Robert Salvatore - Sea of Swords

That stab had little energy, though, for as the man started to attack, Wulfgar let go of his weapon with his right hand and punched straight out, connecting on the pirate's face even as his smile started to widen. Before his sword could slip deeply into the barbarian's side, the pirate was flying away, crumpling to the stone.

Then it was Wulfgar and Sheila Kree—Wulfgar recognized that this was indeed the pirate leader. How he wished she was holding Aegis-fang instead of this fine-edged sword. How he would have loved to summon the warhammer from her hand at that moment, then turn it back against her!

As it was, the barbarian had to work furiously to keep the warrior pirate at bay, for Sheila was surely no novice to battle. She stabbed and slashed, spun a complete circle and dived her sword in at Wulfgar's neck. The barbarian found himself forced back out into the open and took another hit as an arrow slashed down across his shoulder.

Sheila's smile widened.

A large ogre came out of the opening in the mountainside. Another roar came from above, and yet another from behind Wulfgar and not so far down the mountain—the half-ogre he had tripped up, he knew, on its way back.

“I need you!” the desperate barbarian cried out to his friends, but the wind stole the momentum from that call.

He knew that Catti-brie and Bruenor, wherever they were, would not likely hear him. He felt the bardiche handle cracking even more in his hand, and believed that the weapon would break apart in his hands with the next hit.

He forced his way forward again, skipping to his left, trying to delay the ogre's entry into the fray for as long as possible. But then he saw yet another form come out of the opening, another human pirate, it seemed, and he knew that he was doomed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Drizzt scored and scored again, using the tight quarters and the low ceiling against the huge ogre. This one would have proven a much tougher opponent outdoors, the drow knew, especially with Aegis-fang in hand. But in here, now that he had the ogre's speed sorted out, the drow was too quick and too experienced.

Wound after wound opened up on the howling Bloog, and the ogre started calling for the elf to jump in and help.

And that elf did come forward, and Drizzt prepared a new strategy he had just worked out for keeping the ogre between him and this newest opponent. Before the drow could implement that strategy, though, the ogre lurched suddenly. A new and deeper wound appeared behind Bloog's hip, and the elf smiled wickedly.

Drizzt looked at the elf with amazement, and so did the ogre.

And the elf promptly drove the sword in again. The ogre howled and spun, but Drizzt was right there, his scimitar taking the beast deep in the kidney.

Back and forth it went, the two skilled warriors picking away while poor Bloog turned back and forth, never recovering from that initial surprise and the deep wound.

Soon enough, the big ogre went down hard and lay still.

Drizzt stood staring at the elf from across the large body. His scimitar tips lowered toward the floor, but he had them ready, unsure of this one's motives and intent.

“Perhaps I am a friend,” the elf said, in a tone that was mocking and insincere. “Or perhaps I just wanted to kill you myself and grew impatient with Bloog's pitiful efforts against you.”

Drizzt was circling then, and so was the elf, moving about Bloog's body, keeping it between as a deterrent to the potential foe.

“It would seem as if only you can answer which of the possibilities it might be.”

The elf snorted derisively. “I have waited for this moment for years, Drizzt Do'Urden,” came the surprising response.

Drizzt took a deep breath. This was as challenger here, perhaps someone who had studied his abilities and reputation and had prepared against him. This was not one to take lightly—he had seen the warrior's graceful movements against Bloog—but the drow suddenly remembered that he had more at stake here than this one fight, that he had others counting on him.

“This is not the time for a personal challenge,” he said.

“This is exactly the time,” the elf answered. “As I have arranged!”

“Regis!” Drizzt called.

The drow burst forward, putting both scimitars in one hand, grabbing Aegis-fang with the other, and tossing it into the hearth. The halfling leaped down to grab it up, pausing only to see the first exchange as the elf leaped in at Drizzt, sword and dagger flashing.

But Drizzt was away in the blink of an eye, scimitars out and ready, balanced in a perfect defensive posture.

Regis knew that he had no place in this titanic struggle, so he gathered up the warhammer and climbed back up the chimney, then moved down the other side passage toward the apparently empty room they had already scouted.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The wind was just right, and so Catti-brie heard Wulfgar's desperate call for help after all. She knew he was in trouble, could hear the fighting up above, could see the half-ogre scrambling, almost back to the ledge.

But the woman, who had leaped across the ravine to the winding trail, was held in place by a barrage of arrows coming down at her.

Guenhwyvar had finally taken form by then, but before Catti-brie could even offer a command to the panther, an arrow drove down into the cat. Guenhwyvar, with a great roar, leaped away.

Catti-brie worked furiously then, using every opportunity to pop back out from the mountainside and let fly a devastating missile. Her arrow blasted through stone, and given the cry of pain and surprise, apparently scored a hit on one of the archers. But they were many, and she was stuck and could not get to Wulfgar.

She did manage to slip out and let fly at the half-ogre that was stubbornly climbing back to Wulfgar's position, her missile slamming the creature in the hip and sending it into a slide back down the slope.

But Catti-brie took an arrow for her efforts, the missile biting into her forearm. She fell back against the wall with a cry. The woman clutched at the shaft gingerly, then steeled her gaze and her grip. Growling away the agony, she pushed the arrow through. Catti-brie reached for her pack, pulling forth a bandage and tightly wrapping the arm.

“Bruenor, where are you?” she said quietly, fighting against despair.

It occurred to her as more than a passing possibility that they had all come together again just to be sundered apart, and permanently.

“Oh, get to him, Guen,” the woman quietly begged, tying off the bandage and wincing away the pain as she set another arrow.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He fought brilliantly, purely on instinct, without rage and without fear. But he got hit again and again, and though no one wound was serious, Wulfgar knew that it was only a matter of time—a very short amount of time—before they overcame him. He sang out to Tempus, thinking it fitting, hoping it acceptable to the god, that he be singing that name as he died.

For surely this was the end for the son of Beornegar, with the red-haired pirate and the ogre pressing him, with his weapon falling apart in his hands, with a third opponent swiftly moving in.

No one could get to him in time.

He was glad, at least, that he might die honorably, in battle.

He took a stinging hit from the red-haired pirate, then had to pivot fast to block the ogre, and knew even as he turned that it was over. He had just left an opening for Sheila Kree to cut him down.

He glanced back to see the fatal blow.

Wulfgar, content for the first time in so many years, smiled.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Shouts of surprise from above clued Catti-brie, and she dared to leap out into the open.

There, above her, mighty Guenhwyvar charged the archers' nest, taking arrow after stinging arrow, but never veering and never slowing. The archers were standing then, and so the woman wasted no time in putting an arrow into the side of one's head, then taking down another.