Thibbledorf Pwent stood at the end of the narrow tunnel, scanning the wide cavern beyond with his infravision, registering the shifting gradations of heat, that he might better understand the layout of the dangerous area ahead. He made out the many teeth of the ceiling, stalactites long and narrow, and saw two distinctly cooler lines indicating ledges on the high walls - one directly ahead, the other along the wall on his right. Dark holes lined the walls at floor level in several places; Pwent knew that one immediately to his left, two directly across from where he stood, and another diagonally ahead and to the right, under the ledge, likely were long tunnels, and figured several others to be smaller side chambers or alcoves.
Guenhwyvar was at the battlerager's side, the cat's ears flattened, its low growl barely perceptible. The panther sensed the danger, too, Pwent realized. He motioned for Guenhwyvar to follow him - suddenly he was not so upset at having so unusual a companion - and he skittered back down the corridor into the approaching torchlight to stop the others short of the room.
'There be at least three or four more ways in or out," the battlerager told his companions gravely, "and lots of open ground across the place." He went on to give a thorough description of the chamber, paying particular attention to the many obvious hiding spots.
Bruenor, sharing Pwent's dark fears, nodded and looked to the others. He, too, felt that their enemies were near, were all about them, and had been steadily closing in. The dwarf king looked back the way they had come, and it was obvious to the others that he was trying to figure out some other way around this region.
"We can turn their hoped-for surprise against them," Catti-brie offered, knowing the futility of Bruenor's hopes. The companions had precious little time to spare and few of the side tunnels they had passed offered little promise of bringing them to the lower regions, or to wider tunnels where they might find Drizzt.
A sparkle of battle-lust came into Bruenor's dark eyes, but he frowned a moment later when Guenhwyvar plopped down heavily at Catti-brie's feet.
"The cat's been about too long," the young woman reasoned. "Guenhwyvar's needing a rest soon." Wulfgar's and the dwarves' expressions showed that they did not welcome the news.
"More the reason to go straight ahead," Catti-brie said determinedly. "Guen's got a bit of the fight left, don't ye doubt!"
Bruenor considered the words, then nodded grimly and slapped his many-notched axe across his open palm. "Got to get in close to this enemy," he reminded his friends.
Pwent produced his bitter potion. "Take another hit," he offered to Catti-brie and Wulfgar. "Got to make sure the stuff's fresh in yer belly."
Catti-brie winced, but she did take the flask, then handed it to Wulfgar, who similarly frowned and took a brief draw.
Bruenor and Pwent squatted to the floor between them, Pwent quickly scratching a rough map of the chamber. They had no time for detailed plans, but Bruenor sorted out areas of responsibility, assigning each person the task best suited to his or her battle style. The dwarf could give no specific directions to Guenhwyvar, of course, and didn't bother to include Pwent in much of the discussion, knowing that once the fighting began, the battlerager would go off on his wild, undisciplined way. Catti-brie and Wulfgar, too, realized Pwent's forthcoming role, and neither complained, understanding that, against skilled and precise opponents such as drow elves, a little chaos could well be a. good thing.
They kept the torch burning, even lit a second one, and started cautiously ahead, ready to put the fight on their own terms.
As the torchlight breached the room, a darting black form cut through, going into the darkness in full flight. Guenhwyvar broke to the right, cut left toward the center of the chamber, then darted right again, toward the back wall.
From somewhere ahead there came the sound of firing crossbows, followed by the skip of quarrels hitting the stone, always one step behind the dodging, leaping panther.
Guenhwyvar veered again at the last moment, leaped, and turned sidelong, paws running along the vertical wall for several strides before the panther had to come back to the floor. The cat's target, the high ledge on the right-hand wall was now in sight, and Guenhwyvar ran full out, speeding for it recklessly.
At the base, in full stride, and apparently soaring toward a headfirst collision, the panther's muscles subtly shifted. Guenhwyvar's direction change was almost perpendicular, the panther flying, seeming to run, straight up the twenty-foot expanse to the ledge.
The three dark elves atop the ledge could not have expected the incredible maneuver. Two fired their crossbows Guenhwyvar's way and fell back into a tunnel; the third, having the misfortune to be directly in the leaping panther's path, could only throw his arms up as the panther fell over him.
Torches flew into the room, lighting the battle area, followed by the leading charge of Bruenor, flanked on his right by Wulfgar and on his left by Thibbledorf Pwent. Catti-brie quietly filtered in behind them, slipping to the side along the same general course Guenhwyvar had taken, her bow readied and in hand.
