Dahlia hardly slowed as she ran past, moving through the camp and out the back side, as Entreri used his sword to drop the axe man off to the right, between him and the new group just coming through the brush. He sprinted almost directly opposite Dahlia, to where she had gone after her vault, bending, not pausing, only to yank his belt knife from the wounded Shadovar male.
He crashed through the brush in a full run, turning left as he knew-just knew-that Dahlia would spin right, that they could link up once more deeper into the woods.
More arrows flew off from Taulmaril. Drizzt scored a hit, a kill, and then a second kill in rapid order as the companion of his first victim tried to get up and run off.
Still the drow grimaced in pain, his muscles clenching against the burns of the two magical bolts, but at least he had lessened the missiles flying in at him. Below him the fight intensified. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dahlia springing away.
Which would leave Entreri even more vulnerable to him, he realized. Another arrow skipped through the branches, narrowly missing Drizzt’s face, and stealing all thoughts of the battle below. He wheeled around to spot the archer, who was diving behind a fallen log, and drew back, but out of the corner of his eye, Drizzt noted the pesky sorcerer, casting yet another spell. Before he could train his bow on the shade, a pea of flame left the mage’s hand, soaring his way.
Drizzt knew all too well what that foretold.
He let fly the arrow, missing badly, for he was already moving, scrambling up from his perch, as he let go of the bowstring. In truth, he let fly the arrow as much to clear it from the bow as anything else.
He rushed out along the branch, nimbly balancing as he flipped the magical quiver and then the bow over his shoulders, and by the time he got out on the limb, the thinner wood beginning to bend under his weight, he had his scimitars in hand.
The tree exploded behind him, the mage’s fireball turning twilight into noontime. It was not a concussive blast, though Drizzt wished it had been, for the air around him instantly began to simmer and sting with licks of flame. Now he used the elasticity of the branch, springing up and away with abandon.
Only his magical anklets had saved him from grievous wounds from the intensity of the blast-no novice, this mage! Without the magic speeding his steps, that fireball would have caught him fully, to no good end.
Though he had escaped the bulk of that blast, he found himself more than twenty feet in the air, flying free and clear of the branches, with nothing to grasp and only the hard ground to cushion his fall.
He took some comfort, or enjoyment, in the look of horror upon the mage’s face as he descended from on high. He noted the terrain, and took heart that it was mostly clear before him.
The drow turned himself over in mid-air, landing in a forward roll, coming up with a desperate swing as he passed by the mage before going into another forward roll, and a third to absorb the momentum. He crashed through some brush, painfully, but managed to come up to his feet relatively unscathed.
The same could not be said of the mage, who spun around in circles with blood spurting from the gash Drizzt’s scimitar had sliced across his throat.
Drizzt tried to orient himself, to figure out where his companions might be. An image of his blades diving in at Entreri’s back flashed in his mind, and brought forth a surprising amount of anger-rage he quickly focused on the situation at hand. He charged off at full speed, moving from cover to cover, from tree to brush to boulder, then even up into the lower branches of another tree. Shouts rang up all around him as the enemy tried to get a bead on him, tried to coordinate against him.
He reversed his course, then cut out again, springing from the tree branch to a clearing behind some underbrush, then speeding through at full speed to surprise a pair of Shadovar who were still pointing at the tree he had climbed, yelling out directions.
They almost got their weapons up to block.
Drizzt ran on, leaving the two writhing on the ground. Anger grew with his speed, fueled by images of Entreri and Dahlia sharing that intimate moment.
He heard a cry from in front and knew he had been spotted, knew that those ahead would put up a better defense-against his scimitars, at least.
So he sheathed the blades as he sprinted and drew out his bow, and burst into sight of the trio. One, two, three went his arrows, blowing one shade away, lifting him into the air, cutting a second down with a glancing blow that still opened her skin from shoulder to shoulder, and sending the third diving away in panic.
Drizzt rushed through, crossing their position and disappearing into the brush so quickly that the unwounded shade wasn’t even sure where he had gone.
“We cannot catch him,” the Netheril commoner admitted to Lord Alegni when he rejoined the tiefling at the magical gate. “He moves like a ghost-into the trees as quickly as we run along the ground.”
“You have sorcerers,” Alegni replied, and he looked past the soldier to a few other shades now approaching, more than one of them glancing back over his shoulder with clear alarm.
“Two are dead, slain by the drow!” the shade replied, and as his voice rose, he could barely suppress his terror.
“What of the other two?” Alegni asked-asked all of them as the others came scurrying up. “Tell me that you fools have killed Dahlia or Barrabus!”
It was all bluster, for Herzgo Alegni didn’t believe any such thing, nor did he desire any such thing. Not here, in this time or place or manner. The tiefling found himself a bit surprised by his feelings concerning this obvious abject failure. The lords of Netheril, after all, were never easy or merciful regarding failure.
“Nay, my lord,” the commoner admitted. “I fear they have eluded us.”
“The sword,” Alegni asked. “Did Barrabus wield my sword?”
The commoner considered that for a moment. “The drow carried it, but on his back. He fought with smaller blades.”
Alegni didn’t quite know what to make of that. Why had the trio fled into the wilds? He looked to the northeast, toward a broken mountain, the same one that had blown up and buried the old city of Neverwinter a decade earlier. “Where are you going?” he quietly asked the empty air.
“My lord?” the commoner asked.
Alegni waved him to the portal. There was no use in trying to turn the Shadovar around for another futile fight. They had failed.
But this wasn’t his failure. He had argued loudly against this course of action, begging Draygo Quick and some others that they would do well to wait until he had recovered enough to personally see to this. He had argued, more subtly, that he would need many times this number, and in a place more of his choosing.
He would likely be admonished for this failure, certainly, but not in any way that would damage his designs.
He would still be the one tasked with retrieving the sword, and he felt confident that he could convince Draygo Quick to let him do it his own way.
As these ragged and defeated shades returned to the magical portal emptyhanded, other than their dead comrades they couldn’t simply leave behind, Draygo Quick would find himself enmeshed in what had been wholly perceived as Herzgo Alegni’s failure.
Yes, the tiefling wasn’t upset as the rest of the defeated band returned to him, and he had to work hard to keep any measure of sarcasm or enjoyment out of his voice when he ordered them to return through the gate.
But he was worried, quite so, when he thought of that broken mountain and the beast he knew lurked beneath its battered slopes. He felt a silent call on an unseen breeze, as if Claw was reaching out to him, pleading with him. He didn’t know if that was actually the case, or if it was simply his imagination, but he suspected the former.
Claw was calling to him, because Claw was afraid.