but got bitten twice on the hand, his limb immediately going numb. He felt his potent elixir fighting back, but he hesitated, near to swooning.
Swap!
Vierna hit him again, all five snake heads finding a target on the dwarf's hand and face. Pwent regarded her a moment longer, formed his lips as if to speak out a curse, then he fell to the stone and flopped about like a grounded fish, his entire body nearly numb, his nerves and muscles unable to function in any coordinated way.
Vierna looked Drizzt's way, her eyes burning with open hatred. 'Now all your pitiful friends are dead, my lost brother!' she growled, something she sincerely believed true. She advanced a step, snake whip held high, but paused at the sheer and unbridled rage that suddenly contorted her brother's features.
All your pitiful friends are dead!
The words burned in Drizzt's blood, turned his heart to stone.
All your pitiful friends are dead!
Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and Bruenor, everything Drizzt Do'Urden held dear, were lost to him, taken by a heritage that he had not been able to escape.
He could hardly see his opponent's movements, though he knew his scimitars were intercepting every attack with perfection, moving in a precise blur that offered his enemies no openings.
All your pitiful friends are dead!
He was the hunter again, surviving the wilds of the Underdark. He was beyond the hunter, the warrior incar nate, fighting on perfect instinct.
A sword thrust in from the right. Drizzt's scimitar slapped down across it, driving its tip to the ground. Faster than the agile evil drow could react, Drizzt turned his blade completely over the sword and heaved high, throwing the drow back a step.
Across flashed the scimitar, severing the triceps muscles on the back of the swordsman's arm. The pained drow yelled but somehow held his weapon, though it did him no good as the scimitar came back across, squealing as it cut through the fine mesh armor, drawing a line of blood across the drow's chest.
Drizzt flipped the blade over in his hand in the blink of an eye, and the scimitar flashed back the other way, high. He flipped it again and sent it back a fourth time, and the only reason he missed the mark was that the head that had been his intended target was already flying free.
All the while, the scimitar in Drizzt's other hand had parried the other opponent's attacks.
Vierna gasped, as did the remaining soldier facing Drizzt, and Drizzt would have fallen over him just as easily. He saw Jarlaxle's arm pumping, though, from beyond the opening left by the fallen opponent.
Drizzt's next dance was pure and furious desperation. His first scimitar rang out with a metallic impact. Twinkle came across and batted a second dagger aside.
It was over in a mere second, five daggers knocked away by a dark elf that hadn't even consciously seen them coming.
Jarlaxle fell back on his heels, then began to circle, laughing all the while, amazed and thrilled by the stunning display and the continuing battle.
Drizzt's troubles were not ended, though, for Vierna, crying for Lloth to be with her, leaped ahead to lend support to the soldier, and her snake-headed whip presented more problems by far than had the dead drow soldier's single sword.
Regis huddled back into as small a ball as he could manage when he saw the dark shapes drifting silently past the opening of the side passage. The halfling relaxed when the group had passed, was daring enough to crawl nearer to the entrance and use his infravision to try to discern if these were more evil dark elves.
Those red-glowing eyes gave him away; a sixth soldier was moving behind the first group.
Regis fell back with a squeak. He grabbed a rock in his plump little hand and held it out before him. A pitiful weapon indeed against the likes of a drow elf!
The dark elf considered the halfling and the tunnel all about Regis, carefully, then entered, coming in cautiously. A smile widened as he came to realize Regis's apparent helplessness.
'Already wounded?' he asked in the Common tongue.
It took Regis a moment to sort through the heavy and unfamiliar accent. He lifted the rock threateningly as the drow edged in close, kneeling to Regis's level and holding a long and cruel sword in one hand, a dagger in the other.
The drow laughed aloud. 'You will strike me down with your pebble?' he taunted, and he moved his arms out wide, presenting Regis an easy opening for his chest. 'Hit me, then, little halfling. Amuse me before my dagger digs a fine line across your throat.'
Regis, trembling, moved the rock in a jerking motion, as though he meant to take the drow up on the offer. It was the halfling's other hand which shot forward, though, the hand holding Artemis Entreri's dropped dagger.
The jewels in the deadly blade flared appreciatively, as though the weapon had a life and a hunger of its own, when it ripped past the fine mesh armor and sank deeply into the startled dark elf's soft skin.
Regis blinked in amazement at how easily the dagger had penetrated. It seemed as though his opponent wore thin parchment instead of metallic chain mail. The half-ling's hand was nearly thrown from the weapon hilt as a surge of power coursed through the dagger, into his arm. The drow tried to respond, and Regis would have had no defense if he had brought either weapon to bear.
But the drow did not, for some reason could not. His eyes remained wide in shock, his body jerked spasmodically, and it seemed to Regis as if his very life force was being stolen away. His own mouth agape, Regis stared into the most profound expression of horror he had ever seen.
More vital energy surged up the halfling's arm; he heard the drow's weapons fall to the stone. Regis could think only of old tales his papa had told him of frightening night creatures. He felt as he imagined a vampire must feel when feeding on the blood of its victims, felt a perverse warmth wash over him.
His wounds were on the mend!
The drow victim slumped lifelessly to the stone. Regis sat staring blankly at the magical dagger. He shuddered many times, recalling vividly each occasion when he had nearly felt that weapon's wicked sting.
The two drow moved silently but swiftly through the winding tunnels that would bring them to Vierna and Jarlaxle. They were confident they had outdistanced the out rageous dwarf, did not know that Pwent had sidetracked and had gotten to Vierna first.
Nor did they know that another dwarf had entered the tunnels, a red-bearded dwarf whose teary eyes promised death to any enemy he stumbled upon.
The dark elves turned a bend into the tunnel that would get them to the side room, parallel to the main tunnel. They saw the short but wide form of the dwarf swing about, just a few strides ahead of them, and charge in fear lessly, wildly.
The three opponents intertwined in a confused jumble, Bruenor shield-rushing with abandon, whipping his many-notched axe about him blindly.
'Ye killed me boy!' the dwarf bellowed, and though neither of his opponents could understand the Common tongue, they could discern Bruenor's rage clearly enough. One of the drow regained his footing and slipped his sword over the emblazoned shield, scoring a hit on the dwarf's shoulder that should have stolen the strength from that arm.
If Bruenor even knew he had been hit, he did not show it.
'Me boy!' he growled, slapping aside the other drow's sword with a powerful swipe of his heavy axe. The drow replaced the sword with his second sword, again pressing the dwarf. But Bruenor accepted the hit, didn't even flinch, his thoughts purely aimed for the kill.
He chopped his axe in a low swoop. The drow hopped the blade, but Bruenor stopped the swing and turned it about. The drow tried to hop a second time as soon as he landed, but Bruenor's movement was too quick, the dwarf jerking the axe around the drow's ankle and heaving with all his strength, taking the drow from his feet.
The other dark elf came over the dwarf, trying to shield his downed companion. His sword slashed across, scarring Bruenor's face, blinding the dwarf in one eye. Again Bruenor ignored the searing agony, bulled ahead within striking distance.
'Me boy!' he cried again, and he chopped down with all his strength, his axe blade cracking through the scrambling drow's spine.