Again the crossbows of unseen dark elves clicked, and all of the leading companions took hits. Wulfgar felt the venom streaming into his leg, but felt the tingling burn as Pwent's potent potion counteracted its sleepy effects. A darkness spell fell over one of the torches, defeating its light, but Wulfgar was ready, lighting a third and tossing it far to the side.
Pwent noticed an enemy drow in the tunnel to the left, and off he went, predictably, roaring with every charging stride.
Bruenor and Wulfgar slowed but kept their course straight across the room, for the largest tunnel entrances across the way. The barbarian caught sight of the flicker of drow eyes along the remaining ledge, farther ahead and above the tunnels. He stopped, twirled, and heaved his warhammer with a cry to his god. Aegis-fang went in low, crushing the lip of the walkway, smashing stone apart. One dark elf leaped away to another point on the long ledge; the other tumbled down, his leg blasted, and barely caught the stone halfway down the crumbling wall.
Wulfgar did not follow the throw forward. He got hit again by a stinging quarrel and rushed instead to the side, to the remaining tunnel, along the right-hand wall, wherein crouched a pair of dark elves.
Eager to join in close combat, Bruenor veered behind the barbarian. The dwarf looked back before he had even completed the turn, though, as an eight-legged monster, the drider, came out of the tunnel directly ahead, other dark forms shifting about behind it.
With a whoop of delight, never considering the odds now that he and his friends were committed to the battle, the fiery dwarf veered again to his initial course, determined to meet the enemy, however many there might be, head on.
* * * * *
It took all the discipline Catti-brie could muster to hold her first shot in check. She really didn't have a good angle for either those that Pwent had pursued or the ledge where Guenhwyvar had gone, and she didn't think it worth the trouble to spike the wounded drow hanging helplessly below the blasted ledge - not yet. Bruenor had bade her to make certain that her first shot, the one shot she might get before she was fully noticed, counted.
The eager young woman watched the split between Bruenor and Wulfgar and found her opportunity. A drow, crouching behind a four-foot diagonal jag in the back wall, almost exactly halfway between her rushing companions, leaned out, crossbow in hand. The dark elf fired, then fell back in surprise as a silver arrow streaked past him, skipped off the stone, and left a smoldering scorch in its wake.
Catti-brie's second shot was in the air an instant later.
She could no longer see the drow, fully covered by the stone, but she did not believe his cover so thick.
The arrow hit the jutting slab two feet from its edge, two feet from where it joined the wall. There came a sharp crack as the rock split, followed by a grunt as the arrow blasted deep into the dying drow's skull.
* * * * *
The prone dark elf on the high ledge scrambled and kicked, kept his buckler above him, and managed, somehow, to get his dagger out with his other hand. Only his fine mesh armor kept Guenhwyvar's raking claws somewhat at bay, kept his mounting wounds serious but not mortal.
He brought the dagger to bear on the panther's flank, but the weapon seemed small against such a foe, seemed only to further enrage the cat. His buckler arm was batted aside, back up over his head with enough force to dislocate his shoulder. He tried to get it back to block but found it would not respond to his mind's frantic call. He scrambled to put his other hand in the great paw's way, a futile defense.
Guenhwyvar's claws hooked his scalp line just above his forehead. The drow plunged the dagger in again, praying for a quick kill.
The panther's claws sheared off his face.
Crossbows clicked again from down the tunnel at the back of the narrow ledge. Not really hurt, the panther came off its victim and loped ahead in pursuit.
The two dark elves summoned globes of darkness between them and the cat, turned, and fled.
If they had looked back, they might have rejoined the fight, for Guenhwyvar's pursuit was not dogged. With the dagger and quarrel wounds, the insidious sleep poison, and the simple duration of the panther's visit to the plane, Guenhwyvar's energy was no more. The cat did not wish to leave, wanted to stay and fight beside the companions, to stay to hunt for its missing master.
The magic of the figurine would not support the desires, though. A few strides into the darkened area, Guenhwyvar stopped, barely holding a tentative balance. Panther flesh dissolved into gray smoke. The planar tunnel opened and beckoned.
* * * * *
He got hit again as he exited the chamber, but the tiny quarrel did no more than bring a smile to the most wild battlerager's contorted face. A darkness globe blocked his flight, but he roared and barreled through, smiling even when he collided full force with the winding wall out the other side.
