knocking Drizzt back, stumbling, while Dahlia fell to the ground.
Drizzt went back in hard, drawing his second blade, slashing ferociously to try and end the battle quickly. The legion devil didn’t cry out, but its fellows apparently heard its silent call, for soon they appeared around the globe.
“Run! Go!” Drizzt cried to Dahlia.
He didn’t have to ask her twice. Off stumbled Dahlia, a legion devil in close pursuit. She rushed from the lea and into the cover of the forest.
Drizzt forgot about her the moment she started away, because he had to. His focus became the three foes in front of him and the fourth, infinitely more dangerous, on the other side across his magical globe. He put his scimitars up in a flashing flurry, spinning and striking furiously. He dived down to the side, into a roll, and came up charging forward at the nearest devil, who threw its shield across to block.
And Drizzt stutter-stepped, stopping just for a moment, just long enough for the shield to whip past before lunging ahead with a vicious thrust. The legion devil managed to bring its sword around in time to partially block that stab, but only partially, and still the tip of Twinkle punctured its leathery skin. Better-aimed, the real attack of Icingdeath knifed in over the sword and scimitar, driving right into the howling devil’s mouth, breaking teeth and twisting into the throat and skull.
The blade reversed almost the moment it went in, for Drizzt had no time to tarry.
He couldn’t have asked for a better moment for Guenhwyvar’s arrival-how many times in his life had the drow experienced exactly that? The speeding panther flew in front of him, driving back the three legion devils.
Drizzt turned and he ran, full speed, his magical ankle bracelets speeding him along. He veered and paused only long enough to retrieve his bow, then tried to approximate where Dahlia had entered the forest-perhaps he could catch her pursuing devil and down it-but she was long gone.
Behind him, he heard Guenhwyvar roar out, and he knew there was pain in that call, but he knew that he couldn’t turn and fight.
Not here. Not now.
Hadencourt was still grimacing in pain, rubbing the hole in his chest, as he came around the globe to rejoin the three legionnaires. They had not pursued Drizzt, or the panther that was now limping into the brush, for the malebranche had instructed them not to do so.
No, Hadencourt had better allies for that task.
One of the legion devils growled in response and clapped its sharp teeth together and banged its sword on its shield, each strike drawing a pained grimace. The line of blood on its back thickened once more as the crease Icingdeath had put there opened wide.
The second wounded devil seemed less eager to chase off after the drow. It worked its serpent’s tongue over its broken teeth, each flicker bringing forth gobs of blood. The movement seemed to feed on itself, growing more ferocious with each flicker, becoming a convulsion, becoming a seizure.
Hadencourt looked at the pitiful thing with disdain, and when it fell to the ground and began thrashing, blood now pouring more freely from its mouth, the malebranche snorted in derision, kicked the sputtering legion devil in the face, and told it to be silent.
And when it was not, when it kept thrashing and gurgling and spitting, Hadencourt drove his trident down into its chest.
A few more thrashes and the legion devil lay still.
The other two nodded their agreement.
A handful more devils joined them then, smaller and lighter creatures hardly as tall as a short dwarf, though quite unlike a dwarf, they had wiry bodies and thin limbs. They scrabbled on all fours as often as they walked upright. Their actions were more primal than those of their more cultured devil companions, more feral and vicious, with their tongues constantly flicking out from their canine snouts and their wild eyes darting around hungrily.
Most notable of all, they were covered, tailbone to skull, in a coat of quills, red-tipped and blue like veins near their base.
The remaining two legion devils crinkled their expressions in disgust and tried to avoid looking at the spined devils.
“You know what I seek,” Hadencourt instructed them.
The five spined devils scrabbled off into the forest, a pair running up the nearest tree as easily as if they were skipping across a fallen log.
Tearing aside brush with his sword, the legion devil charged through the forest. The creature knew the elf woman was just ahead. It knew that it had her!
The devil burst through one thicket, stumbling onto clear ground, then skidded to a stop. The path ahead was clear, the brush thinner, and the elf nowhere in sight. The devil moved more cautiously then, remembering the lessons Hadencourt had imparted when it had been summoned forth to wage this battle.
The devil nodded its horned head. It considered again the female’s departing move. Before it, left and right, stood a pair of tall trees and in the path directly between them lay the tell-tale imprinting of the butt end of a long staff, a depression in the ground, and there, the elf’s footprints ended.
Forked tongue flicking past its long teeth, the devil leaped up and hooked its sword arm over the lowest branch.
Hanging there in mid-air, its focus above, sword arm looped, shield arm reaching, and kicking one leg up repeatedly, the legion devil presented the most appealing target.
Dahlia, who had not climbed the tree and had only made it look like she might have vaulted up there, rushed out from around the tree trunk to the devil’s right, staff in hand. The devil saw her at the last moment and threw its arms back over the branch, but its descent was not in a straight line as the staff jabbed into its midsection hard, driving it back.
As Dahlia let the devil fly free of the strike, she released a measure of lightning, further throwing the beast aside. Head over heels, it tumbled into the thick trunk of the other tree. With a howl of pain and outrage at being so deceived, the legion devil spun around to regain its footing, and just came up straight when the elf waded in.
Her flails spinning in a blur of motion, Dahlia cracked one after another off the devil, hitting every vulnerable spot. She had the beast off-balance, lurching every which way, but always just a fraction of a heartbeat slow in trying to block the next crushing blow.
The devil threw up its shield arm, but Dahlia’s flail whistled in behind the block, cracking hard into the beast’s elbow. The shield arm slumped and one-two went Dahlia’s strikes over the top of the shield and into the devil’s ugly face.
In desperation, the devil lunged forward with its sword, slashing wildly. But Dahlia danced to her left and forward, moving right past and snapping the flail in her right arm up under her left armpit. She turned as she passed, pulling hard with her right, and just as the devil turned to keep up with her, the elf warrior released her armpit hold.
The front pole of the weapon shot forth like an arrow, blasting into the devil’s face, snapping its head back, shattering its nose and cheekbone.
Dahlia leaped and spun, a high pirouette, and she came around with a backhand right and a forehand left. Up again she leaped and turned as the now-staggering devil tried to keep pace, and yet again, she scored two clean and powerful hits.
Up and around she went again, but this time in the opposite direction. The devil, blinded by rage and by its own blood, stumbled along the same way, though, and so when Dahlia landed, she was behind the battered beast.
Her first strike proved a glancing blow, and was intended as such, for while it inflicted little damage, it moved the devil’s helm to the side. The following strike found that very spot, cracking the devil’s skull, snapping its head to the side. It stumbled a step, then another, then did a weird hop, landing on its feet for just a heartbeat before falling over to the dirt.
Her staff reassembled by that point, Dahlia leaped over to straddle it. She drove it down with all her strength, and all the magic of Kozah’s Needle, the lightning curling aside the devil’s leathery armor and leathery skin as the weapon slid into its muscular chest.
How the beast thrashed.
Dahlia leaped up and inverted herself over the staff to avoid the wild slashes of sword and shield. But she
