understood their sudden desperation.
The fish had swept over the pair of shades in the water, leaping all around them and biting at them voraciously. In this light, Drizzt couldn’t make out the changing hue, but he knew from the horrible and desperate sounds that Shadovar blood was fast mixing with the dark water.
Screams came from the second boat, too, as those vicious little fish made their way in through the splinter, the boat’s open wound, that Taulmaril had caused.
“Faster! Oh, faster!” Dahlia begged him, for though most of the fish had stopped to feast, another leaping wave swept their way.
Drizzt held Taulmaril up, bowstring drawn, and motioned to the woman.
“What?”
“Catch it!” the drow implored her.
Dahlia stared at him in puzzlement for just a heartbeat, then held Kozah’s Needle out near the tip of the arrow.
Drizzt let fly and the staff swallowed the lightning energy.
Andahar whinnied loudly, in obvious pain. Beside them, Entreri and his steed cried out.
Dahlia plunged her staff into the water and released the lightning energy, and how both horses and all three riders yelped at that painful sting.
But they pressed on, silver fish now floating all around them, dead or stunned. More were coming, though, but Drizzt ignored them. For the water had become shallower, and the drow drove Andahar on, and all of his shots were aimed before them as he swept the beach with magical lightning.
Entreri’s steed charged across the wet sand first, steam flowing from its black, glistening mane. Straight for the doorway they ran, Drizzt and Dahlia riding close behind. The assassin rolled down and dismissed his mount immediately, that he might retrieve the obsidian statuette, but Drizzt did not similarly send Andahar away as he and Dahlia leaped down to the ground. Instead, the unicorn reared and turned and thundered off at the nearest enemies, lowering his ivory horn.
The three companions scrambled through the narrow entry tunnel and burst into the large audience hall beyond, to be met by a line of shade warriors. Drizzt and Entreri entered first, side by side, their blades working ferociously to drive back the stabbing pikes. One polearm thrust in between them and Drizzt sprang upon it, driving it to the ground, then jumped away, crossing before Entreri, who side-flipped the other way, back behind the drow, a perfect somersault that landed him on his feet, blades still working in harmony.
As he had gone across, Drizzt took a trio of pikes with him, tying up the line and forcing the shades to fall back. In that one instant of respite, Drizzt glanced down to his right, to the magnificent throne, and he imagined, but could not see, the grave of his dearest friend just beyond.
The enemies before him proved to be a skilled and well-practiced team, and their short retreat formed them into a defensive, blocking semi-circle around the entry tunnel.
And from the other side of that tunnel came the sounds of pursuit, and one voice in particular, a voice too familiar to the companions, particularly to Entreri, lifted above the others.
“Hold them!” a tiefling warlord screamed.
“He lives!” Dahlia cried in denial, in horror, in anger, as she skidded into the chamber behind her two companions.
“No time,” Drizzt started to yell back, for he expected that Dahlia would simply turn around and go after that most hated tiefling. Drizzt understood that desire well! Alegni had indeed survived and had taken Guenhwyvar, as that strange Shadovar woman had claimed. The drow’s mind spun wildly. He wondered if Alegni might have his beloved companion in tow. In the middle of his fighting, he managed to brush a hand across his belt pouch, silently calling for the panther, hoping against hope that perhaps Alegni had erred in bringing the cat, Drizzt’s cat, who was more than a magical creation, who was a loyal friend.
He shook it all away when a pike nearly skewered him. He continued to silently beckon for Guenhwyvar, but again called to Dahlia to fight forward and not turn around.
But no need, for Dahlia had already rushed past behind him, moving to the side. She planted her staff and vaulted up high, clearing the Shadovar line, pikes coming up behind her as the warriors tried to turn around to meet the threat.
Entreri, understanding Dahlia’s tactics, was already moving, though. He too swept behind Drizzt, coming in hard against the shades, driving them and turning them and cutting them down, tying up that corner of the defensive formation.
Drizzt rushed beside him, then behind him, moving along the wall away from the tunnel mouth-and just in time, as some burst of black magical energy soared in through the opening, an aimed cloud of burning, biting smoke. It split the shade line in two, those in the middle of the formation falling back and falling away, flailing in pain.
As he came free behind the assassin, Drizzt again called upon his dark elf powers, and reached forth at the enemy battling Dahlia. Purplish flames erupted around the shade, outlining him in dancing faerielike fire. Caught by surprise, the Shadovar nearly dropped his pike, and did drop his guard.
He recovered almost immediately, trying to realign his weapon.
Too late.
Dahlia’s flail swiped across and shattered his jawbone, and as he lurched, the elf warrior turned a circuit, bringing her second spinning weapon around in a powerful backhand. This one cracked the back of the fighter’s skull and launched him head over heels in a flip that left him on his back on the stone floor, twitching and shuddering uncontrollably.
Again, Drizzt called on his innate magical powers, the powers wrought of his deep Underdark homeland, bringing forth a globe of impenetrable darkness right before the entry tunnel, and right in front of those enemies coming in pursuit.
“Go, go!” he yelled at Entreri, coming up on the man’s left and adding his spinning scimitars to the fray.
Entreri rolled behind him and came around clear of the tangled flank, and sprinted after Dahlia in a dead run across the vast hall, and Drizzt, with his magical anklets speeding his every step, disengaged from the pikemen and went in swift pursuit.
The three easily outran the more heavily encumbered Shadovar, making a straight line for an exit tunnel ahead and to the right.
But more shades came in from the side, and once again, arrows and javelins flew their way.
With speed and acrobatics and more than a bit of luck, they all got into the cover of that tunnel, and ran along, Drizzt and Dahlia both trying to sort out their way to the lower levels, Entreri just keeping pace.
They went around a corner and Drizzt pulled up short, motioning for the other two to continue. He went down low to one knee and slipped back around the corner with his bow in hand, and he mowed down the incoming shades with a line of deadly missiles.
“Here!” he heard Dahlia call for him, and he ran off, thinking he had bought them some time, at least.
But not much time, he realized as a powerful explosion wracked the corridor behind him. He glanced back to see sparks arcing along the walls of the corner where he had just been kneeling, and heard the renewed pursuit.
They passed through a series of chambers, guessing more than knowing which doors to burst through. They turned another corner, and another beyond that, speeding for a heavy, partially ajar metal doorway. Entreri shouldered it, crashing through, Drizzt and Dahlia close behind, and as the large room opened into view before them, all three saw and heard a similar door opposite them slam shut.
Entreri made for it with all speed, Dahlia close behind, as Drizzt slammed the door behind him. He looked for a locking bar, but none was to be found. But some furniture still remained, including a heavy stone chair frame, so he pulled it into place before the door and propped it at an angle to somewhat secure the portal.
Across the room, Entreri tugged at the other door and banged on it, but whoever had exited had already secured it.
“Now where?” Dahlia asked, leaping around and scanning for other doors.
But there were none to be seen.
“Now where?” she asked again, more insistently.
“Now we fight,” Entreri replied. “That was Alegni’s voice,” he added, and spat on the floor.