The amazed dark elf, watching ferocious Pwent's progress, spun away, darting along the tunnel, then turned a sharp corner. Pwent came right behind, armor squealing and drool running from his fat lips in lines down his thick black beard.
"Stupid!" he yelled, ducking his head as he spun the corner right behind the fleeing drow, fully expecting the ambush.
Pwent's darting helmet spike intercepted the sword cut, impaling his enemy through the forearm. The battlerager didn't slow, but hurled himself into the air and lay out flat, body-blocking his opponent across the chest and driving the drow to the ground under him.
Glove nails dug for the dark elf's groin and face; Pwent's ridged armor creased the fine mesh mail as he went into a series of violent convulsions. With each of the battlerager's movements, waves of searing agony ran up the drow's impaled arm.
* * * * *
Bruenor noticed the slender form of a drow, wearing an outrageously wide-brimmed and plumed hat, moving about the entrance to the tunnel. Then came the flicker of objects cutting into the torchlight from behind the monstrous drider, and Bruenor threw his shield up defensively. A dagger banged against the metal, then another, and a third behind that. The fourth throw came in low, scraping the dwarf's shin; the fifth dipped over the leaning shield as Bruenor inevitably bent forward, cutting a line across the dwarf's scalp under the edge of his one-horned helmet.
But minor wounds would not slow Bruenor, nor would the sight of the bloated drider, axes waving, eight legs clacking and scrabbling. The dwarf came in hard, took a hit on the shield, and returned with a smash against the drider's second descending axe. Much smaller than his opponent, Bruenor worked low, his axe smacking the hard exoskeleton of the drider's armored legs. All the while, the dwarf remained a blur of frenzied motion, his shield above him, as fine a shield as was ever forged, deflecting hit after hit from the wickedly edged, drow-enchanted weapons.
Bruenor's axe dove into the wedge between two legs, cracking through to the drider's fleshy interior. The dwarf's smile was short-lived, though, for the drider's responses banged hard on the shield, twisting it about on Bruenor's arm, and the creature put a leg in line and kicked hard into the dwarf's belly, throwing Bruenor back before his axe could do any real damage.
He squared off, his breath lost and his arm aching. Again came a series of dagger throws from the corridor behind the drider, forcing Bruenor off balance. He barely got his shield up to stop the last four. He looked down to the first, jutting from the front of his layered armor, a trickle of blood oozing from behind its tip, and knew he had escaped death by a hair's breadth.
He knew, too, that the distraction would cost him dearly, for he was no longer squared up for melee and the drider was upon him.
* * * * *
Wulfgar's flying hammer led the way to the corridor, his one throw more than matching the crossbow darts that struck the roaring barbarian. He aimed high, for the stalactite teeth hanging above the entryway, and his mighty hammer did its work perfectly, smashing apart several of the hanging rocks.
One dark elf fell back - Wulfgar could not tell if the falling stone had crushed him or not - and the other dove forward, drawing sword and dagger and coming up in the chamber to meet the unarmed barbarian's charge.
Wulfgar skidded to a stop short of the flashing blades, skipped to the side, and kicked out, punched out, doing anything to keep the dangerous and quick opponent at bay for the few seconds the barbarian needed.
The drow, not understanding the magic of Aegis-fang, took his time, seemed in no hurry to chance the grasp of the obviously mighty human. He came with a measured combination, sword, dagger, and dagger again, the last thrust painfully nicking the barbarian's hip.
The drow smiled wickedly.
Aegis-fang appeared in Wulfgar's waiting hands.
With one hand, grasping low on the warhammer's handle, Wulfgar sent the weapon into a flowing circular motion in front of him. The drow took careful measure of the weapon's speed - Wulfgar carefully appraised the drow's examination.
In darted the dagger, behind the flowing hammer. Wulfgar's other hand clapped against the handle just under his weapon's head and abruptly reversed the direction, parrying the drow's attack aside.
The drow was quick, snapping his sword in a downward angle for Wulfgar's shoulder even as his dagger hand was knocked wide. Wulfgar's huge forearm flexed with the strain as he halted the heavy hammer's flow, snapping it back up in front of him. He caught Aegis-fang halfway up the handle with his free hand and jabbed diagonally up, the warhammer's solid head intercepting the sword and driving it harmlessly away.
