The explosion dropped Bizmatec to his knees. The fiend felt the fierce yank as Bruenor tore his axe free. Then came another explosion and a silver streak to the side that blasted away the manes that were trying to come to the glabrezu's aid. Where was Errtu now? Then came a third hit, and the world was swirling, darkening, as the spirit of Bizmatec careened along the corridor that would take him back to the Abyss for a hundred years of banishment.
Bruenor came out from the black smoke, all that remained of the glabrezu, with renewed abandon, hacking at the fast-thinning ranks of manes, working his way to Drizzt. He couldn't actually see the drow, but he could hear the ring of steel, the impossibly fast repetition of blade striking blade.
He did manage to get a glimpse of Catti-brie, and his heart soared with hope, for his daughter had somehow splashed her way over to the same ice floe that bore Stumpet.
'Come on, dwarf,' Bruenor muttered intensely. 'Find yer god and save me girl!'
Stumpet didn't move as Catti-brie continued to flounder. The woman was too engaged, as was her father, to notice another large form making its way toward the battle, moving swiftly and gracefully across the ice.
*****
From a short distance back within the cave opening, Errtu watched it all with pure enjoyment. The fiend felt no loss as Bizmatec was pounded away into nothingness, cared little for the chasme, and nothing at all for the manes. Even the marilith, in such desperate combat with Drizzt, merely concerned the balor because Errtu feared that she might kill the drow. As for the generals and his soldiers, they were replaceable, easily replaceable. There was no shortage of willing fiends waiting eagerly in the Abyss.
So let the companions win out here on the open berg, Errtu figured. Already the woman was out of the fight, and the dwarf was battered. And Drizzt Do'Urden, though he was fighting so very well, was surely tiring. By the time Drizzt got into the cave, he would likely be alone, and no single mortal, not even a drow elf, could stand up to the mighty balor.
The fiend smiled wickedly and watched the continuing fight. If the marilith gained too much of an advantage, Errtu would have to intervene.
*****
Crenshinibon also viewed the battle with great interest. The crystal shard, intent on the main fight, was oblivious to the enemies who had come to Cryshal-Tirith's doorstep. Unlike Errtu, the artifact wanted the fight done with, wanted Drizzt and his friends simply destroyed before they ever got near the cave. Crenshinibon would have liked to send out another line of fire-the drow was a more stationary target now, locked in combat as he was-but the first such attack had severely weakened the shard. The encounter with the antimagic sapphire had taken a toll. Crenshinibon could only hope the damage would eventually heal.
For now, though. .
The wicked artifact found a way. It reached out telepathically to the ring Errtu had left on the floor, to the trapped dwarf held within that gem prison.
On the ice floe, Stumpet finally moved, and Catti-brie, not understanding, smiled hopefully when she noticed the priestess's approach.
*****
In the never-ending wars of the Abyss, the fiends known as mariliths have a reputation as generals, as the finest tacticians. But Drizzt soon realized that the creature with seven appendages was not so coordinated in her movements. The marilith's routines did not vary, simply because of the confusion any wielder would find in trying to coordinate the movements of six separate blades.
And so the drow was doing better, though his arms tingled with numbness from the sheer number of parries he had been through.
Left, left, then right went Twinkle, complimenting the up and down movements of the other scimitar, and Drizzt was quick to jump when the marilith's tail, predictably, came slashing around.
The fiend disappeared once more, and Drizzt decided to spin about. The marilith expected him to do that, he realized, and so he came straight ahead instead, and scored a vicious hit as the creature reappeared, exactly where she had just been.
'Oh, my son,' the marilith said unexpectedly, falling back.
That gave Drizzt pause, but he was still in a ready crouch, still able to double-slash into gas the two manes that ventured near.
'Oh, my son,' the fiend said again, in a voice that was so familiar to the beleaguered drow. 'Can you not see through the disguise?' his enemy went on.
Drizzt sucked in a deep breath, trying not to look at the deep and bleeding slash he had put across the marilith's left breast, wondering suddenly if he had struck foolishly.
'It is Zaknafein,' the creature went on. 'A trick of Errtu, forcing me to fight against you … as Matron Malice did with Zin-carla!'
The words stunned Drizzt profoundly, locked his feet into place. His knees nearly buckled as the creature gradually shifted shape, went from a six-armed monstrosity to a handsome drow male, a male that Drizzt Do'Urden knew so very well.
Zaknafein!
'Errtu wants you to destroy me,' the creature said. The marilith did well to hide a snicker. She had scoured Drizzt's thoughts to come up with this ploy, and had followed their ensuing course, letting Drizzt lead, every step. As soon as she had proclaimed this to be a trick of the balor, Drizzt had thought of
Matron Malice, whoever that was, and of Zin-carla, whatever that was. The marilith was more than prepared to play along.
And it was working! Drizzt's scimitars sagged. 'Fight him, my father!' Drizzt yelled. 'Find your freedom, as you did from Malice!'
'He is strong,' the marilith replied. 'He. .' The creature smiled, her two remaining weapons dipping low. 'My son!' came the soothing, familiar voice.
Drizzt nearly swooned. 'We must aid the dwarf,' he started to say, willing to believe that this was indeed Zaknafein, and that his father could find his way out of Errtu's mental clutches.
Drizzt was willing to believe that, but his scimitar, forged to destroy such creatures of fire, most certainly was not. The scimitar could not «see» the marilith's illusion, could not hear the soothing voice.
Drizzt actually took a step to the side, toward Bruenor, when he recognized the continued throbbing, the unrelenting hunger, of that blade. He took another step, just to get his feet properly positioned, and then hurled himself at the illusion of his father, his rage doubling.
He was met by the five remaining blades as the marilith quickly resumed her more natural form, and the battle began anew.
Drizzt called upon his innate magic and limned the fiend with purplish faerie fire, but the marilith laughed and countered the magical energy, dousing the fire with a thought.
Drizzt heard the familiar shuffling behind him and immediately brought up a globe of impenetrable darkness, right over himself and the creature.
The marilith taunted him. 'You think I cannot see?' the fiend roared gleefully. 'I have lived longer in darkness than you, Drizzt Do'Urden!'
Her unabated attacks seemed to confirm her words. Sword rang out against scimitar, against scimitar, against scimitar against … axe.
The creature didn't understand for a split second, a fatal hesitation. Suddenly she realized that Drizzt was no longer in front of her, but the drow's dwarven ally! And if Bruenor was in front …
The marilith reached into her innate magic once more, thinking to teleport away to safety.
Drizzt's strike came first, though, his hungry scimitar driving through the marilith's backbone.
His darkness globe went away then, and Bruenor, in front of the fiend, howled insanely as the tip of Drizzt's scimitar blasted out of the marilith's chest.
Drizzt held on, even managed a twist or two, as the scimitar fed, energy coursing along its blade and hilt.
The marilith spat curse after curse. She tried to attack Bruenor, but could not lift her arms as that wicked, cursed blade gulped at her life force, draining it away. The marilith was less substantial suddenly, her flesh melting away to smoky nothingness.
