Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(64)

But Dahlia did not run out of reach, nor did she try to block the blow. As soon as she had passed Alegni’s flank, the elf planted her staff and threw herself up high in the air atop it, and as Alegni turned, his blade whipping through the air just short of her carefully planted pole, she came down from on high with a double kick, perfectly timed and perfectly aimed.

She felt her foot crunch into the tiefling’s face, felt his nose crumble under the weight of that blow.

Dahlia landed lightly, a wild and elated look coming upon her as she noted the splatter of blood on Alegni’s face. Hunger overtook her and she broke her staff in two, and two into four as she threw herself at the hulking tiefling, flails spinning with fury.

But so too was Alegni full of fury and he countered with short, heavy cuts, more than willing to trade several hits of Dahlia’s weapon against one of his own.

And Dahlia couldn’t accept that trade. Instinct alone overruled her rage, and she deftly turned aside right before they came together in the middle of the great expanse.

She started to spring, felt the close pursuit, and daringly skidded to a fast stop, turning hard and throwing her elbow up high.

If Alegni had been able to put his sword in line, Dahlia would have been skewered then and there—and she knew it—but her guess paid off, and instead of feeling the tip of that awful sword, she instead felt Alegni’s broken face once more, this time with her elbow.

She expected that the tiefling had staggered back under the weight of that blow, and it was indeed a heavy strike, and so she turned, setting her weapons to spinning.

Or started to.

Herzgo Alegni, so powerful, had held his ground, and he swatted Dahlia with a backhanded slap, his free hand catching her under the shoulder as she started her turn.

She was flying then, across the bridge and to the stones, and she rolled in hard against the metal railing.

He was too strong, too powerful.

She could not beat him. Not with pure rage and brute force, and not with tactics.

So suddenly, Dahlia felt once more like a helpless little girl.

Her mother’s lost voice cried out to her.

It became a battle of guessing, and much like the one with Dahlia and Alegni, one had to guess correctly simply to survive, while the other, guessing wrongly, would merely be stung. Thus, the twisted tiefling necromancer held the temporary advantage, but Guenhwyvar understood the deeper matter.

She was wearing his spell power down. She had taken the worst he could give and had survived it. He could continue to sting her, all day and longer, but if she managed to get to him just once, she would tear his head from his skinny neck.

And so whenever Guenhwyvar landed from one futile leaping attack, she sprang away again, in a different direction. The necromancer couldn’t see such a leap from his underground travel, of course, and so only luck alone could keep him from reappearing right under her leap. Only luck alone could keep him alive and from her tearing claws.

The panther tried to determine a pattern to the necromancer’s movements. He was trying to move her farther from the bridge and the other combatants.

She went flying again, thirty feet with ease, glancing all around as she went. When, guessing wrong, she located the necromancer popping up from a crack in the cobblestones, she landed, re-directed and flew off again immediately.

On one such spring, the tiefling came up not far to the side, and Guenhwyvar saw then that her tactics were indeed unnerving him, clearly saw the look of fear on his face. When she landed, barely two strides separated her from the necromancer, who didn’t even think to sting at her with one of his black energy bolts, but melted away at once.

And Guenhwyvar was in the air again immediately, flying beyond his last position, but not so far. She suspected that her enemy would instinctively move straight back, or that he might even come right back up to his previous position with an expectation that she would have leaped beyond.

He did go back, but to the side just a bit, and Guenhwyvar, with her shortened leap, was able to spring again without much scrabbling to reverse momentum, and by the time the necromancer reappeared fully, clever and deadly Guenhwyvar was already high in the air, descending upon that very spot.

He favored his left arm with his attacks, but had no such luxury with his defenses, as Entreri, sensing the advantage, pressed him hard. In came the assassin’s sword for Drizzt’s left flank, a strike that called for an easy parry, center-out, of Twinkle. But Drizzt used his right hand instead, cutting Icingdeath all the way across to bash the slashing sword harmlessly wide.

In came the assassin’s dagger from the other side, and instead of simply backhanding with Icingdeath to block, now Drizzt did use his left hand, Twinkle darting across in a movement that seemed a mirror image of his last parry.

Against the lighter dagger, the block did not profoundly sting Drizzt’s wounded shoulder, and more than that, because of the shorter reach of the dagger, now Drizzt was closer as he turned.

He reached up and over with his right hand, stabbing straight for the assassin’s face, and Entreri had to desperately throw himself back to avoid that cut.

Drizzt felt as if he had been propelled back in time, to a place and mind of simpler truths. He was on the mountain ledge again outside of Mithral Hall! He was in the sewers of Calimport, battling Regis’s kidnapper!

He couldn’t deny the exhilaration. Even with Guenhwyvar desperately struggling behind him and his lover in dire peril before him, this was the life Drizzt had known, the better life Drizzt had known, purer in morals and with a clear distinction of right and wrong. And this was the very man Drizzt had battled, so many times, in so many places.