But the assassin, dazed, punched out straight with his right hand, knuckles and dagger crosspiece slamming into Drizzt's face.
They fell apart again, one of Entreri's eyes fast swelling, Drizzt's cheek and nose bleeding.
The assassin pressed the attack fiercely then, before his eye closed and gave Drizzt a huge advantage. He went in hard, stabbing his sword down low.
Drizzt's scimitar crossed down over it, and he pivoted perfectly, launching a kick that got Entreri in the face.
The kick hardly slowed him, for the assassin had anticipated that exact move indeed, he had counted on it. He ducked as the foot came in, a grazing blow, but one that nonetheless stung his already injured eye. Skittering forward he launched his dagger in a roundabout manner, the edge coming in at the back of Drizzt's knee.
Drizzt could have struck with his second blade, hoping to get it past the already engaged sword, but if he tried and Entreri somehow managed to parry, he knew that the fight would be all but over, that the dagger would tear the back out of his leg.
He knew all of that, instinctively, without thinking at all, so instead he just kicked his one supporting leg forward, falling backward over the dagger. Drizzt was scraped but not skewered. He meant to go all the way around in the roll and come right back up to his feet, but before he even really started he saw that the growling Entreri was fast pursuing and would catch him defenseless halfway around.
So he stopped and set himself on his back as the assassin came in.
On both sides of the room, dark elves and Drizzt's friends alike gasped, thinking the contest at its end. But Drizzt fought on, scimitars whirling, smacking, and stabbing to somehow, impossibly, hold Entreri at bay. And then the ranger managed to tuck one foot under him and come up in a wild rush, fighting ferociously, hitting each of Entreri's blades and hitting them hard, driving, driving to gain an equal footing.
Now they were in it, face to face, blades working too quickly for the onlookers to even discern individual moves, but rather to watch the general flow of the battle. A gash appeared here on one combatant, a gash appeared there on the other, but neither warrior found the opportunity to bring any cut to completion. They were superficial nicks, torn clothes and skin. It went on and on, up one side of the staircase and down the other, and any misgivings that Drizzt might have had about this fight had long flown, and any doubts Entreri had ever had about desiring to battle Drizzt Do'Urden again had been fully erased. They fought with passion and fury, their blades striking so rapidly that the ring came as constant.
They were out on the plank then, but they didn't know it. They came down together, each knocking the other from his perch, on opposite sides, then went under the plank together, battling in a crouch. They moved past each other, coming up on either side, then leaping back atop the narrow walkway in perfect balance to begin anew.
On and on it went, and the seconds became minutes, and sweat mixed with blood and stung open wounds. One of Drizzt's sleeves got sliced so badly that it interfered with his movements, and he had to launch an explosive flurry to drive Entreri back long enough so he could flip his blade in the air and pull the remnants of the sleeve from his arm, then catch his blade as it descended, just in time to react to the assassin's charge. A moment later Entreri lost his cape as Drizzt's scimitar came in for his throat, cutting the garment's drawstring and tearing a gash under Entreri's chin as it rose.
Both labored for breath; neither would back off.
But for all the nicks and blood, for all the sweat and bruises, one injury alone stood out, for Entreri's vision on his right side was indeed blurring. The assassin switched weapon hands, dagger back in left and the longer, better blocking sword back in his right.
Drizzt understood. He launched a feint, a right, left, right combination that Entreri easily picked off, but the attacks had not been designed to score any definitive hit anyway, just to allow Drizzt to put his feet in line.
To the side of the room cunning Jarlaxle saw it and understood that the fight was about to end.
Now Drizzt came in again with a left, but he stepped into the blow and launched his scimitar from far out to the side, from a place where Entreri's closed eye could hardly make out the movement. The assassin did instinctively parry with the sword and counter with the dagger, but Drizzt rolled his scimitar right over the intended parry, then snapped it back
out, slashing Entreri's wrist and launching the sword away. At the same time, the ranger dropped his blade from his right hand and caught Entreri's stabbing dagger arm at the wrist. Stepping in and rolling his wrist and turning his weapon hand, Drizzt twisted Entreri's dagger arm back under itself, holding it out wide while before the assassin's free hand could hold Drizzt's arm back the dark elf's scimitar tip came in at Entreri's throat.
All movement stopped suddenly. The assassin, with one arm twisted out wide and the other behind Drizzt's scimitar arm, was helpless to stop the ranger's momentum if Drizzt decided to plunge the blade through Entreri's throat.
Growling and trembling, as close to the very edge of control as he had ever been, Drizzt held the blade back. 'So what have we proven?' he demanded, voice full of venom, his lavender orbs locked in a wicked stare with Entreri's dark eyes. 'Because my head connected in a favorable place with yours, limiting your vision, I am the better fighter?'
'Finish it!' Entreri snarled back.
Drizzt growled again and twisted Entreri's dagger arm more, bending the assassin's wrist so that the dagger fell to the floor. 'For all those you have killed, and all those you surely will, I should kill you,' Drizzt said, but he knew even as he said the words, and Entreri did, too, that he could not press home his blade, not now. In that awful moment Drizzt lamented not going through with the move in the first instant, before he had found the time to consider his actions.
But now he could not, so with a sudden explosion of motion he let go of Entreri's arm and drove his open palm hard into the assassin's face, disengaging them and knocking Entreri staggering backward.
'Damn you, Jarlaxle, have you had your pleasure?' Drizzt cried, turning about to see the mercenary and his companions, for Jarlaxle had opened the door.
Drizzt came forward determinedly, as if he meant to run right over Jarlaxle, but a noise behind him stopped him, for Entreri came on, yelling.
Yelling. The significance of that was lost on Drizzt in that moment as he spun about, right to left, his free right arm brushing out and across, lifting Entreri's leading arm, which held again that awful dagger. And around came Drizzt's left arm, scimitar leading, in a stab as Entreri crashed in, a stab that should have plunged the weapon into the assassin's chest to its hilt.
The two came together and Drizzt's eyes widened indeed, for somehow, somehow, Entreri's very skin had repelled the blow.
But Artemis Entreri, his body tingling with the energy of the absorbed hit, with the psionics Kimmuriel had suddenly given back to him, surely understood, and in a purely reactive move, without any conscious thought-for if the tormented man had considered it he would have loosed the energy back into himself-Entreri reached out and clasped Drizzt's chest and gave him back his blow with equal force.
His hand sank into Drizzt's chest even as Drizzt, blood bubbling from the wound, fell to the ground.
Out on the landing time seemed to freeze, stuck fast in that awful, awful moment. Guenhwyvar roared and leaped into the translucent wall, but merely bounced away. Outraged, roaring wildly, the cat went back at the wall, claws screeching against the unyielding pane.
Bruenor, too, went into a fighting frenzy, hacking futilely with his axe while Regis stood dumbfounded, saying, 'No, it cannot be,' over and over.
And there stood Catti-brie, wavering back and forth, her jaw drooping open, her eyes locked on that horrible sight. She suffered through every agonizing second as Entreri's empowered hand melted into Drizzt's chest, as the lifeblood of her dearest friend, of the ranger she had come to love so dearly, spurted from him. She watched the strength leave his legs, the buckling knees, and the sinking, sinking as Entreri guided him to the floor, and the sinking, sinking, of her own heart, an emptiness she had felt before, when she had seen Wulfgar fall with the yochlol.
And even worse it seemed for her this time.
'What have I done?' the assassin wailed, falling to his knees beside the drow. He turned an evil glare over Jarlaxle. 'What have you done?'
'I gave you your fight and showed you the truth,' Jarlaxle calmly replied. 'Of yourself and your skills. But I
