Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(51)
The panther had formidable weapons of its own. Each swat of a great claw tore the life from a corby or sent it tumbling from the walkway to the acid lake. But, while the cat continued to slash into the bird-men’s ranks, the fearless corbies continued to fight back, and more rushed in eagerly to join. A second group came from the opposite direction and surrounded Guenhwyvar.
Belwar set himself on a narrow section of the walkway and let the line of corbies come to him. Drizzt, taking a parallel route along a walkway fifteen feet to his friend’s side, did likewise, drawing his scimitars somewhat reluctantly. The drow could feel the savage instincts of the hunter welling up within him as the battle drew near, and he fought back with all of his willpower to sublimate the wild urges. He was Drizzt Do’Urden, no more the hunter, and he would face his foes fully in control of his every movement.
Then the corbies were upon him, flailing away, shrieking their frenzied chants. Drizzt did little more than parry in those first seconds, the flats of his blades working marvelously to deflect each attempted strike. The scimitars spun and whirled, but the drow, refusing to loose the killer within him, made little headway in his fight. After several minutes, he still faced off against the first corby that had come at him.
Belwar was not so reserved. Corby after corby rushed in at the little svirfneblin, only to be pounded to a sudden halt by the burrow-warden’s explosive hammer-hand. The electrical jolt and the sheer force of the blow often killed the corby where it stood, but Belwar never waited long enough to find out. Following each hammer blow, the deep gnome’s pickaxe-hand came across in a roundhouse arc, sweeping the latest victim from the walkway.
The svirfneblin had dropped a half-dozen of the bird-men before he got the chance to look over at Drizzt. He recognized at once the inner struggle the drow was fighting.
Magga cammara!” Belwar screamed. “Fight them, dark elf, and fight to win! They will show no mercy! There can be no truce! Kill them-cut them down-or surely they shall kill you!”
Drizzt hardly heard Belwar’s words. Tears rimmed his lavender eyes, though even in that blur, the almost magical rhythm of his weaving blades did not slow. He caught his opponent off balance and reversed the motion of a thrust, slamming the bird-man in the head with the pommel of his scimitar. The corby dropped like a stone and rolled. It would have fallen from the ledge, but Drizzt stepped across it and held it in place.
Belwar shook his head and belted another adversary. The corby hopped backward, its chest smoking and charred by the jarring impact of the enchanted hammer-hand. The corby looked at Belwar in blank disbelief, but uttered not a sound, nor made any move at all, as the pickaxe hooked in, catching it in the shoulder and launching it out over the acid lake. Guenhwyvar flustered the hungry attackers. As the corbies closed in on the panther’s back, thinking the kill at hand, Guenhwyvar crouched and sprang. The panther soared through the green light as though it had taken flight, landing on yet another of the walkways fully thirty feet away. Skidding on the smooth stone, Guenhwyvar just managed to halt before toppling over the ledge into the acid pool.
The corbies glanced around in stunned amazement for just a moment, then took up their shrieks and wails and set off along the walkways in pursuit.
A single corby, near where Guenhwyvar had landed, ran fearlessly to battle the cat. Guenhwyvar’s teeth found its neck in an instant and squeezed the life from it. But while the panther was so engaged, the corbies’ devilish trap showed another twist. From far above in the high-ceilinged cavern, a corby at last saw a victim in position. The bird-man wrapped its arms around the heavy boulder on the ledge beside it and pushed out, dropping with the stone.
At the last second, Guenhwyvar saw the plummeting monster and scrambled out of its path. The corby, in its suicidal ecstacy, didn’t even care. The bird-man slammed into the walkway, the momentum of the heavy boulder shattering the narrow bridge to pieces.
The great panther tried to spring out again, but the stone underneath Guenhwyvar’s feet disintegrated before they could set and spring. Claws scratching futilely at the crumbling bridge, Guenhwyvar followed the corby and its boulder down into the acid lake.
Hearing the elated shouts of the bird-men behind him, Belwar spun about just in time to see Guenhwyvar’s fall. Drizzt, too engaged at the time-for another corby flailed away at him and the one he had dropped was stirring back to consciousness between his feet-did not see. But the drow did not have to see. The figurine in Drizzt’s pocket heated suddenly, wisps of smoke rising ominously from Drizzt’s piwafwi cloak. Drizzt could guess easily enough what had happened to his dear Guenhwyvar. The drow’s eyes narrowed, their sudden fire melting away his tears.
He welcomed the hunter.
Corbies fought with fury. The highest honor of their existence was to die in battle. And those closest to Drizzt Do’Urden soon realized that the moment of their highest honor was upon them.
The drow thrust both his scimitars straight out, each finding an eye of the corby facing him. The hunter pulled out the blades, spun them over in his hands, and plunged them down into the bird-man at his feet. He snapped the scimitars up immediately and plunged them down again, taking grim satisfaction in the sound of their smooth cut.
Then the drow dived headlong into the corbies ahead of him, his blades cutting in from every possible angle hit a dozen times before it ever launched a single swing, the first corby was quite dead before it even fell. Then the second, then the third. Drizzt backed them up to a wider section of the walkway. They came at him three at a time.