The end of the parry left the drow with one arm wide and low, the other wide and high, and left Wulfgar standing before his opponent in perfect balance, both hands grasping Aegis-fang. Before the dark elf could recover his wide-flying blades, before he could set his feet to dive away, Wulfgar chopped him, the hammer crunching under his shoulder and driving down toward his opposite hip. The drow fell back from the blow, then, as though the full weight of the incredible hit had not immediately registered, went into an involuntary backward hop that slammed him against the wall.
One leg buckling, one lung collapsed, the drow brought his sword horizontally before his face in a meager defense. Hands low on the handle, Wulfgar brought the hammer up behind him and slammed it home with all his strength, through the blade and into the drow's face. With a sickening crack, the drow's skull exploded, crushed between the unyielding stone of the wall and the unyielding metal of the mighty Aegis-fang.
* * * * *
A blinding streak of silver halted the drider's attacks and saved Bruenor Battlehammer. The arrow didn't hit the drider, however. It soared high, pegging the wounded drow (who had just about climbed back to the blasted ledge) to the stone wall.
The distraction, the moment to recover from the daggers, was all Bruenor needed. He came in hard again, his many-notched axe smashing the drider's closest leg, his shield up high to block the now off-balance axe swipes. The dwarf pressed right into the beast, using its bulk to offer him some cover from the enemies in the corridor, and bulled it backward before it could set its many legs against the charge.
Another of Catti-brie's arrows whipped past him, sparking as it ricocheted along the stone of the corridor.
Bruenor grinned widely, thankful that the gods had delivered to him an ally and friend as competent as Catti-brie.
* * * * *
The first two arrows enraged Vierna; the third, coming down the corridor, nearly took off her head. Jarlaxle raced back from his position near the chamber's entrance to join her.
"Formidable," the mercenary admitted. "I have dead soldiers in the room."
Vierna raced forward, focusing on the dwarf battling her mutated brother. "Where is Drizzi Do'Urden?" she demanded, using magic to focus her voice so that Bruenor would hear her through the drider.
"Ye hit me and ye're meaning to talk?" the dwarf howled, finishing his sentence with an exclamation point in the form of a chopping axe. One of Dinin's legs fell free, and the dwarf barreled on, pushing the unbalanced drider back another few strides.
Vierna hardly had the chance to begin her intended spell before Jarlaxle grabbed her and hauled her down. Her instinctive anger toward the mercenary was lost in the blast of yet another streaking arrow, this one driving a hole into the stone wall where the priestess had been standing.
Vierna remembered Entreri's warning about this group, had the evidence right before her as the battle continued to sour. She trembled with rage, growled in decipher ably as she considered what the defeat might cost her. Her thoughts fell inward, followed the path of her faith toward her dark deity, and cried out to Lloth.
"Vierna!" Jarlaxle called from someplace remote.
Lloth could not allow her to fail, had to help her against this unexpected obstacle, that she might deliver the sacrifice.
"Vierna!" She felt the mercenary's hands on her, felt the hands of a second drow helping Jarlaxle put her back on her feet.
"Wishya!" came her unintentional cry, then she knew only calm, knew that Lloth had answered her call.
Jarlaxle and the other drow slammed against the tunnel's walls from the force of Vierna's magical outburst. Each looked at her with trepidation.
The mercenary's features relaxed when Vierna bade him to follow her farther along the corridor, out of harm's way.
"Lloth will help us finish what we have started here," the priestess explained.
* * * * *
Catti-brie put another arrow into the corridor for good measure, then glanced about, searching for a more apparent target. She studied the battle between Bruenor and the monstrous drider, but she knew that any shots she made at the bloated monster would be too risky given the furious melee.
Wulfgar apparently had his situation under control. A drow lay dead at his feet as he peeked about the rubble of the collapsed corridor in search of the enemy who had not come in. Pwent was nowhere to be found.
Catti-brie looked up to the blasted ledge above Bruenor and the drider for the draw who had not fallen, then to the other ledge, where Guenhwyvar had disappeared. In a small alcove below that area the young woman saw a curious sight: a gathering of mists similar to that heralding the panther's approach. The cloud shifted colors, became orange, almost like a swirling ball of flames.
Catti-brie sensed an evil aura, gathering and overwhelming, and put her bow in line. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled; something was watching her.
Catti-brie dropped the Heartseeker and spun about, snapping her short sword from its sheath with her turn, barely in time to bat aside the thrusting sword of a levitating drow that had silently descended from the ceiling.