Innovindil couldn't get back to her feet in time, though, and had to block the sword strike from the next incoming brute from one knee. The orc pressed in harder, chopping viciously at her from varying angles with the sword. The elf had to work her blade frantically to deflect each strike.
She gave a shout as another form rushed past her, and it took her a long moment to even realize that it was Drizzt Do'Urden, and another moment to take a measure of the orc that had been pressing her. It was back a few steps suddenly, holding its sword in trembling fingers. As Innovindil watched, red lines of blood thickened on its face and neck.
"They were in wait for us!" Drizzt called to her, rushing past her again, moving behind her to meet the orc she had tripped up as it stood straight.
The orc thrust its spear at his new foe, and hit nothing but air. The perfectly-balanced, quick-moving drow easily slid back and to the side. Then Drizzt came ahead behind that stab, faster than the orc could begin to expect. The orc had never battled the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden before, nor had it ever seen a drow move in battle, let alone a drow wearing enchanted anklets that magically enhanced his foot-speed.
Rolling scimitars descended over the helpless creature, slashing line after line across its face and chest. It dropped its spear and tucked its arms in tight, trying somehow to fend off the attacks, but the drow's fine blades methodically continued their deadly work.
Drizzt had hit the retreating orc perhaps two dozen times, then he jumped up and kicked the creature in the chest for good measure, and also to use that movement to reverse his momentum and direction.
All thoughts of that orc flew from his mind as he turned around to see Innovindil backing from the remaining four guards. Many, many more orcs were closing ground left, right, and center across the field. Shouts from the trees told Drizzt that the humanoids were behind him as well, and there were louder shouts from not so far away.
"Get to Sunrise!" Innovindil shouted at Drizzt as he rushed up beside her, contacting her right arm with his left. He offered her an assuring look. He had seen Innovindil and Tarathiel fighting like that, and he and the elf had practiced the technique over the past few days.
Innovindil's doubting expression betrayed her.
"We have no choice," Drizzt pointed out.
He rolled ahead of the elf to meet the charge of the nearest orc. His scimitars worked furiously, batting at the creature's weapon, then cutting below its attempted parry, but at a shortened angle that could not reach the orc. The orc didn't realize that, however, as the drow spun past. In fact, the orc never began to understand the drow's intent, never began to recognize that the drow had worked his routine and sidelong retreat for no better reason that to set the orc up for the elf who was rolling in behind.
All the orc ever figured out was that an elven sword through the ribs hurt.
Already engaged with another orc, Drizzt hardly noted the grunt and fall of the first. He held complete confidence in Innovindil, though, and understood that if there was a weak link in the fighting chain that he and the elf had become, it was he. And so Drizzt fought with even more ferocity, scimitars working in a blur, batting away weapons and forcing awkward dodges, setting up the victims for Innovindil as she came in fast and hard behind him just as he was fast in behind her, going with all speed at those orcs Innovindil had left vulnerable for him.
Across the field the dancing duo went, moving in tight circles, rolling one upon the other and inexorably toward the trapped pegasus. But with every turn, every different angle coming clearly into his view, Drizzt understood that they would not rescue Sunrise that day. They had underestimated their enemy, had taken the scene of the pegasus grazing beside its handlers at face value.
Three more orcs were down. A fourth fell to Drizzt's double slash, a fifth to Innovindil's fast turn and stab at a creature that was still watching Drizzt turning aside.
When he came around the next time, Drizzt went down to his knees, avoiding an awkward cut from an orc sword. Rather than seizing the opportunity to strike at that overbalanced orc, the drow used the moment of respite to bring forth his onyx figurine. Guenhwyvar had not been gone from his side for long enough, he knew, but he had no choice and so he summoned the panther from her Astral home.
He went back to his feet immediately, blades working furiously to regain the edge against increasingly organized attacks. Behind him and Innovindil as they turned on their way, a gray mist began to take shape and solidify.
One orc noted that distinctive feline shape and slashed at the mist, its sword crossing through without finding a hold. The frustrated orc growled and reversed its cut, but the mist became more corporeal and a powerful cat's paw batted the sword aside before it could gain any momentum. Back legs twitching easily, the panther flew into the orc's face, laying it low, and a quick rake left the brute howling and squirming on the field while mighty Guenhwyvar sprang away to find her next victim.
Even the panther would not be nearly enough, though, Drizzt knew, as many more orcs came into view, swarming the field from …
"Every angle," he said to his companion. "No clear route."
"Every angle but one," Innovindil corrected, and gave a shrill whistle.
Drizzt nodded his understanding at once, and as Innovindil went for the thin rope she kept hooked on her belt, the drow increased his tempo, fighting furiously beside her, forcing the orcs to fall back. He called for his panther to coordinate with him, to keep one flank clear while he assaulted the other.
Innovindil had a lasso up spinning hard a moment later, building momentum. Then Sunset appeared in a powerful stoop, coming over the rocky ridge from which Innovindil and Drizzt had first observed the captive Sunrise. The pegasus came down in a rush—a giant-thrown boulder hummed in the air, narrowly missing the equine beast—and leveled out fifteen feet above the grass, soaring past the surprised orcs too quickly for their clumsily thrown spears to catch up.
The well-trained pegasus lowered her head as she crossed above Innovindil, who launched her lasso perfectly, then held on, hooking her foot into a loop at the bottom of the twenty-foot length of rope. The pegasus immediately turned upward as she soared along, dragging the elf.
Innovindil took a stinging hit as she barreled through the nearest orcs, for one spear was angled just right to slice her hip. Fortunately for the elf, though, that was the only weapon that came to bear as she crashed among the scrambling brutes. Then she was up above them, spinning along as Sunset's mighty wings beat furiously to gain speed and height.
Dazed from slamming against so many, and with her hip bleeding, Innovindil kept the presence of mind to hold fast and begin her climb.
Drizzt was too engaged to follow her movements, and he winced more than once as more boulders cut the air above him. Rage propelling him, the drow went into a sudden charge, bursting through the orc ranks and finally getting beside Sunrise.
The pegasus's front hooves were firmly staked. There was no way Drizzt was going to easily free him. And no way for him to get away, it seemed, for the orcs had him fully ringed, shoulder to shoulder in an unbroken line. From somewhere behind those ranks, the drow heard Guenhwyvar cry out in pain, a call so plaintive that he quickly dismissed the panther.
He scrambled across the area around Sunrise, charging for the orc ranks, then reversing direction to come back to the pegasus. It all seemed too eerily familiar to him, even more so when the orcs began to chant, "Obould! Obould! Obould!"
The drow remembered Tarathiel's last fight, remembered the brutish warrior who had slain his elf friend. He had vowed to avenge that death. But he knew beyond all doubt that it was not the time nor the place. He saw the orcs parting at one point and caught a glimpse of the bone-white helm of his adversary.