“Bwahaha!” It was Bruenor howling, not Athrogate.
“Drink it, ye fools!” Athrogate told the elves. “And feel the power o’ the dwarf gods flowing through yer limbs!”
Drizzt went first, taking a deep, deep gulp, and he looked to the others and nodded, then finished his drink and tossed the flagon aside.
Bruenor blinked. The room seemed clearer to him suddenly, more focused and crisp, and when he hefted his axe and shield, they seemed lighter in his hands.
“Some kind of potion,” Jarlaxle remarked. “What a remarkable shield.”
“Behold the Forge o’ Gauntlgrym,” said Bruenor. “Old magic. Good magic.”
“Dwarf magic,” said Athrogate.
More noise in the corridor across the way brought them back to the moment at hand.
“They have a dragon,” Drizzt reminded them. “We should spread out.”
“Stay by me side, elf,” Bruenor remarked as the others shifted out to either flank.
“No, we should send Bruenor straightaway to the lever,” said Jarlaxle.
“Aye,” said Athrogate, “and I be knowin’ the way.”
Just as he took a step toward the small side door on the wall to the side of the main forge, however, a tumult the other way stopped him, and he, and the others, saw the dragon leap from the tunnel.
Or at least, that’s what it appeared to be, momentarily, until they realized that it was only the dragon’s head, tossed out of the tunnel. It bounced across the floor and rolled, coming to a stop staring at the five through dead eyes.
“Lolth preserve us,” Jarlaxle breathed.
Out of the tunnel came the fiend, slamming his fiery mace on one wall with a thunderous report. He leaped forward and skidded to a stop, arms out wide, chest puffed up, tail flicking eagerly behind him and head thrown back with a devilish roar.
“Well,” Bruenor said, “at least the dragon’s dead.”
Out of the tunnel behind the fiend came the Ashmadai forces, led by a quartet of hellish legionnaires, devil warriors likely summoned by the pit fiend. The Ashmadai rushed out behind, running wide to either flank. If that display wasn’t enough to unnerve the five companions, the last to make an appearance surely was.
Valindra Shadowmantle seemed a long way from the confused creature Jarlaxle had known those last decades. Holding high a shining scepter, she floated out of the tunnel, grinning hatefully, her eyes twinkling for revenge.
“Die well,” Dahlia remarked.
“Josi Puddles,” Drizzt whispered to Bruenor.
“Eh?”
“The rat-faced man in the Cutlass of old.”
“Ah…” said Bruenor, and he looked at Drizzt curiously. “Ye’re tellin’ me now?”
Drizzt shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to die with a faded memory nagging at my thoughts. I thought the same of you.”
Bruenor started to respond, but just shrugged and turned back to the approach of doom itself.
“Athrogate and Bruenor, go,” Jarlaxle said quietly from the back. “Slowly, and now.”
Athrogate slid behind Drizzt to get to Bruenor, and tried to pull him along. But the dwarf king wouldn’t budge. “I ain’t for leavin’ me friend.”
“A thousand friends of a thousand friends will die if we don’t finish this,” Drizzt said. “Go.”
“Elf…” Bruenor replied, grabbing Drizzt’s forearm.
Drizzt looked at his oldest and dearest friend and nodded solemnly. “Go,” he bade.
And a burst of fire exploded from the mouths of all the forges in the room, potent lines of flame leaping across the room to scorch the walls.
“The beast!” Dahlia cried. “It knows of our plan!”
The room began to shake violently, the floor bucking and buckling, dust and debris raining from the ceiling.
“Go! Go!” Drizzt shouted at Bruenor, and before the dwarf king could argue, Athrogate tugged him so hard his feet came right off the floor.
The pit fiend roared and directed his left flank to charge behind the main forge and cut off the dwarves. Then the devil staggered backward, then again, hit by a pair of lightning bolts from Jarlaxle’s wands, and again a third time, even more profoundly, as Taulmaril’s arrow slammed into his chest.
But Beealtimatuche only grinned wider then vanished, disappearing in the blink of a drow’s eye, only to reappear right in front of one of the two dark elves, his four-bladed mace up high, spitting fire as it descended on the helpless figure.
Sprinting the other way at that moment, trying to block for Bruenor and Athrogate, Drizzt didn’t see the mighty blow, but in the small doorway ahead and to his right, Athrogate did, and cried out, “Jarlaxle!” with such emotion and pain that it seemed to Drizzt as if the tough dwarf had just lost his best friend.
Drizzt glanced back to see a dark form rolling out to the side of the demon, then bursting into flames, and he caught his breath and had to steady himself.
For all his life and in all the world, nothing had seemed more eternal yet reliably unreliable to Drizzt than that strange and strangely endearing fellow drow.
And there stood the pit fiend, triumphant, straddling the still and flaming form and staring hatefully and eagerly for its next victim.
OLD KINGS AND ANCIENT GODS
BRUENOR SALUTED DRIZZT AND RUSHED THROUGH THE FIRST OF A SERIES of doors down the small tunnel, Athrogate right behind him.
Drizzt didn’t see it, and had to just trust in his friend. His glance back at Jarlaxle, his shock at seeing the drow’s demise, had cost him precious seconds, and he sprinted to catch up to Dahlia, who was already furiously working her tri-staff to hold back the rush of Ashmadai. He drew out his onyx figurine as he went and called for Guenhwyvar, but he didn’t keep the cat at his side as she appeared, instead ordering her to bring chaos to the ranks of their enemies.
Off Guenhwyvar leaped, and in came Drizzt, hard. Afraid for his dwarf friend and surprisingly outraged at the loss of his other… friend, the drow charged into the nearest Ashmadai warrior with his scimitars spinning. He hit the cultist’s scepter four times before the Ashmadai man, an ugly half-orc, even knew what hit him. Batting the scepter left and right, not even bothering to work it out to one side or the other, Drizzt had the overmatched warrior confused and off balance. He struck again with a fifth parry, batting the scepter to the right, then hit it with an unexpected uppercut, lifting it away. Even as it cleared the Ashmadai’s torso, Twinkle, in Drizzt’s left hand, slashed across, slicing open the half-orc’s belly. As the Ashmadai lurched forward, the same blade struck a backhand against the half-orc’s temple, sending him tumbling to the side.
Up came Icingdeath in a powerful horizontal presentation as Drizzt stepped ahead to meet the next enemy in line. But before he could strike through the opening with his left-hand blade, he had to launch Twinkle out wide to parry a thrusting staff-spear.
Drizzt missed the opening, but Dahlia didn’t. Under his upraised blade came her staff, a single long pole once more, to stab into the Ashmadai’s chest. When it hit, it threw forth a burst of lightning, launching their opponent through the air and backward. He flew several feet, and several feet high, but he never came back to the floor. A long-bladed sword drove through his chest, impaling him in mid air.
The legion devil easily held the dead Ashmadai aloft with just that one sword arm, and let him hang there for a few heartbeats, arms and legs out wide, lifeblood pouring from the wound. Looking around its macabre human shield, the devil grinned at the drow and the elf, even laughed a bit. Then it jerked its great sword powerfully back and forth and the dead cultist fell to the floor at the devil’s feet in two pieces.
Drizzt presented Twinkle horizontally in front of him, left arm out straight, his right hand tucked at the side of his face, Icingdeath atop the left-hand blade. He stood in a crouch, right foot dropped back and holding most of his weight. Beside him, Dahlia broke her staff again into three parts, pointed one end toward the fiend, and set the pole hanging from that end into a lazy, measured swing.