“Bwahaha!” he roared, and the Ashmadai backed off in shock. Only for a moment, though, then a pair charged at him furiously.
Both were airborne a heartbeat later, one launched sidelong by the weight of one enchanted morningstar-Athrogate having enacted the magic of that one to coat the head with oil of impact-and the other hooked by the ball and chain around one arm as he tried to block. A twist, a turn, and a throw by the dwarf sent the poor cultist into a flying somersault, at the end of which he, like the dwarf, crashed through a table.
“Bwahaha!”
“Go,” Drizzt bade Bruenor.
Those two dwarves had fought side by side before, and to great effect. Without the slightest hesitation, using Athrogate’s distraction to his advantage, Bruenor charged across the floor, kicking chairs and tables as he went, sweeping glasses and plates, furniture and utensils with his battle-axe, launching them into any and every nearby Ashmadai, just adding to the confusion.
Athrogate saw him coming and likewise cut a path of devastation, seeming more than happy to get beside King Bruenor again for a good row.
Ashmadai rushed the bottom of the staircase, but Jarlaxle paid them no more heed than to toss the feather from his wide-brimmed hat down at them. That feather quickly transformed into a gigantic, flightless bird. The beast cawed, its huge call befitting its stature, echoing off the tavern’s wall. It began beating its small wings furiously, its long, thick neck snapping its powerful beak down at nearby enemies, its heavy legs stomping and cracking the floorboards.
But Jarlaxle wasn’t watching. He tossed the feather and forgot about it, knowing that his dependable pet would buy him all the time he needed. His focus was on the front door, on Dahlia, the last to enter. He tried to get a gauge of the elf woman, looked for a hint of disconnect in her movements. He replayed her words and tried to picture again her face as she’d spoken them. Did her expression match her words?
Jarlaxle reminded himself that it didn’t matter as he drew out his favorite wand and leveled it Dahlia’s way.
The fight was on in full below, with Bruenor and Athrogate battling right below him, and Drizzt weaving into that devastating dance of his across the way, yet Dahlia didn’t yet move to react. Perhaps that was because there were still more than a dozen of her minions between her and the enemy, or maybe it was an indication of something else, Jarlaxle dared to hope.
But the choice was hers, not his.
He spoke a command word, releasing the power of the wand. A thick green-colored glob of some unspeakable semi-liquid flew forth from the tip, sailing down the stairs and across the room to slam against Dahlia, who seemed to disappear under the splatter of the goo as it fastened itself to the doorjamb and wall.
A second blast was on the way before the first had even connected, further burying Dahlia, completely covering her so that anyone looking to the door for the first time at that moment would have never known an elf woman had stood there a moment before.
Jarlaxle stared at the blob on the wall, and wondered.
Below him, at the base of the stairs, his giant bird shrieked in protest, and an Ashmadai howled in pain as the bird repaid him for the stab of his scepter.
Jarlaxle’s grin disappeared as he turned his attention to Drizzt. He watched the fury of the drow unleashed. Jarlaxle had seen Drizzt in action many times before, but never like that. The ranger’s blades dripped with blood, and his swings were not so carefully measured.
As in the battle with the ash zombies in the forest, Drizzt Do’Urden fell into himself, let all of his frustration, fear, and anger curl in on itself. Now he was the pure fighter, the Hunter, and it was a role he had cherished for decades, since the Spellplague, since the unfairness and callous reality of the world had shattered his delusions, and his sense of calm.
Bruenor used the tables as missiles, hooking them with his axe or his foot and throwing them into the faces of nearby enemies. For Athrogate, the furniture was merely a nuisance and nothing more, something to smash and overturn, all for the pure love of destruction.
But for Drizzt, the chairs and tables, the long bar and the railing, were props, and welcomed ones. His dance would have been far less mesmerizing and effective on an empty, flat floor. He charged to the nearest upright table, leaped atop it, then sprang off it so gracefully that not a glass, mug, or platter moved. He touched down, one foot on the back of a chair, the other on the seat, his momentum carrying him forward, driving the chair over backward.
He reversed his weight and the chair moved back upright, bringing the drow backward to avoid the stab of an Ashmadai’s weapon.
Then he reversed again, quickly, shifting the chair over backward and walking to the floor with it, leaning back as he went to avoid that same Ashmadai as he retracted his thrust and swung his scepter at Drizzt’s head like a club.
It went over the bending drow at the same time his left arm straightened, Twinkle stabbing hard into the man’s gut. As Drizzt rushed past, he retracted and sent the scimitar in a quick spin, slashing the bending man’s leg and sending him howling and thrashing to the floor.
By that time, Drizzt was atop the next table in line, where he leaped and tucked, landed and kicked, and stabbed out repeatedly, scoring hit after hit on the several enemies who had surrounded him. They stabbed and swung with abandon, but the drow was always one leap, one duck, one leg-tucking hop ahead of them. One by one, they fell away, wounded.
But more rushed in to take their places, as they seemed to have the drow trapped.
Seemed.
But Drizzt saw the oncoming explosion, and as Bruenor and Athrogate roared toward the table, Drizzt rushed to the side and leaped away, a somersault that cleared the gathered Ashmadai. All of them watched Drizzt, trying to turn and catch up to him, when the two dwarves plowed through their ranks, shield and axe and twin morningstars working as extensions of the real weapons, the dwarves themselves.
The table flew and the Ashmadai scattered. The dwarves roared and plowed on, burying all enemies beneath the weight of their charge.
And Drizzt was back to his run and his dance, his feet and hands a blur. He slashed both his blades down to the left, batting aside a thrusting scepter. Then back to the right they went, both reaching out in that arc just enough to stick an Ashmadai woman as she departed, sending her, too, falling aside.
Drizzt skidded to a stop, seeing another potential enemy coming toward him: Jarlaxle’s bird. The drow went into a flurry with his blades, more show than effect, and he grinned wickedly as the two Ashmadai in front of him watched that flourish too long to sense the monstrous diatryma coming in at them from behind.
The drow darted away, and the Ashmadai turned to follow. One got pecked on the skull with bone-shattering force, and the other found himself flying in an unintended direction as a three-toed foot slammed him on the hip with tremendous force.
What had been twenty against two, then twenty against four-five with the diatryma-had turned much more even. And with their leader lost in a pile of whatever-that-was, the remaining Ashmadai suddenly seemed more intent on getting away to fight another day than in continuing along a losing course.
And Jarlaxle’s bird chased them right out of the Cutlass and down the street.
“Surrender!” Drizzt demanded of an enemy he cornered opposite the door.
He accentuated his demand with a devastating flurry that knocked her weapon left, right, and up in the blink of an eye. She was obviously overmatched, and easy to kill, should the drow choose that course.
But she was Ashmadai.