R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

He came back to an upright and balanced position and began a countering routine, trying to find some fast way inside the reach of that vicious whip.

It cracked again, just to his left, too far to pose a threat, and so he thought he had his chance.

But before he could even take the first step forward, something magically appeared in the air to his right, and he understood a moment before the summoned magical hammer struck him that the priestess in front of him had snapped her whip merely as a distraction for her sister, who remained on the floor to the side.

Entreri took the hit, turning and bending at the last instant to accept it on the shoulder instead of the side of his face. He continued turning, and threw himself to his left in a spinning dive, which froze the priestess in front of him in surprise and afforded Entreri the moment he needed.

As he turned in that spin, he noted the kneeling priestess, once more spellcasting, and his left arm flicked beneath his downward-facing chest in a sudden backhand.

The kneeling priestess had magical wards engaged, of course, but magical, too, was Entreri’s jeweled dagger. It hit the protective shield and drove through, diving into the priestess’s wide eye.

She wailed and fell away, mortally wounded. Her trembling hands reached for the killing blade, but she could not find the courage to touch the quivering dagger.

Entreri crashed down to the ground and bounced himself to his knees, then threw himself to his feet with great speed and agility.

Not fast enough, though, to avoid the snap of his other foe’s whip, lashing against his leg, thigh to shin across the side of his knee.

He grimaced and spun to square off, and found the priestess already there, right in front of him, her mace whipping for his face.

A sudden parry with his sword intercepted the heavy weapon, but the force of the blow knocked his blade back and he only barely managed to avoid being clipped by the deadly red blade of Charon’s Claw.

Horrible death loomed less than a finger’s breadth from his cheek.

He fell back, trying to regain an even footing with his foe, but the priestess pressed on relentlessly, working her weapons brilliantly.

Drizzt knew the priestess at the end was Matron Mother Zhindia, and knew that he had to get to her as quickly as possible. But there remained two others between him and Zhindia Melarn on this side of the table.

Soon to be one, he believed as he came in hard. The apparently surprised priestess hadn’t even drawn her weapons. He stabbed with Icingdeath, certain he had a kill.

But the priestess spoke a word, just a single word, and she was gone, simply vanished, and Drizzt’s thrusting blade hit nothing but air.

He didn’t immediately understand the move, though he was familiar with such spells as Word of Recall, but he was wise enough not to even try to understand it then, and instead pressed forward for the next priestess in line.

And he was in darkness, complete and impenetrable, which was not unexpected when dealing with powerful dark elves. So he charged on, focusing on the mental image, sword leading, to try to get to the woman before she could turn out of the way.

He felt the tingle of magic, and deep in his thoughts realized that he had stepped upon a magical glyph just an instant before the jarring blast of lightning crackled up his leg and launched him sidelong into the air. He kept his wits enough to twist and roll about, fighting past the spasms evoked by the lightning to get his legs out just before he collided into the left-hand wall of the oval room.

He crashed down hard to the floor, focusing on simply not dropping his weapons. His hands shook wildly, his forearms flexing and jolting so forcefully that his elbows hurt. He wasn’t in the globe of darkness any longer, which left him exposed and disoriented. He recognized his vulnerability and stubbornly demanded his center and his balance as he forced himself to his feet.

The priestess was out of her conjured darkness, too, moving back from the table nearer the room’s far doors. She was casting again, but that was the least of Drizzt’s troubles. Matron Mother Zhindia, who stood directly in front of the second set of bronze doors, was casting, too.

Before he could make his move, a line of fire shot down from above, brilliant and intense, covering him, engulfing him, melting the stone of the floor at his feet.

Within the crackling flames, Drizzt heard the laughter of the confident priestesses.

Yvonnel’s thoughts screamed in protest when she saw the immolating fires sweep down over Drizzt.

“To him! Protect him!” she screamed, both telepathically to her entwined out-of-body companion and audibly back in the Room of Divination in House Baenre.

Even as she cried out, though, Yvonnel saw the truth, and her admiration and curiosity soared.

The jolting experience as they flew out of Entreri’s eyes sent the world spinning.

If the room behind him was full of confusion-priestesses tumbling, magic exploding, darkness stealing half the table-then the corridor just beyond the room had devolved into absolute chaos.

Just the way Jarlaxle wanted it to be.

His magical globs had caught the leading warriors, reducing their charge to a stumbling obstruction for those scrambling to get past them and into the fray. Jarlaxle stood at the entryway to the room, putting his magical bracer to good use. His arm pumped repeatedly, and with every retraction, the bracer slipped another summoned dagger into his grasp. A line of the deadly missiles flew down the corridor, past the jumbled lead warriors. Like a swarm of angry bees, they stung at the next dark elves in line, forcing them to dodge and to duck and to dive aside, and all that while trying to navigate around the six-legged gooey tangle.

Whenever one of the group managed to get past that trio, Jarlaxle focused his fire, a stream of death soaring out to pummel the would-be attacker before he could begin to gain any momentum.

But this was a losing proposition. Behind him, his friends were engaged and outnumbered by high priestesses of the Spider Queen.

And it only got worse, even as Jarlaxle tried to sort out a solution. The corridor behind the tangled group seemed to calm for just a moment, before the three caught in the syrupy globs went flying to one side of the passageway, slamming into, and sticking to, the wall to Jarlaxle’s left.

Around them came a monstrous beast, its eight-legged charge led by a huge spear, flying fast for the mercenary’s head.

Even as he ducked, Jarlaxle kept up his flow of flying daggers, but he knew that these missiles would not stop the drider. He thought of his wand. A glob of goo might entangle a leg or two.

The drider had many to spare.

So, purely on instinct, the mercenary backed quickly into the room but continued to let fly the daggers. In the midst of that assault, he brought his right arm down low on one roll and halted the magic of the bracer just long enough to launch a different missile. He didn’t aim at the drider, but rather at the floor just inside the threshold.

He was right back to launching his stream of daggers at the beast as that thin black missile spun and elongated and came to rest in front of the threshold.

The drider, axes now in both hands, batted aside most of the daggers, taking a few minor hits. It shoved through the tangled blockade and charged into the room, clearly oblivious to Jarlaxle’s subtle trap. It only realized its mistake, its face twisting with rage and denial, when its leading legs stamped down upon empty air and the beast tumbled face down into the mercenary’s portable hole.

Jarlaxle flipped his hat onto his head and sent another couple of daggers flying down the hall as he scrambled ahead. He leaped the ten-foot expanse of his own trap, pulling his wand as he went and launched a glob of goo down at the drider, just to keep it busy and disoriented.