Dahlia didn’t even think as she came to the edge. Purely on instinct, she ducked her head and thrust her long staff down below. She kicked off as she planted the end and somehow managed to secure her grip enough on the top end of that staff to cartwheel over and across the channel. With perfect muscle control, Dahlia came right over and back to her feet on the other side of the channel, and managed to wipe the shocked look off her face almost immediately when she noted Drizzt down below, scimitars drawn, staring at her in disbelief.
Dahlia winked at him to reinforce the notion that the gymnastics had been a part of her plan from the beginning, and as she pulled the staff up behind her, she broke it fast into her flails and ended her cartwheel with a spinning move that had her new weapons immediately into the flow.
Much to the chagrin of an Ashmadai cultist, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere to charge in at her.
From a wider opening to the north, Drizzt was surprised to see Dahlia cartwheeling over the narrow chasm, gracefully inverted and coming to her feet with easy and complete balance. Aside from the dramatic and effective move, which was remarkable enough, Drizzt was shocked to see that the elf warrior had so nearly paced him on his descent—his movements were magically enhanced by the anklets he wore, after all.
He watched her go spinning above and past, heard the sound of battle engaged right after, and wanted to scramble up the side of the channel to join her, or at least to witness her fighting.
But the drow had his own problems pressing in on him, with more than a dozen enemies trying to flank him left and right, and he set his focus accordingly. He rushed for the narrower channel, speeding ahead of the Ashmadai and the stones they threw at him. He spun and backed farther in as he entered, the bottleneck of the narrow ravine forcing his pursuers to stumble, practically falling over each other to get at the drow.
It was one against three instead of one against a dozen, and those three found themselves hindered by the vertical stone walls, which reduced the warriors on each end of the line to more straightforward thrusting attacks rather than wide swings.
Drizzt backed quickly, and when the three took the bait and lunged forward, he reversed his movements and darted in, his scimitars sweeping out wide and down, behind the thrusting spears. With hardly a twist, Drizzt deflected those spears inward, nearly crossing them before the Ashmadai in the middle.
The drow disengaged his blades immediately, and in the jumble of his three enemies, he struck hard and fast, rushing forward and stabbing left, right, and center. The Ashmadai tried to cover, tried to retreat, tried to keep some semblance of coordinated defense. But Drizzt was too quick for them, his blades avoiding their parries with ease, scimitar tips poking and stabbing.
The three backed into the next Ashmadai in line and their tangle only worsened.
Relentlessly, Drizzt drove on.
One Ashmadai managed a coordinated throw at the drow, the spear flying in for Drizzt’s chest. Before Drizzt could move to block, something landed beside him, distracting him and costing him his defense.
A flail flashed before him, cleanly picking off the spear, and the drow was relieved indeed to find Dahlia standing beside him.
She noted his relief with a wink, and side by side, they pressed forward, whirling blades and spinning flails.
Their enemies knew Dahlia, and some called out her name, and their voices were filled with fear. Ashmadai poured back out of the narrow ravine and into the wider clearing.
“Retreat?” Drizzt asked Dahlia, for that seemed the obvious course. With their enemies stumbling and disoriented, they could run out the other end of the ravine, run toward their companions, who neared the cave openings.
But Dahlia’s smile showed a different intent.
That grin! So full of life, and full of fight, reveling in the challenge, wholly unafraid. When was the last time Drizzt Do’Urden had seen such a grin? When was the last time Drizzt Do’Urden had worn such a grin?
His thoughts flashed back to a lair in Icewind Dale, when he had accompanied a young Wulfgar against a tribe of verbeeg.
The sensible move was retreat, but for some reason he didn’t quite comprehend, Drizzt dismissed that out of hand and rushed out beside Dahlia into the wider clearing, where they could be flanked, surrounded even, by their enemies’ superior numbers.
They didn’t fight side by side, really, nor did they move back to back. There seemed no organization at all to Drizzt and Dahlia’s dance. The drow let Dahlia lead the way, and merely reacted to her every turn and leap.
She charged ahead, and he cut across her wake to protect her flank. She cut in front of him, and he went out behind her the opposite way then stopped fast and reversed his course so that when Dahlia stopped her movement, he came out beyond her, extending their line of devastation far to the side.
And both of them kept their weapons working fast through every step, blades and flail spinning and reaching out to cut, to sting, to drive back their enemies. The Ashmadai shouted at each other constantly, trying to coordinate some defense against the duo, but before anything could begin to form, Drizzt and Dahlia moved in some unexpected manner or direction, so that the whole of the fight, both sides, seemed nothing more than a series of impromptu reactions.
He crept along the branch, as silent as a hunting cat. He saw his prey below him, oblivious to his presence. Barrabus the Gray was shocked to discover that his daring plan had seemingly worked.
He knew that the Thayan champion, the dangerous Dahlia, had gone out to the north, with her many Ashmadai, and knew that Sylora’s eyes had turned that way, too, toward the rising mountain. Barrabus wondered if he might get past the wards and guards, if he might get nearer to this ultimate enemy.
