He got up to his knees again, blinded by mud and swinging wildly.
She was behind him.
She kicked him to the muck again.
“Stay down,” the woman warned.
Sputtering curses, mud, and brown water, the stubborn, stunned ruffian rose again.
“Stay down,” Catti-brie said, knowing he would focus in on her voice.
He threw one leg out to the side for balance and shifted around, launching a desperate swing.
Catti-brie hopped over both the club and the leg, landing before the man and shifting her momentum into one more great kick to the crotch.
This time, as the man curled in the fetal position in the muck, making little mewling sounds and clutching at his groin, the woman knew he wouldn't be getting back up.
With a look over at Regis and a wide grin, Catti-brie started back for her bow.
* * * * * * * * * *
Desperation drove Bruenor's arm and leg forward, hand pushing and knee coming up to support it. A plank cracked apart, coming up as a shield against the charging dagger, and Bruenor somehow managed to free his hand enough to angle the plank to knock the dagger free of the red-haired man's hand.
Or, the dwarf realized, maybe the thug had just decided to let it go.
The man's fist came around the board and slugged him good in the face. There came a following left, and another right, and Bruenor had no way to defend, so he didn't. He just let the man pound on him while he wriggled and forced both of his hands free, and finally he managed to come forward while offering some defense. He caught the man's slugging left by the wrist with his right and launched his own left that seemed as if it would tear the thug's head right off.
But the ruffian managed to catch that arm, as Bruenor had caught his, and so the two found a stand-off, struggling in the back of the rolling and bouncing wagon.
“C'mere, Kenda!” the red-headed man cried. “Oh, we got him!” He looked back to Bruenor, his ugly face barely an inch from the dwarfs. “What're ye gonna do now, dwarfie?”
“Anyone ever tell ye that ye spit when ye talk?” the disgusted Bruenor asked.
In response, the man grinned stupidly and snorted and hocked, filling his mouth with a great wad to launch at the dwarf.
Bruenor's entire body tightened, and like a singular giant muscle, like the body of a great serpent, perhaps, the dwarf struck. He smashed his forehead into the ugly rogue's face, snapping the man's head back so that he was staring up at the sky, so that, when he spit—and somehow, he still managed to do that—the wad went straight up and fell back upon him.
Bruenor tugged his hand free, let go of the man's arm, and clamped one hand on the rogue's throat, the other grabbing him by the belt. Up he went, over the dwarf's head, and flying off the side of the speeding wagon.
Bruenor saw the composure on the face of the remaining ruffian as the man set down the reins and calmly turned and drew out his fine rapier. Calmly, too, went Bruenor, pulling himself fully from the compartment and reaching back in to pick up his many-notched axe.
The dwarf slapped the axe over his right shoulder, assuming a casual stance, feet wide apart to brace him against the bouncing.
“Ye'd be smart to just put it down and stop the stupid wagon,” he said to his opponent, the man waving his rapier out before him.
“It is you who should surrender,” the highwayman remarked, “foolish dwarf!” As he finished, he lunged forward, and Bruenor, with enough experience to understand the full measure of his reach and balance, didn't blink.
The dwarf had underestimated just a bit, though, and the rapier tip did jab in against his mithral chest-piece, finding enough of a seam to poke the dwarf hard.
“Ouch,” Bruenor said, seeming less than impressed.
The highwayman retracted, ready to spring again. “Your clumsy weapon is no match for my speed and agility!” he proclaimed, and he started forward. “Hah!”
A flick of Bruenor's strong wrist sent his axe flying forward, a single spin before embedding in the thrusting highwayman's chest, blasting him backward to fall against the back of the driver's seat.
“That so?” the dwarf asked. He stomped one foot on the highwayman's breast and yanked his weapon free.
* * * * * * * *
Catti-brie lowered her bow, seeing that Bruenor had the wagon under control. She had the rapier-wielding highwayman in her sights and would have shot him dead if necessary.
Not that she believed for a moment that Bruenor Battlehammer would need her help against the likes of those two.
She turned to regard Regis, approaching from the right. Behind him came his obedient pet, carrying the captive across his shoulders.
“Ye got some bandages for the one Bruenor dropped?” Catti-brie asked, though she wasn't very confident that the man was even alive.
Regis started to nod, but then shouted, “Left!” with alarm.
Catti-brie spun, Taulmaril coming up, and noted the target. The man Drizzt had dropped to the mud was starting to rise.
She put an arrow that streaked and sparked like a bolt of lightning into the ground right beneath his rising head. The man froze in place, and seemed to be whimpering.
“Ye would do well to lie back down,” Catti-brie called from the road.
He did.
* * * * * * * *
More than two hours later, the two escaping rogues crashed through the brush, the one break through the ring of boulders that concealed their encampment. Still stumbling, still frantic, they pushed past the horses and moved around the stolen wagon, to find Jule Pepper, their leader, the strategist of the outfit and also the cook, stirring a huge caldron.
“Nothing today?” the tall black-haired woman asked, her brown eyes scrutinizing them. Her tone and her posture revealed the truth, though neither of the rogues were smart enough to catch on. Jule understood that something had happened, and likely, nothing good.
“The Drizzit,” one of the rogues spurted, gasping for breath with every word. “The Drizzit and 'is friends got us.”
“Drizzt?” Jules asked.
“Drizzit Dudden, the damned drow elf,” said the other. “We was takin' a wagon—just a woman and her kid—and there he was, behind the three of us. Poor Walken got him in the fight, head up.”
“Poor Walken,” the other said.
Jule closed her eyes and shook her head, seeing something that the others apparently had not. “And this woman,” she asked, “she merely surrendered the wagon?”
“She was puttin' up a fight when we runned off,” said the first of the dirty pair. “We didn't get to see much.”
“She?” Jule asked. “You mean Catti-brie? The daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer? You were baited, you fools!”
The pair looked at each other in confusion. “And we're payin' with the loss of a few, don't ye doubt,” one finally said, mustering the courage to look back at the imposing woman. “Could'a been worse.”
“Could it?” Jule asked doubtfully. “Tell me, then, did this dark elf’s panther companion make an appearance?”
Again the two looked at each other.
As if in response, a low growl reverberated through the encampment, resonating as if it was coming from the ground itself, running into the bodies of the three rogues. The horses at the side of the camp neighed and stomped and tossed their heads nervously.
“I would guess that it did,” Jule answered her own question, and she gave a great sigh.
A movement to the side, a flash of flying blackness, caught their attention, turning all three heads to regard the new arrival. It was a huge black cat, ten feet long at least, and with muscled shoulders as high as a tall man's chest.