Guenhwyvar took the point position, blending into the brush, barely seeming to stir the grasses and bushes as she passed. Drizzt came along next, working as liaison between the cat and the other two, who brought up the rear, Bruenor with his axe comfortably across his shoulder and Catti-brie with Taulmaril in hand, arrow notched and ready.
"Well, if we're to be fightin', then this'll be the place," Donat said a short while later as Bottom Feeder rounded a bend in the river, crossing into a region of narrower banks and swifter current and with many tree limbs overhanging the water.
Regis took one look at the area and groaned, not liking the prospects at all. Goblins could be anywhere, he realized, taking a good measure of the many bushes and hillocks. He took little comfort in the apparent giddiness of the four dwarves, for he had been around dwarves long enough to know that they were always happy before a fight, no matter the prospects.
And even more disconcerting to the halfling came a voice within his head, a tempting, teasing voice, reminding him that with a word he could construct a crystalline tower-a tower that a thousand goblins couldn't breach-if Regis just took control of the crystal shard. The goblins wouldn't even try to take the tower, Regis knew, for Crenshinibon would work with him to control the little wretches.
They could not resist.
Drizzt, looking back with his back against a tree some distance ahead of Bruenor and Catti-brie, motioned for the woman to hold her shot. He, too, had seen the goblin on the branch above, a goblin intent on the river ahead and taking no note of the approaching friends. No need to tell the whole troupe that danger was about, the ranger decided, and Catti-brie's thunderous bow would certainly raise the general alarm.
So up the tree went the drow ranger, one scimitar in hand. With amazing stealth and equal agility, he made a branch level with the goblin. Then, balancing perfectly without using his free hand, he closed suddenly in five quick steps. The drow clamped his empty hand around the creature's side, through bow and bowstring and over the surprised goblin's mouth, and drove his scimitar into the creature's back, hooking the blade upward as he went to slice smoothly through heart and lung. He held the goblin for a few seconds, letting it descend into the complete blackness of death, then carefully set it down over the branch, laying the crude bow atop it.
Drizzt looked all around for Guenhwyvar, but the panther was nowhere to be seen. He had instructed the cat to hold back until the main fighting started and trusted that Guenhwyvar would do as told.
That fight fast approached, Drizzt knew, for the goblins were all about, huddled in bushes and in trees near to the riverbank. He didn't like the prospects for a quick victory here; the region was too jumbled, with too many physical barriers and too many hiding holes. He would have liked the luxury of spending an hour or more locating all the goblins.
But then Bottom Feeder came into sight, rounding a bend not so far away.
Drizzt looked back to his waiting friends, motioning strongly for them to come on fast.
A roar from Bruenor and a sizzling arrow from Taulmaril led the way, Catti-brie's missile cutting by the base of Drizzt's tree, diving through some underbrush and taking a goblin in the hip, dropping it squirming to the ground.
Three other goblins emerged from that same brush, running out and screaming wildly.
Those screams fast diminished as the drow, now holding both his deadly blades, leaped down atop them. He struck hard as he crashed in, stabbing one to the side, and felling the one under him by tucking the hilt of his second blade tight against his torso and using his momentum to drive it halfway through the unfortunate creature.
And he nearly collided in midair with another soaring, dark form. Guenhwyvar, leaping strong, crossed by the descending drow and crashed into yet another bush atop a shadowy goblin form.
The one goblin of the three to escape Drizzt's initial leap staggered to the side against the trunk of the same tree from which Drizzt had jumped and turned about, spear raised to throw.
It heard the cursing howl and tried to turn its angle to the newest foe, but Bruenor came in too quick, moving within the sharpened tip of the long weapon and transferring his momentum into his overhead axe with a skidding stop, every muscle in his body snapping forward.
"Damn!" the dwarf grumbled, realizing that it might take him some time to extricate the embedded weapon from the split skull.
Even as the dwarf tugged and twisted, Catti-brie came running by, dropping to one knee and letting fly another arrow. This one blasted a goblin from a tree. She dropped her bow and in one fluid motion drew out Khazid'hea, her powerfully enchanted sword. The blade glowing fiercely, she ran on.
Still Bruenor tugged.
Drizzt, both the other two goblins quite dead, leaped up and ran on, disappearing through a small cluster of trees.
Up ahead, Guenhwyvar ran up the side of a tree, and the terrified goblins on the lowest branches both threw their spears errantly and tried to leap to the ground. One made it; the other got caught in midair by a swiping panther claw and was pulled, squirming wildly, back up to its death.
"Damn," Bruenor said again, tugging and tugging, missing all the fun. "I gotta hit the stinkin' things softer!"
He couldn't raise the crystal tower on the boat, of course, but right over the side, even in the river. Yes, the bottom levels of the structure might be under the water, but Crenshinibon would still show him a way in.
"They got spears!" Bumpo Thunderpuncher cried. "To the wall! To the wall!" On cue, the dwarf captain and his three kinsfolk dived down to the deck and rolled up against the blocking side wall closest to the goblin-infested shore. Donat, who got there first, quickly broke open a wooden locker, each dwarf taking up a crossbow and huddling tight against the shielding planking while loading.
All of the movement finally caught Regis's eye, and he shook away his visions of a crystal tower, hardly believing
that he could have even considered raising the thing, and looked, quite startled, at the dwarves. He looked up as the boat drifted beneath an overhanging limb and saw a goblin there, its arm poised to throw.
The four dwarves rolled in unison to their backs, lining up their crossbows and letting fly. Each bolt hit its mark, driving into the goblin and jerking it up and over so that it tumbled into the river behind the floating craft.
But not before it had thrown the spear and thrown it well.
Regis yelped and tried to dodge, but too late. He felt the spear dive into the back of his shoulder. The halfling heard, with sickening clarity, the tip of it prodding right through him to knock against the deck. He was down, facedown, and he heard himself howling, though his voice came from no conscious act.
Then he felt the uneven edges of the decking planks as the dwarves pulled him to the side, and he heard, as if from a great distance, Donat crying, "They killed him! They killed him to death!"
And then he was alone, and so cold, and he heard the splashing of water as swimming goblins made the edge of the boat.
Down from a high branch came the panther, graceful and beautiful, a soaring black arrow. She went past one goblin, one paw kicking out swiftly enough to rake out the oblivious creature's throat, and then crashed upon another pair, bearing one down under her great weight and ripping the life from it in an instant, then skipping on to the next before it could rise and flee.
The goblin rolled to its back, flailed its arms wildly to try to fend off the great cat. But Guenhwyvar was too strong and too fast and soon got her maw clamped about the creature's throat.
Not far to the side, Drizzt and Catti-brie, independently in pursuit of goblins, discovered each other in a small clearing and found that they had become ringed by goblins, who, seeing a sudden advantage, leaped out of the brush and encircled the pair.