Drizzt threw his hip out to the left, barely avoiding the stab, and twisted to lurch back and right. He heard the snap of air just before his face as the leaping monk’s fast-kicking feet missed by less than a finger’s breadth.
The drow straightened, turning both his scimitars against the thrusting spear, even though the kicking monk leaped once again, and this time with his weapon planted in the ground nearer to Drizzt so he could extend his attack.
Drizzt let him. He had to break this dance quickly and get to Dahlia. He drove his blades down in a cross, catching the thrust with Twinkle in his left hand, driving through with Icingdeath, and as he expected and hoped, the fine diamond-edged blade sheared through the edge of the wooden spear.
Drizzt threw his left arm up and finally started his lurch to the right, albeit far too late. He was surprised by the weight of the monk’s blow. For one so slight, this trained fighter could hit like an ogre!
But Drizzt was also already surrendering the ground when the monk connected, intending to fly away to the right, and so he did, throwing himself as far as he could, tumbling and rolling, deftly tucking his right shoulder and reaching back with his left hand as he did.
He came out of the roll without his scimitars and facing back to his previous position and on his knees, but far from helpless as the tiefling with the broken spear charged in close pursuit.
Drizzt had left those scimitars on purpose, instead retrieving his bow and an arrow, and with the precision wrought by hundreds of hours of practice, of endless repetition and measurement, of pure muscle memory, he came to his knees, facing back with the Heartseeker leveled crosswise before him, an arrow nocked and ready.
The tiefling monk leaped, but not soon enough, and a lightning arrow lived up to the bow’s name, blasting into the monk’s chest and hurling him back the way he had come, with his feet leading as the arrow’s mighty momentum laid him out. He landed flat on his face, without so much as a groan.
The second monk was in the air, though, right over his falling companion. Perhaps Drizzt, so fast and so skilled, could get another arrow in place, perhaps not. He didn’t try. He scrambled forward and dived under the leaping monk, and as the small human extended his legs to touch down more quickly, Drizzt slapped Taulmaril up over the flying monk’s feet, hooking him between bow shaft and string. The drow dug in and planted firmly, and tugged with all his strength, sending the monk tumbling away, though Taulmaril was torn from his grasp and went flying with his enemy.
Without the slightest hesitation, the drow improvised. Above all else, he had to get to Dahlia, and so he went that way with all speed, scooping Twinkle and Icingdeath as he passed.
A shimmer of light in the air before him warned him. He thought it spidery web tendrils, and so brought his blades slashing before him.
At the very last moment and with no time to change course, Drizzt noted that the edges of that shimmer didn’t quite match the flora immediately before him.
He fell through the extra-dimensional gate, the Shifter’s trap, reappearing near the edge of a high bluff far to the other side of Dahlia. He managed to skid to a stop before falling over, but only got his head and shoulders back around in time to see a tall female shade smiling widely and with her arm extended toward him.
From that extended fist, from a ring on her finger, came the ghostly, nearly translucent head of a ram, rushing through the air.
Drizzt tried to tuck and turn, but got slammed on the side, and found himself flying from the ledge into the open air.
“Go with him. Kill the drow,” Jermander said to Ambergris as the enraged Afafrenfere rushed past their position, slowing only to vault the spidery filaments between him and the drow, barriers impeding his rush to avenge his partner’s death.
The dwarf nodded and sped out to the right, toward the ledge from which Drizzt had flown.
“She is not yet secured,” the Shifter said, nodding toward the surprisingly resilient Dahlia, who, despite a continuing filament barrage, had managed to wriggle one leg free, and despite the efforts of Bol and Horrible, continued to duck and dodge and lash out with stinging hits.
“These are the hirelings to whom you promised a full share?” the Shifter asked, her sarcasm heightened by her accent, which bit off the words in a sharp manner.
“Bol and Horrible are hindered by their orders,” Jermander sharply replied. “Their weapons are lethal, their tactics designed to kill, and yet we have forbidden them from even injuring Dahlia.”
“Who is formidable in her own right,” Ratsis added.
“You promised me that she would be caught easily if separated from her drow companion,” the Shifter reminded. “I have done so, quite expertly.”
Ratsis glanced to Jermander, who rolled his eyes, then nodded toward the nearest of the huge spiders. Taking the cue, Ratsis redoubled the efforts of his minions, prodding them on with telepathic commands.
The agitated arachnids stamped their many legs and more filaments shot out at the dodging elf warrior as she continued to lash out with those metallic flails.
Lashing out wildly, Ratsis noted, her spinning weapons more often than not getting nowhere near to Bol or Horrible… but never hitting only air, Ratsis noted. Dahlia always seemed to twist those spinning weapons in line with each other, and every attack routine ended with them smacking together, throwing sparks.
More sparks with each hit, Ratsis realized, as if they were building energy.
“Clever woman,” he started to say, but abruptly stopped as Dahlia played her hand.
Bol’s heavy flail head swung around above her once more, and up slapped the woman’s flail, a blow that should have barely diverted the heavy flail ball. But when the pole struck, there came a flash of lightning, a great release of energy, greater, even, than the tremendous momentum of the swinging ball.
That ball shot straight up suddenly, and the surprised Bol couldn’t react other than to instinctively hold on tight to his jolted weapon.
He should have let it go, for as the ball reached the end of its chain, it continued over backward and down.
Ratsis’s eyes widened as the big man’s head snapped forward, Bol’s face a mask of confusion. The burly warrior stumbled a step to the side, then toppled over, flail handle falling underneath him so that when he landed, the pull on the handle and chain yanked his head around, leaving him lying on his side, but face down in the dirt.
The flail’s ball remained on the back of his head, secured by the spikes that had driven through his skull.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye, but now time seemed to slow greatly, so that Horrible’s outraged, shocked scream went on and on, as the woman, her orders overruled by her rage, leaped in to cut down the webbed Dahlia.
Dahlia managed to turn and block that initial strike, but even then, more filaments fell over her, further enwrapping and hindering her. One arm was down now, caught fast, and though she parried brilliantly with her remaining flail, there was no energy charge remaining there, and none to be built.
Jermander shouted out for Horrible to stop, but the furious woman would not relent.
“Stop her!” Ratsis said to the Shifter, who was already lifting her fist and grinning.
Horrible leaped back from Dahlia, out of reach of the spinning flail. As Dahlia’s arm came around behind her, it, too, got tangled in the webbing, leaving the woman twisted awkwardly at the hip. With both arms pinned, Dahlia stood helpless as Horrible swung her sword up over her head for a killing chop.
But Horrible jerked weirdly, then a ghostly ram’s head appeared at her side and slammed her, throwing her many strides to the side. She kept moving forward when she landed, almost reflexively, and even tried to continue her overhead swing. But that long blade tangled in the branches of a tree even as she stumbled face-first into the trunk.
She fell to the side, to the ground, and lay very still.
“The spiders!” the Shifter yelled at Ratsis when he turned to her in surprise. “The spiders! Catch her fast!”
He landed with his typical grace, and might have even managed to keep his footing long enough to scamper down the steep slope and relieve some of the weight of the fall. But Drizzt’s descent took him in line with the short and stabbing, sharp-edged branches of a dead tree. He touched down on the sandy hillside, the light snows and early cold having done nothing yet to solidify the loose soil, and had to throw himself around backward, desperately dodging those deadly branches.
And as he did, spinning around and throwing himself forward and low to try to catch himself, the soil gave
