of her neck tingled; something was watching her.
Catti-brie dropped the Heartseeker and spun about, snapping her short sword from its sheath with her turn, barely in time to bat aside the thrusting sword of a levitating drow that had silently descended from the ceiling.
Wulfgar, too, noticed the mist, and he knew that it demanded his attention, that he must be ready to strike out at it as soon as its nature was revealed. He could not ignore Catti-brie's sudden cry, though, and when he looked at her, he found her hard pressed, nearly sitting on the floor, her short sword working furiously to keep her attacker at bay.
In the shadows some distance behind the young woman and her attacker, another dark shape began its descent.
The warm blood of his torn enemy mingled with the drool on Thibbledorf Pwent's beard. The drow had stopped thrashing, but Pwent, reveling in the kill, had not.
A crossbow quarrel pierced his ear. His head came up as he roared, the impaled helmet spike lifting the dead drow's arm weirdly. There stood another enemy, advancing steadily.
Up leaped the battlerager, snapping his head from side to side, whipping the caught drow back and forth until the ebony skin ripped apart, freeing the helmet spike.
The approaching dark elf stopped his advance, trying to make some sense of the gruesome scene. He was moving again-back the other way-when indomitable Pwent took up the roaring charge.
The drow was truly amazed at the stubby dwarf's frantic pace, amazed that he could not easily outdistance this enemy. He wouldn't have run too far anyway, though, pre ferring to bait this dangerous one away from the main battle.
They went through a series of twisting corridors, the dark elf ten strides ahead. His graceful steps barely seemed to alter as he leaped, landing and spinning about, sword ready and smile wide.
Pwent never slowed. He merely ducked his head to put his helmet spike in line. With his eyes to the stone, the battlerager realized the trap, too late, as he crossed the rim of a pit the drow had subtly leaped across.
Down went the battlerager, crashing and bouncing, the many points of his battle armor throwing sparks as he skidded along the stone. He cracked a rib against the rounded top of a stalagmite mound some distance down, bounced completely over, and landed flat on his back in a lower chamber.
He lay there for some time, admiring the cunning of his enemy and admiring the curious way the ceiling-tons of solid rock-continued to spin about.
No novice with the sword, Catti-brie worked her blade marvelously, using every defense Drizzt Do'Urden had shown her to gain back some measure of equal footing. She was confident that the drow's initial advantage was fading, confident that she could soon get her feet under her and come back up evenly against this opponent.
Then, suddenly, she had no one to fight.
Aegis-fang twirled by her, its windy wake bringing her thick hair about, and hit the surprised dark elf full force, blasting him away.
Catti-brie spun about, her initial appreciation lost as soon as she recognized Wulfgar's protectiveness. The mist near the barbarian was forming by then, taking on the substantial, corporeal body of a denizen of some vile lower plane, some enemy far more dangerous than the dark elf Catti-brie had been battling.
Wulfgar had come to her aid at the risk of his own peril, had put her safety above his own.
To Catti-brie, confident that she could have taken care of her own situation, that act seemed more stupid than altruistic.
Catti-brie went for her bow-she had to get to her bow. Before she even had her hands on it, though, the monster, the yochlol, came fully to the plane. Amorphous, it somewhat resembled a lump of half-melted wax, showing eight tentaclelike appendages and a central, gaping maw lined with long, sharp teeth.
Catti-brie sensed danger behind her before she could call out to Wulfgar. She spun, bow in hand, and looked up to her enemy, to a drow's sword fast descending for her head.
Catti-brie shot first. The arrow jolted the drow several inches from the floor and passed right through the dark elf to explode in a shower of sparks against the ceiling. The drow was still standing when he came back to the floor, still holding his sword, his expression revealing that he was not quite sure what had just happened.
Catti-brie grabbed her bow like a club and jumped up to meet him, pressing him fiercely until his mind registered the fact that he was dead.
She looked back once, to see Wulfgar grabbed by one of the yochlol's tentacles, then another. All the barbarian's incredible strength could not keep him from the waiting maw.
Bruenor could see nothing but the black of the drider's torso as he continued to bull in, continued to drive Dinin backward. He could hear nothing except the sounds of flying blades, the clang of metal against metal, or the sound of cracking shell whenever his axe struck home.
He knew instinctively that Catti-brie and Wulfgar, his children, were in trouble.
Bruenor's axe finally caught up with the retreating creature with full force as the drider slammed against the wall. Another spider leg fell away; Bruenor planted his feet and heaved with all his strength, launching himself several feet back.
Dinin, weirdly contorted, two legs lost, did not immediately pursue, glad for the reprieve, but ferocious Bruenor came back in, the dwarf's savagery overwhelming the wounded drider. Bruenor's shield blocked the first axe; his helmet blocked the following strike, a blow that should have dropped him.
Straight across whipped the dwarf's many-notched axe, above the hard exoskeleton to cut a jagged line across the bloated drider's belly. Hot gore spewed out. Fluids ran down the drider's legs and Bruenor's pumping arms.
Bruenor went into a frenzy, his axe smacking repeatedly, incessantly, into the crook between the drider's two fore most legs. Exoskeleton gave way to flesh; flesh opened to spill more gore.
Bruenor's axe struck hard yet again, but he took a hit atop the shoulder of his weapon arm. The drider's awkward angle stole most of the strength from the blow, and the axe did not get through Bruenor's fine mithril mail, but a blast of hot agony assaulted Bruenor.
His mind screamed that Catti-brie and Wulfgar needed him!
Grimacing against the pain, Bruenor whipped his axe in an upward backhand, its flat back cracking against the drider's elbow. The creature howled and Bruenor brought the weapon to bear again, angled up the other way, catching the drider in the armpit and shearing the creature's arm off.
Catti-brie and Wulfgar needed him!
The drider's longer reach got its second axe around the dwarf's blocking shield, its bottom edge drawing a line of blood up the back of Bruenor's arm. Bruenor tucked the shield in close and shoulder-blocked the monster against the wall. He bounced back, drove his axe in hard at the monster's exposed side, then shoulder-blocked again.
Back bounced the dwarf, in chopped his axe, and Bruenor's stubby legs twitched again, sending him hurtling forward. This time, Bruenor heard the drider's other axe fall to the floor, and when he bounced back, he stayed back, chopping wildly with his axe, driving the drider to the stone, splitting flesh and breaking ribs.
Bruenor turned about, saw Catti-brie in command of her situation, and took a step toward Wulfgar.
'Wishya!'
Waves of energy hit the dwarf, lifting his feet from the ground and launching him a dozen feet through the air, to slam against the wall.
He rebounded in a redirected run, and he cried a single note of rage as he bore down on the entrance to the distant tunnel, the eyes of several drow watching him from farther within.
'Wishya!' came the cry once more, and Bruenor was moving backward suddenly.
'How many ye got?' the tough dwarf roared, shrugging off this newest hit against the wall.
The eyes, every set, turned away.
A globe of darkness fell over the dwarf, and he was, in truth, glad for its cover, for that last slam had hurt him more than he cared to admit.
A fourth soldier joined Vierna, Jarlaxle, and their one bodyguard as they again moved deeper into the tunnels.
'Dwarf to the side,' the newcomer explained. 'Insane, wild with rage. I put him down a pit, but I doubt he is stopped!'
