R. Salvatore - Charon's claw

The shade’s right arm drooped. He fought to keep his defenses in place, but the spasms of pain denied him.

Drizzt winced as the shade winced. His sense of honor screamed out at him that this was not a fair fight, and against a truly worthy opponent. Only for a moment, though, as he realized the foolishness of such a lament, particularly given that he had gone in there one against four.

He worked his scimitars more furiously, mostly down-angled for his parries, for he noted that the lower angle brought more pain to his opponent.

The ring of metal on metal and a surge of movement in the hall reminded him that he needed to be quick, and so he fell back with his left foot, inviting a thrust from the shade’s injured right, and when that blade came forward, instead of picking it off with Twinkle, Drizzt swept Icingdeath across and under, coming back fast after hooking the sword and driving it with his own blade back across to his right.

He stepped left as he did, dodging his hips to avoid the stab of the shade’s lefthand blade until Icingdeath and the hooked sword could fully intercept the thrust.

Which cleared the opening for Drizzt’s left hand, and Twinkle struck hard and true, and the shade fell away, throwing his swords as he went, hands reaching for a torn throat.

“Drizzt!” Dahlia yelled.

“We can’t hold the door!” Entreri added, and then more quietly asked Dahlia, “Will you quit calling his name?” He barely got the warning out and expected no reply, for the press was too great, with too many enemies blocking the corridor before them. Entreri’s words to Drizzt rang true, for they had to retreat.

Both started to call out again, and both gasped in surprise as a bolt of lightning exited Drizzt’s room and slammed into the shade facing Entreri.

Not a lightning bolt, they both realized, but a lightning enchanted arrow, and it drove right through that shade and burrowed into the one in front of Dahlia. Before that pair had even fallen away, another arrow exploded into the side of the first one’s head.

Dahlia stabbed her staff into the face of the mortally wounded shade still standing before her, driving him back and to the ground.

“More!” she cried, and on cue, a third lightning arrow screamed out into the corridor.

And simply disappeared.

And then came a fourth, and Dahlia’s teeth started chattering and her thick braid began to writhe with energy as if it was a living serpent.

“Hold!” Entreri cried as the third came out to be absorbed. He rushed across the body of the fallen shade, driving hard into the next rank, forcing them back with a flurry of stabs and thrusts.

Dahlia leaped past him as he cleared the immediate corridor, and thrust her staff down against the stone floor, releasing the pent up lightning energy.

The whole of the corridor seemed to leap under the power of that retort, shades twisting and falling, staggering aside in shock, mental and physical.

“Go! Go!” Entreri yelled, grabbing her and spinning her around and pushing her back the way they had come. He moved right behind her, Drizzt coming fast on his heels. The drow didn’t continue, though, spinning around and falling low and letting fly a stream of lightning arrows at the confused enemies.

“Forward!” the drow ordered to his companions, turning them around.

The shades scattered and fled, the trio in close pursuit-until they crossed a side passage that rang out as familiar to Drizzt and Dahlia, one they both believed would take them to the lower chambers.

Off they ran, Drizzt sealing the end with a globe of magical darkness. Then he paused as Entreri and Dahlia spread out beyond, seeking the proper routes.

The drow held perfectly still, craning his neck in concentration. He heard the slightest of footfalls, and sent a line of arrows into and through the magical darkness.

He ducked out of sight around a corner, and not a heartbeat too soon as a Shadovar wizard responded with a stream of magic missiles, and a second mage added a line of biting fire.

On charged the shades, and Drizzt leaned out and drove them back once more, the Heartseeker’s arrows cutting holes through rank after rank, three shades dropping with the first shot alone.

Drizzt ran off.

Only a heartbeat later, the area where he had been crouching exploded in a fireball, then a second and third.

“Keep running,” he warned Entreri and Dahlia as he crossed by them, and he tossed something at Entreri.

The assassin caught it: his buckle knife.

On they ran.

Brack’thal stood in the orange-glowing chamber, staring down past the swirling water elementals to the bubbling lava maw of the primordial beast. The mage rubbed his thumb across the ruby band on his index finger, for through that ring, he could hear the call of the primordial, and could understand it.

Parts of it, at least, for this being was truly beyond Brack’thal’s comprehension, even with the assistance of the ring. This was a most ancient power, a god beast. Though it was quite above him, its primary call carried a simple enough message: the beast wanted to be freed.

Brack’thal looked down to his right, to the narrow mushroom stalk bridge that had been put in place to cross the pit.

His gaze moved out through the continual mist across the pit to the archway, barely visible through the fog, and the small antechamber beyond. He pictured the lever, and spoke the word for it-not in the drow tongue or in the common tongue of Faerun, but in a language he knew from his ring, the language of creatures of the primal plane of fire.

The primordial roiled hopefully, far below.

Ambergris hustled to the door ahead of the rest of her hunting band. This portal opened into the main corridor, she knew, and knew, too, that her band of Shadovar hunters had arrived in time to intercept the trio. She didn’t waste any time, sprinkling some powdery substance down on the floor and drawing it into specific shapes as she quietly chanted her spell.

“What is it?” Afafrenfere said, coming in through the room’s other door.

“Keep yerself back,” the dwarf warned, holding up one hand. “There be a powerful ward placed on this portal.”

By the time she rose and turned around, several others had entered, including the sorcerer who had been designated as the patrol’s leader.

“Glyphed,” Ambergris explained, moving toward them.

The shade wizard looked at her curiously. “This one, you check?” he asked suspiciously, for they had come through a dozen such doors.

“I been checking most,” Ambergris replied, to a doubtful look.

“Check for yerself then, fool,” the dwarf said. “Meself ’s looking for another way about.”

“Go to the door,” the wizard ordered Afafrenfere.

“Don’t ye move,” Ambergris remarked, drawing the wizard’s icy stare.

The dwarf returned that with a grin, and looked knowingly to Afafrenfere, who indeed was making no movement toward the portal. The others didn’t know about Ambergris and Afafrenfere’s allegiance to Cavus Dun, but Afafrenfere had not forgotten it, nor the fact that such affiliation superseded any orders he might be given here, other than those coming directly from Lord Alegni himself.

“Dwarf says it’s glyphed,” the monk replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Do not delay!” the wizard commanded, turning all around. He focused on another of the shades, a female standing beside him, and threw the woman forward. “Go! Go! Before they pass us by!”

The woman glanced at Ambergris only momentarily before easing toward the door. She neared tentatively, sliding one foot before the other.

She almost made it, and was even reaching for the door handle, when the glyph of lightning exploded, throwing the poor shade through the air, the thunderous retort shaking the floor and walls.