R Salvatore - Gauntlgrym

He didn’t tell any of that to Dahlia, however. She was at a disadvantage there, out of her element and surrounded by four companions who were not out of theirs. She didn’t like that, Drizzt realized, and in looking at her as she again walked beside him, he saw a vulnerability in her. She had started the wrong way before being corrected by Bruenor. She didn’t know which direction was which. Her perfect armor had revealed a seam, after all.

And in that seam, Drizzt noted a scar, an old and deep wound, a flicker of pain behind the always-intense gleam of her blue eyes, a hesitance in her always-confident stride, a defensive curl of her always-squared shoulders.

His intrigue surprised him. Her appeal at that moment overwhelmed him. Of course he’d marveled at the unusual beauty of the elf, particularly at the allure of her deadly fighting dance.

But something more had presented itself, something endearing, something interesting.

“Pull it down! Pull it down!” Stokely Silverstream commanded his dwarves. And the crack team did just that, hauling their ropes from either side and pinning the large red lizard to the floor. Up ahead, more dwarves, aided by the ghosts, battled the salamanders, but the dwarves’ victory over their enemy’s hidden weapon, a twenty-foot-long, voracious, fearsome fire lizard, had sealed the larger victory.

Stokely himself walked up and dispatched the monster, though it took several heavy blows from his axe to accomplish the task.

By the time he and the rear guard caught up to the others, the fighting had ended. Dead and wounded salamanders littered the wide, steamy tunnel, along with three of Stokely’s boys. The two priests accompanying the score of warriors went to work furiously, but one of those dwarves died there in the deep corridor of Gauntlgrym, and one of the other two had to be carried along.

But on the dwarves went, undeterred, following the ghosts and their destiny.

Barely an hour later, still before their midday meal, they heard more noise coming from a side tunnel-a force moving down at them.

Stokely stared ahead uncertainly. Perhaps they could outrun the elemental-kin, but if they tried and ran into more resistance ahead, they’d be trapped.

“Dig in yer heels, me boys,” the dwarf leader told his fellows. “More to kill.”

Not a dwarf complained, faces set grimly, weapons turning under white knuckles. The few ghosts that had silently led them from Icewind Dale drifted up the tunnel to meet the incoming force, but no sounds of battle echoed down at Stokely’s crew.

Just a call, and a cheer: “Mirabar!”

And out they came, two-score and ten, an elite squad of the Shield of Mirabar.

“Well met!” Stokely and others called back, and both sides knew great relief, for both groups had known battle after battle with minions of the primordial for the last several days.

“Stokely Silverstream of Icewind Dale, at yer service!” the leader from the North greeted.

An old graybeard stepped forward from the ranks of Mirabarran dwarves. “Icewind Dale?” he asked. “Be ye Battlehammers, then?”

“Aye, and well met,” Stokely replied. “Mithral Hall’s our older home, and Gauntlgrym’s older still!”

“Torgar Hammerstriker, at yer service, and well met indeed, cousin,” said the graybeard. “For two-score years I called Mithral Hall me home. Went in service to King Bruenor, Moradin kiss him, and served King Banak afore Mirabar called me home.”

“Ye were there when King Bruenor fell?”

“No bell can sing the tune sad enough,” Torgar replied, “and heavy weighed the stones o’ his grave. A dark day in Mithral Hall.”

Stokely nodded, but said nothing more at that time other than, “A dark day for all dwarf-kin.” Perhaps he would discuss the “end” of King Bruenor at length with Torgar later on. Protocol demanded discretion when discussing the death ruse of an abdicating dwarf king, but so many years removed, the whispers would not be out of order.

“Torgar!” came a cry from the side. “By Obould’s ugly arse!”

Torgar spotted the shouting dwarf and his face lit up with recognition, and with fired memories of an old war.

“Could that be ye, there?” the Mirabarran leader called back. “Or am I seein’ more ghosts than I thinked?”

It was no ghost.

Drizzt rolled ahead and to the right, ignoring the salamander he had just disengaged. He came to his feet, scimitars leading the way into the last pair of beasts, just as he heard a sickly splat behind him, then a grunt, and a thump as the leading salamander crumbled to the floor.

His parallel blades worked opposite circles, left hand under to the left, right hand under to the right, each wrapping back over spears, and with a powerful exhale, Drizzt threw his weapons and the spears out wide to either side and abruptly stopped his charge, leaning back and leaping up, double-kicking the two salamanders directly in front of him. The drow landed flat on his back, but his muscles moved so perfectly, arcing and snapping straight, that it seemed to any onlookers-and certainly to his two surprised opponents-as if some unknown counterweight had lifted him right back to his feet.

His scimitars struck, left and right, taking the throat from the beast to his right and gashing the shoulder of the other. And still, with help from Icingdeath, Drizzt ignored the blistering heat that radiated from the beasts.

The wounded salamander scrambled to put some ground between itself and the drow, trying to realign its weapon and find some measure of defense.

Before Drizzt could pursue, another form flew past from on high. Dahlia descended from her vault with a flying kick to the side of the monster’s head, throwing it to the ground. As she landed, straddling it, the elf woman sent her long staff into a sudden spin then drove it straight down and through the creature. When the metal struck the stone beneath, Kozah’s Needle let loose a blast of powerful lightning.

Holding it in one extended hand, her other arm out wide the other way, Dahlia seemed to bask in that energy, that power. She threw her head back, her eyes closed and her mouth wide, an expression of pure ecstasy on her fair face.

Drizzt couldn’t tear his eyes from her! If another enemy had crept in and charged at him, he surely would have been cut down!

Dahlia held the pose for a long while, and Drizzt stared at her through it all.

“We have a problem,” came a call, Jarlaxle’s voice, breaking the trance of both.

“He couldn’t summon the elemental?” Drizzt asked.

“The bowl is in place,” Jarlaxle replied. “Eight of ten. But the ninth placard is destroyed, as is the alcove behind it.”

Drizzt and Dahlia exchanged a concerned glance then followed Jarlaxle from the corridor and through the few small rooms back to the wider hall where Bruenor and Athrogate waited-waited with hands on hips, staring at an impenetrable pile of rubble and a collapsed wall.

“Was here,” Bruenor insisted. “Ain’t no more.”

“What does this mean?” Dahlia asked. “Can we not put the beast back in its hole?”

“Bah, but nine water monsters’ll do it then!” Athrogate bellowed.

The others looked at him.

“Ain’t no choice to it!” he answered with strength and conviction. To the side of him lay two dead salamanders, both swatted down by Athrogate when first they’d entered the room. To put a true exclamation point at the end of his proclamation, the dwarf spat upon the dead creatures then gave a hearty, “Bwahaha!” and thumped King Bruenor on the shoulder.