarrel across the room the other way.

Regis didn’t slow-Wulfgar couldn’t afford any hesitance on the halfling’s part. He leaped at the drider and lived up to his nickname of Spider, scrambling up the leg to stab at the drow torso with his fine rapier.

This time he did hurt the creature, he learned, and painfully, as the drider yelped and let go of the trident pinning Wulfgar, freeing up its hands so that it could slap Regis aside.

The halfling flew back and tumbled when he landed, avoiding serious injury, and as he came around, he thought to put his feet back under him and charge right back in. That thought flew away, however, for the drider proved much quicker than he had anticipated, and before he ever got back to his feet, Regis found the monstrous beast towering over him, front four legs lifted as it reared, rising up to gain more momentum for a two-handed crushing chop of that huge mace.

Down it came, and Regis fainted away before it ever hit him.

Mercifully.

They came in at him left and right simultaneously, each with two swords leading the way. Worse, the drow on Drizzt’s right stabbed and slashed alternately, while the one to his left sent his swords into a rolling motion.

Drizzt’s hands worked independently, vertical parries to his left, alternate blocks to his right. Every hit of metal on metal rang out as a testament to the skill of Drizzt Do’Urden, for these were no novice fighters before him, and a duo of dark elves who had obviously battled side-by-side many times in the past.

But Drizzt wasn’t gaining any ground here, and it was all he could manage simply to keep those deadly blades away. He looked to his friends for help, but saw the fire wall and the monstrous driders. He looked to Guenhwyvar, but she, too, was locked in mortal combat, a broken spear hanging from her flank, a drider battling her mightily.

Over rolled the blades of the dark elf to Drizzt’s left, but out of the roll came one thrust low, and Drizzt had to lurch and slap Twinkle down low to deflect the cunning attack. And in that lurch, he found an insurmountable disadvantage to the right, as that warrior stabbed low, forcing a similar downward block, then double-thrust, one blade high, one blade low.

Too fast.

Drizzt had no way to block.

He could only dodge, but in the tight press, that meant one option alone, and he threw himself into a back flip, knowing his enemies would pursue, doubting that his position would be any better when he landed than when he had leaped.

And worse, and he knew himself doomed, his leap took him over a third warrior, one that had come skidding in at his back.

Drizzt landed with a flourish, blades spinning in wide circles, expecting six swords rushing in at him.

But no, he found none, for it was no drow he had somersaulted but a human, and one wielding two drow swords, and doing so with the skill of any weapons master who had ever graduated from Melee-Magthere, and doing so with the skill of Drizzt himself!

“Quick, fool!” Artemis Entreri yelled at him as the assassin took Drizzt’s place between the dark elf warriors.

Drizzt leaped ahead, spinning sidelong, yelling “Right!” and at precisely the correct moment, Entreri spun to his left to face up against that drow, while Drizzt rolled in at his back to meet the other.

Now the parries included counters, clever ripostes as Drizzt and Entreri, mirror images of each other, found an easy rhythm against the skilled drow warriors. In separate fights, one-against-one, either of these skilled Xorlarrins might have held firm for some time against either of these opponents, and so of course, they both assumed that with their practiced teamwork, they would still win the day.

They both assumed wrong.

Drizzt and Entreri had not battled together nearly as often as their opponents, but it didn’t matter. Not with these two, so perfectly matched, each with so great an understanding of the other.

Drizzt went into a sudden charge, Twinkle and Icingdeath slashing in a powerful flurry that drove his opponent back. But Drizzt did not follow for long, cutting into a sudden back-step and throwing himself down and around.

Entreri felt the motion as Drizzt moved from his back, and listened carefully for the sudden return. When it came, the assassin struck hard to keep his enemy engaged, then leaped up high, legs flying out to either side. He waited for Drizzt to slide through, before snapping himself around in mid-air to meet the rush of the warrior Drizzt had driven off.

And by that time, though it was only a heartbeat, both of Drizzt’s blades had thrust in beneath the attempted block of the surprised dark elf who had been battling Entreri, whose eyes had lifted with Entreri’s jump, and who had not even noted the sliding charge of Drizzt until it was far too late.

Drizzt retracted his bloody blades, tucked one leg in tight in his slide and propelled himself up and around in a spin, a backhand slash of Twinkle cutting down the wounded drow.

By the time Drizzt came around, he found the other enemy in full flight, running fast from Entreri, who did not pursue. That drow danced and leaped among the carnage, heading for the doorway in the far corner of the room.

He made it more than halfway, quickstepping past fallen kin, fallen goblins, and the torn bodies of dark elf vampire minions, before a powerful and squat form appeared out of nowhere, flying against him and throwing him crashing to the floor.

Holding fast to his victim, Thibbledorf Pwent began to shake and thrash, his ridged armor tearing the drow to pieces.

Drizzt spun back the other way, toward the wall of fire and the Companions of the Hall. He couldn’t see Bruenor or Catti-brie, or two of the trio of driders that had gone against them. The wall of flames obscured that fight. But he did see Regis, lying on the floor, covering up pathetically as the rearing drider came down, the huge mace-the mace of Ambergris, Drizzt realized! — crashing down in a surely killing blow.