Robert Salvatore - The Legacy

Drizzt came out of the spin angled slightly to the assassin's left, Entreri's dagger hand. The drow dove ahead and rolled, just out of Entreri's lunging strike, then came back to his feet and reversed momentum immediately, rushing around Entreri's back side, forcing the assassin to spin on his heels, his sword whipping about in a frantic effort to keep the thrusting scimitars at bay. Entreri was no longer smiling.

He managed somehow to avoid being hit, but Drizzt pressed the attack, kept him on his heels.

They heard the soft click of a handcrossbow from some where down the hall. In unison, the mortal enemies jumped back and fell into rolls, and the quarrel skipped harmlessly between them.

Five dark forms advanced steadily, swords drawn. "Your friends," Drizzt remarked evenly. "It seems our fight will wait once more."

Entreri's eyes narrowed in open hatred as he regarded the approaching dark elves.

Drizzt understood the source of the assassin's frustration. Would Vierna give Entreri another battle, especially with other powerful enemies in the tunnels, searching for Drizzt? And even if she did, Entreri had to realize that, as with the fight before, he would not coax Drizzt into this level of battle, not with Drizzt's hopes for freedom extinguished.

Still, the assassin's next words caught the drow ranger somewhat by surprise.

"Do you remember our time against the Duergar?" Entreri came in again at Drizzt as the dark elf soldiers continued their advance. Drizzt easily parried the swift but not well-aimed attacks.

"Left shoulder," Entreri whispered. His sword came up behind his words, darting for Drizzt's shoulder. Twinkle crossed over from the right to block, but missed, and the assassin's sword nicked in, driving clean holes in the draw's cloak.

Regis cried out; Drizzt dropped one scimitar and lurched to the side, openly revealing his agony. Entreri's sword came tip in, barely five inches from his throat, and Twinkle was too far down for a parry.

"Yield!" the assassin cried. "Drop your weapon!"

Twinkle clanged to the floor and Drizzt continued his exaggerated lean, appearing as though he might tumble over at any moment. From behind, Regis groaned loudly and tried to shuffle away, but his weary, bruised limbs would not support him, would not even afford him the strength to crawl along.

The dark elves came tentatively into the torchlit area, talking among themselves and nodding appreciatively at the assassin's fine work.

"We will take him back to Vierna," one of them said in halting Common.

Entreri began to nod his agreement, then whirled about suddenly, driving his sword right through the speaker's chest.

Drizzt, low to begin with and not at all wounded, snatched up his blades and came up in a spin, one scimitar following the other in a clean slash across the nearest drow's belly. The wounded dark elf tried to fall away, but Drizzt was too quick, reversing his grip on his trailing blade and thrusting it ahead with an upward backhand, its tip cutting under the dark elf's ribs and puncturing his chest cavity.

Entreri was full out against a third drow by this time, the dark elf's twin swords working frantically to keep the assassin's sword and dagger at bay. The assassin wanted the battle over quickly, and his routines were purely offensive, designed to score a fast kill. But this drow, a longtime soldier of Bregan D'aerthe, was no novice to battle and he half-twisted and spun complete circles, fell into a back ward roll and pumped his swords hand over hand in a blinding wall of defense.

Entreri growled in dismay but kept up the pressure, hoping his adversary would make even the slightest mistake.

Drizzt found himself squared off against two, and one of these smiled wickedly as he lifted a small crossbow in his free hand. Drizzt proved the quicker, though, angling his scimitar right in front of the weapon so that when the drow fired, the quarrel skipped off the blade and flew harmlessly high.

The drow threw the handcrossbow at Drizzt, forcing the ranger back long enough so that he could draw a dirk to complement the slender sword he carried.

The other drow seized the apparent advantage as Drizzt ducked away, his broadsword and short sword weaving viciously.

Metal rang against metal a dozen times, two dozen, as Drizzt impossibly defeated each attack. Then the second drow joined the melee and Drizzt, as skilled as he was, found himself sorely pressed. Twinkle snapped across to block the short sword, darted farther ahead and low to knock down the tip of the thrusting broadsword, then rifled back the other way, barely deflecting the darting dirk.

So it went for several long and frantic moments, with the two soldiers of Bregan D'aerthe working in harmony, each measuring his attacks in light of the other's, each rais ing appropriate defenses whenever his companion seemed vulnerable.

Drizzt was not so sure he could win against these two, and knew that even if he did, this battle would take a long time to turn his way. He glanced over his shoulder, to see Entreri beginning to back off from his attack routines, falling into a more mundane rhythm against his skilled opponent.

The assassin noticed Drizzt, and apparently noted Drizzt's predicament. He gave a slight nod, and Drizzt caught a subtle shift in the way Entreri was holding his jeweled dagger.

Drizzt went forward in a sudden burst, driving back the sword and dirk wielder, then spun to the other drow, scim itars starting low and sweeping upward, forcing the drow's broadsword high.

Drizzt released the move immediately, snapped his scimitar from the blade of the broadsword, and skipped two steps backward.

The enemy drow, not understanding, kept his broad sword high for another instant-an instant too long— before he began his countering advance.

The jewels of Entreri's dagger gave a multicolored flicker as the weapon cut through the air, thudding into the vulnerable drow's ribs, below his raised sword arm. He grunted and hopped to the side, crashed against the wall, but kept his balance and kept both his swords defen sively out in front.

His comrade came ahead immediately, understanding what Drizzt would do. Long sword darted low, darted high, then came up in a twirl for a high slice.

Drizzt blocked, blocked again, then ducked under the predictably high third attack and veered to the side, both his blades working in sudden, short snaps that opened the defenses of the slumping, wounded drow. One scimitar jabbed into drow flesh just beside the dagger; the other fol lowed at once, sinking deeper, finishing the job.

Instinctively, Drizzt threw his retracted blade out horizontally and up high, the metal singing a perfect note as it stopped the overhead chop from the second drow's descending sword. The dark elf battling Entreri went on the offensive as soon as the assassin relinquished his dagger. Twin swords worked Entreri's remaining blade high and low, to one side, then the other. When he had prepared the assassin's stance to his liking,

thinking the end at hand, the drow came with a straight double-thrust, both swords parallel and knifing in at the assassin.

Entreri's sword hit one, then the other, impossibly fast, knocking both attacks wide. He hit the sword on his right a second time with a backhand, nearly sending the blade from the drow's hand, then a third time, his sword driving his enemy's high.

Drizzt's second scimitar came free of the dead drow's chest, but Drizzt did not bring the blade to bear on his present opponent. Rather, he angled the tip under the crosspiece of the stuck dagger and, when he saw Entreri prepared to receive it, he jerked his blade around, sending the dagger flying across the way.

Entreri caught it with his free hand and redirected its momentum, sticking it into his opponent's exposed ribs under the high-riding swords. The assassin jumped back; the dying drow stared at him in disbelief.