"Not yet halfway," Wulfgar said a moment later.
He motioned across to the other side of the small ledge, where the next descending ladders were set.
* * *
Drizzt double-stabbed, then stepped forward, driving on and forcing the orc to go tumbling backward, thus hindering any approach by those others near it.
The drow turned away immediately, rolling around, scimitars flying widely but not wildly, every strike in complete control, every cut working to fend any interference from the onlookers to the spectacle of Innovindil's battle with their leader.
The drow turned again, taking in the scene across the way, where Guen-hwyvar leaped onto an orc and suddenly sprang away to bury another.
Drizzt eyes scanned over to the main fight as he turned to meet the charge of two more, and in that instant scan, he noted that Urlgen was pressing his elf friend hard, that she had stumbled backward. He had to go to her, but he could not as an orc pair pressed in.
"Fall into your anger!" he cried to Innovindil. "Remember Tarathiel! Remember your loss and embrace the pain!"
With every word he cried, the drow had to swipe or parry with his blades, working furiously to keep back the press of increasingly emboldened orcs.
"Find a place of balance," he tried to explain to Innovindil. "A balance between your anger and your determination! Use the pain to focus!"
He was asking her to become the Hunter, he knew. He was asking her to forsake her reason at that moment and fall into a more primal state, a state of feeling, of emotion and fear. As she had worked to coax him from that anger, so he tried to moved her toward it.
Was there any other way?
Drizzt let go of his fears for his friend and let himself fall even more fully into the Hunter. The orcs pressed in, and his scimitars went into a frenzied dance, driving them back, cutting them down.
* * *
Despite her suddenly desperate situation, despite the press of that ferocious orc and the tumult of the crowding monsters all around her, Innovindil did hear the words of Drizzt Do'Urden.
Her sword worked furiously, fending blow after blow as the wild orc came at her, his spiked gauntlets swinging wildly. Her feet worked with equal desperation, trying to keep under her as she was forced to dodge and to back away. She tried to find her rhythm, but the ore's fighting style was unconventional at best, with attacks quickly re-angled to punch through any opening she presented. Innovindil had no doubt that she could gradually come to a point of understanding and logical counter, but she knew that she had no such luxury of time.
Thus, she followed the words of Drizzt Do'Urden, who was battling so brilliantly to keep the others away. She allowed her mind to wander the road of memory, to Tarathiel's horrible fall. She felt her anger rising and channeled it into determination.
Out left went her sword, cutting short a hooking right hand, and back fast to center to block a left jab.
Innovindil put her conscious thoughts aside, fell into the flow and the feeling of the fight. Sparks flew as she connected with a fist, and again as the orc blocked her own thrust with a second metal gauntlet.
She worked with sudden intensity, taking the fight back to him, and at last discerned a pattern to his counters and his blocks.
He was setting her up for a head-butt, she realized, looking for that killing opening.
Innovindil rolled with the punches and the continuing flow, fell deeper into her instinctual self, catching herself somewhere between rage and complete concentration.
She ducked one blow and seemed to fall almost completely off her balance, lunging to the side so violently that her free hand slapped against her doeskin boot. In came the ore's counter punch—one that could have truly hurt her. But it was not aimed for her, and she understood that. Rather, Urlgen was going for her sword, striking it hard and knocking it aside.
Presenting him with that opening.
He darted ahead, his strong back snapping his head forward.
Innovindil threw her free hand up across her forehead to block and felt the sudden impact driving down through her hand and smashing against her skull. Back she skittered, trying to hold her balance, but stumbling down to a sitting and vulnerable position.
But Urlgen wasn't pursuing, for he had driven his head down not only onto the elf's blocking hand, but onto the small knife she had cleverly pulled out from her boot, impaling himself up to its crosspiece. The orc staggered back, the hilt of the knife protruding from his forehead like some strange unicorn horn. His black gauntlets waved in the air, and he turned around and around, head thrown back, pommel high in the air.
In that moment of distraction, when all the orcs nearby stared incredulously at their leader, Drizzt Do'Urden rushed to Innovindil and roughly pulled her to her feet, then pushed her ahead, to the north, and took up the run. The drow cut back and forth in front of the stumbling, still-dazed Innovindil, his scimitars clearing the way. When they came upon a particularly dense group of enemies, Guenhwyvar leaped by the pair, launching herself full force into the crowd, scattering them and taking them down.
Drizzt sprinted by, pulling Innovindil behind him. He took out a slender rope and thrust its other end into her hand, and that tactile feel brought her somewhat back to her sensibilities, reminding her of her duties. She urged Drizzt to press on, then brought a free hand to her lips and blew a shrill whistle.
Down they ran, angling to a flat area to the side, and, coming in low under the rising sun, they saw their one hope: a winged horse fast descending.
Sunset touched down and charged across the stone, scattering orcs before his run. Drizzt and Innovindil moved to intercept, one on either side, a rope strung before them. Sunset accepted the hit as he ran into the rope, and both drow and elf used the sudden pull to move them aside the pegasi's flanks, ducking under the high-held wings. Innovindil went up first, Drizzt leaping right behind her, as Sunset never slowed in his run. His wide wings beat the air, and he sprang away, half-running, half-flying, moving out of range of any pursuit.
"Go home, Guenhwyvar!" Drizzt cried out to the panther, who was still scattering orcs, still battling fiercely.
Up into the air they went, climbing fast to the north. Spears reached up at them, but few got close to hitting the mark, and those who did were knocked away by the scimitars of the drow. Finally, they were safely out of range, and Drizzt looked back to the diminishing battle.
The orcs were right up to the cliff, by then, and the drow understood that the dwarves had been pushed over into Keeper's Dale.
Had he gotten up into the sky only a minute before, he might have noted the telltale silver flash of Taulmaril.
* * *
Shoudra Stargleam's eyes glowed with determination as she watched her fireball engulf a handful of orcs, sending them scurrying about, all aflame.
The sorceress launched a second strike to devastating effect, a burning bolt of lightning that dropped a line of orcs at the center of their press.
More than one dwarf glanced back her way to nod in appreciation, which only spurred the proud and noble sceptrana on even more. She was a Battle-hammer then, by all measure, fighting as fiercely as if Mithral Hall was her home and the dwarves all around her, her kin.
Beside her, little Nanfoodle worked his wonders, confusing an entire company of orcs with an illusion that had them charging face first into the cliff wall.
"Well done," Shoudra congratulated him.
She followed his mind attack with a physical blast of lightning that scattered the confused group and laid many low. Shoudra threw a wink Nanfoodle's way, then glanced up nervously at the cliffs, where dwarves continued their descent. Behind her, she heard those first who had come down forming up the defensive plan that would take them all to Mithral Hall's grand doors.