Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(28)
The monks started to widen their approach, as if intending to flank Drizzt to either side, but when Drizzt turned his shoulders and came with a roundhouse left-hand slash, the human monk blocked it with his spear, but fell with the weight of the blow back in toward the center. Down he went in a sidelong roll, while his tiefling companion leaped up high and back the other way, clearing him, so that now the tiefling stood on Drizzt’s left and the human, rolling right back to his feet, came in from the right.
The tiefling’s spear thrust almost got through, picked off at the last second by a desperate backhand of that same scimitar.
Drizzt used his enchanted anklets as well—not in a sudden rush, but in a wise retreat.
With her melee weapons already in hand, Dahlia was more prepared for the close-quarters ambush than Drizzt had been, but still found herself nearly overwhelmed by the power and coordination of the two opponents who burst from the nearby brush.
On came an enormously fat tiefling male, heavily armored and whipping a flail that seemed sized for a giant in wild circles above his head as he charged. He hardly cared for the branches as he rushed for Dahlia, barreling through, his weapon not slowing in its spin, but just snapping the obstacles into flying splinters.
From the other side came a woman, tall and strong and working a hand-anda-half broadsword with practiced ease.
Dahlia glanced back and forth, trying to determine her best course. She knew immediately that she couldn’t begin to parry or block the tiefling's gigantic flail, so she had to use her speed to avoid any thunderous swings. A single staff would give her that mobility, but she didn’t prefer that weapon against a long-bladed sword, where her tactics were typically to get inside the arc of any swing to strike fast with the flails.
Her thought process got no further, though, for Dahlia had no choice but to trust in her improvisation and hope it would sort out. She darted for the woman, flails spinning, but cut back the other way as the woman pulled up short. Dahlia dived into a forward roll, gathering momentum, and went in at the huge tiefling hard, falling low as she closed in to avoid a high swing of his flail.
Strangely high, she thought briefly, but she didn’t question her luck and unloaded a flurry of sharp cracks against the belly and legs of the shade.
She still didn’t understand why the tiefling had put the flail across above her head—and it likely would have missed her skull even if she hadn’t easily ducked— until she started back the other way, to find a pair of thin but strong filaments stretching along before her, then catching on her hip and shin.
She spotted the spiders, huge, pony-sized, and hairy, to her left and right, completing the box around her.
She had to duck again as the tiefling swung even more furiously, and this time just a bit lower, forcing Dahlia down.
In a move of sheer stubborn defiance, the elf slapped up with one flail, cracking it against the massive flail, which didn’t veer in the least from its determined course.
Dahlia hadn’t expected it to, and was already turning as her flail spun free from the huge weapon. She worked her left hand fast, cracking her spinning pole against the warrior-woman’s broad sword repeatedly. It took Dahlia three such strikes to realize that she wasn’t parrying the woman’s blade, for her opponent wasn’t actually trying to hit her.
The angle of the warrior woman’s strikes seemed more an effort to contain than to kill.
Dahlia understood that, and was not surprised to see the spiders spinning their webbing her way, filling the air around her with filaments. She felt the profound tug on her leg from one as she tried to scamper aside, then had to dive low once more as the heavy flail spun low to high to block her escape.
Dahlia worked her flails quickly, spinning them so their flying poles collided repeatedly, and she called out for help from her companion, who suddenly seemed so very far away.
From the nearby brush, Ratsis watched the encounter, Jermander and the Shifter beside him, Ambergris hidden before them in reserve to either of the two fighting groups. As soon as the Shifter had separated the couple with the initial, earth-rolling dweomer, Ratsis had called forth his pets.
Convinced that he had Dahlia tied up enough for Bol and Horrible to control her movements, Ratsis telepathically ordered his spiders to shift their angles of attack. The next filaments that came forth fired out to anchor on trees some distance behind Bol, and thus between Dahlia’s fight and Drizzt’s.
“You need not do that,” the Shifter remarked.
Ratsis studied the fight between the three to the other side. He knew that Parbid and Afafrenfere were quite skilled, despite their almost buffoonish pride, and their companionship and coordinated movements were the stuff of legend and jokes in certain circles. Each was formidable on his own, but together, they were better than any three of equal skill.
Yet, this drow ranger’s reputation, so formidable indeed, seemed to pale against his movements now. He leaped and spun, turning every which way as the situation demanded, but always did his curved blades dart out at precise angles, and with adequate power to not only repel an attack, but to send one or the other monks diving aside.
“The monks will not hold him,” Ratsis started to protest to the Shifter. “I never thought they would, but contingencies are in place,” the Shifter assured him. As Ratsis turned to look at the shade, the Shifter motioned back the other way, directing the gaze.
Dahlia was doing much better than Ratsis had expected. Every spin of her flail produced a solid strike—as often as not on the other flail—and despite the webbing grabbing at her legs, she retained enough mobility to sting Bol and his mate repeatedly—and if they backed off at all from keeping her occupied, the stubborn elf managed to wriggle looser from the few webs binding her. Neither of the warrior shades were taking it well, Ratsis recognized, given Bol’s ferocious reputation and propensity to kill people as a matter of first resort.