If he could be rid of Sylora Salm, perhaps Alegni would allow him to leave forsaken Neverwinter and return to his work in the comforts of a true city.
He moved out farther on the branch, over the impromptu encampment set below. Sylora was barely a dozen feet in front of and below him, with her back to him as she bent forward, staring into the stump of a large tree.
Barrabus figured he could crouch and spring, and reach her from there, but his curiosity got the better of him and he crept out just a bit farther until he could see over Sylora’s shoulder into the top of the stump, which was filled with water.
And images moved about in the impromptu font—a scrying bowl.
Barrabus couldn’t resist. He inched out and moved his head low to the side of the branch, peering intently.
He noted the movements of a fight in that pool of clairvoyance, tiny figures weaving and striking. He recognized some of the combatants as Ashmadai, and their movements showed them to be uncharacteristically on the defensive, not nearly as aggressive as Barrabus had come to expect of the fanatics. Then he saw one of their opponents and he understood their hesitance, though the image otherwise added to his confusion. The spinning flail, the acrobatic movements—it had to be Dahlia.
But why would Dahlia be fighting against Ashmadai?
Perhaps it wasn’t her. Perhaps there were more warriors like her, Barrabus wondered, and that thought didn’t sit well with him. One Dahlia was more than enough for him.
He didn’t understand.
The flails spun together in front of her and seemed to fuse together, and what had been two separate weapons comprised of two separate lengths suddenly became a single long staff.
Yes, it was Dahlia, Barrabus knew then without doubt. He watched her stop abruptly before a trio of Ashmadai, who lurched back. She planted the tip of her staff and leaped up high, but instead of going forward into her enemies, she went backward.
And another, apparently her ally, charged into the void.
He saw black skin—and a pair of scimitars spinning in devastating precision.
Barrabus the Gray froze on the branch—to attempt anything other than that would have had him simply falling out of the tree. He couldn’t draw breath in that surreal moment, and the world around him seemed to simply stop.
All thoughts of Sylora flew from him—even more so when he heard the newest foe, another elf female, but undead, announcing her presence with the thump of a thunderbolt.
Barrabus didn’t want to go up against the sorceress Sylora in a fair fight, and the thought of facing Valindra Shadowmantle was even less appealing.
He held his breath, but couldn’t help himself. He looked back to the scrying pool, but it had gone mercifully blank.
The trance broken, a very shaken Barrabus the Gray slithered back to the tree and disappeared into the forest.
Drizzt darted out to the right, cutting in front of Dahlia. He fell into a roll, underneath her spinning flail, and his sudden appearance between the elf and her opponent had the tiefling Ashmadai distracted just enough for Dahlia to crack him on the side of the jaw and send him tumbling away.
Drizzt came back to his feet right in front of a pair of fanatics, his blades going to work parrying and deflecting their furious onslaught. In a matter of a couple of heartbeats he had them both on the defensive. His blades came faster and faster, soon moving from counters to initiating strikes.
He worked around them as well, to gain a look at his fighting companion, and he was caught by surprise to see that Dahlia was no longer wielding a flail, and neither was she carrying the staff. She had something he could only describe as a tri-staff, with a longer center piece and two smaller poles spinning furiously to either side. For just a moment, Drizzt considered the strange weapon she carried, which could be put into so many combinations seemingly at will.
Of course, he had no time to really contemplate the unique staff just then, particularly as a third Ashmadai joined the pair he was already fighting. He had to keep moving, as did Dahlia. They couldn’t afford to get caught and surrounded.
Drizzt backed toward Dahlia, moving fast.
“Over,” he heard behind him, and he reflexively worked his scimitars in for low strikes, forcing the attention of the trio downward. Drizzt was not surprised when Dahlia vaulted over him—planting one foot on his set back and leaping out again, soaring past—but his opponents surely were, as their expressions showed.
Dahlia came down on them, kicking one in the face, then a second, and bringing her staff—no longer a tri-staff, but a single long pole—in fast behind her, sliding it through her grasp just enough to jab out with it like a spear, right into the throat of the third opponent. She cut away fast, planted the end of her weapon, and vaulted again.
And so it went for a time, with Drizzt down low, sprinting all around, and Dahlia working vertically above him, leap after great leap.
But even with that new twist, their initial momentum was beginning to fail, the Ashmadai drawing together into better defensive groups. Drizzt and Dahlia couldn’t win—they’d known that from the beginning, and it was time to create an exit for themselves.
The needed distraction appeared on the ridge high above them a moment later. As always, the dependable Guenhwyvar entered the fray right on time. With a roar that shook the stones and had every eye turned her way, the great panther leaped out far and high, flying down upon the most concentrated group of Ashmadai.
As they scattered, screaming and diving, Drizzt and Dahlia retreated back through the narrow ravine and out the other end, scrambling over stones toward the cave opening where Bruenor and the others waited.
